remembering my first attempt, Okanagan marathon 1998..

I don’t have any pictures from this failed attempt….a May long weekend in 1998….

The second last time this event, the Okanagan Marathon weekend was help in May…..

I wasn’t a virgin, I’d run the Edmonton Half Marathon the year before, I think my time was something like 2:05…..so I thought I was ready….

The problem…training huh?……I spent an entire winter never running more than maybe 20K…maybe….

On the flight to Kelowna, I spent the entire flight looking over my training journal trying to justify my training, or lack there of……

but, it’s my first attempt at my first marathon, what could go wrong?

I hate to admit it now, so many years later, I hated Kelowna……it was just a big city with buses, spread out, busy and this weekend it was busy…the Hells Angels were actually in town for a convention….they spent the night using main street as a racing strip….right below my hotel window.

My diet the night before was all wrong too….pizza, and I think I had a coke while watching a NHL playoff game……

Yep, missed the pasta party…..because, like I said, it was being held in some far away random part of the city…and I couldn’t get there…..

The start, actually three quarters of the run felt fine…..quite a wide ranging route…I thought I knew a lot of Kelowna, BC, but not this…..fields, some residential…..had Jeff Galoway at the bottom of one of the hills cheering us on which was kind of cool..

I was running with a few friends at the beginning, but then I fell way off the pace…….

I actually, considering did okay….I pulled out at mile 20, my time was about 3:30…..yep, dry heaving, not feeling great…got to an aid station, told the volunteers, got a ride back to the start/finish line in an EMS van…saw some of my crew on the way back..and then wandered around the finish line before heading back to the hotel room…….the worse feeling ever….

A DNF….in my first marathon……that sucked big time. You know you weren’t ready, but, could I have at least walked the final 6.2 miles?…..Should I have…it was my first marathon……I don’t know…all I know/knew was that I never wanted to feel like that again….so, as soon as I got home, I registered for another Full, in my home town of Edmonton in August…..and I would have crawled if I had to finish……and well, I finished.