Tacoma Chiropractor | Dr. Vince Leone

Whew! The Marathon is finally over…

June 28, 2010 at 9:56 am (Uncategorized)

Dear Practice Members,

Well, half marathon actually…but still. It’s done and it feels like  a huge weight off my shoulders. I’m very sore, in fact I could barely walk the rest of  Saturday and Sunday, but I did it and the best part: No More Training!

So here’s how the day went:

We woke up at 4:30…am. As in it was still dark out. Left the house by 5:20 and got down to Safeco Field around 5:45 to catch the shuttle buses down to the starting line. The race had  a total of 26,000 signed up and most of them were there trying to get on those darn buses. At one point there were two nicely organized lines…and then the closer we got to 6am (which is when they said theywere going to stop running) the lines just melted, think of a mosh pit with too many people in need of serious coffee.

But we made it down there with no serious injuries and the thing I couldn’t believe were the lines for the porta potties! They were like, 100-150 people deep! Man was I glad I did not have to pee!

So we took our place in the 33rd corral – that’s how they divided everyone up. You approximated how fast (or slow) you would run and then they divided you up accordingly. And then we were off…like a hurd of cats. Not too fast, there were a lot of walkers so it was kind of like playing human dodgeball.

The course was a nice run for the most part – the best being as we got up in Seattle and into Seward Park neighborhood, there was a nice stretch along Lake Washington. Then onto the I-90 and through the tunnel where there was a DJ on a flat bed truck just CRANKING tunes…I mean it was so loud in that tunnel, people were screaming and yelling, and the DJ just had a huge smile on his face.

Did I mention it was the Rock n Roll Marathon? There were bands about every mile playing on little temp stages…pretty cool.

So I was doing pretty good until about 8.5 miles…my wife Cheryl and I were keeping a decent pace…about 11  minute miles. Not record breaking, but not terrible. And then my right knee just started KILLING me. So I just toughed it out for another half mile and it calmed down. Then my LEFT knee started killing me. To the point that I was going slower and slower and seriously thought it may give out.

So I told Cheryl to just go ahead and I would do a slower pace…and basically limped, walked, ran for the last 4 miles. It was BRUTAL. I did NOT want to walk…that’s not why I signed up for this. But I basically had no choice but to walk, let my knee calm down, then run until I felt like I was gonna fall, then walk…you get the picture. It was a weird feeling…and I’ve played a lot of sports, from football, to hurdles in track, to water and snow skiing, nothing felt like this. It literally felt like the top half of my knee joint was gonna slide right off and totally disconnect with my lower leg. Not a fun feeling.

So it basically killed my time…but, I finished. And that is the most important part. Cheryl made it in about 2 hours 33 minutes and I was a stellar 2 hours and 47 minutes.

And that’s it! Great experience, highly recommend it, though I will not be doing one anytime soon

Thank you to everyone for their words of support and encouragement and I will post some pictures soon as they’re available.

Take care!

Dr. Vince

PS – Not a member yet? It has its priveleges and it’s FREE!

Click here:

http://tinyurl.com/yceyr5b

PPS – Leave a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts!