Johanna Preston

Austin Motorola Marathon

February 17, 2002

I didn’t think I would try to run the Motorola marathon until about two weeks before the race when I started running on the track in Gregory and went 20 miles to feel free for a moment from stress.  I practiced often with the UT Marathon Team last Fall, ran a 30k last January, and ran a lot in France this summer, all of which were very helpful to me for learning to run long distances.

After the run at Gregory, I thought to myself, “well, if I can run 20 miles I can probably eke out 6.2 more.”  Then, Friday before the race I had a weird soreness, almost a pain in my heel.  That worried me.  I went to RunTex and asked an employee what I should do.  He said I should go ahead and try for the marathon since I wanted to do it, and if I was hurting during the race it would be easy to stop at the half-way mark to prevent an injury.  I took his advice and registered.

The day before the race I ate a big pizza buffet at lunch at DoubleDave’s and a bowl of cereal for supper.  For breakfast I ate two packets of instant oatmeal.  I wish now that I had eaten a bigger breakfast before the race.  It was really cold outside the morning of the race, but I was lucky that my dad was waiting with me near the start because I was able to hand him the big jacket I was wearing at the last second.  I like to run light.

Near mile ten I saw a group from the UT Marathon Team cheering us on, which was great. It was fun running past UT.  Then I started to feel my muscles were getting somewhat tired at mile 13.  I saw my parents and sister about that time on the sidelines, and I reassured my mom that I was fine.  Actually, it never really occurred to me to stop halfway, I just wanted to run the marathon.

Soon afterward, though, I started seeing the relay runners passing me, which was annoying, especially since they were replacements.  I kept running.  By mile 17, each mile marker seemed increasingly distant.  My leg muscles were not happy, but I was very glad to not have joint/tendon/foot pain.  I had to walk a third of mile 22.  The people on the sidelines kept me running (especially when they yelled, “4722 you can do it!”), and it was great when they offered candy because I was really wanting sugar energy at that point.

I tried to walk a tiny bit two more times, but that was very painful, too, so I continued running.  I was overjoyed to see Amy, Peter, Tim, and others from the Team near mile 25.  That last mile I owe to y’all!  It was a great experience to run my first marathon.