(I wouldn't normally post this here, but seeing as how Paul Ryan made marathoning a political issue, I figured why not?)
Fate throws shit in your way. The bigger the thing you want, the more Fate works against you. It will surprise you, blindside you, try to trick you.
The recent Stephen King novel 11/22/63 is all about Fate fighting back when you are trying to do something hard. In the novel, a guy tries to change the past. Small things are no big deal. Fate lets him slide. Big things, like preventing the assassination of JFK, get a lot more push back. Fate kicks his ass with everything from flat tires, to beatings, to violent stomach viruses to getting shot a couple times.
My something hard was to run a marathon under 4 hours. It’s a goal I set years ago when I first started running marathons. It seemed unachievable when I wrote it down.
Since then, I have run seven of them at somewhere between 5 hours and 4:10. Every time I’d finish, I’d think, “Getting to 4 might not ever happen.”
Getting my body to go faster than nine minutes a mile would be hard. I would need to lose weight. I would have to train for speed. I’d have to put in more miles, and faster miles. All of that I happily signed up for. No problem.
Then Fate started messing with me. I pulled my right quad two months before the race on an awesome 20 mile run completed in less than 3 hours, my best training run ever.
I stayed off the road for a week, ran again, and ouch, more pain in my right quad. If I missed anymore training time I would be done.
So I started reading up on how to recover fast and came across Active Release Technique, which seemed like bullshit to me. Anything that promises miracles is likely bullshit. I was desperate enough to try out some bullshit.
I went to a chiropractor, a nice guy who looks maybe 17 years old, and he ground his thumbs into my quads, groin and ass muscles. He does this while leaning on top of me so he can use all his weight. I never, ever want to see what this looks like, so I close my eyes.
Besides, it hurts too much to be embarrassed. I grunt and moan in pain when he does it, and the people in his waiting room must get second thoughts about seeing him.
It worked. It got me back on the road. I could run again, just 4-6 miles at a time, but it was solid training. My quad would still get tight and achy, but it didn’t slow me down.
I kept going to the child chiropractor, and every time I leave, my leg feels better. ART might be bullshit (and according to some articles, it is), but it is a high quality bullshit that seems to work for me.
As soon as I started feeling good about the race again, more Fate shenanigans occurred. A bad virus start circulating at work, and people were getting stabbed in the throat so badly they could barely speak, followed by a stuffy nose and weakness. I started sucking zinc lozenges and sanitizing my hands 4-5 times a day. If someone was coughing in a meeting, I’d go to the other side of the room.
I stretched, massaged and exercised my annoying quads every night. I now have an embarrassing array of crazy looking exercise equipment in my living room, a stack of blocks for stepping up and down on, an elastic band I attach between my ankles, a yoga mat, an inversion table, a foam roller, a giant rubber ball, and a jump rope.
There are also tubes of Tiger Balm, and various rubber sheaths that stretch around sore muscles and attach with Velcro, some for my thigh, some for my shins.
This is what you have to do to break the 4 hour barrier when you are 45 years old. You have to spend money on miracle exercise devices, and then, even more importantly, you have to use that stuff. Letting them collect dust doesn’t seem to work.
You really do have to crab walk around the living room with your ankles strapped together with a tube of rubber. You absolutely have to roll around on the yoga mat into positions that seem to both amuse and embarrass your cats.
When race day finally came around, it was surreal. There was nothing left to do but wake up at 3:45 am, eat breakfast and head to the start of the race. Should have been easy. That bit I’ve done seven times.
My race wave started at 5:52 am. I wanted to be in the pen and warming up by 5:30. My wife and I left the house at 4:45. So far so good.
No traffic. No flat tires. No stomach issues.
But parking in San Francisco, that’s another story. We circled around for 15 minutes looking for an open lot, then spent ten minutes getting into that lot. I felt like Fate had finally got me. We should have left at 4 a.m., we should have parked and eaten at the race, should have, should have, should have…
I parked, ripped off my sweat pants, threw on my hydration belt, and trotted away to the starting line. My wife stayed behind and paid for the parking…$40, as deep a gouge as the parking company could make.
I went into the gaggle of other late people squeezing through the metal barricades.
“Wave 4, go!” the announcer said. That was my wave. I should have been starting. I instead I was elbowing my way through spectators.
Many Wave 4 runners were late. We stumbled into an empty starting pen and the announcer was saying: “Wave 4 is still going on and on! Get going you guys!”
Without any kind of stretching or warm up, I jogged up to the starting line and took off.
My goal, in order to ensure my 4 hour time, had been to do every mile under nine minutes. So I started running, instead of jogging out a ten-minute mile to warm up. Huge mistake.
First, a pain popped in my right shin, like a bee sting. It made my eyes water and I wanted to stop, but didn’t. Pains like that tend to go away once you are warmed up.
During mile 3, I had to pee, and I wasn’t going to stop. I did what all male marathoners do when they see a batch of decorative shrubbery about 30 feet away. I went and peed with no waiting in line and with great relief. Not proud of it, but it is what it is. I had trained for six months for this race and standing in line at a port-a-potty was not an option, as it wasn’t for the five or six guys I peed with.
Back on the road, something weird happened. My left foot fell asleep. I couldn’t feel it striking the ground. From my ankle up, everything was good. My foot was 100% numb.
I was wearing the same socks and shoes I’d been training in for hundreds of miles. This was unexpected. Could I be having some kind of stroke? Did Fate finally decide that there was no way I was crossing the finish line?
I couldn’t stay below 9 minutes a mile, not with both legs doing something painful and annoying.
I stopped at a medical table for the first time in 8 marathons. The paramedic asked what the problem was. I took off my shoes, wiggled my toes, and shook my foot at the ankle. “Just fell asleep,” I said. He didn’t look concerned.
Feeling came back and I put my shoe on. I think somehow my sock had bunched up in a weird way under my heel and cut off the circulation.
Feeling better, off I went. That stop cost me more time. That mile turned out to be 10:16. Ouch. I was going to have to find some time somewhere on the course, assuming I could even finish.
Up the first big hill we went, the ascent to the Golden Gate Bridge. This is my favorite part of the race. The views are stunning and it feels rebellious to run in the middle of the road with regular traffic shoved off to one side.
My foot fell asleep again. I didn’t want to stop and lose another minute, but I was thinking I might have to.
The crowd was thick on the bridge, and there was no place to stop and do another shoe reset. I pounded through those two miles, willing one leg in front of the other, wincing in pain. Quitting seemed like a pleasant idea.
We came off the bridge into the tourist area and traffic turnaround. I know this place well. There is a good public restroom there with lots of stalls. They also give away free energy gels there. If you want, you can stop and take pictures of the incredible scenery. The view of the bridge and bay is made for postcards. This is the view gets people to pay for this race every year.
I didn’t stop. I went through the turnaround and my foot felt better. My right shin felt better. I felt good for the first time in the race. I guess I was finally warmed up. Only took 8 miles.
I figured I could still salvage my 4 hour goal if I could make up time. I could either do it at the end of the race, or I could do it now. I decided to go for it right then. I was full of energy and my legs were getting springy, when they like to go fast. I hit the gas, and dropped to under 8 minutes a mile, a pace I knew I shouldn’t keep for more than a few miles.
The crowd on the bridge was still thick, and I had to dance around a lot of people who were happy at their 9 minutes a mile pace. This was nerve racking. To get around clots of people, I had to dodge into the oncoming lane, which was choked with runners still on their way to the turnaround. It was like passing on a two-lane highway with speeding cars in the oncoming lane.
Finally we let out into Presido Park and the road got wider. I kept my foot on the gas, finishing two miles under 8, then 3 more just above.
I cleared the halfway mark at 1:57. I was under the pace. Awesome. I felt great. Runner’s high was kicking in.
I had a playlist that choreographed the entire race. The Rocky Theme Song plays at hour 2, and when it came on after mile 13, I knew victory could be mine.
I shifted into fourth gear, and tried to stay between 8:45 and 9 minutes a mile. I relaxed. I waved at the clapping spectators. I ate my red Energy Blocks, which are really just gummy bears in a less amusing form.
Some of the signs were clever this year…
“Go Random Stranger Go!”
“Run like you just found out that you are NOT pregnant!”
“This probably seemed like a good idea three months ago.”
Someone sizzles up bacon every year, and that smell hits you just as you leave Golden Gate Park. Bacon has never smelled so good.
Around mile 16 I think, I passed the 4:00 pace runner, with his little sign on a stick. He had had a 4-5 minute head start on me, so when I caught up to him, I knew I was flirting with not just beating 4 hours, but crushing it. I gave him a thumbs up and passed his ass.
I love running through The Haight. There are so many great restaurants and stores I almost want to stop and take notes of places I’d like to visit. People always give away food along The Haight. I have never taken anything as I think taking a free baked good from someone sporting dreadlocks is not a good idea during a marathon. Maybe at any other time, but not right then.
Miles 23-25 are always the toughest in this race. The scenery is drab, abused, and full of decayed industrial buildings and weed-pocked empty lots. On the upside, most of it is at a slight downhill. On the downside, it’s depressing and you have nothing to distract you from the creeping pain in your quads and calves, the stiffening that happens when muscles have been strained for 3 hours.
I coasted through, slowed down a little, as I was well ahead of my pace. I wanted to leave something in the tank for a final burst toward the finish line.
Coming out from behind AT&T Park, I heard the crowd cheering. I was close. I hit the gas. Endorphins flooded, sweet, sweet endorphins.
I blurred past slower runners. My legs felt perfect, like I had just started the race. Adrenalin is an amazing thing.
I crossed the line at 3:53:40. I did it. I gave a shout of victory. I high fived some people. I enjoyed my free banana and bottle of ice cold coconut water.
It is sweet, this feeling. I did something hard, really hard. The end result was in question almost the entire time, in fact, it was at risk for most of the last three months.
But I won.
Fuck you, Fate.
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