This a report of when I ran the 2014 Phoenix marathon.
Today marks a year to the day of the Boston Marathon
bombings. It has been exactly a year
since my desire to run in the Boston Marathon has been cemented into a concrete
plan if you will. Others have quipped to
me, I bet you are nervous about going there, or I hope you don’t get your leg
blown off. That is the exact reason that
I want to run the Boston Marathon. It
used to be something that I thought would be a cool accomplishment. The pinnacle of achievement for amateur
marathoners, as it were. The bombings
have taken it to a whole new level. In
addition to the normal “neat accomplishment” run of the mill reasons, now I
want to run it to show that terrorists, domestic or foreign have not won, nor
will they. I refuse to be scared to live
my life the way I choose on my terms, accepting the responsibilities that come
with that freedom as well. To run in a
marathon, to go to the park, go to the shopping mall, take my kids to school,
or take an airplane flight and visit touristy places. I believe that next Monday, on Patriots Day
in Massachusetts, there will be tens of thousands of runners, and hundreds of
thousands of others who are of like mind.
Race Goal
My goal is to qualify for the Boston Marathon. To qualify I would have to finish in three hours
and ten minutes or faster. However
online blogs said that this last year the slowest time that got accepted into
the Boston Marathon was three hours and eight minutes and thirty six seconds or
something like that. So really I wanted
to go under three hours and eight minutes.
Pre-Race
On the bus ride to the start I saw two big American flags
blowing stiffly in the wind in exactly the wrong direction. Waiting at the starting line the last five
minutes it started raining on us a decent amount. I saw a guy in meditation. He had a turban on with crossed legs and
fingers held in a meditational position.
It was the first time I had seen that in real life and so that was
awesome.
Mile 1 7.27
The plan was to run at 8 minute
pace for the first mile, 7.30 pace for miles two and three.
Mile 2 Split 7.18
A little bit fast but still not to bad. A helicopter with a search light was winding
its way up from the valley and I said “they are looking for a runner!” During this mile I started talking to another
runner named Shawn from southern California.
It stopped raining somewhere in here or in the next mile. I remember telling Shawn that my goal had
been to qualify for Boston but with the rain and the wind in the wrong
direction I was just going to try and enjoy the day and whatever happened,
happened. I wanted to smell the roses as
I was running by them, or in this case the Mesquite and Saguaro.
Mile 3 Split 7.33
Kept talking with Shawn.
He said he doesn’t like how everyone goes all quite. I agreed with him and said that at least at
the beginning it was good to talk to get the mind off the race. In this mile a college student from ASU with
a red beard joined us. This was his
first marathon and his watch just died.
He said he would like to run with us to use us for pacing.
Mile 4 Split 7.23
Made a right turn onto McDowell and had a slight uphill but
nothing bad. I was enjoying the race and
not worrying to much about my pacing.
Mile 5 Split 7.51
Uphill. Shawn told
Red Beard that you can’t win the race in the first six miles but you could lose
the race in the first six miles. I
agreed and told about how I went out to fast in the Pocatello Marathon in the
first six miles and pretty much doomed myself the rest of the race.
Mile 6 Split 7.57
Uphill. Tried to concentrate on not straining or
pushing to hard on the upward climb.
Mile 7 Split 7.01
Everything that goes up must come down. I told Shawn and Red Beard that I wanted to
slowly chip away and catch the guy who was the pacer for the 3:15 time, by the
half way point of the marathon. So I
picked up the pace a little bit and they came with me.
Mile 8 split 7.39
This was all downhill through a residential
neighborhood. I could see the 3:15 pace
guy just up ahead and I wanted to catch up with him at the mile nine
marker. Noticed Shawn dropping off the
pace. Red Beard seemed to be strong and
coming with me on the faster pace. Told
him that I was going to run my own race and that he should run his own race and
that we shouldn’t race each other.
Mile 9 split 8.11
I caught up with the 3:15 guy at the aid station. After the aid station I hit my watch and it
said 8.11 I knew this was slow so I
asked out loud to no one in particular “Did we already pass mile nine?” It was the 3:15 guy that answered by saying
“yeah, we already passed it about a quarter of a mile back.” So I knew that that mile split would be long
and the next one would be fast. I was
happy to now be ahead of the 3:15 guy because from mile 1-3 my goal was to
catch up to him by the halfway point. So
now I revised my goal to cautiously and judiciously go a little bit faster to
chip away at the 3:10 guy.
Mile 10 split 5.45
Combined time for mile nine and ten is 13.56. So the average split for the last two miles
was 6.57 or so. This mile marker was
right at the 202 (highway). This was a
good one to see what pace I was at because the math would be easy. One hour fourteen minutes and eleven seconds,
which is 74.11 minutes divided by ten is seventy minutes and five would have been
a 7.30 pace. So I figured I was
somewhere right under a 7.30 pace. Which
was close, at this point I was at a 7.26 pace.
I was happy with that because a 7.15 pace is a 3:10.00 finish time. Again, unless you are talking with someone,
you don’t have much to think about during a marathon except do the math in your
head on what your pace is. Here I passed
a guy and a gal in matching triathlon suits and the guy having the ironman
triathlon logo tattooed on his calf.
Halfway into this one we started a good stretch of straightaway on
McDowell road. There was a little bit of
a light rain in here somewhere.
Mile 11 split 7.07
Very slight down hill which was
appreciated. A little drizzle.
Mile 12 7.19
I decided that I would take a quick pit stop in one of the
port-a-pottys. I had been feeling a
little bit of the need since mile seven but nothing pressing, if you will. However, I wanted to take advantage of an
empty one before we hit the half-way point just in case we started picking up
some of the half marathoners.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly and I was in and out in less than
two minutes. However, in a marathon two
minutes can be a long time. My new
immediate goal was to slowly catch up to Red Beard. I could see him up ahead, probably less than
a mile away. I didn’t want to burn
myself out but nevertheless, I needed to regain the ground that I lost. During this mile I passed both of the
triathlon suit runners who had split up, but had passed me during my pit stop. A very light sprinkle during this mile.
Mile 13 split 7.05
I was looking forward to this point because it could where I
was at the half way point, and again, the math would be easy. Divide finishing time in half.
Mile 14 split 7.15
Slowly chipping away at Red Beard.
Mile 15 split 7.07
Finally passed Red Beard right after the mile marker. I told him thank you for pulling me along and
if we saw each other at the last I would challenge him to sprint. I was very glad to have a visible goal to
really shoot for. The last three miles
was starting to be a little bit of a challenge.
In this mile we turned west onto Brown.
I knew ahead of time that this would be a long, long stretch of road
that I would need to keep my focus on hitting my pace.
Mile 16 7.05
Really focused on gaining ground on that three hour and ten
minute pace. I wanted to hit seven
minute miles.
Mile 17 split 7.01
Somewhere along here I got confused as to what mile I was at
and was figuring out what pace I was averaging versus what pace I wanted to be
at for mile 18 and then re-doing the whole thing again for a different
mile. I spent most of the time trying to
do the math in my head. Finally, I
decided to drop the math and wait until 18 when the math would be somewhat easier
with an even number. At least it gave my
mind something to do instead of thinking about how the pain was starting to
increase.
Mile 18 split 6.57
I passed a girl whose shirt said on the back in Spanish “el
que se cansa pierde”. He who gets tired
loses, or something along those lines.
She had a good pace going and it took me a little time to pass her. As I passed her I repeated the phrase and
said “I like it”. To which she responded
in the affirmative. Along this long
stretch on Brown road the runners were running in one lane and vehicle traffic
was passing us, going in the same direction, in the other lane. I ran as close to the cones that divided me
from the traffic as I could in hope of getting a little extra push from draft
off the cars. I thought about how in Beijing
Olympics, Michael Phelps was in a relay and the anchor leg (another veteran
swimmer) of the relay swam right next to the lane line of the guy ahead of him
to take advantage of the little bit of current produced by the other guy. That team ended up winning by a hair on the
final touch. Along here I kind of
whished the race was a little bit longer because I felt a little bit like I was
running out of room to catch the 3:10 guy.
If I was gaining 15 seconds every mile, how many miles would I need to
catch up and pass the 3:10 guy? I was
getting to tired to solve word problems in my mind. I was starting to get frustrated that I
didn’t have a visual of him in front of me, because I should have. I was close enough to that time.
Mile 19 6.59
While these miles were not the hardest of the hard, they
were definitely reaching hard stage. It
was taxing and took mental effort to keep going at the same pace. In this mile I passed a guy to whom I said
“looking good there”. He returned the
compliment and then asked if I was shooting for the 3:10 ten guy. I told him that was exactly right. He told me to go get him. I said I would. In the last half of mile 19 the route finally
turns off Brown and does a series of turns as the participants take a painful
running tour of downtown Mesa. Right
before we made that turn I noticed someone running right behind me. As I discovered him he apologized and said
that he was trying to draft off me and also soak up some of my energy as I was
looking pretty strong. I told him no
worries because I had done that to several other people myself. Although the other guys that I did that to would
weave back and forth once or twice to get me off their tail because that
bothered them somehow. I didn’t mind
having him draft off me because that also gave me another reason to try and
hold my pace steady. He told me he was
20 minutes ahead of his Boston time. I
told him that I was a little frustrated because I had been trying to catch the
3:10 guy for the last seven miles and my watch was telling me that I should
have caught him by now. He said that he
would come back to me because he had gone out to fast. I told him that I had been trying to hit a
seven minute pace in the last couple of miles but had been a little slow on
each of them and that I was going to try and hit seven in these upcoming
miles. He agreed and said he would try
and stick with me from 20 to 23 and then the last three miles is on sheer guts
alone.
Mile 20 7.05
Along here there was a bunch of little flying insects that I
initially thought were gnats. A policeman
who was on a loudspeaker for some reason and traveling in a motorized vehicle
the same direction behind me was talking with someone else, on the loudspeaker
(I know annoying), and thought that they were mosquitoes. I thought that the mosquitoes must be out
early, but wait this is Mesa where it probably didn’t freeze this last winter
so I hope we don’t have to breathe them in for the rest of the race and why
hadn’t we run through them earlier in the race.
There must be a canal near here where they breed or something. The
math for my pace was easy on this mile split and I had a few minutes where the
excitement of meeting my goal was palpable.
I was right on 3:10 pace. I had
to assume that the 3:10 guy was ahead of pace just as the “guts alone guy” had
said. I passed a runner who was walking
along the sidewalk in obvious pain. An
older gentleman was walking alongside him supporting him, maybe a Father, I
thought. I shouted out to him to keep
going and not give up. He shouted back
(because I was in front of him by this point) that he would walk the rest of
the way if he had to. His plight resonated
with me, with what I had gone through in the Pocatello marathon in August of
2013. At the Pocatello marathon, I heard
another marathoner say that the half way mark is mile 20. While technically not true, metaphorically it
is the gospel truth. It had been
challenging up to this point, buy the intensity of the pain ratchets up for
every mile here after. Every mile seems
to be twice as long. Keeping the same
pace seems to be twice as hard.
Mile 21 split 6.48
This is where the pain started seeping into every muscle of
my legs, and just general pain and tiredness overall. This is the point where I tried to gather
myself, re-focus and say “let’s go, six more miles that is it! You have run this many times in
training. You can do it.” At this mile marker I splashed some Gatorade
into my face trying to get a drink of a little bit of it. The majority of it went into one eye. There go the fine motorskills out the window! It stung for a couple of minutes.
Mile 22 split 7.13
These miles are an exercise in accomplishing short term
goals. Who cares how much is left, who
cares how bad you hurt, make it to mile 23.
Just make it to mile 23 and then you can slow down if you need to but
for now, do not slow down! No, those
last couple of steps were slower, just keep the same pace! You don’t have to run faster but do not slow
down! Keep up with that guy in front of
you, he is not slowing down!” At this
point I had relinquished the seven minute per mile pace and hoped to keep a
seven minute and fifteen second pace.
Even at that I was just hanging on by a very light, thin, thread.
Mile 23 split 7.32
There is a saying among the ranks of marathoners: “nothing
you do can prepare you for the last three miles of the marathon”. There is no way around it, no easy way
out. I challenge you to find a marathon
finisher who had a good time the last three miles. I would add also, don’t forget about the last
“.2”(point two), which is 385 yards, or about fifty meters less than one trip
around a standard 400 meter track. That
.2 started to play with my mind because all of my calculations were based off
of 26 miles, not 26.2 miles. Or was
it? I don’t know, I was right there but
doing 23 divided by 7.15 in my head is not within my grasp at this point,
sorry. However, 3.2 miles is… kind
of. I can do three mile math in my head
that is 21 minutes for a seven minute pace but how long will it take me to run
that .2 etc. etc. etc.…..?
Mile 24 split 7.45
These next two miles were an ongoing series of “yes I can do
it” and “oh man this horrible.
Keep
going.
I only went five steps and now I
have to slow down again?!”
Ann Trason is
a very accomplished ultra distance runner, a legend actually.
She was at an aid station in the later stages
of the Western States 100 mile Endurance Run.
On live TV she was asked if at that point in the race she set her goal
on making it to the next aid station.
Her response hits a familiar chord with all distance runners.
She said “I just run from tree to tree”.
If you were to ask
me at the end of this mile what my split was without looking at my watch I
would have said ten minutes.
I was only
45 seconds off the seven minute pace I had been clicking off like clockwork,
but the physical exhaustion just made it feel like I was going significantly
slower.
Mile 25 split 7.53
The “guts alone guy” passed me and yelled out encouragement
and to follow him. I said “are you
serious?” He said “yes, you pulled me
along and now it is my turn to pull you along you can do it.” I stayed with him as long as I could, I tried
so hard! Then, probably about 50 meters
later, I dropped back to what seemed to me like my agonizingly slow plod of 10
minute pace. I had to let him go. I wondered where he all of the sudden got so
much energy and “get up and go”.
Mile 26 split 10.01
The Wheels fall off.
I knew that there was no way I could get the 3:08.00 finishing time so
here is where my body finally crushed any last lingering self control that my
mind had over my body. I thought that if
I can’t make the 3:08.00 then why put myself through the pain to get a 3:10.00
for nothing? I also had the worst side
cramp I have had in the modern era (i.e. post mission). I should have gone for the three ten any way
even if I didn’t get accepted to Boston.
I am disappointed that I let doubt creep in, and that I entertained it
long enough to take hold.
Mile 26.2 split 2.07
About 50 meters before the finish line, the 3:15.00 pace guy
passed me. As I saw him pass me, I
thought “no way, I can’t let him pass me!”
So I ran faster than him and passed him right before the finish
line. This left me perplexed because the
effort felt relatively easy compared to the pain I had been experiencing for
the last half hour. It left me wondering
how much was really left in the proverbial tank and if I had really given
everything or just finally succumbed, unwilling to endure any more masochism. Also I had run a ten minute mile which for me
was like a mile of slow recovery jog (in any other shorter run) so maybe that
is why I had the last burst of energy.
Plus the finish line was right there so there was no dealing with
sustained pain. I heard Bruce Williams
calling out my name and turned just in time to see them. That was nice that they were there.
Post Race
Because I had experienced heat exhaustion upon finishing
other marathons, I poured a cup of water over my head to prevent it. It sure had its desired effect. The cold water anda chilly wind combined to
give me the early stages of hypothermia.
After Shawn, Red Beard (see mile one and two), and several others
commented on it, I humbled myself and went to the medical tent. They were not prepared to treat hypothermia,
but a free, dry volunteer shirt kept me from getting any worse, although it
didn’t really help either. The massage
therapist working me over and said that my quads were the tightest he had seen
all day. I got back in time to see my
son’s last soccer game, which was in the driving rain. In the finish area I saw a family who were my
teammates in the Ragnar Del Sol relay race in 2013, so that was cool. That night we watched the Youth Temple cultural
celebration, and the youth were in the rain.
The next day we attended the Temple dedication (in the sunshine) which
was awesome.
Somewhere in mile 23 or 24 is where in the movies the
inspirational, dramatic, orchestrated music starts. You get the camera shots of the runner with a
determined look on their face, the leg and arm muscles quivering in the slow
motion shot as the front leg makes contact with the ground. The viewer thinks, “he has to do it, he is going
to do it or else why would they be showing this in the first place and playing
the dramatic music? Somehow he is going
to find the inner strength to beat the time despite all odds!” But this is not the movies, nor TV, this is
reality. Reality dictates that you can’t
win every time, and that bad things happen, even to good people, sometimes even
when they don’t deserve it. Reality
dictates that you must learn lessons, pay your dues and suffer the price of
learning what it takes to meet your goal.
That’s reality, and reality is a cold, stern task master, unflinching to
the emotional appeals of human yearnings.
Sometimes I think of Andreas Raelert in the 2010 Hawaii
Ironman championship. After the swim and
bike he is behind Chris McCormack. He
works so hard to gain ground on McCormack during the run. With two or three miles to go he catches up
to him but is unable to complete the pass.
They run stride for stride until they have less than a mile to go on
Ali’i drive and McCormack slowly pulls away for the win. As a passive viewer on the other side of the
camera lens, it is so easy to wonder why he didn’t complete the pass and go
onto win. After swimming 2.4 miles,
cycling 112 and running 25 miles, he had less than a mile to go to win. To win the world championship! I also think of Desirae Davila, now Linden
after being married. In the 2011 Boston
Marathon. No American woman had one for
quite a while and here she was on Boylston street with less than a mile to go
and she is trading the lead with the other runner at a dead sprint. She ends up finished second by mere
steps. By a few steps! Why couldn’t both of these individuals just
sprint a little bit harder? Victory was
right there. The answer is cliché in
sports; but to the one who arises before sunrise to train during cold winter
months, it is no standard answer. For
the runner who sacrifices a warm bed and sleep on consecutive Saturday mornings
to run three hours in a row, the answer is a reality. To the athlete who endures months and months
of thankless, unheralded, repetitious, development, they come to embody the
answer when they say “I gave all I had and came up a little short today”.
I end this race report with prose:
“The Few”
by Edgar A. Guest
"The easy roads are crowded
And the level roads are jammed;
The pleasant little rivers
With the drifting folks are crammed.
But off yonder where it's rocky,
Where you get a better view,
You will find the ranks are thinning
And the travelers are few.
Where the going's smooth and
pleasant
You will always find the throng,
For the many, more's the pity,
Seem to like to drift along.
But the steeps that call for courage,
And the task that's hard to do
In the end result in glory
For the never-wavering few."
The Man Watching
By Rainer Maria Rilke
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
I had to read it like 20 times
before I started to get an idea of what it is about.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was born in Prague and is
considered one of the greatest poets of modern Germany. In his letters to a
young would-be poet, which he wrote from 1903 to 1908, Rilke explained, that
"nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go
into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether
you would have to die if it were denied you to write."
|
Mile
|
Split
|
Pace
|
Overall Time
|
|
1
|
7.27
|
7.27
|
7.27
|
|
2
|
7.18
|
7.23
|
14.46
|
|
3
|
7.33
|
7.26
|
22.19
|
|
4
|
7.23
|
7.25
|
29.43
|
|
5
|
7.51
|
7.31
|
37.35
|
|
6
|
7.57
|
7.36
|
45.32
|
|
7
|
7.01
|
7.31
|
52.34
|
|
8
|
7.39
|
7.32
|
1:00.13
|
|
9
|
8.11
|
7.36
|
1:08.25
|
|
10
|
5.45
|
7.26
|
1:14.11
|
|
11
|
7.07
|
7.23
|
1:21.18
|
|
12
|
7.19
|
7.23
|
1:28.37
|
|
13
|
7.05
|
7.22
|
1:35.42
|
|
14
|
7.15
|
7.21
|
1:42.58
|
|
15
|
7.07
|
7.20
|
1:50.05
|
|
16
|
7.05
|
7.19
|
1:57.10
|
|
17
|
7.01
|
7.18
|
2:04.11
|
|
18
|
6.57
|
7.17
|
2:11.08
|
|
19
|
6.59
|
7.16
|
2:18.08
|
|
20
|
7.05
|
7.15
|
2:25.14
|
|
21
|
6.48
|
7.14
|
2:32.02
|
|
22
|
7.13
|
7.14
|
2:39.15
|
|
23
|
7.32
|
7.15
|
2:46.47
|
|
24
|
7.45
|
7.16
|
2:54.33
|
|
25
|
7.53
|
7.18
|
3:02.27
|
|
26
|
10.01
|
7.24
|
3:12.28
|
|
26.2
|
2.07
|
7.26
|
3:14.36
|
