Test Case: Marathon Woman -- I Signed Up To Walk/Jog 26.2 Miles, And My Feet Literally Exploded

Did columnist Allison Peryea manage to finish the race?

Allison Peryea (left) and her stepmother at the race.

Allison Peryea (left) and her stepmother Betsy at the race.

In October, I ran a half marathon. As I noted in my Test Case column about the race, the experience highlighted for me the insane 26.2-mile length of a full marathon. The 13.1 miles I ran this fall seemed like the limit of human rational decision-making for covering a distance while not being chased by a murderer or dinosaur.

This winter and spring Seattle drizzled its citizens with the sort of near-constant rainfall that encourages carbohydrate eating and general sluggishness. To avoid going full-sloth, I decided to sign up for another half marathon in my hometown, Wenatchee, Washington.

My stepmom, who often runs with me when I visit home, suggested instead that we sign up to walk the full marathon to try something different. I thought she was absolutely out of her mind. And then I signed up. I had never run more than 13.1 miles in a day and I had never hiked farther than 18 miles in a day, so this seemed like the logical next step for the Allison Peryea Book of Personal Records.

Training for this marathon literally involved both of us getting bad colds the week before the event. When I called my stepmom the weekend before, she sounded so Gollum-like that I expected her to back out of the event. Honestly, canceling the event would not have been particularly upsetting to me.

But the show unfortunately was scheduled to go on, and the night before the race I drove over the mountains to my parents’ house. We weren’t sure how to prepare for walking a marathon, so we decided it was more like hiking than running and filled little backpacks with water reservoirs and snacks. I loaded my iPod shuffle (yes, that’s a technological relic I still own) with bootleg songs just in case my phone battery couldn’t survive the marathon. The whole time we were packing up my dad had that “you guys are idiots” look on his face. Then I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. and cursed all the life decisions that had led me up to that point.

The prospect of walking rather than running a race sort of took some of the anxiety out of things. My goal during races is usually just to make sure I run the whole thing—I know, I aim high—and taking that objective out of the equation sort of took a load off.

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I was curious to see what other sorts of people sign up to walk a full marathon. The answer: About 15 people, all older than me. We took off from the starting line at 6:30 at a sort of slow jog before a crowd of about four sleepy volunteers. Everyone spread out and it started feeling like we were just stupidly going on a really long, early walk alone. The course involved two long loops on the trail on both sides of the Columbia River, and the weather was cold but sunny. We couldn’t have picked a better day to walk until we felt like crying.

Betsy and I were planning on running larger blocks of the race, but in our infirm state we instead tried to stick to running and walking in two-minute increments. About six miles in, however, the difficulty of trying to time these 120-second chunks of time outweighed the utility, and we started running on and off without much of a long-term strategy other than “let’s finish this goddamn day.” We did try to time our runs for downhill stretches to save energy, and attempted to run past all the volunteer booths to avoid looking lazy in front of witnesses.

I was really gunning to get to the 6.2-mile mark, because being under 20 miles made this challenge seem feasible. At that point Betsy was suffering from coughing fits and my left thumb started swelling for no apparent reason. We got caught up with the half-marathoners several miles in, which put pressure on me to want to run more of the race. Being a walker made me feel like Simba in the middle of the buffalo stampede.

About halfway through, Betsy started suffering from leg cramps, and I thought I was at a place where I was going to have to decide whether to finish our epic journey alone. She soldiered on, however. My iPod died since I think I forgot to charge it, and I had to move onto my phone and its wimpy battery. At Mile 16 my dad brought us ibuprofen and we took some time out for snacks, and we were rejuvenated. We both took half a shot of that 5-Hour Energy caffeine stuff and it made us strangely energetic for about 20 minutes.

At Mile 19 or so, we had pretty much accepted that this walking forever thing was our new life, and things were going okay except for some foot soreness. Then I looked down and realized my hands had both swelled up to the point that I thought I might have to cut my ring off. I tried to fix this problem by walking with my hands in the air like a surrendering criminal. That solution didn’t work, of course, but there was no stopping us with only a few miles left.

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At Mile 21 my phone started to die, and I turned it off to save enough battery for finish-line pics. Before I powered it down, my phone reported that we had gone 44,873 steps.

A mile later it started feeling like there was something in my left shoe, and then suddenly my foot exploded. A bunch of blisters had developed under my toes and they all picked the same time to pop. It hurt but I was too busy marveling about how disgusting it was to be in too much pain.

As we were covering the last couple miles, it was pretty clear that pretty much everyone else had completed the marathon. Indeed, later in the afternoon some people mistakenly thought we were participating in a 5k walk to end multiple sclerosis. I was worried that we were going to get to the finish line and nobody was going to be there. As Betsy said: “Perhaps we are fighting a battle in a war that is already over.” At that point, my hips were all messed up and I was walking like a cowboy. And then my right foot exploded and we crossed the finish line at about 2 p.m.

Allison Peryea at mile 26.

Allison Peryea at mile 26.

We celebrated our victory by using the bathroom. I had needed to pee for about five hours but we both agreed it was more important to get the race over with. Then I ate three-quarters of a Costco muffin and we hobbled back to the car.

The Verdict: The next morning my mouth was so dry I felt like a camel with a sponge-tongue. But my muscles weren’t too sore. The last four miles of that marathon truly sucked. But now that the misery has escaped my short-term memory, I think we need to shoot for the 30-mile mark. Betsy has not yet committed.

Earlier: Test Case: Can I Run A Half Marathon Without Training, Music, Or Crying?
Test Case: The 18-Mile Enchantments Hike Was Among The Most Painful Experiences Of My Life. Can I Face It Again?


Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at Allison.Peryea@leahyps.com.