Tag Archives: marathon

101 in 1001: [no. 03] run a four-hour marathon

{13 October 2009}

October 11, 2009 — Chicago Marathon 2009: 3:59’01”

Okay, so I started running three and a half years ago. In May of 2006 I decided I’d train for a half marathon. the goal was just to complete it. I started out with a run-one-min-walk-one-min plan for 30 minutes at a time, three times a week. It took me 6 weeks to get up to being able to run 3 miles in a half hour.

Since then I’m four running seasons, 2600 miles, eight pairs of shoes, seven half marathons and three full marathons down the road. And I know that dry wit and self-deprecating humor is basically all that keeps this blog afloat, but i’m going to get all sincere for a minute and say that I’m really proud of that. I just am, okay? I fully recognize, and embrace, the fact that i’m a decidedly middle-of-the-pack, recreational runner. i’m never going to be anything besides that. But these miles, these races were not easy for me. The things these miles lead me to, and away from, in my life, were not easy. But I am so blessed, so fortunate, so lucky (is there a word there that’s both secular in connotation and yet as sincere as “blessed”? i can’t find it) that i found running, or running found me, when it did. It’s taught me how to break insurmountable tasks into tiny, achievable blocks. If what’s up ahead is too scary, then keep your head down, look at your feet, watch them carry you up the next block, around the corner, through the next mile, the next workout. since i’ve started my new job i’ve needed that technique in my non-running life a lot lately.

that’s life lesson number one. the second is probably even more valuable. it’s that, regardless of how you prep and organize and prepare for a big event like a marathon, the most important preparation you can do is to prepare yourself to respond to whatever unpredictable thing comes your way on race day. Being able to respond to what life throws at you with strength, grace and flexibility is, I think, one of the keys to happiness. And it’s really really not easy.

But anyway, the the sub-4 hour marathon has been a goal for a long long time. I wasn’t sure I had it in me this year, but conditions came together just right and there it was in front of me. And I reached out and grabbed it (just barely, with 59 seconds to spare, and not an ounce of energy left). So, the question is, what’s next? I have a few ideas.

1) The North Face Challenge 50k. yeah, it’s a 31 mile race. But it’s completely different from a marathon road race. A marathon like Chicago is all about finishing as quickly as you can. This trail race will be about the adventure, not the finish line. The course is on the single-track and fire roads in the hills of the Marin Headlands. Which, conveniently, happens to be my greater backyard. Participants have 10 hours to finish the course; there’s time to stop, to stretch, to refuel, admire the view, and then run some more. after pushing myself to run as fast as i can, i’m looking forward to doing some serious distance runs that are about completing the distance, not pushing for time.

2) Use marathons as a way to see new and foreign places. A couple of races I have my eye on: Stolkholm (annually in May), Dublin (October), Tokyo (Feburary), and Big Sur (April). But that’ll take time. I can only really fit one marathon into my life per year, it seems like. I gotta make sure it keeps being a hobby, not a burden.

3) Start training to be a marathon coach or mentor. I love dorking out on running physiology, and I seem to be pretty good at encouraging/cheerleading people through their goals. It’s a weird, satisfying moment when you find something that you are really suited for, you know? When you realize there’s something that you’re both good at and enjoy doing. That’s how I felt about “coaching”* a couple of my friends through their first marathon last year. Talking someone through a moment of crisis in the middle of their 20-miler, and seeing them find that inner strength, and finish, and go on to marathon and beyond, is a pretty great thing. (God, this post is all just inspiration pollyannay, isn’t it? Cue Chariots of Fire and release the slow-motion runners on the beach.)

But by coincidence, while i was on the plane home from chicago, and typing this blog post, i got into conversation with the guy sitting next to me. it turns out that, not only had he just finished running the chicago marathon, but that he’s a mentor with Team in Training (the training program/charity fundraiser that got me through my first marathon in 2007). he told me all about the mentoring program, how I could get involved. again…you know when it seems like opportunity is knocking?

* by coaching i mean, it was my 2nd marathon and their first. I’m no expert. I was more like the group cheerleader. But it was important. It got us all to the finish line (and the starting line) under some very tough race conditions.

marathon eve

{12 October 2008}

before the 20-milerthe 2008 chicago marathon starts in less than 12 hours. i’m writing this in a last-ditch effort (9:30pm, i really ought to be in bed by now, the alarm is going to go off at 5) to record something about how i’m feeling now. tomorrow, after the marathon is over, i’ll want to remember who i was now, and who i will be after i complete (fingers crossed for no race-day disaster!) my second marathon.

training for this one has been very different from my first marathon. i’m still frightened of the distance, to be sure – it took me about a half dozen half marathons before that became a distance that i know, and understand, can comprehend. i’ll probably need as many marathons before i’ll feel comfortable in that way, maybe more. right now i’m filled with dread, and excitement, and dread, and…did i mention dread? the temperature is expected to soar up to 80 degrees tomorrow (october heat wave in chicago two years in a row? wtf!?), and i’m having ugly flashbacks from last year’s meltdown marathon. but i *do* feel confident in my training. i put the miles in this year. my comfortable training pace has come down by about 40 seconds. i am strong. i know this.

i also know that marathons = unpredictability. the key to marathoning, the life lesson here, is adaptability. it’s doing all the prep in the world (and trust me, all my clothes are laid out, bag packed, i’ve even laid out my breakfast already), and knowing that there are still a zillion factors i can’t control, and that i have to be prepared to take what the day gives me (weather, injury, transportation woes, illness, or perfect conditions) and figure out how to adapt and cope. it’s about adjusting expectations as much as adjusting your plan of action. feel good? run faster? feel bad? slow down.

okay, so two paragraphs ago i started writing about why the training process for this one was different. the big thing is that i teamed up with my friends marci and helen for this race. they are both new to marathoning, and have called me coach and put me in charge of the training program. (my main coaching qualifications being that i’ve run one (disastrous) marathon, a few half marathons and other long races, and that i read a lot of running magazines). really, it’s been about 70% cheerleading, 20% actual running coaching, and 10% focus on my own training. helping M and H face each new challenge has actually helped ease me through some of the hardest days. and what i’ve got out of this experience is that coaching is something that i really love and seems to really fit me. i think next year i want to look into doing more coaching, either volunteering as a mentor for a community program, or taking some classes and really training to be a coach.

in the mean time, my heart is warmed by all the friends who called/texted/emailed/snail mailed me in the past two days to wish me luck. it’s like having an extra birthday, warm fuzzies arriving unexpectedly.

however, all this touchy-feely-learning-about-myself crap doesn’t change the fact that I still have to run 26.2 miles tomorrow tho. we’ll see how i feel when i get to the end. for now, it’s time for bed.

gambatte!

everyone wins

{16 October 2007}

oh yeah: two more things to say about the marathon (then i’m done i swear):

1) the support from the crowds, and family and friends, was amazing. there wasn’t a single city block, in all 26 miles, that didn’t have some spectator on the street cheering. people turned on their garden hoses to cool us off, they set up their own informal water stations, bought bags of ice to give to overheated runners, hung signs out their windows. they gathered on street corners and sang songs, wore silly hats, cheered for runners they didn’t even know by name. i love this city.

my family and friends were just as awesome. so many people called and emailed and texted me the day before the race to wish me well, or the day after the race to see if i was still alive. i have good people in my life.

2) speaking of good people in my life: we collectively raised 2274 dollars for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! which is pretty cool. more than 60 people made donations, and for months it was a constant source of inspiration for me. someone i hardly know at work just opened his wallet and handed me cash. friends-of-friends i’ve never even met made donations online. my sister-in-law looked up my website and sent money before i’d even begun fundraising efforts. my impoverished artist friends who don’t have money to spare still sent it, because they had faith in me and generous hearts.

really, it was a win-win-win: marathon for me, support for cancer patients who need it most, and good karma for the rest of you.

chicago marathon 2007

{10 October 2007}

(warning: this is long and self-indulgent. non-runners are welcome to skim).

88 degree heat + humidity = one brutal first marathon course.

we stayed on pace pretty well for the whole first half of the race, and for the 3rd quarter even we were running a pretty respectable pace. after that, it all blew up.

the first half was the way i remembered the marathon from watching it in past years: early morning sun, beautiful fall trees, crowds on the sidewalk, a sea of bobbing runners that goes on endlessly, festive atmosphere.

the second half was more like a news clip of people trying to leave new orleans after katrina. (okay, that’s a little dramatic. but you get the idea). it was hot and bright out, with no shade, and the sun just seemed to blaze down on us relentlessly. just miles of pavement, industrial buildings, no trees. people were dropping like flies. we saw a guy collapse right in front of us, just outside of a water stop. callie screamed over her shoulder for a medic while several other runners stopped and got him up, but it was like his legs had turned to jello and wouldn’t support him as they stagged over to the curb. there were people sitting on the sidewalks, heads hung in defeat, bags of ice pressed to their necks.

at mile 21, race officials along the course started announcing that the race had been canceled. they were out of water, out of ambulances. 300 hundred people had been sent to hospitals.

canceled? we had paused at a water station when the rumor first reached me. i burst into tears. 30 seconds ago, i was miserable, in the trenches, so far from the finish that i couldn’t even see the end. but in the next moment, to have the finish line moved back, not six miles but another six hundred?

i don’t wallow in despair for long, it’s never been my style. a moment later, a new determination boiled up in my core, and it burned my tears of disappointment dry in no time. (besides, i had no breath to spare on crying). they can’t take this away from me. not now. here was the belly-fire i needed to finish the race. it arrived in the most unlikely form (someone giving me permission to quit), but it was exactly what i needed at that moment. (extrapolate into a larger life lesson, anyone? the things we need sometimes arrive in the most unlikely packages).

you want to see determined? try telling a group of marathoners at mile 21 that they should quit. ha.

conflicting rumors and misinformation spread through the crowd of bobbing runners as we pressed forward, unclear when or if we were going to be stopped, loaded onto buses, turned around, or just what would happen. helicopters flew overhead with megaphones telling runners to stop running. police cars drove slowly up the sides of the course announcing the race was over and would everyone please walk for their own safety. we walked, we jogged, we trotted. we tried not to hurl. i was wracked with waves of hollow nausea from miles 20-24, callie bent over with stomach cramps from the heat. our legs ached, feet ached, my fair skin (sunscreen long forgotten) reddened with the passing hours. there were dark (metaphorically that is) moments when it hurt and it was emphatically not fun, not even in that grueling i’m-a-tough-i’m-a-runner sort of way. there were miles that just really sucked.

that final trek up south michigan avenue seemed to take a hundred years, the city skyline beckoning us all home to grant park where we’d begun hours earlier. the first few miles of the race seemed to have taken place on another day, in another life time. we came home changed; something happened out there on the pavement that brought us back to grant park different people. when we came around the corner and into the final stretch, i remembered the passing advice i’d gotten from an ultra runner i met on the trails earlier this year. she had told me, finishing your first marathon is the best feeling in the world. that last mile just soak it all in, the crowds, the accomplishment. you’ll never get to experience that again.

she was right.

so we finished with a time of five hours and fifteen minutes. it never entered into my head that i’d run a five+ hour marathon. because it was my first, and the day was warm, we were aiming for a pace of 4:15, and really, i think (thought) that i’m capable of a four-hour marathon. maybe not yet, but i will get there. i have a four-hour in me. so i wouldn’t say i conquered the marathon so much as it ate me for breakfast, but i’m proud of having finished, even when i was given plenty of opportunity, a perfectly good excuse, to quit.

paradoxically, twenty minutes after completing the most hellish five hours i’ve ever run, callie and i were seated in the grass, in the shade, stretching and nibbling on fig newtons and discussing which marathon we should do next year: chicago? montana? big sur?

it’s not over between us, chicago marathon. you and me have got unfinished business.

approaching 26.2

{07 October 2007}

657 miles
$2249 dollars
9 months & 7 days

today is my half-birthday; i am kicking off the year of turning 30 with a marathon.

they say that when you cross that finish line, it will change your life forever. how will it change me? how am i already changed?

bring it on, 26.2

catch up, chicago installment

{02 September 2007}

1) mostly for you chicagoans: my new favorite photo blog: ihateclarkstreet.blogspot.com

2) the first of september, and the first hint of fall in the air. some perceptible transition from the humid, languid days of late summer to the warm, golden afternoons of approaching fall. the sky is a darker shade of blue, the sunlight golden instead of hazy, bringing everything sharply into focus. it’s heartbreakingly beautiful, and yet,or perhaps because, there’s an inexplicable melancholy that settles over me about this time of year. maybe it’s the beauty of late summer juxtaposed with the inevitable approach of winter. but i’m not sure it’s anything as concrete as that. fall just makes me sad.

3) as of monday, i’ll have lived in chi-town for four years. that means i’ve spent more consecutive months living here than in any place since i left my parents’ home at age 18. never in a million years did i dream i’d end up living in the midwest, voluntarily, for a significant period of time, and yet, here i am, and it feels like home.

4) i haven’t even blogged about my weekend yet, and it’s nearly the next weekend. i marked the approaching end of summer with an impromptu trip to the bay area (thank you frequent flier miles): zipping down the 280 in my speedy rent car listening to kfog. visiting the expectant vant. seeing my brother and sister-in-law‘s new house (their very own orange trees! how jealous am i?). browsing used bookstores and drinking coffee on the patio of a berkeley coffee house with the good people behind metameat and 13 ways of looking down. on sunday i ran a 30k trail race in the oakland hills, then met H for a very excellent meal at universal cafe before catching a redeye back home. arriving at o’hare at 5am, post-run muscles stiff after having been cooped up in a center coach seat for several hours in lieu of sleeping in a bed, i was so out of it i felt drunk. dragged my sorry sleep-deprived ass home and napped for a few hours before i could face my monday. when i’m in chicago, i’m mostly happy to be here. but whenever i go back to california, i feel the pull of bay area very strongly. i’d really like to live in berkeley. i’d like to have more access to outdoorsy stuff like hiking and trail running. i want a cute little house somewhere near the university where it fogs in sometimes but never really gets too cold in the winter, and to own a chocolate lab i can take on runs with me. the thing is, none of that is out of my reach, if that’s the path i chose. but i don’t want to give up what i have here, is the thing. i very nearly packed my bags, put the cat in the car, and hit the open road when my life came apart last fall. if i’d wanted to make a fresh start, in california or new york or somewhere new, that would have been the time for it. but instead i dug in, invested, and now that window of opportunity seems to have passed. i could still go, but it would be harder now.

5) re: marathon training, last week was a big one for me; it was my 500/30/18 – that is, 500th mile run since the start of the year, the first 30+ mile week, and my first 18+ mile run. we’re honing in on both the fund raising commitment (bless you, all of you, who have made donations) and the actual race; i can count down the weeks and the long workouts remaining: this weekend it’s a 10-miler, then the next week i’m running the half marathon and tacking an extra 7 miles on to make it my 20-mile day, then the following week it’s 120-min run, then a 16-miler, than something easy like 8 or so, and the week after that is the marathon! to be honest, i’ve been training for eight full months now, and i’m starting to approach burn out. enough with the thinking/talking/dreading/planning/working; lets get to it!

catch up installment of come here, go away

{03 August 2007}

1. come here, vacation in idaho
the schedule was thus: wake up with the sun, 7 or whenever. go for a run on forest trails or logging roads. see some deer or other wildlife. come back, shower, breakfast. spend the morning reading or doing chores around the cabin, or sitting on the back porch with my ibook and wireless internet. forest, meet internet. internet, meet forest. maybe nap. late lunch, then bike into town. swim in the lake, then go to the grocery store and plan the evening’s meal. cook dinner with family and friends. spend the evening throwing a frisbee on the golf course, walking the dog in the meadow, watching movies, playing speed scrabble with my brother and sister-in-law.

2. go away, coming back from idaho
my boss is off getting married so that means that i get to be the boss for a while. it turns out his work suits me. what doesn’t suit me is doing his job and mine. where’d my summer go?

3. come here, veronica mars
season one has hijacked all of the time i would have otherwise spent reading books/sleeping in the past couple of weeks. curse lau for loaning me the complete first season! i finished it last night, but it turns out she sent me home with season two, also, so i’m not out of the woods yet. the fact that i know the series was abruptly canceled at the end of season three, however, makes me sad even as i invest in the first season. WB dramas, i love you.

4. come here, pandora
how did i not know about www.pandora.com until now? i’d vaguely heard of it before, but never really bothered to try it out till this week. i heart it.

5. come here, ultimate frisbee
i have a new love. take that, track workout! i’ve begun counting ultimate frisbee as speedwork for marathon training. we play saturday mornings, which means that i have to do my long run alone on sundays, but i don’t care.

6. go away, stinky hot weather.
i get home from running at 7am and i literally can’t stop sweating for the first 15 minutes or so. my body has become a sieve.

7. come here, 400 mile merit badge!
last week i ran my 400th mile since marathon training started. this is peak mileage month; if all goes well and i stay healthy/uninjured, i should hit 500 by the 25th or so.

8. go away, repetitive stress injuries
tendonitis and soft tissue strains and stress fractures are circling one another warily, growling low in their throats. on the upside, i got to see an x-ray of my foot (and no stress fracture after all!). there’s something fascinating about seeing a picture of one’s own bones. like, that isn’t just a black and white picture of foot bones on the screen, a theoretical image of what feet look like, those are mine. that’s me.

9. come here, awesome car-free weekend:
date with a cute boy on friday (i beat him at darts! turns out drinking beer actually IMPROVES my aim). ultimate frisbee on saturday followed by a double at ye olde corporate theatre gig. pick up organic veggie farm share with the first sweet corn of the season. sunday morning an easy 10-miler, followed by brunch at Over Easy with an old college friend. afternoon margaritas and chips and salsa with A and J, then 500 clowns‘ 365 project. finished the evening watching poi fire dancing at foster street beach – take out sushi and smuggled-in PBRs and crazy hippy drum circle, while the full moon rose over the still black lake. kept the car parked and rode my bike all over all weekend, and as a karmic reward, enjoyed excellent public transit timing every time i looked for a bus/train.

10. come here, popularity dialer
.

baby steps

{09 May 2007}

i’m a big believer than a woman should own her own tools. i’m not talking about a circ saw or anything, but just the basics, whatever basics mean to you. it means that when you want to hang a picture frame you don’t need to guy down the hall to come over and do it. i hate feeling helpless, and as a rule, i try not to.

i was feeling good about such things today when i fixed a few bits on my bike that had come loose. my folks gave me a bike for my birthday earlier this spring, i picked it out and overall it’s a nice sturdy used bike in good shape, but after a couple of weeks of riding it there were some minor things coming apart – the kickstand fell off, the seat was wobbly, the front reflector hanging loose. i had been meaning to take it by the bike shop where i bought it, thinking that they’d probably tune it up for me if i asked nicely. but i got home from work today and wanted to use it this evening, and didn’t relish the thought of riding all the way to the bike shop without a seat. so i dug out a crescent wrench, some hex keys, a screw driver, and managed to put things right, and was pleased with myself for the effort as much as the result.

lately i’m making a concerted effort to drive my car less: still commuting cross town to work, but leaving it parked the rest of the time, and taking public transit or, even better, my bike. the nice weather is making such a resolution much easier to keep, and i’m quickly getting bolder about biking in traffic, a thing that a few weeks ago i was totally scared of doing. the not driving plan, like not eating meat, is born of a variety of reasons rather than one particular conviction.

1) financial: with gas at $3.50/gal in the city, driving less is kind of essential for financial reasons, plus my car, with 92,000 miles on it, isn’t getting any younger and i am a long way from being able to make payments on a new one.

2) environmental: i jog these city streets nearly every day and when the wind blows just right, choke on the smog and fumes. one of the best features of a city is that everything is close together (relatively) and linked by public transit. driving everywhere seems like i’m missing the point of living in a city.

3) sanity: i am not a nice person when i’m behind the wheel. i’m generally pretty patient when it comes to public transit; it’s all out of my control, whether it runs on time or not, so i just sit back and do my crossword or read and get there when i get there. but i’m the opposite when i’m driving my own vehicle. perhaps because there is the illusion of control, i’m constantly looking for the fastest lane, the most efficient route, the way to make the stoplight at ravenswood and irving park turn just a little faster. and then parking? don’t even get me started. i hate feeling like my vehicle owns me. i never, however, experience that sort of incredible hulk rage when i’m on my bicycle even tho it takes longer to get where i’m going.

4) political: one could argue that politics are pretty deeply entwined with the issue of environmentalism and lump these two items together, but given that our country has been fighting a war over oil for the past five years i think this gets its own item number. there’s a girl i see biking around campus a lot with a sticker on the back of her bike that says, “it doesn’t take war to power my bike.” given that i don’t bicycle exclusively or anything, i don’t think i can really get on my high horse like that, but i like her message. and she looks like she probably does echew petrol-based private transportation all of the time, so good for her.

for me, it’s baby steps. it’s karma, it’s the golden rule: i want to live in a better world so i have to start by reforming my own habits, one tiny step at a time. most of us, myself included, don’t have what it takes to make revolutionary changes in our lives. and i find it really easy to feel helpless in the face of something as huge as global warming or thousands of innocent civilians dead over oil prices and legislation for clean energy DOA in congress. but, at the risk of turning this whole post into a cliche, this is what marathon training is teaching me. the thought of running 26 miles isn’t just impossible, it’s absurd. i don’t spend very much time thinking about the upcoming race, in fact, because it’s just too daunting. instead, i get up every morning and i tie my shoes and i go out for 4 or 5 or 6 miles. at the end of the week i’ve run 20 miles. at the end of the month i’ve gone 80. by the time i get to marathon day, i’ll have logged almost 700 miles. and what’s 26 more in the face of 700? that’s how we accomplish big things. in small, unremarkable steps. so: i ride my bike on weekends. i don’t eat red meat. i buy cruelty-free beauty products. i recycle my kitchen trash. baby steps. maybe next year i’ll bike to work once a week, go completely veggie, use biodegradable soaps or start a compost heap. things i can’t do this year will no longer be out of my grasp.