I will be happy with a four hour marathon. Seeing how last week’s run went I will be content just to run the race and cross the line, but if I can maintain my health and stick to the training I think a four hour finish is doable. So there it is, a time: my first goal within a goal. And now for the next: the calendar. Today is the day to formally commit. In a small way, I am motivated today by a deadline: at my half marathon last November I was given a couple of $10.00 coupons, part of the virtual goody bag all runners are given, and they will expire today. I could still sign up after today, but the cost goes up and the slots are limited and time is running out.
There were a few different races promoted by the goody bag, and I start to realize that I’ll need some interim races to keep me in shape through the summer. And just like that, I’ve signed up for several races in the next six months. First, in two weeks, a half marathon along Milwaukee’s lakefront. Then, in August, with summer at its peak, another half over the hills of Madison. There is another possibility for something in July, up in Michigan, but I’ll put that on hold for now. But here, finally —this is it, the big one, can’t believe I’m doing this, haven’t actually done anything yet but it’s time, and it’s on the books now: in Madison, Wisconsin, on November 8, the Marathon.
The next six months may be filled with uncertainties and hesitations, but let me do my best to purge them all at once. I will be busy, too busy from time to time, to fit in two and three and four hour training runs. It will not be easy to make time. It will rain at the end of spring and it will be hot in the summer and cold and windy in the fall. I will be sore now and then, with blisters and charlie horses and tired limbs and, as I’m already learning, more peculiar ailments: bleeding nipples, lingering toenail shades, chafed skin, numb extremities. I will not always be on track with pace and distance goals. I will occasionally have to resort to the treadmill, with all its limitations, and this will throw my routine off. I will surely get another cold or two, or maybe even worse, a strained muscle or the flu or who knows what else could set me back a week or more. Some days I will just be plain tired. I will not always be motivated, maybe even discouraged, and I will wonder, am already wondering, why I have chosen these Madison hills for my ultimate run. But God help me, I’m gonna do this! And just to prove the point, let me set this pen aside. It’s time to run...
...And so it was, perhaps as a sign, certainly as an encouragement, that in the afternoon on the last day of May, a day after a 5,000 meter race and hours after purging myself of excuses, full of a newfound commitment and out to prove a point, I went on an amazing run. It had been cold this morning, a pre-purge excuse, so I skipped th run before breakfast routine and instead took to the path in the late afternoon before the sun went down. I thought I’d do a more laid back effort, something longer than last week’s short bursts but with no great pressure on time and more concentration on a steady pace. I decided to do eight minute miles for as long as I could sustain them. Yesterday’s fast 5K had begun with a 7:15 pace in the first mile; today I might let the first lap go faster than 8:00, but not too fast. And so it went: Mile 1, 7:30. Mile 2, 8:00. Mile 3, 8:00. Mile 4, 8:10. By the time I reached Mile 6 I had slipped to an 8:29 pace, but the 10K split was a very encouraging 50:30, my best time for that length in a long time. I felt great, too, so I kept running beyond my first thoughts and all the way to 13.1 miles, maintaining a fairly steady pace and, ultimately, shattering my personal record by more than five minutes.
Including training runs, prior to today I had run this half marathon distance ten times. Last November, in training for my first official run, I did not reach that mark until about two weeks before the race, but then I ran it four times in training, each time clocking in at about two hours. The posted race time was even a little better, at 1:58.30, and I was content. I did not train for that stretch again until the beginning of this month, prepping for last week’s big race, but I built up to four times in the week and a half leading up to the race, bumping my time down to 1:58 a few days before the weekend. My second big race itself was a downer, though, and with that bad cold, a double-run exhaustion and more hills than I could handle I finished at just over 2:04.
But today was a different story. More than content, more than happy, today I am thrilled with the time I posted. Nenikekamos! That cold-laden run is behind me, because today, just a week later, in my first rerun of the distance, with a healthy body, an easy schedule, no hills and a good pace, I eclipsed all prior personal bests with a 1:52:45. And with that, the next step forward begins!
We are different, in essence, from other men [and women]. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.
—Emil Zatopek, four time Olympic gold
medalist (5K, 1952; 10K, 1948 and 1952;
marathon, 1952).
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