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What Leg Cramps Taught Me About Life
The energy at the end of the race was electric. Music was blasting. Thousands of people lined the streets. And family and friends cheered as their loved ones ran by. I could even hear the names ringing over the loud-speaker as each runner crossed the finish line. But, just a couple blocks away, I was really STRUGGLING.
Nearly 25 miles into my second ever marathon, I was hitting the infamous ‘wall’. I thought I followed my race plan pretty well — start slow, finish fast. I planned to run around an 8 minute/mile pace on the first 13.1 miles, then speed up the pace to around 7:40 minute/mile on the back half of the race. However, around mile 18, that plan completely fell apart.
While this was my second marathon, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Around mile 18, my wheels really started falling off. My form was different than usual. My pace was all over the place. And my body really wasn’t handling all that mileage well. I couldn’t even run more than a quarter-mile without leg cramps.
Eventually, I was able to gut it out to mile 25, stopping periodically to stretch and walk, as needed. While my pace slowed significantly, and I was WAY off from my 7:40 minutes/mile goal on the back half, I was still moving and projecting for a decent time — Sub 4 hours.
