It's been more than a month since my last Runner Confidential, and in that post I talked about the process of training for this marathon. It chronicled my first marathon and how miserable it was, and I mentioned that, for the first time in my life, I was actually trying a marathon training plan.
I made that post before school started. Life has gotten a lot more complicated since then. The school year has gotten off to a good start, but it's definitely shaping up to be the most nose-to-the-grindstone year I've ever experienced. Getting to school early and staying late (and doing school work at home almost every night) has almost eliminated my ability to run in the mornings, and that's stymied the training plan I'd started.
But surely a few lackluster weeks of training wouldn't harm me that much. I'd still been putting in the weekly long runs, which are (arguably) the most important part of the training plan. And I'd been squeezing in training runs whenever I could. How much could my training have been affected?
Which brings us back to the marathon.
The Air Force Marathon on the Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, to be exact. Hillary and I drove to Dayton Friday evening, and after getting trapped at Wright State University's Nutter Center because of the 5K (they blocked the road that led out of the parking lot) and having to change hotels (our first one resembled something out of Silent Hill), we made it to Dayton.
After my last debacle of a marathon (see the last post, linked above), I'd made a list of things in my head that had gone wrong that I'd try my best to fix with this race.
Not eating enough carbs the night before? French toast dinner at Cracker Barrel.
Not enough food in my stomach before the race? I'd eat a bagel as I drove to the starting line.
Too dehydrated the night before? Drink water until my eyes felt like they were going to float out of my head.
Because of stringent parking regulations (and the promise that they'd once again close roads after the race started), Hillary couldn't drop me off at the starting line. Which really stunk, because her support and encouragement is one of the driving factors of my life. The thought of starting a race without a send-off from her was downright depressing. But she also needed her sleep, and I didn't want her to have to sit around, twiddling her thumbs at the starting line, waiting for them to reopen the roads.
So I let her sleep, and Saturday morning I drove myself to the Nation Museum of the United States Air Force. She wrote me the note above after I'd gone to bed. She was up later than me because she was feeling horrible and had to drive to the nearest Wal-Mart to get some medicine, but she was still thoughtful enough to leave this for me. It's reasons like this that make me the luckiest guy in the world.
And this was the only picture I took at the race that morning. Can you believe it? I was surrounded by huge, decommissioned United States Air Force planes, and I took a picture of the stupid port-o-potty. I think I got a kick of their spelling "clean" with a K.
The race was delayed half an hour. Hillary later told me it was because of lightning, but I'm pretty sure they had a hard time getting everyone parked in time for the marathon to begin.
At 8:00AM, I started running.
I should have known from the beginning that something was wrong because my headphones didn't work correctly. I shouldn't have been surprised; they were a cheap pair American Airlines gave me for free when Hillary and I flew to Canada in July. From the start of the race, sound only came out of one ear bud. Although whether it was the right or left ear bud that worked kept alternating, there was never a point when both worked at the same time.
But that wasn't a big deal. No one's marathon time has ever been ruined because of faulty earbuds. But someone's marathon time (namely, MINE) had been ruined because of dehydration. Forget that dehydration was to blame for my feeling awful after the Flying Pig Marathon last May; I did NOT want to be in that boat when the race ended.
Water station at mile 1? I wasn't about to pass it up. So I drank.
Lack of nutrients also ruined me last time. So mile 3 seemed like a great place to eat my first energy gel, which I'd crammed into the tiny pocket on my running shorts.
Another water station? I'd better have Gatorade this time, to make sure I'm replenishing sodium and electrolytes.
My hamstrings are hurting at mile 10? I should wait until at least the halfway point to take my Tylenol and use my Icy Hot (also crammed into the tiny pocket). That way they have a better chance of lasting longer.
Mile 13 approached. I thought I was doing pretty good. I mean, my hamstrings were getting sorer by the mile at that point, and my feet were sore, but I thought that was to be expected.
But at mile 14, the pains had gone from bad to worse. And mile 15, worse still. Until, by mile 16, it felt like someone was holding a blow torch on my hamstrings and had taken a hammer to my arches. So I allowed myself a little rest time, when I stopped my fitness watch and simply let myself be still for a few minutes. If I injured myself, not only would I not set a personal record, I may not finish at all.
It was humid and hot in Dayton that day, even if it was very overcast. My mouth felt dry. So during this rest, I drank two cups of Gatorade at a water station, and ate a Nutra-Grain bar I'd stashed in the back of my compression sock (which isn't as gross as it sounds).
After around 5 minutes, when I decided my rest was over, I tried to run again. But the rest hadn't helped at all. My arches and hamstrings felt as awful as before. And now I had a full stomach, which was starting to cramp, to add to the mix.
No problem, I thought. I'll just walk for a bit. Until I start to feel better.
And my walking break lasted for the next five miles.
It was around mile 19, when I once again tried to run and was forced back to an old-lady-speed-walking-around-the-mall pace, that frustration started to set in. I'd spent all that time training, reading, and working to make my marathon time better. For the first time, I'd actually listened to running experts and followed a plan. I'd prepared myself as best as I knew how, trying to learn from past mistakes and taking all the necessary precautions.
For what? For this?
It wasn't until around mile 22 that I was finally able to incorporate some running back into my locomotion, and even then it was only for a half-mile at a time. I even psyched myself up to run the last mile of the marathon, when the Museum was back in sight and I could practically taste the free banana. And even then I had to slow to a walk mid-mile to get enough strength to carry on to the finish.
When all was said and done, I'd run the slowest marathon of my life: 5 hours, 35 minutes. Far worse than the Las Vegas marathon, the one where I'd clearly gone in over my head and had no idea what I was facing.
Of course, there were plenty of extenuating circumstances I tried to blame my poor time on. As I mentioned before, it was very humid that day. And, being that most of the course was around airfields, a 20 mph cross breeze almost constantly batted me around like a ping-pong ball. My shoes were at least 3 years old, which I could at least blame for my arch pain. And the intermittent rain showered the course for the final four miles.
But when the race was over and I had to drive myself back to the hotel (where poor Hillary had been trapped for the entire day), I was forced to face a fact that honestly hadn't occurred to me until that moment: that it may not be physiologically possible for me to run the Boston Marathon.
In order to qualify for Boston, I'd have to run a Boston qualifying marathon in under 3 hours, 5 minutes for my age group. And yes, I knew this starting the race. But I'd started the Air Force Marathon thinking that my efforts were going to have some measurable impact on my ability, would at least put this impossible goal a few inches closer.
Instead, the goal has been pushed farther away than ever.
When the race was over, before I got back to the hotel to rescue Hillary from her isolation, when I was alone with only my thoughts for company, I thought this would be a jagged pill to swallow. But it wasn't. In fact, the realization that Boston may be out of my reach didn't bother me much at all. We spent the rest of the day lazing around the hotel room, watching college football. After that, we had dinner at Smokey Bones (aww yiss), and then I went to bed with sore hamstrings and a smile on my face.
Shouldn't abandoning this dream... I don't know... hurt a little more?
But then I thought back to when I ran my first marathon, in 2012, as a metaphor of beginning my life again after my divorce. I didn't run that race with the intent of punishing myself into training oblivion. I ran it because I thought it looked like fun, and because I got to run it with one of my good friends. And I kept running marathons because I wanted to challenge myself. And because I liked the electric atmosphere that surrounds racing. And because I'm a glutton for cool-looking medals.
In fact, the more I thought about my "dream" of running Boston, the more it occurred to me that it wasn't much of a dream at all. More of an afterthought, a 'next logical step' to racing. I had planned it for myself because it was seemed to come next in a list of tasks, without bothering to think if it what what I really wanted.
And what I briefly considered a physical limitation - simply being physically unable to push my body to complete such a race in such a time - wasn't really worth getting bent out of shape over.
There's someone who, daily, reminds me of that lesson.
Even though I know it's unlikely, I hope she always stays so blissful. I hope Zoe always has such blind enthusiasm for life, always sees everyone as equals, and never lets the difference in her normal and her classmates' normal bring her down. I hope she continues to remind me how great God is, and how much He's given me, and to never take for it for granted.
And I hope I can provide a good example for her. I hope that I can show her that there's nothing wrong with striving to get better, with pushing your limits. But I also need to show her that there's no shame in admitting that something may be physically outside the realm of possibility. And that, as long as you're doing what you love and you can go to bed saying you did your best, nothing else really matters.
I like racing. I like the atmospehere, the way entire towns turn out to cheer the runners on, and I am a sucker for cool medals. Maybe I'll run Boston one day. Maybe I won't. Maybe one day I'll have to dial back my racing and stick to half-marathons, or 5Ks. Maybe I won't. When all is said and done, I won't remember much from each individual race; they're simply going to be reduced to a series of meals hanging on my wall and bibs stuffed in a drawer.
What IS going to endure is the way I conduct myself upon realizing that something may simply be beyond my power.
One thing's certain: I'm never going the route of 'drastic overcompensation' again.
(Someone remind me of this post if I want to buy a sports car when I turn 50).
As far as medals go, I think this is the largest one in my collection. That's not overcompensating, right? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
