Sorry this report is so late, but we just got home Friday morning with a
lot of projects awaiting. In summary: I finished, but it wasn't pretty.
I almost had to bag the marathon in the first place. Besides getting
slower and slower, I had been having twinges in my right foot when I toed
off. The Tuesday before Christmas, I set out to do a final long walk of 22
miles on the Silver Comet Trail. When I got to the first rest stop after 4
miles, it became painfully obvious that it was not my day to go 22
miles. So I turned around and headed back. My foot and lower leg (up to 6
inches above the ankle) were quite swollen, and my lower leg was red and
warm. So I went to one of my favorite practitioners, Eric, a man who is
both a chiropractor and a podiatrist. He diagnosed it as cellulitis,
prescribed a 7-day course of cephalexin and told me to come back after I
finished the antibiotic. (He also told me to go to my primary-care
physician to get it checked out. The physician looked at it and said he
concurred with Eric's diagnosis and treatment.) I was fortunate not to
have had any of the side effects associated with this drug. (It may have
helped that I took a probiotic during and after the course.)
So the next Wednesday I went back to him, with the redness and swelling
almost completely gone and the warmth gone. He adjusted me, guided by his
technique of muscle testing. He told me to hold off walking until I saw
him again on Friday.
That time, he was well satisfied by my further improvement. He did some
further adjustments and told me I could start walking again. It was about
time, as far as I was concerned! That afternoon I did a couple of miles
just to see how it felt.
It felt fine, so New Year's Day I walked the Hiram 7K, which runs on the
Silver Comet Trail. (I do this race every year, and that day was the best
weather I have ever had for it.) I finished in 58:48, at the slow pace of
13:32.
The next Tuesday I went to Eric for a final checkup. He said my cellulitis
was cured. However, when I told him I was planning to walk a marathon that
Sunday, he sort of rolled his eyes and said "If you have any problems, be
sure to drop out." Yeah, sure, I thought.
So, with those cheering words I began preparing for the trip. We departed
late Thursday evening and arrived at Disney late Friday afternoon. We were
so late that there was just enough time to pick up my packet, take a quick
look at the expo and check in at Fort Wilderness.
At dinnertime we met up with the Disney-Deads at the Riverside food
court. Since there was nothing there that we as raw foodists could eat, we
brought in salads from our own supply. (In hindsight, I should have taken
fruit instead.)
Saturday morning we got up late and had our fruit breakfast. While Maggie
stayed in the van and worked on her writing, I attended the excellent
lectures at the expo. That evening we joined the Penguins for dinner at
the Trail's End restaurant in Fort Wilderness. With the convenient
location we could get to bed early.
Sunday I got up at my usual 2:30 am and proceeded to the start area. When
I got to my corral, I spent the wait time stretching and doing
drills. After the start, I was quite slow, doing 15-minute miles. I got
to the half-marathon mark in 3:24:20, so at that point I was just barely on
pace to finish within the time limit.
I started falling apart at mile 19. I was slowing up and starting to lean
to the left, accompanied by an ache on my right side. In the next few
miles, I looked so bad that volunteers were walking with me to see that I
didn't fall over. (Such assistance would be illegal, of course, for
front-runners, but I guess it's OK for slowpokes.)
I asked one of them whether I would be pulled from the race because of my
slowness. He said that earlier they were pulling people who were slower
than 7-hour pace, but their policy was to let people finish once they got
past 20 miles.
The volunteer also asked me if I wanted to drop out. I had been keeping an
eye on my leg all the while and saw no sign of swelling or redness
developing, so I figured it was safe to continue. So I declined that offer.
Meanwhile I got slower and slower. By the time I was about to exit from
Epcot onto the home stretch, I was down to a shuffle. The volunteer who
was looking after me asked me whether I had any carbs with me. I said I
had four dates for post-race. She commanded "Eat them now!" so I did.
When I passed mile 26, there were four people behind me. I heard someone
say "The last ones are coming in." I didn't want to be last, so I said
"Let me push to the finish." She asked "Are you sure you can?" and I said
yes. So I managed to put a few yards between myself and the others before
I crossed the finish line. I guess the dates gave me that bit of energy.
After I crossed the finish line, without even a by-your-leave they plopped
me into a wheelchair, gave me my medal, removed my chip and wheeled me to
the medical. There they lay me down, took my vital signs twice, which
seemed unremarkable (BP 118/74, pulse 74 and temp 96 something, which is
usual for me) and wrote down "exhaustion" as the diagnosis. They also gave
me a full bottle of Powerade and ordered me to drink all of it, which I did.
I had thought that my leaning to the left was caused my a misalignment that
needed chiropractic adjustment, but one of the medics said no, it was
caused by the muscles running out of fuel. The consensus was that my
problems were caused by not enough carb intake. (I had been taking a cup
of Powerade at every other water stop, plus the oranges and bananas that
were handed out, but obviously this was not enough. At this point I am
undecided for next time whether to stick with my raw food diet and carry a
bag of dates or depart from the diet and use gels, which are much more
digestible. I look forward to trying out whichever I choose at the Tampa
marathon next month.
I looked for my name in the results and found nobody slower than a few
minutes past 7 hours. Evidently, even though they allowed slowpokes to
finish and get a medal, we were excluded from the results. The medal is
the major bragging talisman, so I can live with that.
Charles Cohn
