THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9410300049
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ANNE SAITA
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
While preparing for my first marathon, I often envisioned what it would be like crossing the finish line.
I saw myself shooting through the final 400 yards surrounded by a throng of spectators, tears of joy starting to fall as I passed under a time clock bearing impressive numbers.
Predictably, my daydreams were way off course.
I hadn't figured on the 26.2-mile Marine Corps Marathon being such a painful experience, nor lasting for so long.
Since June I had sacrificed my weekends to long, increasingly laborious, pre-dawn runs. I gave up many of my favorite junk foods, caffeine and area road races.
``How many miles?'' a woman I know only as Kathy would ask each time our paths crossed. Others regularly offered words of encouragement that I would draw upon when fatigue set in.
Then I developed tendinitis in my knee, which posed a serious threat to five months' worth of training through torturous humidity and heat.
A sports medicine doctor said I could still do the Washington, D.C., marathon, but only if I stopped running until then and took a lot of ibuprofen days before. I followed his advice to the letter.
So it came as an unpleasant surprise last Sunday morning when the familiar pain emerged just a mile into the race. Within minutes, knee problems flared up in my two running companions, especially my friend Phil.
By Mile 6, having slowed dramatically, my sister and I abandoned Phil in an effort to fulfill our goal of beating the straggler bus at Mile 23.
We caught up to our starting pack of runners in Georgetown, a third of the way into the marathon. The pain in my knee worsened, rivaled only by the pain in my heart for leaving Phil behind.
By the midway point, the rains that plagued us the entire race had strengthened, just as we were climbing Capitol Hill.
Then we reached Mile 21 and noticed that we were the only ones still running. Everyone else around us was walking; a few asked for an ambulance.
When we finally cleared the 14th Street bridge and beat the bus, as we'd set out to do, I finally looked down at my watch.
We were going on five hours.
``Do you realize you've been running more hours than you slept last night?'' Colleen said, trying to boost our spirits after realizing we'd shot our goal of 4 1/2 hours or better.
With a mile to go, we started to see many of the 11,000 finishers in front of us starting to head home.
The awards ceremony was over. Television personality Oprah Winfrey had already spoken to the media about her personal feat. Crowds lining the corkscrew finish had pretty much disbursed.
We hobbled through the finish chute with a dozen others, and I smiled as a U.S. Marine slid a medal necklace over my head. But I didn't feel like crying.
The next morning, back home in Elizabeth City and cheered by news that Phil had finished, too, I looked over my marathon memorabilia and answered a lot of congratulatory phone calls from family and friends.
I surveyed my blood-stained T-shirt, still damp from the day before. I'd chafed various moles on my back and never knew they were bleeding.
Later that afternoon I went for a short walk, recalling the highlights and low points of the biggest race of my life.
That's when the eyes finally filled with tears, and I painfully continued down those oh-so-familiar roads, suddenly realizing just how far I'd come. by CNB