"My training could best be described as binge and splurge. I allowed life to get in the way, and hadn't caught the bug enough to push through winter training. I would re-start each spring, and of course, I found it difficult again.
Fast forward 10 or so years. I started the year with a group of others doing a "Couch to 5K" program that got me out 3 days per week. The bogeyman winter was around the corner, so I signed up for a spring marathon, and used that as motivation to continue running all winter, mostly outside, and I got up to distances I had never seen before."
-Mark Bates
In 1972, McDonalds gave away game pieces for a contest. Each piece had a different Olympic event printed inside. If the US won a medal in the event shown on your game piece, you won a prize. Frank Shorter won the gold medal in the marathon that year. I won a Big Mac, and I also gained an ongoing interest in marathons.
So when I started entering road races in 1992, I already had marathon running in the back of my mind. Shorter races were fine, a good way to get together with my friends and work up a thirst. But I didn’t spend much time trying to get my 5 or 10K times down before I started working on a marathon. My first race was a local 4-mile run in June. I built up to a long run of 11 miles, and then ran a half-marathon in October of that year. Those 13 miles were the furthest I had ever run. After I survived that, I signed up for the Vermont City Marathon, scheduled for Memorial Day weekend in May of 1993.
I kept building up my mileage. On January 3, 1993, I extended my long run up to 15-1/2 miles. I thought I was doing well, with plenty of time to get ready for the race in May. The following weekend, I developed a pain in the outside of my right knee during a 9-mile run. When I stopped running, the pain subsided. It wasn't that bad during day-to-day activities, but every time I tried to run, the pain would flare up after a mile or two. I wanted to keep training, so I got into a cycle where I'd rest for a day or two, my knee would feel better, and I’d give it another try. The pain would start up again, limiting me to a short run. This went on for a couple of weeks.
Finally, I gave up and I stopped running for an entire month. The only exercise I got during that time was from "running" in a pool with a flotation belt strapped around my waist to hold me up. I also got a podiatrist to make me a set of orthotics, shoe inserts intended to provide support to accommodate some of the imperfections in my body and smooth out my stride.
At the end of February I was able to ease back into running. By the time my marathon arrived, I'd built back up to a long run of 15 miles. I didn’t think I was ready to run the entire marathon, but Vermont City has a marathon relay in addition to the marathon. I found two other people on the Internet, and we put together a relay team so I wouldn’t have to run the whole thing myself.
When I got to race registration to pick up our relay numbers, I wandered over to the marathon registration area and checked, and my number was there. I already had paid for it, so I figured I might as well pick it up too. There was no sense in letting it go to waste.
The Vermont City Marathon starts and finishes near Battery Park in downtown Burlington. The course loops back through the park a couple of times and most of the relay exchange points are there. Spectators can stay near the park and see their friends at multiple points in the race without having to move far.
I was running the first 10 miles of the race for my relay team. The morning of the race, I decided to pin my marathon number on under my relay number before I headed to the start. I figured I’d start the race, and while I was running, I’d figure out whether I wanted to keep going after I passed the relay baton on to my teammate. There wasn’t much risk. Because of the loops in the course, even if dropped out before the finish, I wouldn’t be too far from the park and my friends.
It was a beautiful day to run and the enthusiasm of the runners and the crowd in Battery Park was contagious. I felt great after completing my 10-mile portion of the relay, so I took off my relay number and kept going. By mile 14, I fell in with a group running at my pace and we traveled along the shore of Lake Champlain telling jokes and having a fine time. The hill from the lake up to Battery Park at mile 17 was tough, but the beat from the Taiko drummers stationed there carried us up the hill to the crowd cheering in the park.
Unfortunately, by the time I got to mile 21, the fun was over. When I turned onto the bike path along the lakeshore for the last 5 miles, I was tired, sore, and sweaty and I had to slow to a walk. But having come this far, I was determined to finish. Quitting was not an option. Nothing was going to get in my way. I walked half of the final 5 miles, and I had to talk a medical aid worker out of pulling me off the course, but I made it to the finish line with a final time of 4:02:19.
The race left me wanting more. It had been an enormous effort. When I finally finished, I was proud of my accomplishment, and I loved the camaraderie among the runners as we all worked towards the same goal. I wanted to try again, and this time, get it right.
But first, I had to recover from the race. I was used to being tired after a long run, and I was even more tired and sore after getting through 26 miles. What I didn’t know was that it would get worse. When I woke up the next day, I was so sore I could barely walk. It’s called "Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness". Going down stairs was especially hard. It was easier to go down backwards. The pain was even worse the next day. On the third day, I finally began to feel a little better.
The pain went away, leaving behind my determination to improve. I decided to try Vermont City again the next year. I knew I had to prepare better if I wanted better results. This time around, with the help of my orthotics, I remained injury-free, and I got my long run up to 23 miles before the race. Race day was warm, but I ran well until calf cramps slowed me to a crawl for the last couple of miles. I brought my time down to 3:31, but I still wasn’t satisfied.
The 100th Boston Marathon was coming up in 1996. It promised to be a major event, and I wanted to be part of it. I signed up for the Baystate Marathon in 1995, figuring I could use the notoriously flat and fast course to qualify for the 100th Boston Marathon in 1996. I was 34, so I needed a 3:10 to qualify. That was much faster than my previous marathons, but I thought that if I could manage to run the entire distance, my times in shorter races indicated that the goal was possible. I trained even harder, but unfortunately I was sick the week before the race, and I found I just didn’t have the endurance on race day. I ran the whole race this time, but I was only slightly faster than before, finishing in 3:29. I ended up watching the 100th Boston from the side of the road, quietly seething with frustration that I wasn’t out there running myself.
I didn’t run another marathon until 1999, when I ran Vermont City again. Vermont in May can be comfortably cool, but on this day the temperatures reached the mid-80s. I crashed and burned in the heat, shuffling slowly from mile 17 until about mile 23. Then I got a cup of icewater from a little girl next to the bike path, watching the race. I drained the cup and that refreshed me enough to let me pick up my pace and run to the end. I finished in 3:55.
By 2000, I had reached the point where what I wanted most out of running was to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Boston is one of the most famous sporting events in the world, and it’s held every spring, virtually in my own back yard. I was never going to get into the World Series or the Super Bowl, but I could still have 150,000 people cheering for me as I ran the same race with some of the best runners in the world.
I could get into Boston by collecting money for a charity or by getting a number from my running club, but I wanted to qualify. I was never going to be a champion runner, but at least I could earn my way into one of running’s signature events.
My marathon times had improved some, but I had never gotten within 15 minutes of qualifying. Luckily, getting older took no effort at all. When I turned 40, my qualifying time for Boston would rise to three hours and 20 minutes, 10 minutes slower than the time for the open division. That was much closer to the times I had been running, though I still had to make up about 10 minutes somehow. So in 2000, I made a conscious decision to dial back my other running and take a more focused, long-term approach to qualifying for the marathon.
I never really had felt good about my pacing in any of my marathons. I was finishing, but I never ran strongly the whole way. The 3:20 marathon I needed to qualify for Boston would require holding a pace of about 7:38 per mile. I knew from my times in shorter races that I had plenty of speed. What I lacked was the endurance to hold that speed to the end of the marathon.
I turned 40 in the summer of 2001, so 2002 would be the first Boston where I could take advantage of the 3:20 qualifying time. I decided to aim towards a qualifying marathon in the fall of 2001, when it’s cooled off some after a summer of training through the heat. I figured that would be easier than running a marathon in warm spring weather after training through the cold New England winter. A fall 2001 race gave me about a year and a half to prepare.
The key to building the endurance I needed for a marathon is the long run. In the past I had followed a standard training plan, which called for a long run every two weeks starting at 10 miles or so, and increasing a couple miles every time, topping out in the low 20s three weeks before the race. That wasn't working out so well. It left me trying to run both farther and faster on race day. I was also doing my hardest long runs just before the race, so I wasn't always as fresh going into the race as I would like.
This time around, I was going to take more time to increase the length of my long run. If I built up slower, I figured I wouldn’t be as worn down when race day arrived. I was also going to try to run more than 26 miles while training, and still leave time to drop my long run back down below 26 miles before the race.
I continued to do a long run every two weeks, but I only increased the mileage on every other long run. Then the next week, I cut back on my mileage to ensure that I got enough rest to recover completely before I returned to my regular routine.
The other big change I made was to keep my eyes on the goal, and give somewhat less than my best effort when I entered other races. I still ran in shorter races to socialize with my friends and have fun, but I treated them like fast training runs instead of all-out races. That saved more of my energy for marathon training.
Running the races leading up to my goal marathon at less than full effort was also part of my mental training for the marathon. The worst thing anyone can do in a marathon is go out too fast. Inevitably, you'll crash and burn and struggle to finish. Knowing ahead of time that I wasn’t going to run the race all-out helped me to learn to manage my excitement at the start of races so I could pace myself better.
When I raced, I stuck to my training plan. Even though I wasn't trying as hard as I possibly could, I found that I was still getting faster. This reinforced the idea that I was doing the right thing.
When my long runs got longer, I started taking three weeks between them. That allowed even more recovery time to get ready for the next one.
I decided that the Hartford Marathon in October 2001 would be my target race. Hartford was near home. The course was flat for the first 20 miles, so it would be easier to get to that point and still have energy for the finish. There were typically fewer than 2000 entrants, so the race wouldn't be too crowded, but there would still be enough runners at or near my pace so I’d always have somebody to run with. There were even pace groups. Someone would be running the race, leading people who were trying to finish at 3:20. I could run with that group if I needed them to help me meet my goal.
At the end of May, I ran Vermont City again. This time I ran it as a training run. I finished in 3:41, and at that pace I had enough endurance so I didn’t suffer from excessive soreness after the race.
In the summer, I sweated through another 26-mile run followed by two 28-mile runs. Then I scaled back to 22- and 20-mile runs in September before I started to taper down for the race.
Tapering is always a mixed blessing. It’s great to finish the hardest part of my training for a marathon, take it easy, and relax. In theory it is, anyhow. In practice, when I start to run less, I worry about losing my fitness, I worry about gaining weight, and I have extra time on my hands to worry about whether I’m ready to run the race.
The day before the race, I headed to Hartford. I could have driven down on the morning of the race, but I wanted to check into a hotel and have the evening to relax and prepare for the marathon. Unfortunately, by this time I was just too wound up. I’d been working towards this race for a year and a half, and trying to qualify for Boston for years before that. Resting would have been the best thing to do, but I just couldn’t do it. Instead, I spent a couple hours walking around, trying to find something interesting to distract me from worrying about the next day’s race. The search failed, and I ended up back in the hotel room, watching a movie and getting my gear ready for the morning.
My plan for the race was to ease into the race and run the first two miles slower than my goal pace in order to keep from going out too fast. I wanted to run at an 8:30 pace to start. I'd have to run a little faster than the required average of 7:38 for the remaining 24 miles, but not too much faster. A conservative start would hopefully pay off in the end.
I wrote all the splits I was aiming for upside down on my race number. That way I could track my progress without the need to do the math in my head when I got tired. Then I went to bed, tossing and turning through the night, waiting for it to be time to get up and run.
The next day, the weather at the start was sunny and in the 50’s, fine weather for running. I lined up back in the pack with the slower runners, but when the gun went off, it was still hard to keep from racing out with everyone else. I caught up with Steve Pepe, another Somerville Road Runner, and we chatted as we ran together, which helped keep me on track. I have a picture of the start, and you can see from the clear space in front of Steve and I that we’re running easily and letting people go by.
A mile into the race, I left Steve and eased into my race pace. The first 19 miles of the race was out and back along the Connecticut River. It was very flat but not very scenic. I ran well, keeping just a little ahead of my goal pace through each mile. A little before mile 20 I finished making up the time I lost at the beginning of the race and I passed the 3:20 pace group. I knew that I just had to stay ahead of them and I would qualify for Boston.
Passing the pace group energized me, just when I might have been hitting the wall if things weren’t going well. I left the pace group behind as the course passed by the start and took off for the final six-mile loop. I was getting tired, and there were more hills on the section, but by this point I could smell the finish line. I held my pace to the end, and I finished a little over 3:17, which was a PR by 12 minutes. I was going to Boston!
The 2002 Boston Marathon was my reward for all my hard work. I planned on taking it easy in the race and enjoying the event. I scaled back my training, topping out at a long run of 20 miles. My taper was only two weeks instead of the three weeks that everyone recommends. SRR rented a bus to take the runners from the club to the start, so I didn’t have to get up at dawn, ride a school bus out with all the other runners, and hang out in a field for hours waiting for the race to begin. I showed up at the starting line feeling good, relaxed and just happy to be there.
The weather was just about perfect when the gun went off, overcast and in the 50s. The excitement and the energy from the massive crowd carried me along. I barely paid attention to how I was doing for about 17 miles. I reached the hills in Newton and kept right on running. I slowed a little as I climbed, but I had no trouble getting through them.
At the top of Heartbreak Hill, with a little over 6 miles to go, I realized that I had run much faster than I had expected and I still felt good. I knew that the rest of the course was mostly flat, trending slightly downhill. So I decided to pick up the pace and see what would happen. I had averaged something over 7:20 per mile until then. For the last 10K, I brought that down to a little under 7:10.
I crossed the finish in front of the cheering crowds on Boylston St. in just over 3:14, three minutes faster than I ran Hartford, on a harder course with less training.
I ran a 3:13 that fall at Cape Cod, but all things considered, Boston 2002 was probably my most successful marathon. I’ve run Boston three times since then and none have gone as well. 2004 was a particular disappointment. I trained hard and well, and I was getting results that indicated I was ready to run a fast marathon. Then on race day temperatures reached 85, making it one of the hottest Boston Marathons on record. A fast time was impossible. I ended up getting a bag and some ice from a spectator and attaching it to my head to keep cool while I trotted to the finish in 3:46.
A marathon allows my OCD tendencies to reach full flower. A lot of pieces have to come together in order to run a fast marathon. Some of them are beyond my control, so it’s important to my mental well-being to identify the ones I can control and have a plan to take care of them.
First and most importantly, I have to get my training in. For me, the most important part of training for a marathon is building the endurance. There’s no substitute for building up my long run to 26 miles or more, with enough total miles in the bank and plenty of recovery time so those long runs don’t leave me totally drained afterwards.
Running race distance or more gets me used to passing through the "wall". The wall is real. Somewhere around 17 to 21 miles, everyone runs low on carbohydrates and starts to use fat more to fuel their running. That’s not an easy transition, but I found that if I practiced it, I got accustomed to running through the wall without slowing down.
Most training plans have you increasing your long run every time, peaking with your last run before the race. I prefer to leave enough time after my longest run to do a few, shorter long runs leading to the race. If I build up to 26-28 miles first, then two 20-mile runs afterwards seem relatively easy, and they still add to my preparation for the race.
I do a little speedwork, but no more than 10% of my total mileage. Most of the time, the races I enter for fun are more than enough. When I’m training fast, I try to focus more on running efficiently instead of running as fast as I possibly can.
If I’m really interested in a fast time, I have to pick a fast course. There are other considerations, like the difficulty of travel to the race and whether I can find a convenient place to stay, but if I want to run fast, I need to find a fairly flat course. Not dead flat. There should be some gentle hills so I’m not using the same muscles the same way for the entire race. An overall drop in elevation from start to finish is good, but any steep up- (or down-) hills can counteract that advantage. For example, the Boston Marathon finish is about 450 lower than the start, but the hills along the way keep it from being a particularly fast course.
I make sure I know what sports drink will be available at the water stops during the race. If I’m not familiar with the drink, I’ll try it out while I train so I know I can tolerate it on race day. I learned this the hard way in my first marathon, when the sports drink they were using gave me stomach cramps. Most races provide water as an alternative, but in a marathon, I want the additional carbohydrates and electrolytes found in the sports drink.
I have to be well-rested on race day. It’s important to train carefully, and allow enough recovery while I’m building my endurance so my training builds me up instead of grinding me down. My pre-race taper won’t be enough recovery time if I’ve been overdoing it in training for months beforehand. I find that when I train properly, a two-week taper is more than enough rest to get me ready for the race. Many training plans recommend a three-week taper, but as long as I haven’t done too much beforehand, that third week is just an extra week of counterproductive anxious waiting.
I need to eat properly to perform well. Doritos and beer are tasty, but real food makes for better fuel. When I cut down on the sugary or fried foods I do better, but the call of the bacon-cheeseburger and ice cream is hard to ignore. Whatever I’m eating, if I’m running well on that diet before the race, there’s no benefit in changing my eating habits as the race approaches. The day before the race is the only day I might adjust my meal choices. I’ll eat more carbohydrates, usually pasta, to store up a little more easily accessible energy. More importantly, I avoid foods that are hard for me to digest, like steak. I’ve had some good races after eating fettuccine alfredo with some chicken and broccoli, so that’s become my lucky pre-race meal.
I try to prepare as much as I can the day before the race, so I have as little as possible to worry about on race day. If I’m running a course that’s new to me and there’s time, I’ll drive the course to get a better look at how difficult it’s going to be. That night I’ll get all my clothes out, pin my number on my shirt, and make sure I have my energy gels ready to go. I’ll write my goal pace chart on my number, upside down so I can read it easily while running. Writing down the splits for every five miles is enough to keep me on track, and allows enough space to let the uphill and downhill miles balance out. Finally, I’ll put out the pre-race snacks and drinks I’ll want the next morning.
Then it’s time to relax and get some sleep. I’m still working on that part. I have learned that if I’ve been getting enough sleep on the nights leading up to the race, it’s not a big problem if I don’t sleep well the night before the race.
On race morning all I need to do is get up early enough to ensure I have time to eat a little, hydrate a lot, make any last-minute weather-related clothing and gear choices, and go to the bathroom. Then it’s time to head to the start and run.
When the race starts, I try to start slow and use the first mile or two as a warm up. There’s a long way to go, and I’ll need all the energy I can muster later on. The beginning of the race should be easy. If I’m struggling at all before 16 miles, it’s not my day.
During the race, I drink whenever I can to minimize dehydration. The only time I’ll skip a water stop is towards the end of the race, when there isn’t enough time left to absorb any more fluid. Often by then I can feel the drinks I’ve already had still sloshing around in my stomach.
I like to have an energy gel every five miles during the race. That allows me to stretch out my carbohydrate stores further before I run out and hit the wall. By taking the gels regularly, I keep my blood sugar level up and avoid sugar rushes and crashes. I’ve learned to carry the gels in a neoprene waist pack.
The first time I ran a race with gels, I carried them in a pocket in my shorts designed to hold sunglasses. The gels swung back and forth as I ran, rubbing against my leg and creating an uncomfortable raw spot. The next race, I tried shorts that had mesh pockets designed to carry gels. My gel packets fell out within 100 yards of the start. I couldn’t stop to pick them up without getting in everyone’s way, and the pack of runners quickly trampled the gels into the street. Now I carry my gels in a small waist pack.
I carry ibuprophen to battle pain and inflammation during the race. If NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) bother your stomach, you can use acetaminophen instead. It helps with the pain but doesn’t do anything for inflammation.
Unfortunately, no matter how well I prepare things can go wrong. A marathon is too hard. There’s no way anyone can guarantee that they’ll be able to handle every possible adversity. No one can say with certainty how they will do. Sometimes you just have a bad day. Maybe you weren’t rested enough, maybe you picked up a cold, or maybe you just don’t feel right, and it shows in your time. Sometimes pain gets in the way, whether it’s something as simple as a bad blister or it’s a more debilitating injury, like a cramp or a torn calf muscle. And sometimes the weather turns on you. Maybe there’s a 20 mph wind blowing a cold rain in your face, or maybe it’s 85 and sunny and the spectators are comfortable wearing less than the runners. When trouble strikes, do what you can, but remember that there’s always another race.
Like most runners, I’m a goal-oriented person. An objective helps keep me going. I wouldn’t put in the effort necessary to run a marathon if I didn’t enjoy the pride I feel when I reach my target. My first marathon goal was typical for many people. I just wanted to make it to the finish. Once I did that, my next goal was to try to finish faster.
For some people, their goal is to accumulate marathon finishes. So many people have run marathons in all 50 states or on all seven continents that they’ve formed a club.
SRR members Steve Pepe and Kevin Counihan have run together for years. They reached their goal of finishing their 100th marathon at Boston in 2010 and have started working on their second hundred. Steve’s marathon PR is a little over 3 hours, but now he runs races in over 5 hours with Kevin, whose right foot was severely injured in a lawn mower accident when he was 4.
Some runners combine speed and quantity goals. Gary Allen, the race director of the MDI Marathon, reached his goal of completing his 50th sub-3 hour marathon before his 50th birthday. He’s also one of a limited number of runners who have run sub-3 in five different decades, and he’s made a bet that he’ll add his sixth decade in 2020.
As I write this, I’ve completed 18 marathons. As I get older, it gets harder to match the times I’ve run in the past, let alone go even faster. I keep running marathons, but the reasons I run them have changed. These days, I like running races in new places. I get to see 26 miles of new territory, meet some new people, do a long run without the need to carry my own sports drinks, and I often find a celebration when I finish. An ideal course is interesting to run, not necessarily flat and fast. It may go through a new city, or pass through exceptionally scenic natural settings. I still like to challenge myself to run fast, but comfort is important too. The race should be well organized, and a hotel room near the start is ideal (though plenty of bushes can suffice).
For example, in early May of 2008, Ruth and I went out to California for the Avenue of the Giants Marathon. The race was on a Sunday in the Humboldt Redwood State Park, about 250 miles north of San Francisco, along with a half-marathon and a 10K. My goal was to run comfortably, finish under 4 hours, stay injury-free, and leave something in the tank for another Vermont City run on Memorial Day weekend. Ruth wanted to improve on her 2:06+ from her first half-marathon in February.
The quickest way from the San Francisco airport to the race is to take US Route 101, a major highway that takes you straight to the race start. We didn’t want to do both a six-hour flight and a boring five-hour drive on the day before the race, especially as Ruth would be doing all the driving. So Ruth and I flew into San Francisco two days before the race and we broke up the trip with an overnight stop along the way.
Instead of pulling off 101 somewhere, we decided to stay on the Pacific coast in Mendocino. The trip from 101 to the coast took us along CA Route 128, a narrow, winding road through the hills of Mendocino County wine country. There were many twists that Ruth needed to navigate carefully, but plenty of scenery to look as we wound our way through.
The hills continued right to the shore. We didn’t see ocean until we made one last turn, Rt.128 suddenly ended, and the coast appeared. We turned and took the coastal highway (CA1) north and enjoyed dramatic views of the ocean as we drove into Mendocino.
In Mendocino, we stayed at the Blackberry Inn, a very nice place on the landward side of the coastal highway with a view of the ocean. Mendocino is a small, touristy town, with nice restaurants, galleries, and the like. In the summer it’s a busy seaside getaway, but in May it’s pleasantly quiet.
I don’t usually run the day before a marathon, but I couldn’t resist the three miles or so of trail along the cliffs that surround the town and overlook the ocean. They made for a stunningly beautiful 5-mile run on Saturday morning from the inn, around the town, and back. Between multiple stops to ooh and aah at the scenery and running carefully to avoid tripping and falling over the edge of the cliffs, I didn’t work too hard.
After some browsing and lunch in town, we headed north along CA1. Again, the views were stunning. Then CA1 turned back east into the mountains. The winding roads we were traveling on before were nothing compared to the next stretch. Ruth didn’t get a minute to relax for more than 50 miles, while I kept a tight grip on the Jesus handle over the passenger-side window as we twisted up, down, and through. The views were tremendous, as long as you didn’t think too much about the possibility of driving off a cliff.
We finally made it to Redway, where we stayed the night before the race in a cabin at the Dean Creek Resort.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed 20 miles up 101 to the start.
The race starts under a 101 overpass at the intersection of Bull Creek Road and the Avenue of the Giants at exit 663. Since that exit was blocked off for the race, runners were directed to leave the highway at the next exit to the north and drive back to the start. There was ample parking on a dry wash next to the Eel River, but access to the parking from the road was slow. People who didn’t heed the warning to get there at least an hour early were stuck in the line of cars waiting to park. Many of those people missed the start of the race, though with chip timing that wasn’t a disaster.
The first half of the marathon course goes out to the west and back along Bull Creek Road, then takes a 90-degree right turn and goes out to the south and back along the Avenue of the Giants. They use the same course for the Humboldt Marathon in the fall, with the first and second halves reversed.
The course is very runnable. The first half rolls a little, trending up on the way out and down coming back. The road is a little rough, but not too bad. The second half felt like a nice easy downhill going out, but it wasn’t much of a downhill, because it felt flat on the way back. The only real hill is a bridge over 101 that’s a downhill at mile 14 and an uphill coming back at mile 25. The hill is nothing major, but the climb comes at a difficult point in the race if you’re running on fumes.
The half-marathoners start with the marathoners and run the Bull Creek Road portion. The 10K starts a half-hour after the other races and goes out and back on the Avenue of the Giants, out of the way of the longer races.
The day was just about perfect. It was in the 50s and overcast. Even if it had been sunny, the redwoods would have kept us in the shade for most of the course. There was some wind, but the trees shielded us from most of it.
I ran the first mile or so with Ruth. We hit the first mile marker at 12 minutes, which was slower than we’d planned, and then I pulled away. I made it to mile 2 at 18 minutes, so I didn’t take the first split too seriously. Mile markers the rest of the way seemed accurate enough.
The trees were majestic. Their commanding presence and dignity added an unusual aura to the event, meeting every expectation we had when we made the decision to travel across the country for the race. Every once in a while, I’d tilt my head back and follow a particularly imposing tree as it reached to the sky, but that made it hard to hold to a straight line while I was running. For the most part I kept my head down and just moved my eyes to take in the sights.
Since I started slowly, once I hit my pace I was passing people for most of the race. On an out and back course, the first people you see coming back are usually the leaders. Here, the Avenue of the Giants lets slower runners start an hour early to get everyone out of the way so they can reopen the roads sooner. That meant the first people coming back were some of the early birds. The competitor in me didn’t like seeing all those slow runners ahead of me.
When I finally saw a fast runner, he was wearing a Greater Boston singlet. I was in a race all the way across the country, and I still wasn’t the fastest runner from Massachusetts in the field.
I hit the first turnaround in just under an hour. On the way back, I stopped for five minutes at a port-a-potty near mile 9. That was almost the only time anyone passed me the rest of the way.
About 350 people started the marathon. Between my slow start, the half-marathoners, a large number of relatively slow Team in Training runners, and all those early bird runners, the first half was more crowded than typical for a race of this size. Luckily, I left most of that behind at the turn onto the Avenue of the Giants. The second half of the marathon was a pleasant cruise among the trees on a much smoother road.
On the way south, I caught up with an older guy who was working on his seventh Avenue and we talked for a few miles. He told me he had developed the habit of counting the runners he saw coming back after the final turn so he’d know where he was in the field. I pulled ahead of him as we approached the turn, then when I saw him after I’d started on the way back, he told me that I was right at 100th place.
About mile 20, someone around my age passed by. It was the first time I’d been passed since the port-a-potty stop. I passed him back when he stopped at the next water station, then spent the next half-mile or so waiting for him to catch me again. When he finally did, I struck up another conversation and learned that Sam was working on his first marathon. He had done lots of cross training (telemark skiing, etc…), but his longest run before the marathon was only 13 miles, so he was struggling a bit. I paced him through mile 25, which also helped me go a little faster than I would have otherwise, so we both ate up a number of other runners. Then, once we made it over the hill at mile 25, he got excited about reaching the finish and he raced in. I sped up some too, but realized that I’d have to strain to keep up with Sam. I had Vermont in three weeks, so I let him go.
At the finish, we got our medals and I found Ruth. It turns out that Sam was one of the people who had gotten a late start, so his chip time was actually about 10 minutes faster than mine. Since he was 48 that meant he’d qualified for Boston on his first attempt. That meant more to me than it did to Sam, who was looking at the marathon as a once in a lifetime lark, inspired by a friend who’d been training hard after having a miserable time in his own first marathon.
Ruth and I both had good days. Ruth set a half-marathon PR by over 6 minutes, finishing 9th in her age group in 2:00:27. I ended up finishing comfortably in 3:45, 5th in my age group and 66th out of 347 overall. I was tired, but I thought I’d be able to recover fast enough to run Vermont on Memorial Day weekend.
Sam turned back to jog out and wait for a friend. Ruth and I got in the car and headed back to Mendocino, since we’d figured a five-hour drive after a race wouldn’t be much fun either. On Monday we got up, went on a kayak tour along the shore, then drove to San Francisco. We stayed the rest of the week in the Flower Child Room in the Red Victorian B&B in Haight-Ashbury.
Post-race, I was ready for my normal run on Tuesday. I did 8 miles in Golden Gate Park after a hard day of tourism (Coit Tower, Fisherman’s Wharf, and cable cars). I was a little sore, but it was nothing compared to how I usually felt after racing a marathon.
Saturday morning, after an excellent week of touristing, Ruth and I headed back to the airport for our flight home.
Three weeks later it was time for the 2008 Vermont City Marathon. I signed up for Vermont partly to support my friend Mark, who was running his first marathon, and partly for the challenge of running two marathons in a single month.
We stayed at the Burlington Hilton, which is less than a quarter-mile from the start, making it the most convenient race headquarters around. As an experienced runner and someone who'd already run Vermont six times, I was pretty relaxed before the race. I stopped by the expo and had some time to chat with a high school classmate, Tim Ritchie, whose National Running Center store has a big booth at Vermont City.
The next day was hot and sunny. I was reminded that no matter how many marathons I’ve run, there’s always something more that the marathon can teach me. Humility is on the top of the list. The details:
While I’ve continued to run marathons, I haven’t qualified for Boston lately. The last time I tried was at the Marine Corps Marathon in 2007. The MCM is the largest race I’ve ever run, with over 30,000 entrants. I was on track for a qualifying time as I ran past all the famous Washington, D.C. monuments, but around mile 20, while I was crossing the Potomac to leave the capitol, my calves cramped and I crashed. I trotted through the last six miles at about an 11-minute pace, watching sadly as streams of other runners passed me by.
Earlier in 2007, when I met Gary Allen in Maine, he mentioned that he travels to Boston each year to visit relatives for New Year’s. Every New Year’s morning, he gets up early and runs the Boston Marathon course. I decided to join him for the 2009 run along with three other people. Ned Swain came down from Portland just to run, and fellow SRR member Brandon Villarreal came over from nearby Maynard, MA.
Ruth, wonderful as always, got up at 4AM to give me a ride from our home in Arlington to the starting line in Hopkinton. Brandon had to get someone to cover the last three hours of his shift as a Maynard police officer, but he made it to the start at 6AM as scheduled. But there was no Gary. We waited 10 minutes, and then decided that we would do the run by ourselves. Brandon went off to park his car, but while Ruth and I were waiting for him to return Gary and Ned arrived. Gary had missed the exit from the Mass Pike, so he had to drive to the next exit, turn around, and head back. So about 15-20 minutes late, with the sky just beginning to lighten a little in the east, we took off.
It was frigid, about 3 degrees, and windy. Luckily, for the most part the wind came from behind us. Every once in a while the wind changed direction and reminded us that things could be much worse.
Soon enough the sun came up, and we settled into the run. The roads were in pretty good shape in spite of the previous day’s snow. For the first few miles, while most people were still in bed recovering from their New Year’s celebrations, the roads were essentially clear of cars. Gary insisted on following the actual marathon course, so from time to time we’d weave back and forth, following the tangents. At about 10 miles, he noticed that he’d accidentally turned off his watch, and no one else had bothered to mark the time we started. We decided that a starting time estimate of 6:20AM would be close enough.
We passed the time the way runners usually do on long runs, by sweating (with the sweat freezing upon contact with the air) and talking about running. Gary was the fastest runner, and he had stories for every section of the course, so he did a lot of the talking. I dragged out some of my old warhorses for a new audience.
Just after the halfway point was the section Gary rated as the toughest part of the race, the section between Wellesley College and the Newton hills. It’s not as challenging to run as some of the other sections, but it comes after the burst of energy you get from the screaming coeds has worn off, and when you’re looking forward to the Newton hills, so it’s hard to keep your focus on the moment as you run. Gary’s fast enough so he has to worry about things like that.
We made it through that section and started climbing the hills on Commonwealth Ave. Around mile 18, a woman out on her own morning run passed us. Gary and Ned couldn’t have that, so they picked up their pace to keep up. Brandon and I trailed along behind. After we reached the top of the last big hill, we started our own push in order to catch up.
It was still only 7 degrees according to one bank's temperature sign when we caught up with Gary and Ned by Coolidge Corner. Our surges in the hills came back to haunt us soon thereafter. Brandon slowly dropped off the pace as we headed towards the finish, though he continued to make steady progress. Ned ran out of gas when we hit Kenmore Square. He was forced to slow to a walk in spite of the effect the cold and wind had on his sweaty body.
Just then we were hailed by Steve Vaitones, another member of SRR, who knew Gary from his role as a USATF-New England official. Steve had parked in Newton Center and was running back and forth on the course, looking for our group. He joined us, and Steve, Gary, and I trotted on.
We turned onto Boylston St. and were headed towards the finish when Gary decided it would be a good idea to head back to check on Brandon and Ned. I was ready to finish up and stop running, so I continued on with Steve, running over strings of beads left on the road from the previous night’s celebration.
Steve and I crossed the finish line, about 4 hours after I left Hopkinton. We stood at the finish, waiting for the others to arrive. Brandon and Gary came in soon afterwards, but there was no Ned. Our sweaty clothes cooled almost instantly in the wind, so standing outside for long was an unpleasant proposition. Finally, shivering, we made our way back down the course, into the wind. We discovered Ned resting in the Boylston St. Starbucks, about a quarter-mile before the finish line.
Brandon’s ride came to take him back to Hopkinton to get his car. The rest of us spread our damp gear around the coffee shop, refueled, and talked some more. One woman in the store had the Boston Globe. The top article in the Metro section was an interview of Gary conducted a few days before, about our upcoming run.
We stalled as long as we could before heading back out into the cold, but as tiredness caught up with us, the talk wound down. We put our cold, soggy clothes back on to leave. Gary and Ned headed to Gary’s mother-in-law’s place on nearby Clarendon St. Steve and I jogged into the wind, which felt even bitterer through our damp gear after the respite, to Copley Station. From there, Steve took the T to Newton for his car, and I headed back to Arlington.
So that’s how I became the first person to finish the Boston Marathon course in 2009. I didn’t actually get around to entering the actual race, but I take my victories wherever I can get them, and no one will ever be able to take this one away from me.