RO$$'s Guide to Half-Assing a Marathon

This whole Marathon a Trois venture humbly started out as a fun idea amongst three good friends. But ever since this blog got going and saw its readership explode like an Appalachian meth lab, the public has been clamoring to see our three heroes race to the death rather than hold hands as they cross the finish line.

Early oddsmakers (Oliver) have pegged Sam as the favorite, with Gordon being second. Yours truly is expected to stagger across the line in dead last, desperately trying to out-jog a herd of obese women while mucus pours from my nose and shit runs down my legs.

For many reasons, this makes total sense. Sam ran as much in his off week as I did in my biggest week in four-and-a-half years. And, as was noted in my Miami Heat post, if you ranked the three of us by what we accomplished in college, it would look something like this: 1) Sam, 1A) Gordon, 58) Me. But everyone's overlooking one crucial factor -- this isn't my first trip to the Running a Marathon While in Mediocre Shape rodeo. Running a marathon isn't the same as running a 5k, as evidenced by Meb winning a silver medal in the Olympics and the New York marathon even though his PR is slower than Paula Radcliffe's. Sam and Gordon may have better PRs than me at every collegiate distance, but I've got guile, baby.

But, the mensch that I am, I can't resist the urge to share my secrets with the rest of the world. So here are my three keys to half-assing a marathon.

1. Don't ahead of yourself in the first half of the race

I don't know what it's like to run a marathon when you're in good shape, but I can tell you that when you're in mediocre shape, if you feel tired at any point in the first half of the race, you are going too fast. This sounds obvious, but the adrenaline will be flowing and the course will be flat in the early miles, so 6:45 pace will feel as easy as 7:45 pace does on your normal runs. When that happens, you might feel like you're having a once-in-a-lifetime day, and you might think you can tough through the pain of the second half because you've spent your life doing the same at shorter distances, but if you're relying on toughness to get you through any stage of the race prior to mile 20, you're doomed. Trust me on this one.

(An important caveat to this rule: If you always run, say, 7:10 pace on your normal runs, and you feel kind of crappy running that fast in the actual race, just suck it up and gut it out. Running 7:30 pace might sound like a good idea, but the slower you run, the more time you're going to spend on your feet. If you're half-assing a marathon, running for more than three hours is probably going to suck no matter what, so in this particular scenario you might as well run your regular pace and try to get it over with, because the race will end badly regardless of how it plays out.)

2. Focus on running efficiently

At shorter distances, having an efficient stride isn't something you need to actively worry about. Just run a lot of miles, and over time your efficiency will naturally improve. (Watch any high school meet, even one with elites, and this statement becomes obvious.) Plus, if you're running an 800, running efficiently doesn't matter that much. But when you're half-assing a marathon, you need to save every ounce of energy that you can. I try to constantly monitor my stride throughout the race. Where are my arms? How are my feet striking the ground? Am I maintaining an upright posture? Thinking like this also gives me something to think about other than how many miles I have left to run. Anything's better than that.

3. Acclimate yourself to running while you feel like dogshit

This is crucial. Going out and doing a bunch of seven mile runs when you feel fresh as a daisy is all but useless; it has nothing in common with the third hour of a marathon. But deliberately running only the hilliest routes possible isn't very fun, so, outside of doing that or running two hours a day (i.e., training properly), how should one prepare for the fatigue that will inevitably set in at some point past the 25k mark? The key is to make feeling like crap as natural a component of your training as lacing up your shoes.

When "training" for my two most recent marathons, I was running to and from work three or four times a week, four miles each way. Every time I ran home it was my second run of the day, and the route was largely uphill. Those runs sucked. But when I ran the Pittsburgh Marathon in 2009, it wasn't until mile seventeen that I felt as shitty as I did every time I ran home. Realizing that gave me a huge mental boost at a key point in the race (the "I can't believe I still have to run ten more miles" point).

I no longer run to and from work, but this year I'm doing a good job of making sure all my runs start around 7:00 pm after a full day of work, and that I always run alone. I also try to run exclusively on frozen snow/ice when the opportunity affords itself. Come race day, running on flat, even terrain in the daylight with two friends is going to feel like walking.

My guess is that Gordon is doing a great job of keeping the misery ratio as high as possible for his runs, but, despite the fact that he lives in Syracuse, I worry that too many of Sam's run are of the "Hey, friends, let's take a long lunch and go frolicking together!" variety.