Marathon

I gave the hulking man that is my oldest brother Scott a hug goodbye at the airport and painfully walked like a decrepit old man into the airport terminal, guitar on my back, another guitar case in hand and a duffle bag along with a suit bag I had draped around my other arm.  It wasn't the load I was carrying giving me the difficulty but rather the fact my back was spasming and held me crooked and bent over, barely able to lift my legs in a painful walk.  This has happened a few times before, about once per year ever since I threw my lower back out doing a careless lift of my amplifier a few years back.  Usually it eases up in a few days but remains stiff for a month or so until it gradually goes away.  The problem at this point was it was exactly 4 weeks until I was set to run my first marathon.   

I had lofty ideas for the marathon when I signed up to travel to Illinois, run the thing in Champaign-Urbana and visit my family.  April 12, the day of the race, was five months away.  I had run often enough 4 to 8 miles at a good clip so I figured I would step it up to marathon level with some more consistent training.  The training method is to do one long run per week and the rest medium to short ones.  Every week you increase the long run until you can do over 20 miles.  The weekly long runs could be 10, 10, then shorter runs for two weeks, then 10, 12, then two weeks shorter runs, then 14, 16 ,18, then two weeks shorter runs, then 20, then two weeks shorter runs, then 22, then two weeks of shorter runs, then 22 and month of tapering down the training until you are fresh for the marathon. 

Unfortunately, the schedule went awry with pain on my inner shins, so by Christmas I was a month off schedule.  Then in January I ran 14 miles while feeling a bit ill and pulled my calf muscle something awful.  There goes another couple of weeks so I was over a month behind by February and then I got a nasty lingering cold and fell almost two months behind.  I tried to make up for it and my legs suffered as a result,  bringing me two and a half months behind.  Then during a ridiculous 16 mile run in the wind and rain, I injured a tendon on the side of my knee and was finished even hoping to get in an 18 or 20 miler before the race.  And all that was before this back injury.

So I was talking about the back injury with my buddy Clint on the phone and he said to do a 22 mile training run the next weekend with three weeks left.  Being untrained with a sore Achilles, a sore tendon outside my knee and horrid lower back, I figured I would need much more than three weeks to recover.  I had to choose either to run the 26.2 without knowing anything close to the distance or suffer through 22 miles on a bad back to get to know the distance.  So I chose to go the 22 and risk a lack of recovery for the race. 

Until one has gone the distance, such as 22 miles of continuous running, there is no knowing that kind of exhaustion and pain.  It cannot be extrapolated.  I had to bring a holster of 32 ounces of water and gel packs for the trot.  After mile 17 or so and racing to keep up with some young fellow cruising around Lake Merced, I crashed hard, calves a little twitchy and horrible pain on my right side above my hip and in my groin as well as a stiff left knee.  I had been running slightly crooked the whole time due to my injury and it added up, took its toll, finally, with 5 miles to go.  I suffered back home, managing an 8 minute per mile pace for the whole run, still 4 miles shy of the actual marathon.

So to sum up: My goal in the beginning was to break 3 hours, a pipe dream.  Then it dropped to 3:15 and finally 3:30 after this run.    

Fortunately, my body recovered well and even though I was severely sore, I was able to manage 8 miles at a good clip only a week later.  The next two weeks before the marathon I only ran every other day and only for 5 or 6 miles.  I also took three full days rest before the race. 

But, I was not done because two nights before the race I felt a cold coming on, like a tired under-the-weather feeling.  I got basically no sleep that night because I was leaving for the airport at 4:45 am to catch my early flight to get to Champaign-Urbana.  Still feeling crumby the night before the race, I attended a huge pasta feed with my fellow marathoners and listened to an inspiring speech by ex- marathoner Dick Beardsly, who ran a 2:08 in Boston, 1982.  

Midnight rolled around and I couldn't sleep.  I had to get up at 5:30 am and eat atleast 2 hours before the 8 am start time, so I was worried.  Then I told myself I would sleep when I slept and if I didn't then adrenaline would carry me.  12:30 rolled around and I dozed off and awoke at 1:30, dozed off again and awoke at 4:56, sweating out my cold a bit and feeling much better, rested just enough to be ready.  My back was still a bit stiff but not so bad. 

There was yet one piece of unfinished business to accomplish before the race and I had all but given up hope of doing it when, yes, I ran into the bathroom and unloaded at 7:00 am, just before the shuttle left for the race.  Funny enough, at this point I knew I was OK to finish the race, even though up to that point, virtually nothing went well with my five months of training.  Never was regularity more crucial than before a 26.2 mile race. 

When the race started I was really moved to be part of it, to be doing this thing I had pointed toward for five months.  I stuck with the 3:30 pace team but left them behind after 3 miles.  I caught up to the 3:20's and left them behind, cruising easily until the 17 mile point when I started to suffer miserably from groin pain and lower back pain.  This I could have suffered to keep my pace had it not been for my calves starting to clench up in knots, preventing me from thrusting with the lower legs.  It was a delicate balance, keeping the pace on the edge of total collapse, barely avoiding a horrible clenching pain in my calves.  And I still had 9 miles left: 9 miles, a fairly long run when fresh, but an eternity at this point.  I seriously questioned if I could run the rest but somehow it only got gradually worse and I steadily kept on.  The 3:20 pacers passed me at mile 18 and now I struggled to hold off the 3:30 pacers.  Fortunately, I had built up a sizable lead on them and managed to finish at 3:28.   

My father and stepmom, Louisa, and my younger brother Andy and his fiancé Eemer, planned it beautifully as far as cutting through to different points of the race to cheer me on.  I never lost my awareness or acknowledgment of the crowd, which really kept me in check, kept me focused and light-hearted.  I did gasp to my dad and Andy after the 22 mile mark that I was feeling like total crap as they strode along side of me with words of encouragement.  It was nice to tell somebody what was going on because I still looked pretty smooth, though I felt the opposite. 

I gained a renewed respect for fellow humanity because some runners ahead of me ran with awkward strides that would kill me after 8 miles.  Others didn't look as athletic but still outclassed me.  Others were clearly older than I yet bounced by me in stiffer strides toward the end of the race, congratulating me and half telling me, "I can still take you down, kid."  But Hell, I am no kid at 39 years old and I handed a handy amount of ripped up and speciman-like 25 year olds their asses on this run, too.  I loved everyone out there, all of them.  There was even a 6' 8" guy who I passed at mile 3 who strode past me at mile 25, gritting it out and bearing that tremendous pressure on his lanky frame the whole time.  The people I passed in the beginning and who showed up to pass me at the end and vice-versa were like old friends.

When I crossed the finish line I walked a bit and then I started crying full-on.  I don't know why.  I guess it was just tears of joy to have done such a thing, to have prevailed over the pain, to have set a goal and stood by my word for real on the clock with no ambiguities.  I cried again when I walked over to my family at the edge of the stadium field and I saw I had inspired them, had given them my word and had that word come to pass.  It was no big thing, just a guy doing a marathon like thousands of others.  But in its ordinariness lies it greatness because those thousands of others are all great, all tough with a lot of heart, all willing to go through anything to keep their word.  And that is what we really are, not the flesh and bone, the awkward bodies, the ugly strides. 

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