The Marathon

As this will (once again) be the final post of this blog, I thought I'd change up the format a bit and just focus on the big day itself...

Pre-race: I don't remember being keyed-up enough for a sports event to lose sleep the night before since... well, probably my high-school soccer days, but I definitely didn't get much sleep on Friday night. Still, I had gotten plenty of rest the night before, had been eating well, and felt really good Saturday morning before the race. So, armed with a somewhat foolish racing strategy (start out with the pace group -- finishing the marathon in 3:10 -- that would let me qualify for Boston, try to keep up with them for 13 miles to satisfy my pride, and then drop back to a more reasonable pace), some of my favorite racing foods (Chocolate Outrage GU and cran-razz Clif shot blocks), and one of a pair of what must be the finest custom-designed team racing shirts the world has ever seen (you know you're winning at life when you're designing a t-shirt in an image analysis program developed by the NIH) I lined up with the the other ~10,000 people running either the full or half marathon.


Miles 1 and 2: Thanks to the crowd of racers at the beginning we started off running a bit slower than our projected pace (so that people weren't tripping over each other), which both felt good and was great for my confidence. Also, I had not been expecting the crowd of spectators lining the first mile... I'm pretty sure I was grinning like a fool for the first chunk of this race! Anyway, by the second mile we had established our pace and had separated enough for me to see that there were about 40-45 people running in the pace group with me -- more crowed than I was used to, but fun! Surreal musical moment: right around mile 2 was a man singing a cover of "Tangled up in Blue." I mean... a great song, but not exactly a pump-you-up, get-the-blood flowing athletic anthem.

Miles 3 - 6: We definitely settled in the pace in this little stretch (which, being on the outskirts of town, included some pretty windy stretches), and I was feeling pretty good. I had been worried that the pace group I was running with was going at a pace a good 1:45 faster than I had done my long runs at, but I guess the mid-week faster miles and the taper really do combine to get you ready to run both longer and faster than you have before. Also, around this time everybody in the pace group started naturally falling into roughly the same stride pattern, and it was just really neat to feel all simultaneously locked in like that.

Miles 7 - 10: Started out with another great musical moment... a chunk of this section was through a large park, and in a gazebo was a four man band -- one drummer and three electric guitars -- just wailing repeatedly on the opening chords to "Eye of the Tiger." Very appropriate. Also, this stretch included my first sighting of friends cheering me on while dressed in funny hats. While all of the spectators lining the race were great and so kind in cheering everybody on, this was particularly heartening.

Miles 11 - 16: In this chunk I was still (surprisingly!) feeling pretty good, like I was running smoothly and as easily as could be expected. The sun came out around this time (I think the temperature by the end of the race got to be in the upper seventies or so), and I was starting to feel that, but at 13 I decided "Well, why not? I guess I'll try to stick with this pace group for as long as I can." It was also around this time that I finally got the hang of drinking water out of the cups they had at the aid stations while running... but where by "got the hang of" I mean I managed to get the "water in mouth" to "water splashed on face and shirt" ratio from 2:8 to more like 6:4. Also, right around mile 16 was my favorite sign of the race... something like "Kanye says 'Yo runners, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish...'"

Miles 17 - 22: So, after focusing on just breathing, trying to maintain form, running smoothly, etc. for the last 10 or so miles, mile 17 began with a sharp curve that made me look around and notice that our pace group had somewhere along the way dwindled from ~40 people to 7. Not to be mean, but this made me feel pretty good about myself... it was a tough, warm day, and just lasting for that long felt like a positive. Still, I could tell that I myself was starting to get tired -- fading a bit -- and so I started playing the "okay, just stick with these guys until mile 18," and then "alright, just hang tough until mile 19" game. By mile marker 22 there was just the pace leader, two other guys, and I still running together.

Mile marker 23: So, you'd think with a name like "hitting the wall" you wouldn't be surprised at finding it a very sudden, precipitous kind of phenomenon, but man! Even over the last few hundred yards of mile 22 I was still feeling fine. I mean, tired of course, but still relatively fine. And then, while passing the "Mile 23" sign on the course it was like something inside of me just broke down... as if some deranged alchemist suddenly discovered how to transmute muscle into lead. Needless to say, after a brief internal conversation with my legs (that went something like Me:"Please keep moving, won't you? I'd be ever so grateful! And it's not so very much farther!" My legs: "Well... No, I don't wanna!") I lost touch with that pace group. I'm still trying to decide how much of that was actually physical and how much was just psychological: the sudden, overpowering manifestation of all of the totally rational reasons to not keep running after slogging through 20+ miles. But still, quite the experience either way.

Miles 24 - 26: Really, some of the most unpleasant, painful miles of my life. Featuring about three episodes of my legs twitching -> cramping -> deciding to make me kneel on the ground for a few seconds, and a much more frequently recurring need to pause and try to stretch. I really have to thank the spectators along this stretch, though... everyone was just so encouraging, cheering me on, and practically willing me to get back up, to start running again (okay, well, maybe that last one was a bit of a stretch, but that's how I chose to feel at the time!)

Miles 26 - 26.2: This was obscenely difficult. At this point there was just no part of me that had any desire to move. At all. My legs were just pleading with me, shamelessly begging me to stop. The curb looked so tempting, the grass was so green...I just wanted to sit. But, well...I don't think of pride as a virtue, but for better or for worse it sure is a powerful motivator, especially in athletics (for me, at least). This final stretch -- the last two turns of the street and the football stadium (the race ending on the 50 yard line) -- was lined with people, and I just couldn't stand the thought of having to stop in front of everybody, so painfully close to the end. So, one stride at a time I somehow managed to keep myself going, stumbling across that finish line with a relief I'm sure you can imagine me feeling!

Post-race thoughts: Well, crossing the line I still couldn't really believe that I had actually finished -- both in the sense of having completed a marathon and in the sense that I was allowed to stop running. Then, after having someone hand me a finishers medal and a bottle of water I caught up to the pace leader I had just spent large chunk of time running with and listening to, said thanks and chatted until I was reasonably certain I could sit down without my legs cramping up on me. And then I proceeded to sit down on the field, then lie down, and then, before I mustered the energy to go look for my family and friends, spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how to go from lying down to an even more reclined position.

So, I have to admit that it hurt a little bit to come so very close -- three minutes! -- to my ultimate goal and then fall short just in the last miles. But, you know, "Mais on ne se bat pas dans l'esport du succès," and all that... And, ultimately, I did far better than I realistically expected myself to, and I'm pretty proud myself, both for training so hard and for how well I ran on race day.

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Marathon/training, by the numbers:

517 - Total miles run
(*** censored ***) - Dollars spent on running gear... really, a bit more than I'd like to admit!
??? - Some large but indeterminate number of accumulated generic aches and pains
48 - Current resting heart rate (well, "current" as of a week ago... right now just lying down feels like exercise)
4 - Months of training
3 - Blisters (although, remarkably, all before I bought actual running socks...I hate to admit it, but technical gear really does make a difference)
2 - Pairs of running shoes
1 - Awesome day of running

Official time: 3:13:26