It turns out I have a new enemy.

So, I learned some things today. Such as, because I've gotten so well trained to run on auto-pilot, I can somehow do something that I shouldn't keep doing. Mostly I learned that I am a mid-distance runner who has no business running a half marathon.

I'll start by saying that it was an interesting experience. I'll follow that closely by adding that it was a pretty damned awful experience. Going into this race, I obviously had no idea of the torture that is 13.1 miles. I saw it as a distance race, something that seemed kind of ridiculous and vaguely terrible.

It didn't seem impossible to me, though - at least not after my long runs recently. I ran 10 miles in the arb with Marie at 7:20 pace with the last half at 7:00 pace. The next week I ran around Lake Monona, and somehow ran exactly 13.1 mi, at 7:16 pace. I was thus lulled into some sort of security going into this race, something that's leaving me absolutely reeling and unable to understand what happened.

I did the same things I did before each of those long runs.. two days before I ran a quick 1.29 miles (two laps around the square - my "pre-race run" for a track/xc race), and then yesterday I ran a "Race." If it was track season still, it would have been a quick quick pace. Since I was alone and on the bike path, I churned out a 2:29 low by myself. I ate the same foods I always do, but since it's been hot lately and muggy, I made sure to take in a lot of water, and I also bought a gigantic bottle of gatorade that I indulged heartily.

The only thing was I didn't get any sleep last night.. Brittany got into town late and I got some exciting news around the same time, making for what turned out to be about 5.5 hours of sleep. Not optimal.

Well we got up around 6 or so, I had wanted to be up at 5 but again, didn't get to bed til late. Weather.com said 60 degrees which sounded acceptable. Stepped outside and found the air to be thick and uncomfortable. Bad sign. Jumped down state st did some faaasst strides and people were staring at the jerseys... yeah, imagine that, someone who's not going to wear the damn race t-shirt during the race. Be a little original.

Anyway it was odd. Walked to the square and saw Ana which I was immensely pleased by. I haven't seen her since the last time we met to talk about coaching stuff. She was running the half, so I thought that was pretty cool. We wove through the crowd towards the start line. Now I think I should have gone closer. I didn't really realize how many people were packed ahead of me, even though I was within 20 feet of the start line. I was jumping up and down with some stupid commentary based on what the dumb announcer was saying. By dumb, I mean, completely pointless comments I don't want to hear when I'm about to murder myself. Jumping allowed me to find Jeremy and Evan and Trent doing strides down west wash. they were at the front of course. I might as well have gone up by them.

We started. I was discombobulated by being stuck with PEOPLE. I had anticipated this being a problem. Hadn't really come up with a solution. we bogged along la de da then it was a shot down the hill that is west wash and I had to weave around people and shitty potholes. At Regent street I heard someone say my name and it was my high school XC coach sitting there with her two little kids.. I was so happy to see them! And I was feeling ok and not feeling too fast. I thought I was going slow but I decided to play it moderately safe.

Somehow in the "woah, there's Jim and a bunch of the guys" and "ugh I don't want to run up the stupid hill to Breese"... I missed the first mile. So, I didn't know what my first mile was. At the second mile I was feeling hot and I hit my watch at 13:39. Quick math roughly 6:50 avg, although I know the first mile was faster than the second. I felt comfortable with that, but started thinking about how much I didn't want to be doing this at the roundabout out by McClimon. I wanted to go run on the track instead of run past it. By the Nat I was puzzled I didn't see anyone I knew, since whenever I am ever that I always am with people I know.

Right before Observatory hill I was kind of breaking down mentally, hardcore. Lindsey and Nicole were there and cheering and I told them "this is the worst." I had been passing people at first but then fell into this lull of just nothingness and not knowing what to think. So I started thinking about how shitty this was. Observatory hill wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I recognized that I was starting to become uncontrollably hot, so every aid station I poured water all over my head and shoulders. The thought kept pounding in my head, though, that I wasn't cooling off at all, and was just getting hotter. I couldn't do anything, and I couldn't stop. My legs felt alright and I could be going faster if I pushed myself to.

I made a conscious effort to slow down. I did. third mile was 7:04, followed by a 7:24 fourth mile (probably slower just for the hill). I saw Jim and company here. They were ever cheerful, as most people WATCHING the race were. I was beginning to just hate everything. I thought this was bad considering I wasn't halfway yet. In front of the chemistry building a little boy yelled out as I was passing, "You've run four miles! I can run one more!" and something else I don't remember but I started laughing.

It was a little too early for me to be looking for mile markers, but I was mentally done with the race already and this was a pretty baddddd fuckin sign. I think what was beneficial in my long runs was I didn't know where I was on the 13 mi run so I just kept going, and I was alone and could focus. I couldn't focus for the life of me. There were people flanking me, going all over, people on the sides lining the street yelling shit that was annoying that I couldn't tune out, there was random construction and random traffic that for some reason I got interested in as I was running. In short, I was not into this race and it was definitely not into me.

University is a gradual hill. It doesn't seem bad and I wasn't really thinking about it. At the intersection of Gorham and State I remember looking at the Capitol, thinking I wasn't even five miles in and that I wanted to fucking go home. Kept on going, things were a blur here down Gorham and past James Madison where I saw Dallas cheering, along up a slight hill where I remembered tempos when Ana made us do them to Tenney and back, along that back street and just not even looking around anymore except when I reached the beer stand and wanted to yell at them because beer fucking dehydrates people, you retards, and people were actually taking the beer.

It was along here that I just started to breakdown more. Got to Tenney, got to Thornton Ave. running along there and under some bridge this girl came flying up on me and I guess it was apparent because she was like "come on, let's go. Just stay relaxed." At this point my stomach was churning a little but I was still feeling relatively "ok" from a "can I keep running" perspective. I just was aware that I was becoming hotter and hotter and had started drinking some of the water before I was dumping it on my head. By the mile 7 marker I had lost that girl because I just couldn't do it. I kept screaming in my head I had to slow down so I wouldn't overheat and pass out. This guy ahead of me was suddenly leaning on the mile 7 sign and then fell over. I almost stopped to help him because I wasn't even really thinking clearly about what I was doing. Some paramedics were somehow right there with a cart, so I kept running.

I kept going, down Spaight st, and I heard more people yelling my name in surprise.. ha... family of my HS friend were sitting on the side of the road and I was so happy to see them. Then I saw Lake Monona and I was displeased because I wanted water. We reached what's it.. williamson, and I saw the Capitol and I was even more displeased because I knew what was left of the course was SUN SUN SUNNNYYYY and it was still quite a ways to go. Reached mile 9.. was starting to feel sluggish. Was very hot. Jim and Lindsey's cheering squads had converged on this spot, I just shook my head at them, I didn't want to try to talk anymore.

Don't remember much of running along Monona path. It's my favorite path and I knew the splits along it so well it's scary. Then I saw mile 10. Then I passed it. Then I got hit in the side of the stomach. My worst fear realized. I haven't cramped on any of my long runs at all. I was dreading it happening in this race, because it is so debilitating. I saw an aid station ahead and talked myself into running to it. I needed gatorade. I took two. and stopped running. STOPPED RUNNING.

Are you fucking kidding? I don't stop running for anything. I don't stop running on a ten mile run if I'm thirsty as shit. But I stopped running. and let my breathing normalize because I realized it wasn't my stomach cramping but my diaphragm spasming. I drank all the gatorade, grabbed a water and set off... walking... on the path. I didn't know what else to do. A startled person gasped to me to "come on." I looked over, into a quite bewildered and confused face; Claire, had caught me. I told her I couldn't and she ran off.

She got ten feet ahead of me before I started running again but I wasn't able to catch her. My diaphragm seizing had subsided- temporarily. I ran under the bridge which goes over john nolen, around the corner and down towards gilson or whatever road that is that turns into s. shore dr. around that point when I hit s. shore the diaphragm hit me again. I kept trudging, and thankfully there were humans out there with their hoses blasting. This felt so good I didn't know what to do.

And then I couldn't breathe because any breath caused some sort of strange sensation shooting through my abdominal cavity saying no, damn you all to hell. And I stopped. Again. and walked along, because I couldn't see any relief in sight. I was trying to stretch out that side, to do something but it wouldn't subside. Then I saw Zach and Brian running and they thankfully ignored that I was walking and yelled something random and kept running. I had hoped they would run to me and make me start running again but they didn't. I kept going.

A random guy tugged on my arm as I was walking through the final water station before the HILL, West Wash. He said, "Come on! You're going to finish this. You passed me a while ago, you can do this." I told him my predicament and he got me started running. I don't know what I would've done without this guy, seriously. He slowed down for me, in the last mile of the damn race. He kept running with me and I was painfully aware of his exaggerated stride to keep pace with what had become a quick, embarrassingly slow little stride that I've never used in my entire running life. He was telling me to breath slower and all this random stuff, and saying all of this encouraging stuff I wouldn't have thought to say to someone else in the same predicament. We somehow reached Regent street again even though I had wanted to give up the whole time, but couldn't now because this guy was here.

Next he tried to talk me into picking up the pace with him when we got across from the UHaul warehouse and I told him I absolutely couldn't, so he pounded fists, said good luck and took off to finish. And for a split second the thought of stopping again crossed my mind, and then it was erased because I couldn't do that. I couldn't be THAT GIRL who walked the last mile of the race, or THAT GIRL who walked up the hill because it was too hard. By this point of course it was only about a half mile to go. Granted that half mile was a sharp uphill but I was damned that I had run up that very hill at the end of every damn long run I had done for the past two months just to WALK up it in a race.

I kept running, somehow. I don't know how, and my peroneal tendons were, at both ankles, intermittently going numb and seizing and pulling my feet out to the sides (laterally) when I was pushing off from the ground. I had never experienced this in my LIFE and had no idea what was happening. I was out of control. But, I was passing random people. I was passing these silly people walking, I don't know what they were doing. And then close to the Capitol, Lindsey, Kaitlyn and Nicole were standing there cheering and I just felt fucking stupid. And at this point the gates on both sides were crowded with people for the last block, just jammed like you see on tv when people care about races and shit. I turned the corner onto the Square and I looked up once when the guy directing us said "just one more block." I finished and I think I glared at the cameraman.. I think I finished with like three other people I don't know it was a mess, just like the whole race had been.

I staggered down the line and there was the guy who had helped me there at the end. and deliriously I asked him his name but I forgot it, I swear it starts with a B. I thanked him profusely, because there was nothing else I could do. I'm crying now when I think about how nice he was, and just knowing I really didn't deserve his help; knowing how selfish of a runner I am that it's very unlikely I would have done that had I been the one finishing a race strong and seeing some stranger struggle. It boggles my mind that he did that.

But I left him and it entered my hazy mind that they were handing out medals. My mind shot to when I finished the MMM with Audrey last year and had seen them handing out medals, and had ignored that because I hadn't run a half marathon then. I realized at this point that I had just (sort of) completed a half marathon, and that I should take a medal.. but I was particularly tempted to ignore it and go die somewhere because of how awful the race had been. My last 1.25mi was approximately 9:10 or so. The splits between 10 and 12 were obviously screwed up as fuck.

I wandered through the post-race area.. found bottles of water. Drank most of one, found bagels, took part of one, found gatorade, and was very pleased because I knew I needed that. The last time I ran 13 miles, I went into some sort of shock induced by the fact that I evidently became electrolyte-depleted. I fearfully has assumed this would happen again although had hoped that it wouldn't because I had ingested extra electrolytes and water beforehand, and because I had actually run the distance before.

I was wrong. I was ok while I kept walking. Then in my haze I saw my uncle and kind of ducked to look around people because I thought I was making it up. But it was him. He hadn't known I was racing and was there to find a friend. He didn't ask if I was ok. As soon as I had stopped I had felt increasingly more lightheaded and had knelt on the crowd as he talked at me and I listlessly inserted auto-replies. He went to look for his friend, I looked up to see the Medic tent staring at me.

Soon I was on a cot and experiencing sports medicine from the other side for the first time in a while. I didn't recognize her at first but snapped to attention when the first doctor to come over to me introduced herself: "Hi, I'm doctor Kathleen Carr." I responded that I knew her, inducing a look of surprise, and then I explained that I was an AT student.

She took my history, my pulse, my BP: all things I have been accustomed to doing; told me to lie there, and took my temp. My temp was slightly elevated but not alarming. My BP was low and pulse shallow apparently. They gave me a lot of water, and I laid there observing life. It was a really intriguing perspective.

People were constantly being hauled in. Some could walk in. Others were wheelchair in as they hung listlessly to one side or the other of the chair. The tent was cramped with supplies, bags of ice, and many bodies. There were about 4-5 sports med docs. I knew two; Dr. Carr and Dr. Bernhardt. I was sorely disappointed that Bernhardt didn't recognise me because I had been his stress fracture plagued patient all through high school. Not that there was time to chat. As soon as one heat stroke/exhaustion victim had been shipped off, more filled the cots. In addition to the doctors, there were a couple of RNs/ volunteer EMTs, and the regular Madison EMS. Additionally, a half dozen individuals labeled "students" were wandering, although I recognized none of them. One was hovering over me, grasping a clipboard with my vitals and hX on it; apparently told to watch me for any changes. I asked her where she was a student - a junior at Memorial HS, she was doing this to earn extra credit.

So it explained why these students were so wide-eyed at the events occurring around us. I sat there staring and listening to things going on around me. To the guys who were almost unconscious running high temps scream awake as they were placed into the big tub of almost solid ice. They thrashed about a bit, swearing, were calmed and so on. Once they had been convinced to sit in ice for five minutes temps were re-taken. Most of these folks got shipped off to the Hospital; and before they did, rectal temps had to be taken. I knew about this, I knew this was an integral part of heat-related illnesses- surface temps aren't reliable and the only true measure of body temp is supposedly rectally. But I'd never seen it done. I assure you if you've never seen one, you aren't missing anything.

I eventually sat up and was drinking things and feeling less light headed. Tried standing and was fine but Dr. Carr had me lie down again, not sure why. This whole time, as I realized that the time I had spent in there was increasing, I was worried about my friends. Jeremy had left his wordly possessions in my apartment, and Brittany has as well, since she'd spent the night prior. We hadn't planned to meet anywhere; it was assumed we'd all find each other but since I was shuttered off in this tent I wasn't finding anyone, and who knew where they were.

Eventually I decided I really needed to go to the bathroom and that they ought to let me go. I had taken some gatorade- and was glad it was athletic training certified--- no matter what, haha, any coolers of gatorade made in those 5 gallons ends up being way too much solute and not enough water. Thus, it was perfect for an electrolyte-depleted individual such as myself. They finally let me go to the bathroom under escort from a EMT named Brian. I convinced him I'd be fine, although I wasn't too sure.

I set off for home. I hoped that they would be standing cordially outside of the door to my apartment. Got home and no such luck. Figured stuff out via Sam K's phone for Jeremy to get his stuff back. Now, how to find Brittany? I hoped she had gone off with one of the girls who had been there to cheer, so I called whoever I could think of and none of them had seen her. I had been dizzy by the time I walked home so I set up a warm water-salt solution that I forced myself to drink, some sugar I forced myself to eat plain, and then a poptart and my giant bottle of gatorade and laid there for a while. I was worried Brittany had died in the race or something and was lying somewhere but I didn't think I should risk wandering around in what was becoming a very hot and uncomfortable day.

Long story short I eventually recovered to a point that I did feel comfortable doing this and wandered back to the finish area, where people were still finishing the full marathon despite the course having been closed over an hour prior due to heat. I accidentally saw a coworker finish and ran into another friend. I got vomitted on by the finish line by some random lady. and finally I just sat there and watched people run by, hoping Brittany would walk past at some point. Eventually I saw her and ran to her (questionable idea). She seemed dead and was unhappy. Thus I started hearing other peoples' stories that I had missed when they finished the race because I had been in the med tent..


So I learned today that the half-marathon is the great equalizer of us all. I have to accept that today, I was beat by less fit runners than myself. I was beat by weekend warriors, and people who know nothing of the sport of running, who have probably never raced competitively in their lives, and probably at least one random person that decided hey, I'm going to do a half marathon because it seems like the impressive thing to do. I was probably beat by a grandma. I was beat by those irritating people that I love to hate; the ones who wear their headphones whenever they run because they can't handle the silence and solitude of their own brain on a long run.

And I, Jade, miler, have to accept that. And I can't accept that these things occurred to me because of weather, or because I didn't even train for the race, or anything. I can use these excuses to write off the race as a failure but I can't use them to understand what went wrong. Yes it was hot. Yes I have been running in the heat for weeks now. Yes I have run faster while it has been hot, maybe not for as long, but... still. And I won't ever accept this race for anything.

I'm not sure what else to say. I have a score to settle with the half. I was capable of a sub-1:35 today and that makes me angry. I am also bitterly opposed to ever racing that distance ever again. Never say Never, I supposed is true for me. So we'll see what happens in the future. For now, I'm a motherfucking miler.