After a long-awaited week of doing nothing more active than plopping down in front of the TV upon returning home from work, it's high time I give my thoughts on last weekend's race and, more broadly, this whole MaT adventure. First, I'll cover the race itself.
At about 6:45, Sam, Gordon, and I took our final pre-race dumps and set off for the start line, elbowing our way through enough people that we were only about ten yards off the line at the start. The gun went off, and Gordon and I watched Sam quickly disappear before settling into a relaxed pace. Before the race I had reminded Gordon to leave the pacing to me, not only because of his exuberance at the start of our half-marathon in March and the fact that I'm a control freak, but also because at Pittsburgh the half-marathoners and relay runners start alongside the actual marathoners, so it's easy to get sucked into running faster than you should. Our first mile was 6:58, which was a little slower than I'd set out for, but seeing as how it's better to be too conservative than too aggressive in the early miles, I wasn't concerned.
We picked things up a little bit in the second mile, which we covered in 6:40. From there we started taking regular inventory of how we both felt -- how comfortable we were with the pace, how our legs felt, etc. We both felt pretty similar. Neither of us felt great, but we were slowly warming up. Over the next few miles, my mind slowly shifted from dreading how far we had to go, to resigned indifference. For me, the key to running 26.2 miles without losing your mind is to simply accept the fact that you're going to be running for a really, really long time and not worry about when you'll be done.
My primary concern heading into this marathon, as opposed to the ones I'd run in the past, was that I knew I was in good enough shape to run faster than I do on my everyday runs, but due to my lack of preparatory workouts, I didn't have a firm idea of how much faster. I figured we should shoot for 6:45 pace, and see how it felt. Then, right as we'd settled into running in the low 6:40s, Gordon's stomach began its violent rebellion. It was right after the 6 mile mark, at the end of a brief, but slightly steep downhill, that Gordon first mentioned his stomach hurting. Since we'd already taken water a few times at that point, I figured it was nothing more than a stitch. But as we left the North Side, crossed the West End Bridge, and looped through the West End before heading down Carson Street, it became apparent that Gordon's cramp might be serious.
I'd hoped that running down Carson Street, a mostly flat, 2-mile-or-so stretch, would give Gordon's cramp a chance to work itself out, but things only seemed to get worse as we approached the Birmingham Bridge, which leads to the one true hill on the course. Right at the midpoint of the bridge, Gordon said he had no choice but to stop and see if he could calm his stomach down. For the next fifteen miles, I would be on my own.
I made my way through Oakland and Shadyside, waived to Carrie and Natalie, and prepared myself for the miles that immediately follow the halfway mark. In my experience, miles 15-20 are the most important ones of the race. No matter what, the last few miles are going to be a slog -- it's just a matter of how bad they'll be -- so it's in those aforementioned miles that you need to decide how hard to push yourself. Any temptation to pick up the pace must be tempered; you have to remind yourself that, even though you've already made it through sixteen miles, there are still ten to go. I continued to chug along in the low 6:40s, feeling good, but not so good that I felt dropping the pace down near 6:30 was advisable.
At the 19-mile mark, a band was playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I'd reached the point in the race where I started to lose my mind a little bit, and the relief of hearing a song I once loved/don't currently hate (there was a lot of "YMCA"-type crap out there Sunday) gave me a boost. Charging through the last seven miles, which are significantly net-downhill, seemed legitimately possible. But the boost was temporary. Somewhere between miles 19 and 21, I went from feeling really good about my race to desperately wanting it to end. Carrie and Natalie were waiting at the 21-mile mark. Carrie said I looked really good, and asked me if I felt good as well. I gave her a one-word answer: No.
The 23rd mile, which is entirely downhill, provided no relief. I covered it in 6:30, but had I been feeling decent at all I easily would have gone under 6:00. It was in this mile that a group of kids informed me that I was the first bearded runner, giving my race a much needed sense of purpose. I dragged myself through the last three miles, slowing down, but not drastically (two of the three miles were over 7:00, with the slowest one being 7:20 or so). My final chip time was 2:57:55.
A few months ago, as it became clear that I had no desire to do any type of workout other than an occasional long run (and even those were far from successful), I began to suspect that my training was merely guaranteeing that I'd break three hours, and nothing more. Well, that's exactly what happened. Around mile 20, I realized that dipping below 2:55 as I'd hoped to do wasn't going to happen, but I also knew there was no way I'd blow up so bad that I wouldn't break three. (When you run a time like 2:57, everyone automatically assumes breaking three was, in fact, your goal, so I've received nothing but enthusiatic congratulations all week.) But, as I've learned in the past, and as Gordon learned last weekend, the marathon can be so merciless that running slightly slower than you wanted is far easier to accept than it is in a 1500, so in no way am I disappointed with my time.
If there's one big lesson I've learned -- or, more accurately, relearned -- from this entire experience, it's that I no longer want running to play a prominent role in my life, at least when it comes to seriously training and competing. By the time I graduated from Cornell, running track and cross country had morphed into an elaborate way for me to bang my head against a wall. I was extremely sad to see my track career end, but I knew it was a healthy thing. In the five years since, I've continued to run regularly, because as long as I can use my legs I will run for fun and for fitness. But this was the first time since graduation that I'd actively set out to get in some sort of competitive shape, and for the most part I disliked it, as the gripes in my weekly training updates indicated. Unlike many people, I don't require the promise of future competition to make running tolerable; I simply enjoy it for what it is.
I still think that Gordon's original idea for the three of us to run a marathon together was a very good one. I'm glad it gave us an excuse to get together twice, and it spawned our incredible blog. Next spring, once I'm in grad school, and if I have a more flexible schedule, I may want to do it all over again. In the meantime, I'm glad that when I go for a run, it will be because I want to, not because I feel obligated to.
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