How to Train For and Run a Marathon Poorly, Part I:
Run Such an Epic Race, Morgan Freeman Will Narrate It
In October 2015, my sister Heather and I ran a marathon in the Redwoods of northern California, because, like many ideas cooked up after a bottle of cheap wine and a few pathetic giggles, it “sounded like a good idea at the time.” There was some kind of “We’re in Our 40’s and Still Got It” conviction in play as well. As I was still a fervent and enthusiastic consumer of fermented grape and grain products at the time, that tells you something about my decision-making. Having trotted many, many Thanksgiving race events in our past – at times with plush turkeys on our heads – we were veteran runners! There’s nothing like a handful of 5- and 10k’s to prepare you for a marathon:
There was the 7-mile cross-country race in 13°F flurries that one year up in Des Moines one Thanksgiving where we were narrowly edged out for umpteenth place by a loincloth-clad guy in sneakers flying along like Rudy Youngblood in Apocalypto.
There was a “Keep Austin Weird” run I did one blistering August with several thousand aptly-named dwellers of that city. That race almost broke me, and not due to the heat; toward the end of the route, despite my best and downright heroic efforts to keep ahead of the guy coming up behind me, I was passed by a patchouli-wafting, hippie-haired, pot-bellied geriatric in an orange thong and pink tutu. Watching his ass-cheeks jiggling like two over-ripe grapefruits under that tulle was a vomit-battling final half mile, but even so, the view going had to have been better than the one coming.
There was that one Dallas half marathon around White Rock Lake: the weather was perfect, the field was excited and cheerful, and Heather and I were well-trained for the most part. Around mile 10, after having endured at least 6 miles of my sweaty shirt grating the skin near my armpits, I was tired of running with my elbows out like a chicken trying to take flight. My trapezoids were cramping. I’d lost what mental edge I might have had in the first place, so Heather offered to trade shirts with me. Yeah, we were both filthy at that point, but it was sweat earned honestly, and maybe her shirt would pull a Johnny Gill and rub me the right way (man, was that a great song back in the day, or what? Those New Edition boys really went on to put out some great music…Where was I? Oh yes, story-time). No sooner had we pulled over, pulled off our shirts and were standing there tastefully and modestly clothed in our sport bras, some moron 🙄 schlepped by in a pair of Texas state flag shorts and roared, “Yeah, baby, take it all off!”
There was another year where we ran the Dallas Marathon relay with Aaron, Kristy and Rob, where each runner took a 5-mile leg with the anchor pulling a 10k. During one transition, we paused to watch a herd of the elite men's marathon runners gallop by, and they were beautiful! Admittedly, their graceful and effortless "race pace" was my hell-for-leather-boogie-man-is-chasing-me-so-time-to-haul-ass pace, but since they made it look easy...
How difficult could a marathon be? Clearly we had the experience and could deal with morons. Unfortunately, running a marathon has nothing to do with that.
