3 lessons I learned from not finishing my marathon
I am in Gdansk, Poland right now, a beautiful city on the Baltic sea known as the ‘Jewel of the Baltics’ recovering from my participation in their Solidarity Marathon. Solidarity was a movement in the 80s, that in my opinion, was the true spark that ignited the end of Soviet communism and Cold War. Gdansk specifically has a great history, one of the tragic but courageous events that it is known for is the site of the beginning of World War 2. For seven days a garrison of a little over 200 Polish soldiers withstood the full might of the Nazi war machine. Who wouldn’t want to visit and run alongside these great people!?
At mile 18 of the marathon, I crumbled like a Jenga tower due to intense cramping in my entire left side of my body, from my abs down to my calf and had to stop running. For those of you who have seen the movie ‘THE TERMINATOR’ I’m currently walking like the T-800 after he gets run over by a semi-truck. I had completed numerous events, including a marathon in the past. So what went wrong?
Be obsessive with preparation
You can never spend too much time preparing. In my work life, I am obsessed with preparation especially when I am learning something new. I read, tinker with and ask for guidance from experts of the subject matter I am preparing for. In this case, I rested on my laurels of having completed a previous marathon and the fact that I am training for other events. My longest training run was, strangely enough, 18 miles. Just one week before my trip, a light-bulb went off in my head that MAYBE I should research what to do when participating in a race in a different time zone. The advice was to do some trial runs at the same time as the time zone you will be in…too late. That explains why during miles 4-6 I was literally falling asleep while running. Nutrition? I don’t even want to go there because I obviously didn’t have enough potassium in my body.
Multi-tasking is inefficient
Earlier this year I completed a 250-mile bike ride across California, next was this marathon, and I’m also training for an Olympic Triathlon as well as a Half-Ironman later this year. I’m sure there is someone out there who has a full-time job or full-time commitments of some sort who WAS able to complete everything I listed, but not me. A week before my trip, I completed a 45-mile bike ride and thought, well, it should help my marathon. I’ve been swimming a lot as well because that’s definitely my weakest sport, but it diluted my training for this marathon. Recalling my previous experience while training for a marathon, I fully concentrated on it for a good three months. Not this time and it showed.
Listen to Mr. Rogers and ‘Look for the helpers’
The great Mr. Rogers is quoted as having said “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’. Mr. Rogers was an ordained minister who had a long running children’s show called ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ public television. The show explored various children’s themes such as bullying and going to school to name a few. One thing I remember is that it advocated kindness. And that is exactly what I experienced today. After crumbling to the floor, a police officer scraped me up and helped me to a bus. As soon as I sat on the bus, a random guy handed me a bottle of water. A few moments later, another random guy handed me a banana. Finally, when I went back to the family that I am staying with, after finding out what happened, she made the greatest chicken and potatoes dinner one could ask for. She was very concerned, even called me ‘malutki’ which means little one and handed me a bottle of cream that she said would help heal my legs. I was a helpless kid again!! When the unexpected hits, instead of wallowing in shame and stroking your damaged ego, look for the helpers. They will lift you up (literally).
Up next, Olympic triathlon…let’s hope I don’t have to be rescued from the water!
