How to Train For and Run a Marathon Poorly, Part V:
Run Like Hell and Get the Agony Over With
This is going to be a long one, guys. Not unlike the marathon itself. In other words, if you can make it through this post, consider running a marathon. You can do it!
At 8 am sharp, the gun went off. The view of the colorful field of runners entering the redwood forest ahead of us was exhilarating. We were finally running our marathon!! Heather and I squealed.
There’s really no way to explain what it’s like to see the redwoods. Most trees are just large plants, and they are nice enough, I suppose. The redwoods – dear God, they are living organisms with a presence the average dogwood or elm just doesn’t have. You can literally see centuries of history displayed through their scars and burls. Entering the forest is like walking into a cathedral: it’s completely silent, the canopy towering hundreds of feet above. You can practically taste the earthy smell of damp bark (because we’re in a rainforest, more or less.). It creates wonder in me. It’s holy, and I felt tears in the back of my throat more than once. You just don’t see this kind of thing in the scrubs of Texas pinon and oak. Or anywhere.
The first 6 miles went by in a steady consistent 11:30 per mile pace – right on target – so that was encouraging. A lady passed us and recognized Heather’s Richardson Bike Mart T-shirt. We shared a moment of Dallas solidarity. There was a couple dressed in a bridal gown and tux who were running this thing for their honeymoon. Is not marriage hard enough, guys?
But running is 90% mental and a microcosm of life, and I couldn’t stop thinking about all the miles and struggle ahead of me. I told myself to focus only on the mile I was running, to think of completing each one as an accomplishment in itself. I was Ms. Pac Man, chomping up the miles: waka waka waka! Unable to stay in the present, I continued to worry about all the miles in front of me and do math: we were only at mile 7, only 9 miles into the race, still had 17 to go, etc. I ran and worried; worried and ran.
We finished the 13.1 miles. The half-marathoners peeled off to their finish, the lucky bastards. Heather and I rounded a corner and began our second out-and-back. This half was more of a mountainous route, with small unpaved roads curling up and down and around trees and streams. Glorious to look at; a challenge to run. The hills started to feel like a personal affront to my fitness, and my mental state deteriorated.
At mile 15, the meltdown that had been simmering for the last five miles boiled over. (It was my meltdown, not Heather’s, just to be clear. But hers will come…) Crying and wheezing like an asthmatic (honking, really), I stopped moving for the first time in 3 hours. Heather stopped too. Whatever she said, it was probably a Motivational Speech for the Ages Lost to History, but she got the bus moving again. We abandoned our marathon pace plan. The new plan was to walk up hills and run down them. Given the terrain, we started doing a lot of walking. We ate some GU. My legs were destroyed, but we kept moving forward, and to this day, that’s the thing I remember: no matter what happens, you’ve got to keep moving forward. Marathon Lesson #2. (Lesson #1 is to have a sister like mine, and if you don’t, that's a pity.)
Soon we started to see runners headed back down the hills toward us, and like any good leaders of a race, they looked strong and fast. I was afraid we were starting to look like road kill. But nothing was chafing, and you have to take the wins where you can get them.
Sometime around mile 17, we ran into the Dallas runner lady that we’d met earlier. By that time, we were desperate to see the turnaround to head back to the finish line. That was the milestone that would keep us alive and moving forward. Before that point, you can always quit, because you have less behind you than ahead. But once you’ve hit the turnaround, all you can do is head back.
“The turnaround is just ahead!” the Dallas runner lady chirped, and sped by.
Actual fact: the turnaround was NOT just ahead. We ran approximately 100 more miles. Returning runners kept assuring us it was “so close” and that we were “almost there!” During one of our walk breaks, Heather commenced her own meltdown, and it was glorious: what we later called her “Hate March.” It in no way resembled Germany’s triumphant goose-step into the Rhineland, but there was nearly the same level of malevolence. She was angry at the lack of a turnaround, angry that there was a hill to climb, angry that we’d decided to do such a dumb-ass thing like run a marathon at 40, of all the ridiculous ideas to have, and she was also angry at two crows that appeared to be stalking us. (I told her when I described this event later, I would upgrade them to vultures so it would seem deadlier in the retelling.)
We kept going, though. Finally we came to the blessed turnaround, and we were headed back to the finish. As one runner told us, “It’s only a 10k now.” And damned if that didn’t sound completely do-able. “Nothing but blue skies ahead!” I gasped, staggering. How did I suddenly become the cheerleader? THAT IS NOT MY ROLE. I AM THE SARCASTIC SHREW.
We began to meet runners who were behind us in the race, runners who had that same look of despair and fear that they would never make the turnaround as they trudged uphill. (How we were ahead of anyone by that point escapes me.)
“Turnaround’s just ahead!” I chirped.
“You’re mean,” said Heather. I just cackled.
The plan now became: pick runners ahead of us and try to mow them down - figuratively speaking. Astoundingly, we were gaining on one, an older gentleman walking along, loaded down with a Camelbak and belt of GU and snacks. He wearily but cheerily gave us a thumbs up as we passed him, and we continued on, feeling superior. After a while, we cooked up yet another race plan: pick a point up ahead, start running until we came to another selected point, where we’d walk, and so on. Heather made the selections on the run and walk points, and I agreed. Teamwork at its finest.
“We’ll run at that tree,” she would say, tiredly.
“Which tree?” I would ask.
“That big one.”
The mile markers kept coming, much too slowly. 22. 23. 24. I was very close to lying down on the gravel and using my tongue to inch my carcass forward. The mile between 24 and 25 was the longest distance that has ever, ever existed in the history of distance. The 25-mile marker would simply not come. We trudged and trudged. The elderly man we’d passed a few miles ago overtook us. Our bruised egos pointed out that while “running,” we’d been passed by an old man WALKING and weighed down like a pack animal. We told our egos to sit down and shut up. Finally – FINALLY!! – we saw the marker for 25, and we started grinning like idiots. After 25 miles, another one is just paperwork.
We crossed the 26-mile marker and saw the goal just ahead. We heard the 6 people that were still manning the race finish line cheering for us. We heard our names announced. We broke into a real run this time and crossed the finish line to get our medals, grinning like two fools. It was just after 2 pm, and we'd been on our feet for just under six hours. We'd finished our marathon!
