6 hours & 18 minutes. Pain & Determination. & Peace. What?

Have you ever trained for something, planned for something, and been through something before (4 times before, to be exact)....but still find yourself shocked when all the training, planning and previous experience does little to help you when you're actually in the experience?I trained for months for Berlin's marathon.  I planned out my pace and my food/beverage intake for the race and what I was going to wear (yes, my "girlie-ness" wins over every time when I'm in races), and thought I had done whatever I could to "run" (purposely in quotes) a good race.Nothing went as I had hoped.I'm a slow marathon runner at best, but quickly into the race my left calf that I had hurt in a separate race a week prior had pain shooting down towards my foot.  In my head I thought, this isn't good but I came all this way, I needed to gut it out.  I walked/ran for 13 miles until I could no longer run one more step..... and so there I was WALKING for an additional 13 miles.I remember seeing a shirt or a sign one time that had the following on it.....

Finishing dead last is better than

DNF (did not finish) is better than

Never started.....

Unless you are an elite runner, whom I've learned often do pull out of a race if it isn't "their day".....I would think most of the rest of us who run marathons would concur with the above statement.  But when you are dealing with pain, and in my case chronic and severe, there needs to be something that goes on more in your mind than in your body to help you finish.

When the body wants to quit....the mind continues to push you towards finish.....

By focusing on the pain, it gives it all the control and takes out of consideration the great strength we as humans have to overcome pain for a greater outcome.  Take childbirth, many of us went through it, often without drugs, and were able to focus/meditate/power through or whatever we call it knowing we would have a child at the end to make all the suffering worth our while?  While admittedly not every form of pain/suffering results in something as awe-inspiring and perfect as a baby, and really how could anything measure up to that experience, but if we look closely enough at any of our painful situations in life, there is the ability for a greater outcome or growth or joy at the end.  But are we looking?  

A good friend of mine stayed with me for a good portion of the race, talking to me when I could barely muster a "uh-hun", ran/walked helplessly aside me and I'm sure struggled on some level to watch me cry as the pain got worse.  My friend would've stayed by my side until the end had I not asked my friend to go ahead and run the race and I'd see my friend at the end.....had I not gone through what I did that day, perhaps I would've missed the lesson of the beauty of friendship and the compassion of the human spirit?  ABSOLUTELY YES, I would've rather not had pain, I would've rather run a PR (personal record) that day, and would've rather not ended my race with what I like to refer to as the "infirmed" group of runners....but that wasn't how my day was to be?  So i can sit and stew about it until the end of time, or celebrate my determination, and the beauty in the lessons I learned that day.

• Pain, all pain, is temporary.
• Humans have a great capacity to tolerate and overcome pain.
• Asking for help, does not make us weak, it makes us human.
• Although we don't always get what we want in life, most of the time we do get what we need, when we are brave enough to ask for it.
• Marathon running is not for the weak.  Whether you finish in just over 2 hours and 2 minutes like the "winner" that day (and new world record holder), or the very last person who was somewhere behind me that day (shocking, I know that someone was slower than me!).....we all covered 26.2 miles and that is pretty darn amazing.

"A dream doesn't become reality through magic, it takes sweat, determination and hard work." Colin Powell.  Love that quote.  My dream was to run a "major" ....(Boston, Berlin, London, Chicago, New York and now somehow Tokyo has been added to the list?), and I have now done that having Berlin be my 5th and final marathon.  It is really hard to write those words, "5th and final marathon", as in a sense it's an end of an era and if I am not "currently" a marathon runner, then what am I?  I guess that is what I am to find out now, in my next chapter...one that realizes I don't have to suffer in pain to prove I can run a marathon anymore.  And with that realization, the greatest sense of peace has started to come over me and I find that the greatest lesson and gift of all from the pain I endured in Berlin.  So grateful for pain? In this case truly I can say, yes...I am.Peace....