Virtual Marathon Struggle

I switched my Austin Marathon registration from in-person to Virtual, which meant that I could run the distance anytime between February 20 (the date of the in-person race) and March 13. After looking at my calendar, today seemed like a good day to run the Virtual Marathon.

So at 10:45 am, I headed out to run the same course that I ran in January, which is basically four 7-mile loops from my house. This meant that I could stop at the house for water, snacks, and bathroom break 3 times. The weather was perfect: sunny and in the 40s F.

The first 7-mile loop was good, and I was taking it easy to conserve energy. But the second loop was when things got difficult. My legs felt dead… no energy! At the half-way point, I had my water and snacks, but when I started the third loop, my left leg could hardly move. It was not good. But I decided to start walking and hopefully it would loosen up. It sort of worked, but within a mile, I started feeling a bit of pain in my left leg, so I began walking again.

At this point I was worried that I would not be able to continue. We are going on vacation in a few days, and I didn’t want to get injured. So I kept walking and thinking about if I wanted to call it quits or not. Well, alternating walking and jogging a seemed okay, so I persevered and completed the third loop. I’d say I walked 80 percent of the time.

When I started the final loop I knew I would be walking the whole way (except crossing streets). My walking pace wasn’t too bad, and after I resigned myself to finishing slowly, my spirits rose, and when my Strava said I had reached 26.2 miles, I was so relieved! I had completed the Virtual Marathon without injury! Of course, I am not happy that it was such a struggle, but there were some small victories, the main one being that I didn’t give up, of course. 😌

Anyways, I’m not sure exactly why my legs were so dead, but perhaps it’s because my running is not as consistent as it was last year. Of course that must be the reason. 😀 またね！