I still had my IT Band injury, a chronic pain on the right side of my right knee, caused by prolonged repetitive impact. When discussing the treatment, that's when I first learned about running form. I didn't know there was a correct way of running. I just pushed forward without thinking too much. Then I learned that I was hitting the ground with my heel when I was supposed to land flat or with the front part. This way, the impact wave would not propagate too intensively up through the body. I also learned that a way to adopt this form is to slightly lean the upper body forward as if the runner was constantly preventing a fall.
There was no time to fix the form before the race anyway. I couldn't make the volume required for the race, but I noticed that if I had a full day of rest between runs and limited the distance to a maximum of 10 km, then I could manage the pain. That was the minimum I did to survive the 42.2 km.
Race day. The weather was great, with clear skies, and a calm Sunday. The start line was too far from home, but I was lucky to live close to Exhibition Place, where the organization offered buses to take runners up to the start. I took my bus and sat close to a talkative old man. He told me he was already retired and spent his time training and traveling to races everywhere. He ran more than a hundred marathons! That's so cool! I wanna retire this way too. I keep being inspired by seniors, seeing them as a projection of what I wanna be when I get older.
We arrived in time to enjoy a warm cup of coffee. Runners were gathering in big numbers. Soon, we would be heading south, followed by half-marathoners, blocking streets, avenues, and bus lines, making the chaotic traffic of Toronto even more chaotic, but happily welcomed by spectators.
My mind was obsessed with the idea of running a mostly downhill course. Maybe, that was my chance of breaking 4 hours for the first time, or too ambitious for a second attempt? What followed was actually a personal best, but still far from a 4 hours performance. The first 4 km were flat, which was great to warm up. Then a short but steep hill broke the rhythm until the 6 km mark. The course continued with short ups and downs for more than 6 km, then we were gifted with 8 km of continuous downhill. Before that, I was following the pack with the 4 hours pacer, but I was so excited about having gravity as an ally that I left them far behind. What I didn't expect was to feel so tired at the 25 km mark, all of a sudden, significantly slowing down. I kept going but the 4h pacer eventually passed me 20 minutes later. That morning I learned that running downhills too fast increases the heart rate to the point of burning down most of my glycogen storage. It left my body depleted, unable to refuel with a carbohydrate gel for the next 10 minutes.
By the 36 km mark, I started walking, tired, thirty, and disappointed for sharing the same route with walkers and riders. My muscles were fine, which allowed me to run from time to time, but I was so thirsty, desperate for a water station. The weather was getting hot and I was sweating a lot. To some late relief, I reached a water station at the 40 km mark. When I reached the finish line I had nothing more to give. I think I didn't collapse because my family was there, but they had to wait until I finished 5 bottles of coconut water, freely available for finishers.
Despite the struggle, I dropped 7 minutes from my first marathon. Not bad for a second marathon. I went to bed that night thinking about how could I finish a race without suffering so much.
Number: 2
Time: 04:18:12
Best Marathon Time to Date: 04:23:24
Elevation: 199 m
