I gave up running for six months or so, around the time
that our second son, Bennett was born. I started again,
after my wife's grandmother passed away. For some reason,
that gave her an incentive to start running again, and that
was a good reason for me to start back up. At the time,
around May of 2005, I was up to a record weight of 203
pounds. It was difficult to get back to 5k. I started out
going about 2.3 miles at a time, out the door, around the
neighborhood, and then back. After about a month or so of
that, at about 4 times per week, I decided to add on a leg
which took me to exactly 5k. I kept this up through
December and I was feeling great. I lost about 20 pounds
and I was making good time.
I started to talk about running more, with friends from
work, my brother-in-law, and even the folks on my Porsche
enthusiast web forum. For some reason, I was starting to
get some prodding to increase my mileage, so I did. I tried
a couple of 5 mile runs around Christmas and then I started
on the 10k's. I did a sub-49 minute 10k on Caroline's
parents' treadmill at 0.0 elevation over the holiday. I
couldn't believe how easy it was to run on a flat
treadmill. Ours is limited to 1.0 as the lowest setting,
but I think it’s more like 2.0. After getting back
home, I put the rear of ours up on blocks to make it 0.0.
Rhonda at work, who has run about eight marathons,
suggested that I should consider a half-marathon, so I
tried a 10-mile run one weekend in early January. I felt
great, with my new iPod cranking out the tunes. I ran it
straight through at 10 minute miles, based on some coaching
I received to go 1.5 - 2 minutes slower than a 5k pace. I
quickly decided that I should focus on a full marathon and
I started looking for a good race. At first, I thought I'd
run one in Macon, Georgia, but then I heard that it was too
hilly and not that well-organized. Looking at the marathon
calendars, I decided on the Knoxville Marathon on March
26th, which left me less than three months to train.
After working out a training schedule that seemed to be
feasible, I finalized my decision and got down to work. I
was really enjoying the Garmin Forerunner that my mom
bought me for Christmas and the runs were fantastic. I was
listening to podcasts from Endurance Radio, Runcast Weekly,
and Zen & the Art of the Triathlon for inspiration and
to pass the time. On a business trip to Monterey,
California in early February, I had a couple of early
morning runs along the ocean that started out before
sunrise and it seemed like I was in heaven. My long runs
starting on January 22nd were 10, 13, 16, 14, 17, 20.5,
17.5, 16, 13 miles. I ran each and every weekend leading up
to the race.
Rhonda invited me to run with her and her friend Susan a
few times and I finally took her up on it for the 20 mile
training run. They taught me about nutrition as I hadn't
really been taking in fluids or gels up until that time. It
was a great run around Roswell, and as they stoked it up
for the final 3.5 miles, I felt pretty good and I was able
to keep up with them. Rhonda ran ahead and Susan was just
behind me at the end, so I was proud that I could run along
with these experienced marathoners. I was confident that I
could run the marathon, then four weeks away.
I wanted to do 18 the next week, but then I altered my
route plan so that the loops would total about 19 miles
with Gatorade and gel at half-way through, but then not
again till the end. Well, I conked out at 17.5 miles and I
had to walk the rest of the way back to the house. That was
disappointing, but I certainly learned a lesson about
nutrition. The following week, we were down in Florida
visiting Caroline's parents. I decided to try for 18 miles,
up and down DelRay Beach. I wanted to get out early in the
morning, but I didn't work out that way. After 16 miles, I
was beat in the 82 degree heat. My stomach was upset and I
had to stop in the restroom twice. That was another crappy
run, especially since I'd forgotten to wear my two-bandaid
male bra. I had blood down the front of my sweaty shirt -
it was not a pretty sight.
I took it easy the next two weekends for distance but I
decided to try to keep a quick pace. I did pretty well on
the 16 miler and even better on the 13 miler the week
before the race, with a time of 2:04:14 for my
Garmin-measured half-marathon. I only ran twice during the
week of the marathon: one quick 10k on the treadmill and a
pretty good lunch run of 6.5 miles around the park near the
office.
Caroline was on a business trip in Chicago on Thursday and
Friday, prior to the race, so I changed my hotel
reservation in Knoxville, cancelling Friday night.
Originally, we were to drive up on Friday evening and spend
Saturday, Caroline’s birthday, enjoying a family day
in Tennessee. Instead, we were faced with a four-hour drive
to Knoxville with the kids. While we stopped for lunch on
the way, little Jack noticed a mural above our table at the
McDonalds depicting athletes from the local high school
team. For some reason, Jack decided that he really wanted a
base ball helmet and he asked about it every two minutes or
so, for the next hour, which drove us crazy! This continued
throughout the weekend, but with less frequency.
We noticed that Rhonda and Susan arrived at the hotel just
as we did, so we decided go with them to the marathon expo,
and then to meet them out for dinner. They got to the
restaurant first to reserve the table, but decided to order
their food to go, based on the long wait. We had to wait
about 30 minutes or so, but it went quickly as the boys
flirted with some local girls. Jack and Ben were very cute
that night, and I think it satisfied Caroline for her
birthday dinner.
That night, Caroline was upset with me as she felt I was
primping at the mirror while she relaxed on the bad. Jack
was watching Looney Tunes and Ben tinkered around the room
as curious 18 month-olds tend to do. Tempers flared when he
broke the coffee pot so I stopped “primping”.
In reality, I was preparing for my big run. I was trying to
decide what to wear as the temperature was going to be
colder than anticipated, roughly 32 to 48 degrees for the
morning. I was working out the pants and whether to wear
long johns or not (glad I went with only one layer), gel in
the pockets (4 or 6 gels? How does that feel?), pinning on
my number (too high at first, one pin went through to the
back of the shirt at first and I didn’t notice that
until I tried it on), how many shirts to wear? (I decided
on two long-sleeved shirts), ear warmer (on its own or with
a baseball cap – alone it is), etc. I needed this
time to work out the gear, because I hadn’t done it
back home, and I wasn’t about to leave everything for
the morning, not with a 7am start for the race.
I got up on time and met Rhonda and Susan downstairs, after
dressing, giving Caroline a kiss and leaving the kids to
sleep. They were a bit late and we had to hurry over to the
start. We started in the back of the pack, but with such a
small field it only took us about a minute to get past the
official start. Here we go!
The first half-mile was pretty slow and then we got up to a
nine-minute pace. We ran in the crowd as Rhonda explained
that she’s not a weaver. We passed the 3 mile mark as
we were in the first neighborhood to participate in the
contest. Full marathon runners were to vote on their
favorite neighborhood and the winners would receive a
prize. There were signs and spectators in these areas and
it made the run a bit more interesting. I chuckled at a
sign that read “Run, but have fun!” as I
figured that the author must have a dim view of running
– that you can’t really do both too easily. In
retrospect, I guess that there are folks that don’t
have enough fun running, whether taking it too seriously or
over-doing it. At the time, though – three miles into
a 26 mile run, I knew that I was in for a tough morning,
but I would definitely run and have fun.
We passed the 10k mark at about one hour, and I was pretty
happy with the pace. At about twelve miles, Susan felt
dizzy and dropped back. She told us to go ahead and Rhonda
was not too comfortable about our decision to press on at
our steady pace. In the end, we decided that Susan would be
safe with all of the half-marathoners around and she could
easily walk to the end of the half and stop if necessary.
We had been keeping the 4:15 pacers in view throughout the
first half of the race and by mile 15, we were bumping up
against them, getting ready to pass. Rhonda and I conferred
and I suggested that we hang with them rather than pass.
At mile 16 Rhonda turned on her hip-hop tunes and went
ahead, and I tried to stay with the pacers. The leader of
the group was very athletic and fit looking guy. I was
impressed with the way that he ran with the sign. It was a
three or four foot metal stick with a small white
“4:15” sign. I’d been watching him and
the group for those 16 miles. He had the sign most of the
time, keeping it upright and visible at all times. If he
stopped for water, he’d pass the sign on to someone
else in the group until he caught back up with them.
I lost the group at the next stop for water. I kept a
decent pace for those next few miles, but I was unable to
catch back up to the pacers after each stop. I felt a bit
lonely, even though there were plenty of people around.
I’d lost Rhonda – she was way ahead. Susan was
way behind, and I’d lost the pacers with not much
hope of catching back up. My goal time went from 4:30 at
the outset of my training program in late January to 4:22
toward the race. That's ten minutes per mile and I figured
that was achievable and respectable, given that I hadn't
done any speed work, focusing primarily on long slow
disctance with an emphasis on slow. I thought that 4:15
would be a good stretch goal, but I honestly felt anything
better than 4:22 would be great and anything longer than
4:30 would be terrible. They say that the goal for the
first marathon should be just to finish, but I was
comfortable with my goals, knowing that I wasn't going to
hurt myself, mentally or physically with unrealistic
expectations.
By mile 20, I was pretty beat. I remember a water stop
where I knew I was looking rough. There was a photographer
nearby and he took a photo of me. I thought about how much
I wanted to see that photo – how it would serve as a
true record of my condition and the effort of running my
first marathon.
I heard a voice speaking to me, over my iPod music. I
turned to see an older woman, maybe 60 or so, asking about
the “40” on my shirt. She wanted to know if I
was running my fortieth marathon. “Ha!!” I
thought!! I explained to her that I was turning 40 this
year and she retorted that I was just a young’n or
something to that effect. It wasn’t clear, but it
seemed like maybe she wanted to keep talking but I was more
into my tunes and preferred to maintain my focus. She
continued on past me.
No too much further on, I passed the guy who had been
running with the “4:15” sign. He was walking!!
At that point, faster runners were running at me, as I was
on the “out” section of a two-three mile
out-and-back. I was hoping to see Rhonda on the first leg
or Susan on the way back, but I did not. I did see the
“4:15” guy on the way back and he was jogging
along at a slow pace.
I’d been running through a section of town called
Island Home. There were many supporters out cheering us on
(relatively, at least), and there were some interesting
musical acts. I started to feel better during mile 22 and
started to feel really good on 23. I was smiling as I
passed each person along the way. One man called out
“Go Jack!!” as I approached and his 4 year old
daughter asked “Who’s Jack?” just as I
passed them. I was smiling ear-to-ear and turned back to
them to shout “I’m Jack!” and I ran on.
At this point, I was into the best tunes on my playlist.
There was a tough uphill leading to a long bridge and I
passed several runners including the old woman. It was a
pretty lonely run along the bridge, but I was feeling
great. I smiled as I passed a bunch of supporters on the
far side of the bridge, and then I followed the route
through the deserted downtown business district. I know I
was close to the finish so I kept the pace up and I kept
smiling.
I started to think about running into the stadium and
seeing Caroline and the boys. I started to think that the
end had better come soon or I’d run out of steam. I
found my way across the Start, and was hoping to have the
finish in view. Unfortunately, I still had about one-half
mile to go, starting with a tough uphill. I actually felt
like that last uphill was a bit demoralizing. It was really
tough! I gave it all I had, but I couldn’t quite keep
up my pace. I didn’t drop off too much, but I was no
longer smiling!
The stadium was finally visible and I found my way to the
entrance, then onto the field, and then across the finish
line. I was given a finisher’s medal and some other
goodies. I almost couldn’t believe it.
I looked and looked for Caroline but she was nowhere in
sight. There I was, all alone, which provided me with some
time to reflect. I teared up a bit as I thought about my
accomplishment. I had thought about marathons for almost
the entire twelve years of my running career but never
thought that I could actually do it. I realized that I had
done something great and that I’d be able to cherish
it for the rest of my life.
Rhonda found me and we chatted a bit. I realized that my
legs were getting terribly stiff and she suggested
stretching. We pondered Susan’s situation for a bit
and then we saw her cross the finish! Rhonda ran 4:06, I
did 4:17, and Susan did 4:37. Checking the results, I was
278 of 633 overall and 227 of 455 men (just barely in the
upper half!), and 45 of 79 in my age group. I'm very happy
with that for my first marathon. We got some photos of the
three of us, as the photographers were very accommodating.
Finally, Caroline came up with the stroller. Both boys were
sleeping. She was out on the course and despite frantic
waving at mile 20, I was too focused to see them. She had
some taken some video, but it didn’t some out. After
a few more photos of Rhonda, Susan and me, we headed back
to the hotel to clean up, pack up, and check out. I wore my
medal and I was so proud of it – I decided that it
was my most valuable possession.