How to Train For and Run a Marathon Poorly, Part IV:
If It Were Easy, It Would Be Called Your Mom
The Big Day was finally here. We suited up in the pre-dawn darkness, not talking much. I taped my feet like an NFL linebacker and used half a stick of Body Glide to prevent chafing, having learned a hard lesson during the Armpit Chafing Incident in Dallas. On the drive to the race site, we played our “Road Sisters’ Marathon Mix”™ I’d created in the weeks leading up to this moment.
The weather was chilly and misting a little when we got to the race starting line. It was around 55°F, which is perfect running weather, but cold standing around getting nervous before a race. I cried from nerves like a pussy. Heather quoted me a couple of passages from “Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level” by Mark Divine. “A wolf of fear resides in our minds ready to pounce at the slightest danger.” Yes. Grrrr. Only one way to see what it’s got in store for me, I realized.
We gathered at the starting line with all the marathoners, half-marathoners and 5k-ers, part of 159 other runners attempting 26.2 miles that day. (P.S. How awesome is that size of field?) Heather talked to a lady who was on her “53rd or 54th marathon – I can’t remember.” The route was a double out-and-back (think a V, and we’re starting at the bottom), and we’d be setting off with all the other different distance entrants. After completing 13.1 miles on the first prong of the V, we’d ditch the losers running “only” a half marathon, we’d head out for our second prong in a new direction in a more remote part of the forest.
For that kind of distance, you have to have a plan. “Why have one at this point?” I’d asked Heather when she was hatching it. Up until now, our training plan had been executed very poorly! Nevertheless, the plan was to run for 7 minutes and walk 3 minutes, and we’d stick to that cadence for as long as possible, hopefully the whole race. It was no shame to walk; everyone says the objective for one’s first marathon is to finish; forget your pace, your goal time. Just cover the miles.
So on a cold and foggy mountain morning, with giant trees and burbling brooks and 159 other kindred spirits…when the gun went off, Heather and I started running our marathon.
