And the finish

Me, about a half-mile from the finish line.

It feels like champagne has been flowing since 2:30 p.m., one minute after I crossed the finish line for the Adirondack Marathon. It has been, in the form of ginger ale, chocolate, and the emotional rush of finishing this marathon strong and well.
I crossed the line in 5:29:30, according to the race clock. The chip-time shaved off 29 more seconds, giving me a time I feel proud of. More than the finish time, I feel good about the steady pace I was able to maintain throughout the race and the fact that I enjoyed every minute of the race. (Okay, the point at mile 23 where I really wished it would be possible to just stop and sit down for awhile or that some kind of magic sore muscle killer would just descend from the sky and wrap my body in a tunic is probably one example where enjoyment is a conditional word, but nevertheless, it was a great race …).
I had decided earlier this week that I would run with a pace-setter in the hope of finishing in 5:30. I found her and a group of four other runners, one of whom had run the course several times in the past and another who was doing her first marathon after completing a few half-marathons. “I decided I didn’t want to go through life doing things half-way,” she declared, as we lined up for the start. I don’t want to denigrate the accomplishment of a half-marathon, but as I thought about how my mind had flip-flopped between doing a half marathon and a full marathon, there was something about her declaration that resonated with me. The pace-setter used a run-walk method that was compatible with my style: she wanted us to maintain an 11-minute run and one-minute walk, with the hope of going at a pace of 12-minute miles. The group stayed together more or less through about mile five, at which point we began to disperse a bit. We regrouped again around miles 11-12 as we were tackling the course’s worst hill, but after that, we thinned out considerably, with me actually running the furthest ahead of the pack.
Despite the thinning out, the pace-setter’s initial advice of trying 11 minutes run and 1 minute walk worked for me. I was carrying my iPhone, so I simply timed myself all the way through the course. I was pleased that I maintained the 12-minute mile pace through the first 10 miles of the course, clocking mile 10 at 1:59. I also was please that the next five mile increments were not substantially slower: miles 11-15 took me 1:03 to complete, and miles 16-20 about 1:08. I also had planned my hydration and nutritional intake pretty well, and was delighted to discover that the Powerade sports drink available on the course kept me hydrated without upsetting my stomach. I brought four energy gels and a six-pack of Cliff Shot Blocs with me. I took a dose of one of these at miles 5, 10, 14, 18, 21, and 23. I finished the race with one energy gel to spare. There also were M&Ms available at miles 12, and 20, which I munched on, as well. I was going to take my final gel at either mile 24 or 25, but by that point, my feet, knees, and hips were hurting me so much that I didn’t want to strategize; I just wanted to keep on going. Because it was hurting me more to alter my stride from run to walk at that point, I decided that I would run after mile 23 all the way to the finish line, unless I absolutely felt I needed to talk. That plan also helped me out a lot because even though I was running very slowly at that point keeping up a run-like gait helped energize me and power me toward the finish.
After I crossed, I sipped bottled water and wrapped myself in a solar blanket. I also hung out by the finish line waiting for the rest of the runners who were with the 5:30 pace-setter to come in. It turned out that we were all just minutes apart, with one woman coming in at 5:31, a second one at about 5:34, and the final two at 5:35. We congratulated each other on our finishes and took a few minutes to get a group photograph together. Even though we didn’t run side-by-side through the race, I felt as if their presence — like so many other things — helped contribute to the success of this marathon.
Several hours later, my knees are aching and I just want to go to sleep. So I will sign off, and return with more about marathons later. Overall, I felt that this was one of my best-executed marathons of all time. Not because it was fast but because it was steady. It showed me how I could pace my body to keep it lasting longer, and how I could talk myself into running amid pain. It’s that feeling that illuminates the value of not going through life doing things half-way.

To the tortoise

It’s the night before the Adirondack Marathon, my tenth marathon and my first in five years. I have my race packet, and my number pinned to my shirt. My sports gels and CliffShot blocks are packed into a fanny pack, and the shorts, socks, and sports bra I will wear tomorrow are ready to go. My husband Jim and I drove up to Schroon Lake this afternoon — about an hour and 15 minutes from our home — to get pick up our packets and to drive the course. There’s not much more to do now, other than to wait.

I think about where I was a year ago. I had created a virtual marathon event on Facebook, as a way of encouraging friends as well as myself to try and finish 26.2 miles in a single event in a do-it-yourself marathon that each of us would self-create. My goal in creating the event was to see if I still had it in me to go the distance. Tomorrow, I’ll find out.

I don’t feel nervous about the distance itself. I’ve done it many times before. I’m nervous about the myriad of things that surround marathons that seem unexplainable: the mystique of the meal on the night before, the ritual of carbo loading, the proper taper, and how and when to fuel one’s self during the race itself. I also am a little nervous about finishing the marathon in six hours. I don’t want a volunteer truck to sidle up to me at the 5-1/2 hour mark and ask me if want a ride to the finish line. According to the race instructions, I’ll have an hour after that 5-1/2 hour warning to get there before the course completely closes. But I want to be at or close enough to the finish line not to have to hear the warning.

A lot has happened in a year. I quit drinking, and my weight dropped from about 128 pounds in late September to about 116 now. I had two minor surgeries — one of which sidelined me from running for about a month last spring. I traveled a lot, and I grew a lot of food. I became a consistent nightly writer and frequent blogger. I completed a triathlon. I celebrated my fiftieth birthday, my seventh wedding anniversary, and the fact that both my husband and I no longer wear our wedding rings because the bands are now so big they slide off our fingers. I also celebrate the fact that I no longer feel I need to wear a wedding ring to show that I am married. I am married. To Jim. Forever. End of story.

It seems both amazing and unremarkable that this much change has occurred. It is the definition of training, in a sense. As I’ve tried to become better at training in all aspects of my life — sports, writing, food-growing, teaching and mentoring, finances — one of the things that I’ve learned is the importance of due diligence. Nobody can push at everything 110 percent of the time, but everybody can do a little bit all the time. When you do a little, however, you must resign yourself to the role of tortoise. In the fabled race between the tortoise and hare, the hare is the rising star, the winner of the quick-fix solution, the recipient of immediate results. The tortoise by contrast plods. There is little recognition of the efforts that the tortoise makes — until she crosses the finish line, before the hare. And then everyone wonders how the tortoise did it, and also wonders what caused the hare to flame out.

This week, I got a little defensive about my “no-diet diet” when a friend good-naturedly ribbed me for posting a recipe for fettucini alfredo that included butter, freshly shaved parmesan cheese, and cream. I wanted to retort that fettucini alfredo is not something I eat every night, and that I was “carbo-loading” for a marathon. I also wanted to retort that when I do eat fettucini alfredo, it’s in manageable portions and that two and a half years of daily weigh-ins have helped me understand what manageable is. The truth of the matter, though, is that the “no-diet diet” is a tortoise strategy. It gets you there, but it doesn’t grab the headlines and it doesn’t win you accolades.

This marathon feels somewhat similar. As much as I want to finish “well” — and by well I mean not get booted off the course — the end result doesn’t really matter this time around. I feel like getting to the start line this year of a marathon — a place where I’ve been several times before — is not so much a climax or a pivotal moment as a part of a continuum. It represents a very long, at times plodding and often rough transition from a life that lacked direction and often felt controlled by the wills of others to a reclamation of self as well as an understanding of mission that gives everything I do (layered and multi-tasked as it seems at times) a sense of clarity and truth.

In years past, I have stepped up to marathon starts wondering why I’m embarking on such events, asking myself whether I look haphazard and unfocused to others who might think my priorities should be otherwise. Tonight, I feel no qualms. I know exactly why I’m going to be at the starting line, and regardless of the outcome, I intend to savor every minute of the process.

Long run strategies

I logged 12.5 miles today. A little long, I think, for a Sunday before a marathon and I contemplated doing just 9 or 10. But once I got going — which was around mile 9 — I felt like I wanted to keep going so I did.

The run started a little sluggish. I felt tired and a bit chilly, following a morning where the overnight low dropped into the high 30s. I also had a rich homemade quiche lorraine for breakfast. I gave it a couple hours to digest, which was apparently not enough. (Good thing to note: Race day breakfast should be light. I used to stick to a very simple breakfast of toasted thin-sliced bread with a little bit of butter and a cup of coffee. That might be the best thing to do, once again.)

Despite the sluggish start, my pace was almost picture perfect. Earlier this morning, I considered a strategy for a 5:30 finish (or better). I figured that if I hit half-marathon mark at 2:45, I could make this goal, especially since the second half of the course is supposed to be much smoother.

I finished the first five miles in 64 minutes. The second five miles came in at 63 minutes. As I ran, I almost wished I were running the actual marathon. The words of my longtime tai chi teacher from Honolulu wafted back to me: Remember the feeling.

The 12th mile was right at 2:30. I was tempted to run a full 13, just to see where I would come in. I decided, though, that I should err on the side of conservancy and trust that my mileage splits of 11:30 to 13:30 minutes would let me hit mile 13 just below the 2:45 mark.

All kinds of factors can affect one’s performance during the actual event, of course. In 2005, one week before my wedding, my then fiance Jim and I ran the Twin Cities Marathon. I was carrying much more body weight than I am today, but my training was a little like the training has been for this marathon: spotty and sporadic, but I got some long runs in. I was running strong until mile 17 when I passed an intersection just past Jim’s parents house and waved at his parents who had come out to the corner to greet me. Just after seeing them, the calf muscles in one of my legs cramped, causing me to stumble. For the first time in my life, I considered dropping out. Another friend waved to me and started chanting my name at the 30K (18.6 mile) mark. That gave me the mental juice I needed to keep going.

I had hoped to cross the line in 5:30. I made it in 5:56, which was four minutes under the official race cut-off time. Despite the slower pace, I loved that marathon for what it taught me. After I decided to keep going, I changed my run-walk strategy, going from runs of 12 to 18 minutes to runs of about 5 to 7 minutes. I sipped water or sports drink more frequently than I usually do, and started consuming small portions of the energy gels I was carrying every mile or so. Every time I felt a wince in my calf, I slowed to a walk and gave myself the time to stretch the cramping muscle out. I also took Advil (which I used to carry but tried not to overuse) after the first cramp-up and again when I had about two miles to go. Somehow, the combination of increased hydration, added energy gels and pain reliever kept the cramping from overwhelming me while also easing the aches and pains that tend to hit other parts of my body when I’m doing endurance events.

This year, for the first time, I ran with an iPhone, and used a mobile app for a popular web-based tracker called MapMyRun to keep track of my times and paces. Because it is difficult to see a tiny clock on a cell phone that’s clenched in the fist of a hand constantly bobbing back and forth, I switched my run-walk strategy to a simple one of walking for one minute at the end of each mile. Today, I decided to try and vary the minutes of the running increments to see if changes would affect my pace. What I learned reinforced the wisdom of the strategy that its innovator, Jeff Galloway, recognized a long time ago: shorter increments of runs will conserve your energy and help you go much faster in the long run. I started with run increments of 15 minutes (about 1.2 or 1.3 miles), and quickly realized that I was tiring out. Reluctantly, I switched to 11 to 12 minute run increments (about 0.9 to 1.0 miles) and noticed an almost immediate difference. When I hit mile 12, I wanted to keep going. I’ll do my best to follow the advice of my tai chi teacher and, next Sunday, try and remember that feeling.

Seven day countdown

It seems remarkable. I will be running my first marathon in five years in one week. I am 13 years older than I was when I ran my first one. My emotions about this marathon — my tenth — swing wildly from one hour to the next. I think about canceling out; I have dreams where I can see the time clock at the finish line showing a time that would be close to a personal best. I contemplate switching to the half-marathon; I think about the beautiful course and the experience of running 26.2 miles on the East Coast (and in the mountains) for the first time.

I think these wildly diverging sensations are what one might refer to as pre-race jitters. On one hand, I feel unprepared. On the other hand, I feel sure that I can do it. The trick is to stick with the other hand and not allow the first hand to intervene.

Like the triathlon I completed in early August, I spent the weeks before this marathon engaged in travel away from my home. The travel did not exactly derail my training, but it certainly created a break in my consistently — both in the physical aspects of marathon training as well as the mental preparation for the big race.

I remember that one of the best preparations for my first marathon — the Honolulu Marathon in 2000 — was a visualization exercise. I imagined myself starting the race, following the course through the first several miles, hitting the half-way point, then mile 16, 17, 18, and the big hill about a half-mile past mile 23. I imagined the downhill coast to the finish line and the final stretch through Kapi’olani Park. It was easy for me to perform this visualization exercise because I knew the course very well. I had done virtually all of my long runs on the course, and knew just when the rise in Diamond Head Hill would begin and when it was safe to throw the ocean a shaka in blessing, acknowledging a safe cresting of the hill.

The course I will run on September 22 is almost completely foreign to me. The marathon takes place in a town called Schroon Lake, which is about half-way between my home and Lake Placid. Before registering for this marathon, I knew the name of the town primarily because a friend and colleague vacations from time to time at Schroon Lake. I chose the marathon because the course map showed a route winding around the lake’s perimeter, and because I met one of the organizers at a fitness expo in March who seemed very friendly. Later, I learned that the course is at a fairly high elevation and has some serious hills. My husband, Jim, has been preparing for these hills with diligent training on the bigger hills in our neighborhood. I saw the marathon as a sort of “bonus” event and until mid-August concentrated my efforts on preparing for the Fronhofer Tool Triathlon.
Since Fronhofer, however, I have been mentally preparing myself to go the distance. I knew that while my training would be somewhat abbreviated, my overall fitness level was strong and that the preparation I had done for the triathlon would translate to marathon training, as well. I also prepared myself to think about this marathon as a comeback event, a return to doing these kinds of distances which had been a regular staple of my life from my late thirties through mid-forties.

My main worry is a lack of long runs. Before August 11, I had completed only one run of double-digit distance and that run had been in early July. Since August 11, I have done a 14-mile run and a 19.5 mile run. Hopes of doing 10 to 12 milers while traveling in late August and early September failed to materialize, and since I got home on September 11, I have logged only one run, a short and sweet one. The change of seasons along with the travel had tired me, and I felt that with limited time, the best thing I could do was rest my muscles. I do hope to run a 10 miler tomorrow and a few short and easy runs over the next week. I tell myself that even if I am not as ready as I would like to be for this marathon, I can do it. I can go the distance, and feel good afterwards. I draw on my past history of marathon completions, reminding myself that I will be running this marathon with 27 fewer pounds bogging down my body and pace.

I try not to think about issues like my age or the altitude. I just keep telling myself that I can do it because I am strong, in shape, and have done marathons with even less training before.

And, as an added bonus, I have been wearing the finisher shirt for marathon #1 as my sleep shirt. I rejoice in the fact that I still have the shirt and that it still fits.