Spring 2007

Marathon 15: St Louis Redux

My spring marathon was supposed to be in Atlanta, but because of a mishap, I never made my flight. Since I was all trained with nowhere to run, I decided to try the Spirit of St Louis Marathon again. I ran it last year and set my Personal Record of 3:29:54. I was planning to run the half marathon anyway during my visit to see some friends from my college days, so when the mishap occurred, it just made sense to run the full 26.2 miles.

The running part of this story isn't that different from last year; same hilly course, same goal. What's different is that this time I was afraid. After setting a PR last spring, my Chicago Marathon results were less than pleasing because I bonked three-quarters of the way through. I didn't tell anyone this, but I was afraid that last year was either a lucky fluke or I had peaked in terms of marathon speed and would now start getting slower as I get older. It didn't help that my last 20 mile training run was not even in the zip code of good.Andrea and I at the Expo

It's really easy to lose sight of everything when you let your fears get the best of you.  All training season long, there was a lot of stuff going on in my non-running world. Besides the usual medley of distractions, many of my personal and professional relationships were reaching a critical mass. The balances between give and take had disintegrated. Being able to run, let alone finish a marathon was often the furthest thing from my mind during training, but now the time had come to actually run this race and I felt completely unprepared.

I needed to figure out a way not to bonk during the race. Bonking is the technical term for when your body mutinies against you during a run, what we use to call hitting the wall.  A basic tenant of running marathons is to not try anything new during the race that you didn't do during your training.  You don't even wear new socks!  But what I was doing during training was not working. 

When I mentioned this to some friends who were also racing this weekend, I was given somewhat unorthodox advice.

My head was swimming in a sea of information overload and I was struggling to make sense of it. It got very overwhelming very quickly. On the one hand, it's too late to test out any of these suggestions and I knew better.  On the other hand, the fear of bonking made it very tempting to cave in and try something desperate.

My friend Julie thinks I’m nuts for running marathons, but she still indulged my runner religion and participated in pre-race rituals. The nights before the race we ate carbs for dinner and rented DVDs.  For the majority of the weekend, I didn't even think about the fact that I had a 26.2 mile run coming up.  I just enjoyed the catch up time with a friend I don't get to see often enough. I managed to get a good night sleep two nights before the race -- in the purple room with the Hello Kitty alarm clock that her daughter graciously gave up so I'd have a place to sleep -- but the night before was almost sleepless, more like a long nap.  The Purple Guest Room

While the forecast for Race Day called for good running weather, it never seems that way at 5am when you head out to the start.  The race began at 7am and it didn't even start to warm up until about 30 minutes before the gun.  It was also windier than last year.  Soon it was time to take off my sweats, line up and run 'til it's done as this race's slogan went. 

The Running the Race part of this story

In order to appease the Running Gods, I wore shorts.  This must have appeased them because the temperature would reach 55 degrees that morning, a runner couldn't ask for better weather.  On the back of my race bib I had my checkdowns -- Mile 6, Mile 13.1, and Mile 20 -- and the times I needed to be at each marker in order to have a shot at a Boston Qualifying time (3:15 for me).  My plan was to take a gel every 5 miles, an endurolyte pill every 20 minutes and alternate between water and gatorade at each station, walking through them if need be.

Some marathon pundits feel that walking through water stations early gives you short rest breaks that don't affect your time.  Others feel that every second counts and you should be able to run an entire marathon non-stop.  I think it's one of those things that's gonna vary from race to race and runner to runner, but in short: a stop or two isn't gonna be your undoing, but stopping at every water station won't help your cause either.

At Mile 6 I'm precisely on target but it's too early to get excited or to worry about pace.  In fact, I'm really just running at a comfortable pace and not concerned with my time much at all.  At Mile 13.1, I'm about two minutes behind, but I can attribute it to the port-o-potty break I had to make. I'm still running at a comfortable pace sub-8 minute pace well aware that I've been running for almost two hours.

Then the hills started to attack. While I feel like I'm moving in slow motion, I do manage to pass people who are walking or on the side attempting to stretch a sore calf. Try as I might, I can't coax any more speed out of my legs. On the downhills, I simply make up the lost time on the inclines. At Mile 20 I'm 5 minutes behind pace.  I'm running faster and stronger than I did at this point last year but not enough to finish with a better time. But then I think about the stories from Atlanta and realize how lucky I am to be running these hills instead. Thanks to a steady diet of gel, endurolytes and determination, the Running Gods grant me another strong finish. And you know what? I ran in a new shirt that I bought at the Expo!


at the finish in my new race shirt
Final Thoughts
When I crossed the finish line, I looked up at the clock.  A medical tent volunteer came up to me.  I guess the look on my face said I needed help.  I waived her off and made my way toward the refueling line.  My time turned out to be 3:29:58, though I wouldn't know that for a few hours.  It didn't matter that I was actually four seconds slower than last year.  What mattered was that I ran my own race, listened to my own needs and found a way to get from the start to the finish line without bonking.


Stay tuned...

Michael

 


 

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