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Marathon

April 15, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
This was one of the most satisfying marathons I have ever run! It wasn’t a PR by a long shot, but I ran it just the way I wanted: confident with even splits and a strong last 10 miles without giving in to the fatigue screaming from legs. I finished the race feeling thoroughly exhausted but also elated at how smoothly I’d performed. I am #hungry for my next race!

Burnout

I stopped running marathons 3 years ago. Partly, it had to do with being in grad school. I no longer had the time to devote myself to serious high-mileage training. Well, to be more precise, I actually had tons of time. That was the problem. Aside from my required classes, my job was so unstructured that I worried I’d end up putting off all the tasks that didn’t have a firm deadline attached to them indefinitely if I made running my #1 priority. I simply couldn’t have a training plan with an insatiable appetite for hours competing for time and attention with my research. I knew that if I was really training seriously, not only would it take tons of time to warm up, run, stretch, shower, look at maps, log, get lost on adventures, plan workouts, etc., but my thoughts would be peppered with it the rest of the day. The time I would have spent thinking about my research while riding my bike to school or waiting in line for lunch would be consumed by thoughts of when my next run would be and how many more miles I needed to run to reach my week’s goal.

But there was another reason why I stopped training hard: I was mentally burned out. The last Boston marathon I did I honestly didn’t feel that motivated. All that training for what? A day where I enjoyed the first hour, felt anxious for the second, and miserable for the third. Or just as often, miserable for an hour and a half. I’d cross the line without a PR and feeling like I could have run better or still had more to give. It was discouraging. My times weren’t bad, but I felt like I was only doing it because my B.A.A. teammates were all training for Boston, and I enjoyed attending the team’s Tuesday night track workouts. I needed a better reason to race 26.2 miles than simply going with the flow.


A Change of Heart

Flash forward to spring 2018, my third year of grad school. Watching my friends struggle and overcome a frigid, windy, rain-swept Boston Marathon, I felt little envy for them. But a week later our annual B.A.A. post-marathon party, everyone was talking about what an epic, crazy feat it had been. "That's exactly the kind of race I relish!" I thought to myself, as a fire was rekindled in my heart. I was determined to get back in on that epic adventure. The next day I signed up for the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, VT, hoping to score a qualifying time for next year's Boston since my old one had expired. I still didn't have the motivation yet (nor the time) to seriously train, so I figured I'd just go out there and see what I could do. I’d been running probably 30-40 miles a week with a weekly track workout, so I was in what l like to call “basic shape.” Still, without having done any long runs, races, hills, or higher mileage, I was far from top form. As it happened, I managed to finish in 3:03:32, just under the qualifying time for 18-34-year-old men. The problem was that the Boston Marathon has been over-enrolled for years, so every year they adjust the qualifying standards after everyone has registered (but before we’ve paid) until they’ve excluded enough of us to meet their limit of 30,000 runners (which, to be fair, is still a lot given how narrow the road is for the first 6 miles). Under these rules, I missed qualifying by over two minutes. Luckily, the director of my running club was kind enough to give me a spot anyway, saying that I’d been a reliable attendee at practices for years and always volunteered when we had to officiate track meets (I’d spent a hot Saturday afternoon measuring/dodging discus and hammer throws a few weeks before). It helps of course that my team is the running club of the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.), the organizers of the Boston Marathon.

Thus it was that I entered the 2019 Boston Marathon, excited, determined, and having trained harder and more miles than any time in the last four years. I was also starting farther back in the crowd than ever before due to my slow seed time and the increasingly talented field of entrants. More than anything, I wanted to justify my place in this race by qualifying for next year. The standards had been lowered in the meantime from 3:05 to 3:00 so I figured I’d need at least a 2:58 to be sure I wouldn’t be shut out if it was oversubscribed. I also knew that if I ran the race unevenly and had a miserable second half I wouldn’t want to race again and would be right back where I started.
This would be my 13th marathon and my 7th Boston so by now I had a good idea of how my pace ought to feel in each section of the race. That said, my two test races--the Split Half-Marathon and the Athens Half Marathon back in February and March--had been several minutes shy of my PR, so I didn’t really have a clear sense of how fast I was capable of. To add to the uncertainty, I had gravely screwed up my taper, running only one day in the second-to-last week (plus two bike rides) due to a hamstring tendon injury that never got better and which I ultimately just chose to ignore. When I started running again I felt slow and still not well-rested. I knew my fitness hadn’t gone away entirely, but I just didn’t know how much was left.


Race Day

Race day came and I’m proud to say my conscious mind was not at all nervous. My body was another story. Though rationally I knew I had nothing to afraid of, my body was jumpy all of the previous day, like a dog that smells a storm coming even before you’ve checked the weather report. I tossed and turned for hours both of the two nights leading up to the big day. After many such pre-race struggles, I’ve come to accept that I almost never will fall asleep easily before a big race and have learned to live with it. I got up at 6:30 am and took a Lyft downtown to the finish area where I checked my bag and boarded a bus to the start. I read a bunch of motivational messages from former and current athletes on the way downtown but ran out of time before having to leave my cell phone at the bag check -- since the marathon bombing in 2013, you're no longer allowed to bring anything to the start that you're not intending to throw away or carry with you the whole race. Everything you want for after the race is left in tents at the finish area, where it will be inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs. Security is higher along the course as well. In the past, I used to have friends jump in mid-race to pace me for a few miles and unregistered runners known as bandits frequently ran the entire race, including the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, Bobbie Gibb. Now the whole course is blocked off with guard rails whenever it goes through populated areas and there are even bag inspections to get near the course to cheer during the last couple miles where the crowd is thickest.

Due to these restrictions, if it's cold, I usually wear some extra layers to the start which I'm willing to part with. The start area is full of volunteers collecting used clothes to be donated, and some years I've even bought second-hand garments for this purpose. This year the weather was in the 60s, however, so all I really needed was a poncho (the rain thankfully stopped before the race). However, when I got on the bus, I realized to my dismay that I was still wearing the new sweat-wicking long-sleeve shirt they'd given us when we'd picked up our race packets, a shirt I actually wanted to keep. "I'll just tie it around my waist and toss it to a friend or relative in Newton or Wellesley," I figured. (More on that fateful decision later..."

The bus ride always reminds of just how far I’m about to run. It takes nearly an hour for the police and charter bus convoy to make its way out 26.2 miles, mostly along the interstate, to the start line. At some point during the ride, I invariably look out the window at the trees and houses whizzing past and say to myself, "My God, I’m about to run that whole way back!" Fortunately, my friend Lindsay Willard whom I’ve known since I joined the B.A.A. 8 years ago had a seat open next to her. We spent the whole ride catching up on each other’s lives over the past 4 months, so there was no time to fret about the race.


The Race! (The Early Miles)

The gun went off an hour and a half later and we slowly shuffled toward the start. I was so far back (the 7th corral out of 10) that it took me 3 minutes to reach the start line. There were 2 more waves of 10 corrals each with later start times, however, so I was far from the back. For the first mile, I found myself caught in a teeming mass of human flesh. There were no packs, just a solid blob of runners with barely enough space to run between. I stuck to the edge of the road, as usual, running up onto front lawns to go around people. I didn’t want to run more distance than I had to but I also didn’t want to run so slowly that I was wasting valuable time. As it happened, I managed to run almost exactly the speed I was aiming for—6:30—rather than going out 20-30 seconds too fast as I usually do thanks to the long downhills in the first four miles and overly-optimistic pace of those around me. This confinement continued for several miles, finally tapering off in miles 3-5 as the road widened and the runners spread out. There were still no gaps between packs, not even really packs to speak of. If you were standing watching there would rarely have been a whole second where at least one runner didn't run past you. Even at the finish, the race was still so thick that 2-5 runners were crossing the line each second, and I'm sure it grew even dense after me.

I alternated between passing people and cautiously backing off to the pace of those around me for fear of wearing myself out. I followed a girl all in white for about half a mile with the phrase “Follow the white rabbit” from The Matrix stuck in my head, but then decided it was silly to try stick with her this early in the race instead of running my own pace. I would later pass her back around Mile 23 and then wait for her to congratulate her at the finish. Other than Ms. White Rabbit, there wasn't a single runner who stands out in my memory from that race, which I guess is a sign that I was passing people throughout, rather than dueling with the same competitors mile after mile. I did occasionally pass B.A.A. club members, including the above-mentioned Lindsay Willard around mile 12 and Michael McGrane, the B.A.A. coach who had let me into this race, around mile 22. Didn't really run WITH any of them, however. While I never go into a race planning to run with someone, there usually ends up being someone or some pack I latch onto for parts of it, so this race proved to be highly unusual in that sense.

Instead, I turned my thoughts inward, recalling the names of athletes I’d once or presently coached. I’d gotten this idea the day before and had asked about a dozen athletes over Facebook messenger what mile they wanted. I had meant to write these down on a piece of paper or my arm, but the pen I grabbed that morning didn’t work, so I ended up just trying to remember as many as I could and assigning others to the miles where I thought they’d be most helpful. I felt fairly confident through the middle of the race. My splits were consistently between 6:29 and 6:45, which was reassuring since I needed a 6:50 average or better to qualify. Still, I knew that my splits often fell apart in the second half. I gave spectators high fives during the Wellesley Scream Tunnel, where Wellesley students line the course for a quarter mile cheering and, in a somewhat questionable tradition from a bygone era, beseech the gross and sweaty older men running past to stop and kiss them (occasionally female runners stop too, so +1 for equal-opportunity creepiness?). For the most part, however, I ignored the crowds. As spectators packed the roped-off sidewalks in the small exurban towns of Ashland, Framingham, and Natick, I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead, darting from one curve to the next, always taking the shortest path like Anthony had taught me years before in high school cross country. I was barely aware of who was around me or how many people I was passing (or the handful that were passing me). Mostly, I just focused on the memories of the runners I’d assigned to each mile. If it was someone I’d coached a long time ago, like at Milton or Durham Academy, I tried to dig up every memory I had of that student. If it was someone I’m currently coaching or who is currently running in college, I’d think about how much I wanted to inspire that person or set a good example. In both cases, I found myself reflecting back on the times they had most inspired me (or in some cases, made me laugh). It got to the point where instead of scanning the crowd for relatives, friends, and former colleagues, I found myself half expecting to see one of these athletes I’d pictured so clearly in my mind’s eye jumping up and down.


The Middle - Hills!

I recalled from past Bostons that if I’ve run the first few miles too fast, the weariness usually begins to make itself known somewhere between miles 12-14, followed by a gradual hardening of the hip joints and quad muscle over the next few miles. Though I felt no such drag on my legs this year, I kept a close eye on my watch and whenever my pace slipped to 6:40s, I’d start to worry that the fatigue was taking hold. I took the big mile 16 downhill out of Wellesley as lightly as I could so as not to add pounding to my legs that I’d pay for later, using it to catch my breath rather than pass people. Then the uphills began.

The city of Newton, adjacent to Boston, has four major hills. (Some people don’t count the first one and instead say there are 3: the judge, the jury, and the executioner). The last of these is the famed “Heartbreak Hill” named in the 1920s by Boston marathon champion Johnny Kelley who told reporters he hoped to break his rival's heart with a daring breakaway move going up it. Despite its name, I’ve never been that impressed. All these hills are exactly what you’d expect to find on a typical Washington-area run; they’re only big by Boston standards. Heartbreak lasts a third of a mile and is probably most similar to running up Connecticut Avenue from Woodley Park to the Zoo or from Van Ness to Politics & Prose. Sure, it’s no walk in the park, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. The others are no more formidable. I’ve long believed there’s a trend among marathon planners to make their courses as flat and fast as possible. If you want to attract runners to a new marathon, one of the best draws is to say yours is a good course to get a PR on or better yet, qualify for Boston. But this IS Boston, and the world’s oldest marathon doesn’t care if your calves hurt. We've been running the same route (roughly) for 123 years and the hills are part of the legend. Runners complain about them precisely because they are so few of them in this marathon or any other. They’re intimidated by what they’re not used to.

Having trained the last 8 months in Sarajevo, hills are something I am VERY used to. Flip to any entry in this log since September that there’s at least a 50% chance I’ll be talking about some mountain I had to deal with. Simply to get to and from my apartment every day, I had to walk 8 minutes up a hill as steep as Ft. Reno. I knew I could use this training to my advantage, but I had no idea just how much it would pay off. I practically flew up the first 3 hills, passing dozens of people without even looking up at whom I was passing. The fourth hill, Heartbreak, was harder but I was still passing folks and when I got to the top. Cresting the summit, I couldn’t quite believe that was all there was. As I zoomed down the back side past Boston College, dropping my pace from 7:07 to a 6:20 (the terrain did make some difference) I knew that the real race was only then about to begin.


The Last Miles - Winter Has Come

Brookline, the birthplace of JFK and home to several generations of my mom’s family, is always the most daunting section of the marathon. The road you run down, Beacon Street, is completely devoid of shade in mid-April and somehow always feels scorching no matter what the weather. The street is perfectly straight allowing you to see your fate several minutes out and the gently rolling terrain has just enough gradual uphill to sap whatever remains of your spirit. On top of all this, if you haven’t hit the wall already due to poor pacing, this is where (to quote Ben Stern) "the wheels really come off." You are faced with a cacophony of complaints from your legs insisting that you can’t possibly go any faster than the speed they have suddenly defaulted to. Maybe you've experienced something similar in a tempo run or 5k race where your body says to "this is as fast as I can go" and it feels pointless to argue, to matter how much your coach or friends insist you can still pick it up. Except that at this point in the race, if you give your legs what they want, they will invariably slow down even more half a mile later, as you feel your hips, quads, and calves going into what you imagine rigor mortis must feel like. Everything below your rib cage becomes stiff and hard to move. Some years my ribs themselves are gripped with an unrelenting tightness, even if I'm not totally out of breath. It's a strange thing, but the limiting factor in these long races is rarely your breathing--it's leg strength. The same thing that limits how fast you can run 100m comes back again in distances over 13 miles, meaning you can actually still talk (a little) when you're 90% of the way through your race because it's not your breathing that's holding you back. The final sprint is another matter, assuming you can muster one.

This year, the rigor mortis feeling struck around mile 22, just as I entered Brookline and turned onto Beacon. I knew that if I listened to my legs I was a goner and that furthermore, going slower wouldn’t actually be less painful and would only prolong my agony. So instead of going with the flow and obeying the default pace I had sunk to, I forced myself to speed up and catch people. I didn’t ask myself whether these speedups could be sustained, whether I spurting ahead on borrowed seconds that would be paid for later with a walk. I just did it, thinking of the athlete I had assigned each mile to and how much they meant to me and how much I wanted to do right by them. Every time my mind would start to split toward self-pity and compromise, I’d snap back to that person and catch myself before my pace or form could slump.

I caught sight of my high school friends Andy and John, John’s girlfriend/my Williams teammate Julie, and my Williams teammate Sean cheering loudly around 23.5.
They were among the first people I'd recognized all race, and the only ones so far I caught sight of before I was already almost past. Finally, I could dispose of this long-sleeve shirt I'd had been retying around my waist every few miles! The darn thing was so soaked with sweat and spilled Gatorade that it sailed like a baseball and landed with a sickening squish on the grass. Moments later I discovered that this seemingly vestigial article of clothing had in fact been serving a crucial function: it was keeping my shorts up. My B.A.A. issued uniform, loose to begin with, had not been prepared for me to lose 10-15 pounds over the past months of 80+ mile a week training, nor the additional pounds I'd lost through sweat over the course of the last 2 1/2 hours, nor for the water I deliberated started pouring on myself at every refreshment station once the sun came out. It’s not exactly easy to re-tie one’s drawstrings while moving at 10mph but I did my best, invariably having to re-tie them even tighter each time my butt felt a little bit of breeze (i.e. every 2-3 minutes).

I saw my high school teammate Rob Savitsky cheering a mile later, then Julia Ernst (‘14), and finally, as I entered the final turn to dash to the finish, Molly Gilmore, a girl I’d taught Algebra II to at my first year at Milton Academy back in 2010-11. I hadn’t seen her since 2015 if not longer, yet somehow I had no trouble recognizing her instantly in the fraction of a second between hearing her call my name and when she blinked out of sight behind a wall of cheering spectators. I have no clue how I was able to do this. For half an hour now I’d been counting down the miles till I could stop worrying about whether I’d qualify. At 6 miles to go, it looked likely, but I knew I could still blow the time I’d saved earlier on with a slow crawl through Brookline. By mile 24, however, I knew I had sub-3-hours in the bag. Still, I wanted to have the strongest finish I could, so I convinced myself there was still reason for doubt. As I turned onto Boylston Street for the final dash to the finish, I cut between some other runners and the curb and briefly pictured speed skater Apollo Ono doing his famed inside pass. Looking up I saw the finish line, impossibly far away like always, an inflatable archway over the road four blocks hence. "I’ll wait till I’m closer," I told myself. "No," I thought, fighting back. "You say that every year. You’ve got to sprint!" I pictured Lindsay Atkeson, the fastest girl I’d coached at Milton, breaking the 5-minute barrier in the 1500 for the first time during her senior year at New England Championships. I had cut across the field to watch her on the back straightaway during her final lap, screaming that she was on pace to break 5 but only if she sprinted all out. "This is what I have to do now," I thought. "Don’t wait." I went. I fought. I passed. And each time I passed, I set my sights on another person and then another. One to my right, two to my left, a group of four or five up ahead. It didn’t matter who they were, it didn’t matter what time it was. Pass pass pass. Get those legs to cycle full speed. Push your torso forward and pump your arms, one of which had gone strangely numb a mile back. Will yourself toward that liiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

There.

It’s done.

They’re carrying you forward, your arm draped over the shoulder of some merciful volunteer. You’re out of breath. Oh, thank goodness you’re out of breath. How many races you’ve finished, marathons especially, feeling foolish for finishing still able to talk easily, knowing you didn’t give it your all. You gave it this time. In that last sprint, you gave it all. You made it.


Splits:
1st half: 1:26:38
2nd half 1:27:41

1. 6:24 (mostly downhill)
2. 6:39
3. 6:33
4. 6:29 (all downhill)
5. 6:35
6. 6:45
7. 6:33
8. 6:36 (est. - I forgot to hit my watch)
9. 6:36 (est.)
10. 6:37
11. 6:45 (slight uphill)
12. 6:32 (mostly downhill)
13. 6:53 (significant uphill to Wellesley)
14. 6:32 (est. - forgot to hit my watch)
15. 6:32 (est.)
16. 6:28 (long steep downhill, but took it easy)
17. 6:42 (Highway Overpass Hill)
18. 6:57 (Firehouse Hill, the longest one)
19. 6:30
20. 6:43 (3rd Hill)
21. 7:06 (Heartbreak Hill)
22. 6:31 (Coming down heartbreak into Brookline)
23. 6:45 (this is where I hit the wall, but then overcame it)
24. 6:36
25. ?
last mile to the finish: 6:15

Who each mile was dedicated to
(same as my Facebook post)

Mile 1 – Aidan Pillard. I spent this entire mile trying to go around the teaming mass of humanity that invariably crowds the start of big races.
Mile 2 – no one cause I forgot, but who needs motivation this early in a race anyway
Mile 3 – My 3 little sophomore hurdlers: Ella, Rubie, Camilla. I almost ended up doing a bit of hurdling myself this mile as I hopped in and out of gutters and lawns to get around people
Mile 4 – Jacob Gaba (this mile was about pacing and staying relaxed, something I’ve encouraged Jacob to do many times early on in a race. Figured I should live up to my own advice).
Mile 5 – Levi Freedman (Gaba had chosen mile 4 while 5 was unclaimed... when I reached the mile marker, my mind went to the obvious place: his sandal-wearing, cattle-rustling companion)
Mile 6 – Carl and Fred Ward, Worth, Ansilta, Francesca and Alessandra Tomasi, Joel, Claire, Devin, Gwendolyn Lloyd, Adrianne and the rest of the amazingly talented (and brilliant) Durham Academy athletes I coached my first year after college
Mile 7 – Rhianna Vergeer – not sure why, but this mile made me really happy and I suddenly dropped 20 seconds off my pace. Must be the fun mini alumni run we did through your/my parents’ neighborhood last year.
Mile 8 – Sarah Shine (mostly cause the sun came out), Sarah Zargham, Julia Novey, Ana Sosa-Ebert, Abe Doroshow
Mile 9 – Julia Gunther (while singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in my head)
Mile 10 – Sam Klein, Alexander Samaha, Emily Vogt, and Julia Ernst (I had just passed a reservoir which reminded me of our epic long run at XC Camp in 2014). Also since I was thinking about Sammy, David Bergreen
Mile 11 – The pride of Haverford Women' XC, Captain Julia Smith
Mile 12 – My four little freshman superstars! Emma, Sophie, Alessa, Caroline (actually, y'all are like 24 now, right? But you were freshmen when I coached you!)
Mile 13 – Katherine Treanor, the legend, whose name still proudly shines forth from the GDS record board
Mile 14 – The one and only Hannah Avidon. Kept reciting the phrase “Inner Winner” to myself
Mile 15 – Josie Wilson, Dan Rubenstein, Jon Esty, Helson, Ben, Adam, Vince, Ali, Abbie, Danielle, Charlie, the Beaudoin siblings, and some other Milton Academy goofballs. Spent most of this mile thinking about how Josie never had any clue what lap she was on
Mile 16 – Griffin Colaizzi. Told myself “THE STORY” about a line for a bowl of punch.
Mile 17 – Abigail Murphy, cartwheeler extraordinaire, pictured with a water bottle balanced on her head as usual
Mile 18 – May Robison (I spent most of this mile staring intently at a white line on the pavement that both distracted me from the alarmingly steep hill I was going up and reminded me of May’s very-light-hued hair)
Mile 19 – My utterly delightful, hard-working, and running-obsessed neighbor (and disciple) Ana Gunther
Mile 20 – Maddi Salwen and Sarah Pillard (both for their goofy enthusiasm...and because I'd forgotten what mile they each requested and was running out of miles to squeeze you all in)
Mile 21 – Zeke Cohen (fitting for a fellow veteran of both Battery Kemble and Mt. Greylock to power me up Heartbreak Hill)
Mile 22 – Jack Rudnick, who appears to have strategically chosen the mile right before…
Mile 23 – Ilana Zeilinger (the most difficult mile, requiring someone really inspirational to keep me from slowing down. Thanks kiddo!)
Mile 24 – Linnea, Elisa, Marley for the first half. Then Julia Ernst magically appeared on the sidelines cheering like mad, which powered me through the rest.
Mile 25 – Liam Albrittain, Liam Monheim, Leah Snider, Leah Belber. And Linni again 'cause of the alliteration.
Mile 26 – Tara, Lucy, Amelia, Annie, Talia some delirious combination of many of you that I can no longer clearly keep straight, but in essence, Jenna Schulman, who suggested that the final mile should be for myself
Final 0.2 miles – Lindsay Atkeson, whose nail-biting 1500m finish at New Englands setting a new PR of 4:59 suddenly flashed through my mind as I entered the final stretch, motivating me to sprint my heart out to the finish.