A Colorado Marathon

 My jaw was clenched tight as I made my way down the streets of Denver. I felt the bead of sweat on my forehead.

C’mon. You’ve made it this far. Hold it...Hold it.

I surged forward. Then my foot moved over to the brake as yet another traffic light turned red.

I had made my last pit stop had been in Cheyenne and in that time, I had put away another liter of water.

Proper hydration starts before race day; at least that’s what I’ve always believed.

I’d practiced those beliefs on the drive through Wyoming and Colorado, watering religiously and stopping frequently to run inside of gas stations.

If I were still in Wyoming, it’d be easy enough to pull off the road, water the desiccated fields, and be on my way. In cities, that operation is much more difficult to pull off and will likely lead to legal repercussions.

I put more pressure on my jaw, clenched my bladder and continued driving toward the convention center — at least where I thought the convention center was supposed to be.

I shot a couple of nervous glances toward the map I printed out. I still had about an hour and a to make it there before it closed up. I needed to get my bib, chip and marathon packet by then or else I wouldn’t place. For the moment, I was more concerned with getting rid of the extra Gatorade and water that had made the passage through my kidneys.

I spied the parking garage finally, though it took a while longer to maneuver the Mazda through an interchange, over trolley tracks and through a couple more traffic lights.

No conventional garage this one. The entrance led to an enormous corkscrew that I had to drive up for several stories. The only way to go was up, and the helplessness of the situation, made me feel like Han Solo, getting sucked into the tractor beam.

Oh yeah, parking was $12. There was no way I wasn’t going to pay that now.

After surviving the weird spiral entrance, I rolled into a parking spot and jumped out toward the elevator.

Somehow standing up made me have to piss even worse. Christ. I thought this place was connected to the main building. What floor do I have to punch to escape this place? Ground level? The bridge? I tried a few buttons, each time the doors opened to a different floor of the garage, no bathroom in sight.

I thought about finding some discrete corner, but thought better. There might be security cameras. The Wells Fargo corporate overlords that owned the garage would probably find out and imprison my soul inside an ATM.

Desperate, I rode the elevator back to the car and grabbed a Gatorade bottle, emptied it out on garage floor and then filled it again in the driver’s seat.

The race expo was bumping when I found it. It had the usual assortment of vendors handing out freebies as well as the clothing and shoe sellers.

I thought about grabbing some running shorts, but balked at the $40 price tag.

I wasn’t interested in hanging around there long after I picked up the packet. It’s not a good idea to spend much time on your feet before a race so I made it a mission to get back on my ass as soon as possible and get to sleep soon after.

I count myself lucky that I have friends in Colorado and didn’t have to throw hotel fare on top of gas money and registration costs. A couple of us got our dinner at Panera where I tried some pretty nice pasta with pesto.

In my experience, it’s good to get the carbohydrates in before a race, but not wise to bust a gut. I had overeaten the night before my last marathon and had regretted it midway through that race when I felt sloshy and weighted down. By the time I had cleared the plate at Panera, I felt like I had struck the right balance.

I slept at a place belonging to a friends’ family, and nodded off with the alarm for 4:45 a.m..

I stirred together a last meal of store brand instant oatmeal and honey and started drinking some more.

I ate what I thought I needed and took off. If anyone had been awake, I’d have said goodbye.

It was still dark by the time I rolled into Denver. The streets were cluttered with racers, wearing making their way to the line with numbers safety-pinned to the fronts of jerseys. I pulled into the first parking garage I found, and got a space.

From there, it was just a matter of following the crowds.

News reports pegged somewhere on the order of 15,000 people would show up for either the half marathon or full marathon. Civic Center Park looked like a very fit outdoor festival when I got there.

I stashed the race bag that had my wallet, cell phone and clothes in the holding area that race attendants had set up in a fenced off area of the lawn.

I ducked into an outhouse one more time and got my ass over to the race line.

I had seeded myself for 2:45 and was in the first chute. I worked my way close to the front. First the hand cycles took off, then it was our turn.

I ran across the line, trying not to waste too much energy weaving past people and trying to remember that almost everyone would be going off too fast.

I made a conscious effort to be slow and easy, but it felt like every runner in front of me had a magnet on his back.

The digital display at the mile mark read 5:55 — way too fast for me to hold.

It just felt so easy to keep my legs turning over, but I made myself let the other runners go past me, to think about going easy.

At two miles, I looked at the clock again. Still under 6 minute pace.

“Damn!”

The runner next to me laughed. He was running with a 2:50 marathon goal, and like me he was going way too fast. When he asked how fast I was planning to go, I laughed and said I wasn’t really sure.

We agreed that we would both try to slow it down, at least for a mile. He was living in Boulder now, but I found out that he was from Upstate New York originally, and that he knew one of my friends from my college XC team. Small world.

The slowing down tactic worked., perhaps a little too well. We ran the next mile at 6:50 pace.

I decided to pick up speed again.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to give the Rock’n Roll Marathon people props for the job that they did putting the music together. The rock chords, combined with the cheers from the sidelines, kept me pumped up as I ran through the miles.

Several local high school cheer squads were out on the course. I’ve been a cross-country runner from middle school clear through to college, and can attest that this is the first time that I’ve had pompoms shaken for my benefit. There was a police officer posted at every intersection in order to stop traffic when I came through.

I managed to say “thanks” to several people who cheered as I went by and gave the thumbs-up to several bands.

Now, I was going past runners, most of whom had probably jackrabbitted the start of the race.

I felt good, but couldn’t stop worrying that I was going out faster than I should. Would that slight tweak I feel in my Achilles heel, become debilitating pain by Mile 20? Would the soreness I had started to feel in my thighs hobble me further down the course? It was certainly possible, but there was no way of knowing. Since most of the signs were good, I kept running like I wanted to do my best race.

The best race included a stop at some hedges to pee off the extra water I had drank before the start. Later, I took a short detour to the Porta John to take a dump.

These delays were no disaster in the scheme of things and each time I gained back the ground that I’d lost on the other runners.

I don’t know if it’s just me or if the cameras turn away when elite athletes take a leak in a back alley or need to duck in the john.

I hydrate well before races, which I don’t plan on changing, but maybe I should reevaluate the role of oatmeal in my race diet, because I’ve had to take a dump in my last marathon and a 20 mile race I did a year ago.

When I hit the half marathon mark in 1:22 I saw that I was cruising right below my 2010 PR.

I decided to hold onto my current pace, and if I still had juice for the last mile, I’d burn out what was left in a final kick.

Now it was just a matter of holding on and trying to use energy efficiently.

“Stay loose!” one on looker shouted. He might have been an XC coach. I realized, my arms were a bit too high and adjusted myself accordingly.

My body and legs knew I was working, but I still had my momentum. As long as nothing broke that, I felt that the PR was in reach.

The course took a lap around a park lake. People on bikes, walkers and casual joggers gave me the “great job!” and “keep going!”

I blew by the 18-mile mark. I felt like going faster, but decided to hold onto the energy for the very last.

As much as I wanted to get my best time, I was afraid of blowing myself out. The marathon proverb is “Once you hit the 20-mile mark you’re half way there.”

It sounds kind of off; until you run a marathon and then it sounds dead-on

This 20-mile mark, I felt the ache in my legs, but I felt strong enough to go to the end.

“Great job!” an onlooker shouted. “Push it in! Push it in!”

“That’s what she said,” I gasped as I ran past.

A couple people were shouting that I had the top 10.

Even the cops at the intersections had caught the race spirit, and told me to keep it strong.

Strong. Keep thinking about how to run the best time possible. Don't think about how nice it would feel to start walking. You can think about the beer at the finish if you like, but only if it motivates you to push harder.

The jelly feeling was getting into my legs. My running form had definitely worn down to shit at this point.

 Right after Mile 25, there was maybe a 50-foot hill and I went up it in flailing lurch. The crowds were getting bigger, and louder.

After what seemed like a lifetime, the 26-mile mark came into view. There were .2 more miles to go. I drained the fumes I had left in the tank and put down a mediocre kick to the finish while my name boomed out of the sound system. I glanced up at the red numbers on the display as I went across the line: 2:45:44 — a PR by 20 seconds. It was all I needed to know. I finished 10^th overall. Top finisher Abraham Kogo did it in 2:27:58, while Mizuho Nasukawa was the first female finisher in 2:37:05 (marathonguide.com).

I staggered through the finish chute with a dumb grin on my face.

I found a patch of grass nearby and sat down. Damn my legs hurt. I found myself laughing silently. I wondered if I was going to cry but didn’t. I didn’t exactly laugh either, just made kind of a hopeless smile and wheezed air.

All the long runs, the hours running down the streets alone had brought me here, butt on the grass with crippled legs and 10^th place. Here was the moment of validation.

It wasn’t that much, but for then, it was enough.

The Best I Can As The Runner I Am

 Ah, there’s the feeling I remember: that feeling of exhaustion and despair soaked into every aching fiber of my body.

It’s the feeling that everything I once called me has been drained away. No personality, no sense of humor, no intelligence is left. All that remains is the automaton, numbly carrying out its cruel orders to keep going and ignore the suffering.

Don’t break now. Not until the finish. Only then are you are allowed to break and break utterly. You can drink a million gallons of water; you can lie on the carpet for the rest of the day like a useless glob of jelly and not exert an iota of effort.

I squint down the miles of asphalt I still have to cover for this 17-mile training run. The paved ribbon weaves over the dried-up landscape of Campbell County, the strange buttes and grazing cattle, the big-ass hill I’ll have to get up somehow.

It feels like the damn marathon.

I have two of the 26.2-mile races under my belt now, but it’s been over a year since I went the distance.

That was the Vermont City marathon in Burlington, which I did in 2:52:57. I hadn’t trained as well as I could have. As I went home from that race, I vowed to train more and get to the shape I needed to be in to beat my 2:46:04 P.R. from my first marathon.

Unfortunately, a strained Achilles heel put the brakes on those plans.

Now that I have built up my miles again I’ve gotten reacquainted with going long. The Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in Denver is September 22.

As I pound along the hot pavement, I remember the heat of the Vermont City Marathon.

 Man, those last eight miles had been hell. I had wanted to stop running and crumble somewhere by the side of the course, just like I really want to walk up this hill now.

It reminds me that these training runs are psychology exercises as much as they are physical conditioning. If I stop now, it will make it easier for me to stop during the marathon. But if I can look back on this run and remember that I pushed through, maybe I’ll be able to grin and bear it when I’m actually on the racecourse.

My arms feel weak and floppy as I try to get up the hill.

Damn…this sucks. Maybe if I just had a minute to catch my breath….

It is enticing, this siren call of weakness.

I am ready to give in, but then I reach the crest. A wind has picked up behind my back. I lengthen my stride and let gravity pull me towards home.

I finish in just under two hours. If I had run the marathon at that pace I would have finished in about 2:57.  Of course, I would have needed to hold on like that for another nine miles.

No problem, I think as I lie on the floor of my apartment, heart still thudding in my chest, sweat crawling into my eyes. Except, I’ll have to run it faster to get the time I want.

Self-delusion can have some painful consequences, I’ve learned. Last year, I raced my best 15-mile race on Martha’s Vineyard. The problem was that the race was actually 20 miles. I had let myself think I could hold a sub-six minute pace way further than I actually could. Over the last five miles, I paid for my folly with interest.

The problem is that I need to be a little delusional to run my best.

I ran my first marathon much faster than I thought I could, in part because I didn’t listen to common sense and slack my pace for the first 10 miles.

I delude myself today by not keeping track of weekly miles and by eschewing conventional speed-work on the track. Instead, I do fartlek: “speed play” in which I will run hard for a random distance. I take a break for a random period of time and then pick up the pace again.

If I used a stopwatch on the track, it would give me a better idea of how well I can run. But I don’t really want to know how good I am. I am afraid I’ll find out that I am not as good as I think. That could mean cutting myself short on race day.

Instead, I have been training based on feel. I run as far as I think I should run, go as hard as I think I should go. Within that model, I try to get in one long run a week and to do some speed-work.

Because I haven’t been training by the clock, I can’t rely on the clock to tell me how fast I should be running the marathon. I will have listen to what my body is saying it can do, and be honest enough to run the right pace.

I hope that the watch tells me that the pace I choose is fast enough for a P.R time, but if it isn’t fast enough, I would do better to accept my limits early than run into them face-first with 10 miles left to go.