There is, while we’re at it, some question about the route and the distance of that historical legendary run. The ancient Olympic games, which spanned more than a thousand years from 776 BCE to 394 CE, well established by the time the Battle of Marathon was fought, never had a race longer than its “dolichos,” (long race) of about three to five miles, and there never was a marathon race, per se, until the modern Olympic organizers conceived of it. The first Olympic marathon in 1896 was set at 24.85 miles, literally following a path from Marathon to Athens, but that distance by various routes can range from a hilly 21 miles to a flat 25.5 miles. In 1908, London declared their Olympic course would be 25 miles, but by the time the route was mapped out to pass through palace gates and end with a final stadium lap it had stretched to 26.2 miles. By 1920, Belgium had extended it even further, to 26.56 miles. Finally, in 1921, the International Olympic Committee standardized it to the London length. For now, though, let’s just call the Marathon stretch, roughly twenty something miles, what it has become: the ultimate dolichos, a torchlight to follow, a doable but formidable killer of a challenge, and, if what they tell me is true, a joy to run.
But of course I have not yet run that race. Indeed, these last few days, even as I have been writing about the Philippidean distance, my mind and physical efforts have been focused on another race with a more immediate goal: the 5K run, five kilometers or 3.1 miles long: effectively, going back to the ancient games, a 5,000 meter dolichos. Today was my culmination of that accessible joy: a fundraiser at the middle school of, over time, five of my nieces and nephews: the kids, as it happens, of my brother-in-law who first told me that Philippides story. Eric had run the Chicago Marathon a few years ago, and he and my sister Anne had been early encouragers to my expanding runs. I ran their same fundraiser a year before and I was happy to return, especially as this year my youngest niece and nephew, seven year old twins, were running the race with me.
It was a change-up to my training, though. For the last month or two I had been prepping exclusively for last weekend’s two day run, increasing my regimen to the point that I was alternating every other day with 6.2 and 13.1 mile distances. With this pattern, a 3.1 mile run would seem to be easy, but my split times had reflected the longer distance pace and now, suddenly, I fell compelled to amp up the effort. Unfortunately, after that double run (and just before this journal began) I had to take a couple of days off, out of necessity: that last race had been a tough one. The course was hillier than I had trained for and I was cursed with a late spring head cold in the days leading up to the effort. As the congestion got the best of me I finished Sunday’s half marathon with a deliberate easiness, stopping at every water station in the second half and even walking at the end of the toughest hill. My end time was almost six minutes slower than my training time.
All things considered, I was happy just to have crossed the finish line, but then I rested hard on Monday and Tuesday and it wasn’t until Wednesday that I ran again, just three days before the fundraiser. That day’s run was my first concerted 5K distance in over eight months, and my pace time showed it. But the challenge was ahead of me, so I ran the same stretch again on Thursday, then Thursday evening, then Friday. The times were starting to drop, still thirty second slower than last fall’s treadmill bursts, but I had cut off more than a minute in two days and was starting to feel good about it.
On race day eve, I spent the night at my sister’s house, and we loaded up with pizza and beer and a little whiskey. Not wise, I know, but this felt good too. And this morning I woke up early, hydrated myself in measures equal to the evening intake, did a few stretch routines and was ready to run.
Let me back up a bit though. I am still relatively new to this life, and the 5K race is still kind of a big deal for me. It was not so long ago, three and a half years back, that I ran my first long run. It was a memorable moment, not just to run and finish but to go through all it took to get to that starting line. Six months earlier I had been 85 pounds heavier, slowly recovering from back surgery a few years before and demonstrably unable to run for more than a quarter mile without getting completely winded. The wake up call was a Friday night hospital visit with scary high blood pressure, keeping me in the emergency room for more than six hours. They released me with a prescription for Lisinopril, but those six hours set the tone for the next six months and longer. It also forced me to decision: it was time to turn it all around. Not only was I approaching 250 pounds, I was approaching the big 50 and then the even bigger 51, the age at which my dad had died of a heart attack. I also had two single-parented teenagers to think about, and I wanted to live longer, for their sake, but I also wanted to feel better than I had been feeling.
That was April 2012. I still keep the hospital wrist band in my medicine chest. By October I had cut ten inches off my waistline, and by November, two days after Thanksgiving, I was running three miles in thirty degree weather. And I was overjoyed. Indeed, not only did I finish that first race, I won my age group. I had just turned 50 a few weeks before, but right then I felt very young. My time was 26:30: not so impressive in retrospect, and I would not have won the age group in most races, but this was a local food pantry fundraiser with only four of us in the men over 50 category, and two of the four had walked the course. It still felt good, though, and to this day my “COOL 5K” medal hangs from my rear view mirror. Someday I hope to buy one of those 26.2 ovals for my bumper, for all to see, but that 5K medal means just as much to me.
Which brings me to today’s 5K. I may never qualify for the Boston Marathon. For men aged 50-54 the cutoff time is three and a half hours, and my best posted half marathon, after only two so far, is 1:58. Sure, there is room and time for improvement, but a realistic goal, in my mind anyway, is to simply double my half-time. On the other hand, after today...
First of all, it was a fun day, and a pleasure just to cheer my niece and nephew on as they finished their first distance race. It was also nice to feel healthy again without any lingering effect from last week’s cold or the soreness the hills had given me. But best of all was the finish: I needed very little time to catch my breath and still had a lot of run in me, but not only that, I won my age group again and even posted my best 5K time ever, at 23:10. The mind starts to work: imagine, a 46:20 10K, three minutes faster than my best treadmill time, then extrapolate that to a 1:38 half and a 3:15 full. No way! But add some unshakeable hope and suddenly I’m in Boston territory!
It will be, as it has been, a joy just to finish the race, and I will be happy to wake up to run a local marathon that requires no qualifying time and to last the 26 miles. That 26.2 oval is all I need for a medal, and I will display it proudly. Meanwhile, yes, I will track my times, work to cut the seconds off as I add the miles on and do my best to stick to the training regimen, but it will be a joy, as it has been, whatever the clock says at the end. It will be a victory. As it should be and as it is, with every race.
The important thing... is not so much to win as to take part.. The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well.
—Pierre de Couobertin, founder of the modern
Olympics and promoter of the marathon, in
what would become the Olympic creed, 1908
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