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MARATHON!

October 31, 2010 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 40s, Sunny, clear skies - beautiful

Comments:
The day before the marathon, I was more nervous than I can ever remember being before a race. The giant health and fitness expo where I picked up my race packet turned out to be giant expo in how underprepared I was. There were dozens of companies there, trying to sell me hundreds of products, all of which were supposedly crucial to my success. I realized that I really had done no research what-so-ever about marathons, how to train for them, what to eat, or even how to pace myself. So I went home and instead of reading about that stuff decided to research the history of the Marathon, from the Peloponnesian War up through the 1896 Olympics in Greece. Having thoroughly distracted myself from my worries, thanks in part to an episode of West Wing and several helpings of spaghetti w/ tomato sauce and several bananas, I went to sleep.

Got up the next morning before dawn and ate a solid breakfast of cliff bars, banana, and water on my way downtown. Jogged to the start line with Mark and Anthony just minutes before the start of the race. I had “elite runner status” due to the rather aggressive seed time I submitted, so I got to start in the frontmost box, rather than 10 minute after the gun went off in the midst of 20,000 people. I could’ve even been right in the first row if I’d wanted, but I decided to be curteous and position myself a few rows back to allow the guys who were actually elites to get off the line ahead of me. Continued doing dynamic warm-ups and shaking out until moments before the start.

The gun went off and I was across the start line within a second. I was amazed how slow it felt as first, and I had to keep reminding myself that the adrenaline was making feel easy. Though it was called a “race,” I decided I needed to think of it for the first few miles and just a 26-mile long-distance run. The “term tempo” run even seemed too fast to apply at this point. There was a moment in the first mile when I worried that it was going to be too long and I was going to get bored. But really it was just running amidst the strip malls of Northern Virginia that got me momentary in that mood of monotonous despair. I’d been planning to shoot for sub-7 in the first mile, no faster than 7:30, so when I came through the first mile at 6:10, I knew I was going too fast. Next mile I conciosly slowed down to 6:40, letting some people go by me, but the pace just didn’t feel right, so during the following mile, I allowed myself to take advantage of the downhill, cruising through the third mile mark at a comfortable 6:00.

I started chatting with other runners around me during the forth mile as we cruised down the GW parkway, back toward Washington. It was fun to have that sort of camroderie, and at the same time strange that we were going so slow that we could converse for short periods without running out of breath. We commented on the inaccuracy of the 5k mark, the funny-looking spectators we’d seen, the hand-cyclists we’d seen mysterious walking their cycles, and our goal times for the day. The guys around me were shooting for 2:40 while I was aiming to break 3:00, maybe 3:50…heck, I knew I had no sense of what I was capable of. My seed time was 2:45 but I’d all but given up on that goal weeks ago, due to a lack of base over the summer. I mainly just wanted to finish and not stop to go to the bathroom. Above all, I didn’t want to disappointment myself.

As we crossed Key Bridge into Georgetown, past a long line of cheering Marines, Anthony materialized out of nowhere. It was the happiest moment of my race. Together we cruised around the corner past cheering crowds onto Canal Road. I found myself almost laughing at how much fun it was to be out with my coach on a beautiful fall run where there just happened to be 100,000 spectators cheering wildly. Anthony advised me to slow down, and I did as long as I was with him, but once he left I pretty much reverted to my previous pace of 6:15, and not because I was trying to go fast. It just felt natural; anything slower was holding back, consciously making myself slow down. I cruised up the hill from Fletcher’s boathouse with ease, passing some GDS fans as I went, and then joined up with a couple young men I’d been following. Together we exhorted to crowd to cheer louder for us. Anthony appeared, having cut up the hill, and we ran past Jim Erenhalf by the GDS lower school. I tried to swallow some Poweraid and end up spilling nearly off of it on my shirt, laughing as I did so. It hadn’t occurred to me how hard drinking fluids while racing would be.

The course began heading downhill toward Georgetown and after Anthony left, I really let the crowd carry me. People were going nuts! There was a marching band, cheerleaders, students and shopkeepers and tourists. The sidewalks were packed. I passed the bulk of the marathoners doing the opposed direction and some of them cheered as well. MacArthur through K Street was easily the most fun, exciting section of the course.

As I rounded the Kennedy Center toward the Tidal Basin, I began to come back down to earth. The pace started to feel like a bit of hard work for the first time, and I was constantly worried about spending too much energy and not being able to maintain that same effort. Nevertheless, I kept up a steady clip, allowing guys to pass me but keeping them in sight all the way to the half-way mark at the tip of Haine’s Point, which hit at 1:22 on the nose. I’d been running only a minute and a half slower that my half-marathon last April! Enlivened by this information, and the chocolate GU gels I received, I began moving up again in the next mile, until Anthony joined me again much to my mental relief. He told me I was in the top 70, and had a seen the number one woman go by not long before. Mark was having a rough time he reported so I didn’t need to be concerned about the fact that I was ahead of him, something I never would have expected giving his superior mileage and workouts. I told Anthony I wanted to take the next mile relaxed, but when we got a caught by a pack of 10 guys, some of them Marines, Anthony suggested I join them rather than falling back. I tried it and before long had left them behind, moving up through the field from target to target.

The crowd at the Lincoln Memorial gave me a big boost and Anthony had to remind me that I was surging and not merely returning to my previous pace. Yet I continued to run strong along the mall, moving up bit by bit. Anthony finally conceded around mile 15 that since I was having a great day maybe the pace was right for me. I was hitting 6:15s and 6:30s still, though I’d stopped keeping track of the mile splits, focusing instead of the 5ks. Started to feel tired for the first time rounding the end of the mall past the Capital, but was easily revived by some energy beans a marine was handing out. This was the second time I’d eaten all race, and I was also drinking Poweraid at every aid station (every 1-2 miles). I had some more chocolate GU as well, which, when squeezed into the mount in tiny doses, can be positively delicious.

Anthony caught up with me again for the last time as I flew back along the mall, and ran with me all the way to the 14th street bridge. Looking forward to having pace me had been a reward that kept me going throughout the race, and I was sorry I wouldn’t be seeing him again. He left me in good company however; right in front of the second and third place ladies, one of who I allowed to pass me soon after. We stayed together as a tight pack thought, the three of us, all the way across the bridge. The bridge was a horribly monotonous stretch of highway, roughly a mile long incluing the on and off ramps, lonely and full or cars on the other side of the median. Yet in spite of my unhappy predicament, I soon realized that I could go faster just by falling into a consistent rhythm, uninterrupted by eating, drinking, or posing for the ubiquitous MarathonFoto photographers. As we neared the end of the bridge, I turned to 2nd place woman and said “This section sucks.” “Yeah, it really does.” She replied. “But the next part’s my favorite.” That it was, that marathoner’s camaraderie again. It was too late in the race for a full conversation, but we still managed to have a little back and forth without losing our breath.

As we spun off the bridge into Arlington, I realized the 2nd place woman was right. There were screaming crowds everywhere, and their enthusiasm really revived my spirits. I stayed behind her all the way down to Rosyln, having ditched the 3rd place woman back on the bridge. Yet I allowed that gap between me and the 2nd place woman to continue widening, little by little, even as we returned up the out-and-back stretch amidst cheering fans. I heard a female voice I couldn’t identify yell “Go Matt Simonson” at mile 24, and I only found out after the race that it was my high school teammate Adrienne Fritch, who I’d hardly seen twice in the past 4 years but who nevertheless had promised to make an appearance. Having people cheer for you helps so much, but especially if its someone you know you can yell your name.

The 2nd place woman and I overtook one man, but then another got between us. By this point the gap was wide enough that I allowed myself to lose focus on keeping up with the woman, and from here on the race sunk from a competitive tempo to a self-pitying trot. Knowing that I was keeping up the number two girl I guess was just a lot more motivation than trying to match strides with some random guy who I hadn’t seen all race. Maybe if it was a person I recognized from earlier on it would be different. Regardless, I allowed myself to lose focus and instead turn inward, wallowing on my increasing tightness, lactic acid, and fatigue. The dull scenery of the pentagon parking lot and subsequent highway didn’t help matters. Just then, I noticed that the road we were on was all 9-11 memorial parkway. I silently began reciting the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and amazingly I found my spirits were lifted. Perhaps it was just having a chant to focus on a keep me in rhythm, or perhaps it was the pleasure of a remembering a familiar tune, or maybe, just maybe it was the prayer itself and the mental fortitude it conjured in my mind. Whatever it was, the dull stretch o fhighway no longer seemed so bad, and I cruised along more happily for the rest of the 25th mile, though I doubt I really picked up the pace by very much.

The final hill up toward the Iwo Jima memorial was the real low point of the race. Anthony had advised me to start my kick a mile out, but I was scared, reluctant, and just plain mentally lazy about starting it. I reverted to wallowing in self-pity, thinking about how tired and tight I was, how hard I working, and how endless this stretch of highway seemed. It did go on an on, in part because I was running a full minute and a half slower than I had at the beginning of the race. But also, I didn’t know the terrain; I’d never run this hill, unlike much of the course, and I had no idea how long it would last before came to the final turn into the finish. When I emerged the final hill, rather than bursting into an all-or-nothing take-no-prisoners sprint like I’d envisioned, I allowed myself to be mementarly overcoming with horror and the steep 75m little climb, before delving into a half-hearted push up the hill. It was faster than I’d been going, but it certainly wasn’t an all out sprint. The crowd was roaring like a wildfire, contradicting every message my body was trying to send. I started to give a big push through the line (no more than 200m from the top of the hill), but then consciously decided that since there was no one nearby, no time goal to beat, and the very real possibility of knocking myself out of running for weeks, I was not going to sprint to the death. I came through at a respectfully strong push, but no cross-country style withering kick. Upon crossing the line I immediately started walking (my plan to recite Philipides final victory cry “Nenikekamen!” long forgotten) and stumbled stiff legged toward the marines. The chute I received gatoraid, a medal, a bag of welcome food and unwanted product samples, and a chance to have my photo taken in front of the Iwo Jima memorial. I pretty promptly began to regret my lack of a strong finish, not just the kick, but the preceding 6 miles. I was proud of myself for finishing and running so well most of the race, but a bit annoyed at myself for missing my seed time by 2 minutes not pushing my body to the limit. Still, I was proud, especially when I reviewed the 5k splits on my watch, as I basked in the warm sun, lying in the grass with my leg uphill.