From Rome, here are the next few miles of my marathon:
mile 13, the halfway point. Things were still looking good, and I felt strong. It has been my tradition in the marathon to sing Bon Jovi’s, “Ohhhh, we’re half way there… OH OH! Living on a prayer…” There is a story about this, and it has since then become somewhat of a superstition in my racing. Superstitions are a big part of my running mentality. Frommy first days when I was a wee runner in high school. They get me through the race, and had I not sang this song through mile 13, who knows if I would have finished.
Mile 14, one mile to go before they hand out power gels (yes, another superstition that I forgot to pack and worried about the whole race), I started to feel a little bit tired. Yeah, 14 miles into a race, and I am tired. Weak sauce. Just kidding. Since I had gotten to Europe, eating was a questionable expereince for me. I won’t go into detail, but I will say that it was difficult to eat without any consequences. Moving on (awkwardly) I wasn’t able to get a good carbo-loaded dinner the night before. As you will learn…. that is critical in the next entries as I move towards the finish of the race.
mile 15 we finally get power gels and I down mine like it had never even entered my mouth. It was gone quicker than an Irishman drinking a Guiness. The rest of mile 15, I regained some strength, and continued on. Little did I know, this was going to be very short lived…. sorry to disappoint so quickly.