Everything was going great until about mile 5. As I crossed the bridge into Georgetown my left Knee (IT band) started to tighten up. I stopped and streched out for 2 minutes hoping that would take care of it. At mile 6 I had to stop again to try to strech it out. At that point I realized that I would have to fight the pain for the rest of the race. Katie was waiting for me at mile 11 in the national mall. I ran over to her and had her strech me out in the grass for about 5 minutes. She also swapped out my empty fuel belt bottles (with Cytomax) for full ones. I ran around the mall and at mile 13 I saw Katie again and she streched me out, this was the same routine at mile 16. After mile 16 the course took us out along Potomac park. This strech until mile 20 was desolite without any specators. It was quite, all you could hear was the other runners. My knee was killing me I had to stop 3 times just to regain range of motion in the knee. At the mile 20 marker there was alot of spectators which took my mind off of the pain. Mile 20 - 21 was crossing a bridge. This was really painful. My kne completely locked up near the end of the bridge and I had to stop and strech out just to be able to get it to bend. I walked for about 1/2 mile to the water station (the first time I had to walk). At the water station I filled up 2 of my fuel belt bottles with powerade cut with water. Miles 22-24 were in Crystal City, which was loaded with spectators. I was able to run most of this strech. Once I hit mile 24 I was pretty much forced to walk for 1/2 a mile and run for about 1/4 mile until mile 25.5. At about 25.5 I decided to put the pain aside and force my way to the finish line in a hobbling run. I focused only on finishing, shut out the pain and forced my knee to move the 10 degrees that it had left in it. Upon crossing the finish line my knee completely locked up and I had to find some grass in the finish chute and sit for about 5 minutes before I could even try to strech it out. After that I hobbled to get my photo with about 10 different marines offering to help me. I grabbed some food and headed over to try to find Mike. Unable to find Mike I grabbed my bag from the UPS truck and headed to the metro to go back to the hotel.

Even with the 4 hours of pain and the disappointing time (I was planning on finishing at 4 hours) I would do it all over in a heart beat. The experience was awesome all the way through. .

Streching, icing and tiger balm


The intense pain caused by my left IT band pretty much put an end to my hopes of finishing in uder 4 hours. I probably spent about 30 minutes streching durning the race. My heart rate was a little high according my HRM, but my breathing and general feel felt much lower than the numbers which were coming back. Here I am 7 days later and I am still having trouble walking becase of the knee