(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 10)

Ladies and gentlemen, this did not go as planned.

I should probably tell you that up front.

But this is not a sad story.

Overall, I have to chalk up marathon number three as a win…because early on I knew that it just wasn’t going to be my day…

And about halfway through I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to finish.

I don’t know if I put this in writing before: My goal entering this marathon was to finish in less than 5 hours.

My thinking was I did both of my Boston Marathons in slightly over 5 hours (the second a couple of minutes faster than the first) and I felt really strong running the half marathon in Wilmington in 2022…so I thought I might stand a pretty good shot of running a good full marathon there too.

Which, as you math whizzes can surely tell, would land me under 5 hours.

As it turned out, I finished in 5 hours, 23 minutes.

Since I go into great detail about the things that go right in my running, let’s spend a little bit of time breaking down what went wrong:

It’s going to sound like I’m making excuses but, well, here are a couple of excuses:
- One of the things that surprised me about my recent running adventures is how much I enjoyed running in the cold. I always saw people running in the winter and wondered, “Why?” But I took to it, and I was surprised because historically I only wanted to run when I was comfortable. Ideal temperatures, ideal conditions. I guess that’s still the case, because last Saturday morning was not ideal. There were a couple of rain showers and even though I took precautions with a hood and some more waterproof socks than I usually wear, I was uncomfortable while running.
- I wore the windbreaker with the hood under a long sleeve t-shirt and it got a little hot about halfway through. By the time I decided to take the windbreaker off I was even more uncomfortable. And then I had to carry the windbreaker, and by the time I thought to stash it and come back to it later it was too late. I was already thinking this marathon was a lost cause.
- There was also some nagging little aches and pains. My right foot in particular was in pain, which is a long story I won’t get into here, and it’s OK now, but I did something stupid with my right foot that I will not do again.
The bottom line is I just didn’t have it. I’ve posted this on the ol’ running Instagram before but I don’t know that I’ve written it here - there have been days where I’ve done training runs and think, “Well, good thing I didn’t have to run 26.2 miles today. I would not have been able to do it.” Unfortunately, that was the kind of day I had last Saturday. It was actually really similar to the 18-mile run I had during my second marathon training - some wet conditions weighed down my sneaker and made me uncomfortable and I had a disastrous training run. This time it was during the marathon.

Now here’s the positive of all of this: I thought if I ever felt that way on race day it would just shatter me. After all that training and not being able to run the marathon? That would be the worst thing.

But it wasn’t so bad. I’m almost relieved I had the experience.

I actually paced myself pretty well for the first 10, 11, 12 miles of this race. But that’s how I knew things were a little off - it was exactly the pace I needed and I kept thinking, “This just doesn’t feel right.”

At about mile 13 I was getting really hot in the windbreaker and was starting to think I might be in trouble. And then I saw a girl being carted back to the start line and thought, “Well, I don’t want that.”

So I realized by about Mile 17 that it was going to be a long final 9 miles…but I was determined to finish. That was the new goal, and it was achievable.

I started to walk, with little tiny jogs every now and then. It took a long time (3 hours, now that I think about it, since I think I covered the first 13 in about 2:23), but I made it to the finish and I got that medal. (I had some other thoughts that I threw in the Notes below.)

I think the biggest thing that consoles me is I already have an opportunity on the books to put this one behind me - running the Chicago Marathon in October.

I’ll enjoy some time off here and come up with a plan to attack Chicago…maybe in less than 5 hours.

Because I know this: As much as I appreciate that this experience was bound to happen and I’m not upset that it did…I really don’t want it to happen again.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

While I was in Wilmington, Matt released the next single off his new album. It’s very exciting to see his new music coming out and getting a nice response from people and, of course, hearing his work.

The new one is called “Upper West Side” and this week he also released a video of the song. As always, I highly recommend you listen to whatever you can lay your ears on. You can find everything you need to know about him at his website by clicking here.

Notes

*I’m not feeling terribly sore post-marathon. Which makes sense - I kind of gave in to these aches and pains instead of pushing through them. The recovery this week has been just as much a mental recovery as a physical one.

*Since I’ve spent so much time in my head about this run here are a couple of other thoughts I had about last Saturday: one is that I really did feel, with the fundraising for the Boston Marathons, that people were in my corner and supporting me, whether they were in Boston or not. This one was just me. Maybe I don’t do as well without external motivation. And in Boston there was a possibility that I could see someone I knew at any time, so maybe that, too, kept me going more than in Wilmington among people I will never see again.

*You know what else I don’t think worked for me? I thought I would need the music to keep me going and distract me, in part because I knew I didn’t have people to see at certain mile markers like I did in the previous marathons. But I think listening to music and having the ear buds were just a bad distraction. It’s because of the ear buds that I wore the hood - I don’t care about my head getting wet. I didn’t want them to get wet and stop working on me. No more marathons with music for me.

*Though I don’t mind running in the cold, I am looking forward to spring and summer training now. I enjoy running in the very early mornings to beat the heat - I just can’t do that in the winter’s cold and darkness. It was also nice to not have to worry about how this weekend’s potential storm would impact my run on the weekend.

*Let me be clear: 5 hours, 23 minutes? Not a bad marathon time. Especially for someone doing their third marathon who doesn’t really have an idea about what he’s doing. 26.2 miles is hard no matter how you slice it. But it just wasn’t what I was going for…and that’s a time that results from pretty much walking 9 miles. So, I hope you understand all of that. There are other things I’ve thought about writing about, including trying to use the pacers for the first time…but I have seven months until Chicago to get all of that in. I’ll leave it here for now and we’ll revisit this topic.

*While the next few months are somewhat relaxing in terms of training, it’s not like I’m not working out at all. One thing I didn’t mention in my Peloton post last week is that I enjoy when I can take the live classes. With my somewhat strict marathon training I can’t always arrange my schedule to coincide with the live classes…but over the next few months I have an opportunity to do some live runs, which I haven’t done many of. I can also work in some different types of strength classes (sure, some of them I can do live too). And I’ve already started trying some Pilates and maybe I’ll work in some yoga too. I can do with more flexibility in my life. Well, in general, but mostly I mean physical flexibility.

*Recently I told you I was going to re-watch the first two seasons of Ted Lasso in anticipation of the third, which will begin on March 15th. I was slightly worried I wouldn’t be able to get them all in, but I just blew through the first season this week so that’s not going to be a problem. It’s just so good.

*If you’re new here, thanks for reading. I think I have some exciting stuff to write about this coming spring and summer, so you’re just in time. You can keep tabs on it all with my social media links. They’re below - feel free to follow, Like, or do whatever they call for. Thanks!