I could not have asked for better day, or a better course, on which to run my first marathon, the Peak Performance Maine Marathon. The morning was clear and blue, about 45 degrees when I shed my fleece jacket and lined up for the start. With all the adrenalin and excitement, it felt perfect. We’d left before dawn, Kristen my sister Ana and I, and driven out to Portland. The marathon staging area was the University of Southern Maine, which made everything convenient – we parked in the campus garage, registered at Sullivan Gym (where there also showers available after the race!), and strolled down to the starting area with a couple of thousand other runners. The race started at the Back Cove and ran along the bay, up through Mackworth Point in Falmouth, and then up Route 88 to Yarmouth. Then back the way we’d come.
I really got to enjoy the scenery on the way out; expanses of blue water, rural roads, little neighborhoods, a bumper crop of political yard signs, autumn foliage. I have never felt so good running as I did for the first thirteen miles or so. My average pace over that stretch was 7:21 minutes per mile. On the flatter parts of the course I was running 7:15s or faster. Which blows my mind, because that’s the pace at which I ran the Yankee Homecoming 10-miler back in July, and I was wiped out after ten miles. It’s amazing what training does. Another great part of the first 13 miles was meeting a Bloomberg news reporter from Detroit – he’d grown up in Maine and was back to run the race for the second time with his father. Turns out we had some mutual acquaintances at the AP bureau in Concord. This underscored another reason for me why not to wear an MP3 player in races. I would have missed a great chat!
The turnaround just past mile 13 is where I began to feel my legs. Little cramps in my calves and hamstrings, heaviness. But it wasn’t bad. And I held my pace … for the most part. By the time I climbed the last big hill at the end of mile 17, I was averaging a 7:29 pace for the second half, and given the speed for the first part, I was still harboring hope for a Boston Qualifying time.
Then at mile 21 I hit the wall. And ran through. I was still hanging in around a 7:35 pace, but my body just wanted to stop. It wasn’t my legs or lungs; something deeper. I felt completely used up.
At mile 23 a couple of things happened. I had this weird feeling of, “okay, here we go, into the wilderness.” Mile 23 was new territory. The farthest I’d ever run in my life. I’d done 22-milers in training, albeit at a much, much slower pace. But this was new.
Then I hit another wall. This wall may have been the real wall. It made the mile 21 wall feel more like a picket fence. My pace was still slipping, from 7:30 to 7:45 and finally 8 minute miles. Then 8:30s. I fought back to 8s a couple of times during those last three miles, but I knew the BQ time was beyond me.
In the week or so leading up the race, as I’d been assessing my fitness, my training logs, the effectiveness of my taper, I’d come up with three numbers: 3:15 would my dream run, a Boston Qualifying time on a first marathon, and frankly a speed I felt was going to be just out of reach; 3:20 would be great; 3:25 would be my target. But on the morning of, I changed my mind. I figured if I was going to have any chance running the BQ time, I was going to need to set out running that pace. So I did.
Now here in the last three miles, I was glad I’d come out at a strong (for me) pace, and been able to hold it for as long as I had – but I was slipping. The BQ was gone for sure, but there was still a chance of coming in at 3:20. But even that goal was being stripped out my head by whatever it is that happens to you at the end of a race this long; your goal becomes to keep running, not to stop. All your thinking revolves around simply taking another step, making it to the next telephone pole. There is genuine, indescribable but somehow tolerable-because-self-inflicted suffering after the wall. It is unimaginable that you will be able run another ten steps, much less one mile, two, three or four. Or five. But you do.
Good-intentioned people on the sidelines call out, “keep going, you’re almost there.” But you are not almost there. Not even close. Because time is different there; even five minutes seems to last forever.
By the end, with just a half mile to go, when in a shorter run I would have been buoyed by the proximity of the finish, I still couldn’t imagine how I was going run that distance; it seemed immense. Sometimes I’d look down at the Garmin and be surprised to find I was still running 8:20s/8:30s; I felt like I moving in terrible slow motion, like in a nightmare. Only in the last 400 meters or so did that crushing sense of distance and exhaustion begin to lift.
I ran past the kids from the martial arts center playing the huge eastern drums. I saw the finish line, heard the announcer call my name, saw Kristen and Ana waving and cheering, raising the camera. I smiled and waved, lifted my arms over my head. Crossed the timing pads on the finish line. At 3 hours, 19 minutes and 25 seconds. Later I’d find out that meant tenth in my age division, and 73 out 733 runners overall. I stopped the timer on my Garmin. A race volunteer put a medal around my neck while another one wrapped a space blanket around me. A man knelt and removed my timing chip from ankle for me. Someone else, a military man, I think, handed me a bottle of water. Everyone seemed very gentle, careful in what they were doing.
After that I couldn’t talk for about 10 minutes. Any time I tried to say more than a word or two, I got choked up. It was as if all of the physical parts of me were stripped away, and all the emotional parts of me, the nerves of my heart and soul, were right there on the surface.
“How was it?” Kris asked at one point.
“Hard.” I said. That was about all I could manage.
I walked up and down for five minutes, ate a half a bagel with peanut butter, an orange wedge, then another because they tasted so good, then a banana. According to my Garmin I’d burned 3,687 calories during the race. During the run I’d consumed 32 ounces of water, two cups of Gatorade and four 100-calorie packets of Gu.
I was about to be very hungry. I showered and changed at the Sullivan Gym and we headed into downtown Portland to find someplace to eat lunch. We parked, I ceremoniously affixed the 26.2 sticker to the back of my car, and we walked around for a while. We ended up at Empire Dine & Dance, a funky little bar and restaurant with old brick walls, battered wood tables, high ceilings and original local art hanging on the walls. I ate a huge burger stuffed with cheese, bacon and onions, a pile of French fries, two pints of Geary’s, and bruschetta with goat cheese. After that I felt full, happy and oddly alert. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, even though I was exhausted.
I’d scheduled a vacation day from work for today, not being sure what sort of condition I’d be in. I feel great. Except for my legs, which hurt when I go up and down stairs. But otherwise, great. The vacation day is nice anyway, though, a chance to reflect, spend some time with the kids . . . and stretch. To feel grateful to the folks who organized the marathon and to the other runners for helping to make my first one such an amazing experience. . . and to Kris and Ana for making such a big deal out of it, and to Kris’ mom for coming out on Thursday and spending the weekend preparing so many amazing pre-race carbo-loading feasts.
And of course, to start scouring the race calendars and picking the next one. Because I am beyond a shadow of a doubt hooked. And next time? BQ time, I’m coming for you.
Tidbits that didn’t fit in this essay but may be useful for others thinking about a first marathon:
- At the peak of my training, I ran between 45 and 50 miles a week.
- I did two 22-mile long runs, one 21 miler, a 19 miler, a couple of 18s, etc.
- Four weeks before the race I did a simulation run – 16 miles at race pace.
- I tapered for about 3 1/2 weeks.
- The last week of my taper I ran two 4 mile runs and one 3 miler.
- I did one six mile tempo run (at about 7:15 pace for the last month) a week.
- I did one interval speed workout a week – for the last month with the Manchester Athletic Alliance running club on Wednesday evenings at the track at Livingston Park.
- I originally wanted to drop 20 pounds before this race. I lost about 7, but felt like I needed to keep eating heartily to keep my energy high and rebuild muscle.
- I didn’t use a formal training program; I mixed and matched several different ones, but tried to be logical about increasing distance and speed from week to week, usually not much more than 10 percent.
- I did all my long runs alone, with my MP3 player, usually with either an audio book or three or four U2 albums on shuffle.
- I use a Garmin 205 to monitor my pace and track my distance. I download the data to Sporttracks software.
- I wear Nike Air Pegasus sneakers, and replace them every 500 miles.
- I run in the early morning before everyone gets up, sometimes on my lunch break at work, sometimes at night after we put the kids down. I fit ‘em in where I can.
- The Maine Marathon route is little hilly, but not nearly as hilly as any training run you make in Manchester, NH.
Tags: marathon, marathon running, portland, Running
Hi Ernesto,
Don’t know if you’ll see this, but I found your description of the last miles and moments of the marathon some of the most well-written I’ve ever seen (at least via google!), and equally matched to my own efforts and struggles:
“…whatever it is that happens to you at the end of a race this long; your goal becomes to keep running, not to stop. All your thinking revolves around simply taking another step, making it to the next telephone pole. There is genuine, indescribable but somehow tolerable-because-self-inflicted suffering after the wall. It is unimaginable that you will be able run another ten steps, much less one mile, two, three or four. Or five. But you do.
Good-intentioned people on the sidelines call out, “keep going, you’re almost there.” But you are not almost there. Not even close. Because time is different there; even five minutes seems to last forever.
By the end, with just a half mile to go, when in a shorter run I would have been buoyed by the proximity of the finish, I still couldn’t imagine how I was going run that distance; it seemed immense.”
Luckily, though a tad slower than you (3:20:08 in Chicago)…I’m was also a bit older (42). So I got Boston by 51 seconds. I did spend bulk of my qualifying race trying to re-calculate my splits to make up for the :36 I lost in the mad dash for the outhouse at mile 6.
Then I felt the unimaginable burn at about mile 22…but as you suggested…one telephone pole at a time!
Anyway, I’m sure your Boston qualifier is well within reach, if you haven’t achieved it already.
Thanks for the true words and training tips, and honest assessment of your own struggles.
I’ll take your words and thoughts to the line in Hopkinton…
John Miller
Leawood, KS
John,
Congrats on your BQ and good luck at Boston! It’s a great accomplishment!
And thank you for the kind words about my post. I’m glad that it rang true for you. That was a few years ago now, but that race will remain a pinnacle in my memory for sure. Nothing quite like it.
I did get my BQ, at Bay State in Lowell MA, and then ran Boston 2010. PR’d with a 3:12:49, a lot of which I attribute to the Pfitzinger training schedule (18 weeks, up to 55 miles per week) in his Advanced Marathoning book. This really helped me get stronger.
Again, thanks for the comments, and best of luck at Boston! I won’t be there this year, but I’ll be running the Gansett Marathon two days before, so I’m likely on the same training cycle you are right now. Enjoy!