Last month I ran my first marathon, in St. George, Utah. I took my training extremely seriously, reading a couple of books on the subject, altering my diet and losing weight. I even read an absurd number of blog posts and Internet articles about running marathons. Unfortunately, none of this prepared me for what happened the morning of the big race: I got sick, threw up and couldn’t even keep fluids down. I wasn’t going to quit, though, after more than 100 hours of training. So I relaxed, tried to take small sips of Gatorade until the race started and then I was off.
It was like I had never been sick. My first few miles flew by, fueled by pure adrenalin. I was running a little ahead of pace, but for the most part kept it conservative, completing 9-minute miles. As I ran, surrounded by 7,499 other runners, I was caught up in the moment, I guess or maybe I was still a little nauseated but wasn’t drinking very much. I didn’t really realize this until I got to about mile 12 and found that even though both Gatorade bottles attached to my belt should have been empty by this point, one of them was still full.
