So, I ran a marathon last Saturday. It was a completely unmemorable run. A slow run. But the fact that I was able to participate made it a great run.
The race was the Veterans Day Marathon in Huntington Beach, a very small marathon put on by Charlie Alewine Racing. When I say very small, I mean there were five participants. The size of the race didn’t matter to me, though. As I mentioned last week, the race was on November 7, which was 18 years to the day after I broke my neck in a swimming-pool accident.
I consider November 7 to be a birthday for my legs and I really wanted to celebrate my “legs birthday” by running a marathon. My neck hurts every day, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the past 18 years dwelling about that. But I also am fully aware that I am very blessed that I escaped paralysis. So it was nice to run a marathon.
Leading up to Saturday’s race, I’ve had a pretty difficult year with my running. I had one good race, running the Boston Marathon in 3:01. But everything else has been pretty poor. I haven’t run any other marathon quicker than 3:10 after doing that five times in a row last year, including three times in three states in eight days. I ran a 50-miler in May, got pretty beat up and struggled miserably in a marathon in San Diego three weeks later, then took some time to mentally unwind for about six weeks. Low mileage, no long runs — I needed a break, and that’s what I took.
Then, I sprained my ankle walking through a parking lot and went five weeks without running. It got frustrating, but finally my physical therapist let be build back up. I could tell that my endurance was down and my speed had vanished. No big deal — I’m only running 60 marathons next year, right?
I had a pity party for myself during September, but in October, I finally started feeling a little more competitive and decided that I was ready to work at it again. I mixed in some tougher workouts and started to gradually show signs of improvement. One staple of my training is a long run of at least 26.2 on the weekends, and I think I’ve done that about eight or so weeks in a row. Maybe seven, I don’t know.
I had a couple of encouraging workouts over the two weeks leading up to Saturday’s race, so I thought that maybe I’d be somewhere close to the 3:10 range I wanted to be in at this point. I was looking at the race as a good test run and wanted to see where I stood. And of course, I was running a November 7 marathon. It was going to be super cool for me.
All five of us got rolling and there were two triathletes who could move pretty well, a man named Rob who ran a 100-miler the week before and completed the Western States 100 this year (in short, Rob can flat-out run forever … and pretty fast), and a woman named Sally who I run part of my runs with every morning who has a PR of 3:15. I might well have been the slowest guy in the field! Well, the half marathoners were all slower than us.
I run by heart rate and gradually worked it up to my marathon rate of 170 bpm. I wasn’t feeling particularly good or bad — I just made sure I kept it under control. I was right around 7:10/mile or so for 6 or 8 miles. The two triathletes looked to be about 6 seconds/mile faster than me, but that was enough to keep them in range. But by about 8, I just wasn’t feeling it. Not sure if it was physical, mental, or both, but I think the wheels came off. I gradually started to slow down, and I mentally folded, knowing it wasn’t going to be my day.
It was extremely difficult because I was running in open space, not totally feeling it and knowing it wasn’t my day. How do you stay motivated for that? My pace slipped and slipped and I really stopped worrying about how I would do. I tried to keep my heart rate up in the 170-172 range, but I didn’t stress if it dropped into the low 160s. It was totally a training-run mentality by about 12, and I was beating myself up mentally for my slow time.
On the Monday before the race, I ran a 20-miler on hills at a better pace with lower effort than I was doing during this race. As I kept plodding along, by the final two miles I told myself that I really wanted to keep the time under 3:30 and the pace under 8:00/mile. We ran 10 laps on a course and after the ninth lap, according to my Garmin, I was going to come up .32 of a mile short. So, I tacked that on during the final lap, turning back with about 1/2 mile left, running .16 miles back up the course and then doubling back to the finish.
I was solidly in third, but Rob saw me and caught me. I had some kick over the final 2/10 and got my pace down to 5:51/mile, but I was no match for him. He eased up (we were both on the verge of puking) and we crossed the finish line together, tied for third in 3:29:05 (7:59/mile). Just a slow, slow day for both of us. 3:16 won the race. Sally, who ran 18 the day before, finished in 3:38. So, I guess in my marketing spin, I’ll just say that I took third place in a race where the last finisher ran a 3:38. That’s tough competition!
For a lot of people, 3:29 would be a great race. For me, though, it was a horribly slow day, not at all the confidence builder I’d hoped for. In all fairness to myself, I ran a 30-miler seven days before and a hard 20-miler five days before. It’s not like I was tapered and fresh and primed. Oh, and my lunch the day before the race was In-N-Out, which I love, but isn’t the ideal fuel for a race.
So, I didn’t get the time I hoped for, but I’m not concerned, and I’m still going to make another attempt at sub-3 in Tucson on December 13. I’m not ruling it out, and really, if I learned anything about my current fitness on Saturday, it’s that I can run a 3:29 26.2-mile training run right now.
But more important than my time on Saturday was that I got to run the race. As I mentioned, I could very easily be in a wheelchair right now. After the race, I went to my son Benjamin’s soccer game. After the game, my daughter Ava celebrated her 4th birthday with a cupcake decorating birthday party with her friends from preschool. I went to the hyperbaric chamber with Jack. Then I went with Benajmin for dinner at In-N-Out and a soccer game at UCI with his AYSO team. Each of my kids had some cool things going on Saturday and none of them would have existed if I hadn’t been so blessed on November 7, 1991.
So Saturday, I ran a slow marathon. And I had a great day!
Ally Phillips says
You will totally rock a sub-3 on December 13th!
Even if it wasn’t a great race for you, like you said, how great is it that you were able to run and then go do activities with your kids. That’s a blessing. Plus, In-N-Out for lunch the day before the marathon, plus In-N-Out for dinner post marathon?? That’s pretty awesome in my book.
Tiffany Felsenfeld says
You make it seem all so easy!