Well my marathon went well. I didn’t run as fast as I’d hoped to, but I did run it all and I finished in 3:58:01. Here are the results.
I felt so good and strong through about 16 or 17 miles and then I started to lose it and by mile 21 or so, I was really falling off my pace. The last five miles or so were something I’ve never experienced before on an emotional or physical level. Really there was nothing physical about it, I was running as fast as my legs would move, but really all the work was mental and emotional. I was on a painful auto-pilot.
The emotions of running a marathon are what have surprised me the most. At least three times during the race after seeing my family out there cheering I got choked up while running, but I didn’t really know why. I was fighting back tears and trying to catch my breath all at once.
By the end, that last mile was so hard – I was on fumes. After an uphill at 24, then a long straight finish where it sort of looks like you can see the end but it never seems to get any closer. It was hard. Finally from out of nowhere, I don’t even know what side of the street she was on, I heard my big sister shouting something like “Come on Patrick, way to go Patrick, your kids are right there at the end and they are so proud of you!” and she sounded so loud and strong to me and although everything was kind of blurry and I couldn’t even see her, I could hear her and I knew I’d made it. Her cheering almost killed me right then (emotionally) but it carried me across the line. When I did finish, I know a bunch of people were there waiting for me, excited to see me, but I had to just keep walking, I felt like I was about to literally pop with emotion and I knew if I saw anyone I knew, I would have lost it. Again, not sure why, just the pure emotion of pulling yourself through those final miles on nothing but raw emotion anyway, I think. It’s all so close to the surface. I spent about 10 minutes just pacing behind the school at the finish, literally ready to break into tears at any moment and it wasn’t because I was in pain (I was) or because I was so happy to finish (I was) or sad I didn’t run as fast as I wanted to (I was)…it was just emotion overflowing. I don’t remember ever being at that point in 35 years. My wife said she’s never seen me like that, sort of lost and not really sure what I wanted to do or even could do. The more I think about it the more I realize the marathon (at my level) is started and run for the most part with fitness but finished on pure emotion.
I did have some dark moments during the mid-late miles, around 18/19. I just remember looking a little bit in front of my feet and trying to will them to keep up the pace I had and it was all falling apart, and it really felt like looking down a dark tunnel for a few minutes. Like things actually looked dark, but it was a clear, crisp, sunny, fall day on Lake Champlain. Oh the mind tricks… My buddy Jamie who also ran the race said: “I think what you felt is exactly why people come back to run these things…it’s unexplainable to others (for the most part) but the emotion (regardless of positive, negative, happy, dark) is so overwhelming that it is kind of like a drug…”. That’s it.
Steve Prefontaine has a quote I’ve heard before – something like “Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.” At the end I couldn’t remember it exactly, but I found myself just saying over and over “pure guts, pure guts.” It was all I could remember of the line. It didn’t speed me up as I’d hoped it might, but at a minimum, it kept me moving . It was all I had left.
Looking back, the main issue was I ran the first half too fast. Too confident. A rookie mistake. I think in a while I’ll decide to run another one and run it smarter, not necessarily faster. Either way, it was one hell of an experience!
Finished up my marathon training today with a 3 miler. Halfway through I met my 4 year old son and ran about a quarter mile with him. We’d been planning to met up this way since last night and he was taking it very seriously.
“I have to get to rest and sleep well tonight, daddy,” he said just before bedtime last night. ‘We’ve got our training run tomorrow.” He brought it up again first thing this morning. When I got to my parents’ condo, where he spent the morning, he was there outside waiting – his running shoes on and his winter coat, hat and mittens on, too (it was 35 degrees)! As we ran we talked, mostly about running slow so we could make the whole two laps around the condos without stopping and about not hurting daddy when lovely kid started to kick at the back of my heels! We sprinted to the end and, surprise, he won. He couldn’t have been more happy, his little face all red and alive, from the cold and the exercise.
This wise boy taught me an important lesson at dinner last night when I was talking to my wife across the table yet again about how I was stressing the race and my pace questions. Without any expression really, and hardly taking a break from eating his carrots, he said, “Don’t worry about it daddy. Running the race should just be fun.”
So right.
Finally, I had a midnight epiphany last night – how to carry my marathon food (3 packs of Gu and approx. 10 gummy worms) during the race without any packs of any kind. This is another detail I’ve been stressing about for weeks. But then last night I woke up and realized my cycling jersey – the green PMU, mountain stage winner shirt by Nike from the Tour de France – would be the perfect undershirt as it has pockets in the back, is tight fitting, and is still Dri-FIT. The food bounced around a bit during today’s run when I tested it out but not a big deal. I have have found my solution!
To all my fellow Green Mountain Marathoners on Saturday up in South Hero, Vermont, here’s to a good, long, fun run!
My right shin hurts, the top of my left foot hurts, my right ankle seems weak, my right shoulder is sore, my left calf is numb…I sort of feel like this Shel Silverstein poem (which lately, among all the others in Where The Sidewalk Ends, we’ve been getting a big kick out of for bedtime reading before the kids go to bed). I have these pains that kind of come and go as easily as breathing. I know they are phantom pains, not really there and just tricks of the mind, but still the mind is powerful and it’s trickery is hard to get around sometimes. But I will prevail.
In the few days left before the marathon now, I have indeed had my moments of calm confidence. Like yesterday when I was out for a gentle 4 mile mid-day run. I ran an fine pace and felt like I could probably go on forever. Granted it was just 4 miles, but after all the training I’ve done the past 12 weeks, I know I can run a marathon. Then I also have these moments of random phantom pains and racing-heart-inducing thoughts of totally hitting the wall with 3 miles to go in the race…I’m doing this all to myself. I know this. For I am competitive and after all this training, I want to run the best race I can run. I know on one hand, like everyone tells me, I should be smart and run it easy and just try to finish. But you know what? I also sort of think that kind of theory is low-balling myself. I’m a better runner than just someone out for a 26.2 mile jog. I believe I can push myself and (mostly) run 26.2. Oh, the difference in my mind between Jogging and Running is huge.
I was once out for a run on some trails in the woods of Beaverton, Oregon near the Nike campus and I came upon a class on a little field trip. One of the little kids called out, “Everyone move, it’s a jogger!” I almost stopped and corrected him – I am not a jogger, I am a runner. But instead I simply picked it up a notch and ran by him faster than any jogger he’d seen lately.
Well anyway, this is all just motivation-speak for myself at this point. Just documenting the thinking that goes on within. We’ll see what happens on Saturday morning. Either I decide to take everyone’s advise and be safe or I try to run the race of my life and hope I make it to the end. One of them certainly sounds like a more fun option to me for sure! Might make the best sense to combine to two theories and run smart, run well, run happy and simply enjoy what all the training was for – a sweet, long October run along the shores of Lake Champlain and nothing more.
