You lose some...

...or you don't even finish some. Brace yourselves--this is a sad story. Since January, I've been training for my first marathon, which was last Saturday. It looks like I'll still be training for my first marathon, if I ever train for one again. (It's brutal, did I mention?) My knee had been bothering me for the last two or three weeks, but I just thought it was tired. So I babied it like it was my fifth child. "Oh, my knee needs some ice." "It's time for my knee to have some ibuprofen." "I better stretch my knee for the nth time today."

Race day came and it wasn't hurting, but I was aware of it. Just so you know, you should never be "aware" of your knees. Think right now, do you know how your knees are feeling? No. They should just work and never make themselves known. Well, I was running along with my two friends and at mile 2.5 (that means we had only been running for less than 30 minutes!!) my knee started to hurt and wouldn't hold my weight. I knew then that the marathon wasn't going to happen. My friends didn't want to leave me, so I tried walking and then running a little more. I didn't want to just give up. But the knee started hurting again. My friends were talking to each other and didn't notice. I just slowed down, faded back, and let them drift away until their faces were lost in a sea of bouncing sweatbands and sauconys. It was so sad.

I walked a long time. It was only a little after 8 a.m. and Darren wasn't supposed to meet me until around the 12 mile mark; we thought around 10:30. I didn't know where I was--besides in the middle of 35,000 runners, Nashville, TN. So I just kept walking. At one point, the running crowd surged by a stand of orange wedges. I was walking on the side of the road next to the gutter (isn't this getting pathetic) trying not to feel sorry for myself, and my legs kept getting pelted by half-eaten orange rinds, thrown to the side by lucky runners who had knees that were doing their job. How kind of you runners to toss your garbage to the side of the road where there aren't any people. (Hello? Am I invisible!) Half-eaten orange rinds are very slippery, by the way.

After about an hour of walking and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to try running again. At least it would get me to mile 12 quicker, I thought. For about half a mile, I felt okay. I thought maybe I could make the half. And then, the knee that I had coddled like a newborn infant, completely let me down. It hurt and wouldn't hold my weight, even when I walked. So that is the story of my marathon that ended at the water station at mile marker 7 on the corner of 12th and Davis in Nashville, Tennessee. I called Darren on my cell phone to tell him where to come pick me up, sat down on the curb, took off my number, and cried. Oh, and I ate a cliff bar. Isn't that the saddest story ever?

On a happier note, my two friends did finish, a first marathon for one and a third for the other. They did mention how quiet the run was after I had drifted away. I hope that means they missed me. I enjoyed cheering them on at the end and I'm so proud of their success. A very positive and philosophical friend was quick to point out that the life changing part of a marathon is the training, not the actual event itself. While that is very true and I thank him for the sentiment, "just training" doesn't allow you to put a 26.2 sticker on your car! I wonder if my knee is "aware" of that?