Las Vegas Marathon Blog

Lindsey suggested a great place to run for our 16 miler this weekend. I traveled down to Southern Illinois this weekend, and we woke up at a normal time and headed down to a great location about 45 minutes away. The trail was an old railroad track that’s now just a gravel road, and the trail goes from small town to small town. Our run would go from one small town to another and back again. We drove about 45 minutes south and parked at the visitor’s center in Vienna. There were lots of bicyclists, but no runners.

I was nervous about this run because I did not train AT ALL this past week, and didn’t know how miles 14, 15, and 16 would be. I was loosened up pretty good from the very beginning, and the first 5 miles were easy. About halfway through the first 8, the trail had detoured, and about 3/4 mile was on the highway. The trail had mile markers, which was nice and I didn’t have to pay attention to the watch as much.
Once I reached the town of Belknap at 8 miles, I took my first Gu and turned around to head home. By the way, this was the first time I had the chocolate Gu, and it was really good! I was taking my water/walk breaks pretty consistently, trying to make sure I had enough water when it came down to the last 4 miles or so. I didn’t have my music turned on, but after I turned around, I began to play my music to keep my momentum up.

On the way back, I had to take that detour again, and I had to stop for a few minutes to let a train pass. I stretched and made good use of the time. It was funny with me standing there while other cars were around. After I passed the “half-marathon” mark at 13 miles, my body started to wear pretty quickly, and I took my second Gu. The weather was nice the whole morning, and the trail was mostly in the shade, but the sun was coming up pretty high and the temps were rising a bit. After Mile 14, I was starting to hallucinate and my mind was drifting pretty bad. I was seeing things, like black bears chasing me and leaves in front of me looked like rodents. Then suddenly I looked up and thought I saw two deer on the trail. Then they ran away…OH there really were deer! They ran off as soon as they heard my feet on the trail.

I still had about 2 miles to go, and I had only sipfuls of water left (as expected), but my legs were started to become stiff. I kept thinking “only 20 more minutes” and started to take sporadic walk breaks. I walked for about 4 or 5 minutes before I realized I wasn’t getting there any faster. When I saw the 126 mile marker (which meant about 1 1/2 miles left) I said, “just run it”, and I did it. I didn’t stop running all the way to the end, no matter how much my legs hurt and no matter how much I was hallucinating. I made that last turn and saw the end of the road, and that last strip of trail felt like FOREVER. It must’ve took 5 or 6 minutes to finally get there. I made it 9 seconds under 3 hours. I was hoping for a better time…maybe 15 minutes faster, but I don’t know. Who’s to say what the real mileage was with that detour and all.

At the end, I just stopped and bent over, trying to catch as much air as I could. I saw Lindsey at the picnic table trying to recover and I walked over to the trunk and got my water and just gulped like it was my last. I went into the Vienna visitor’s center and washed my face and got my cloth wet. Those last 2 miles were tough, and I believe it’s all because I did not train at all this week.

So now I have motivation to get each and every run in from now until the marathon.

Later that evening, Lindsey invited me to an “Inspiring Women’s Gala” event at SIUC in Carbondale, IL (which is where I recorded this video)

The next day Lindsey and I visited Cairo, Illinois, and it was so fascinating seeing such a vibrant town decay over the decades. We ate at Shemwell’s Barbecue, which was the best barbecue pork sandwich I’ve ate in a long long time. We also went to the most southern point of Illinois at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.