Going The Distance

Sometimes I wonder why I run marathons. I had never been an athlete, at least not in team sports, but I could always run. Over the years I have slowed down, but I still keep running. For some reason, however, it had never occurred to me to try running a marathon. I had to do a lot of running when I was on active duty in the Navy while training at Pensacola and had to maintain a certain level of effort after that to pass my annual physical fitness test for the reserves. But there was no compelling reason to run that distance, to go through what I knew was required of me. Maybe it was a combination of circumstances that just came together when I finally took the plunge.
In the weeks after 9-11, I had heard about an opening for the Marine Corps Marathon that October, but I realized that two or three weeks of preparation would not be enough. Then, too, I had heard somewhere about the Jeff Galloway method of taking walking breaks at regular intervals. That way your muscles could recover and you could last longer and feel better afterward. After all, the idea for most participants is to just finish; only a select minority of true athletes compete with the thought of winning. Something about it intrigued me enough to commit to signing up for the following year. I was 54. Somehow, it was important to me to find out if I could do it and so I resorted to what I call my “rock and rope” method of motivation. The idea is that if there is something you want to do but are not sure of, you figuratively tie one end of a rope around your ankle and the other end around a big rock. Then you throw the rock over a cliff, so that, even if you have second thoughts, you are committed. By paying the entrant’s fee, I had thrown the rock over the cliff and was now committed. My wife was skeptical, perhaps wondering if this was just some sort of mid-life crisis, but we reached an understanding. My goals were (in order of precedence) to not get injured; to avoid being picked up by the stragglers bus; and last, to finish. The deal was that if I did not finish, I would not sign up for another marathon. That is still the deal many marathons later. But for the first one at least she went with me to, as she put it, “claim the body.”
Following the Galloway training plan for first timers I gradually worked up my mileage, running for thirty minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, walking for thirty minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and doing my long runs on Sundays while taking Saturdays off. Even with the training working up to distances of at least 20 miles, the actual event was still the great unknown. Since we live in the Washington DC area, getting to the race was a simple matter of getting up in the dark of night (or “zero-dark-thirty” as they say in the military), driving to a Metro station, parking and taking Metrorail. When we arrived I left my extra gear with my wife (who had also brought along a book to read to pass the time) and found my starting corral. Over the years many of the events of that day have blurred with those of subsequent races, but a few things still stand out. One thing that really struck me was the great variety of humanity participating in “the people’s marathon.” The Marine Corps Marathon does not have any qualifying time requirements, like the New York or Boston marathons and so you can see runners of many ages with varying levels of ability. There are also people who make it a performance event by dressing in colorful costumes. I was most impressed by the firemen who ran in full firefighting gear (except for their running shoes). My plan worked, for the most part, the way I had anticipated. I would run three minutes and walk a minute. Somewhere around mile 20, I had to start adding additional walking breaks and occasionally stretch out a leg muscle or two, but at least I would “beat the bridge” and finish the rest of the course. (Once you had crossed the bridge, you were pretty much guaranteed that you would be allowed to finish and would not be rolled up on the stragglers bus.) Of the 26.2 miles, that last “.2” seemed to be the hardest since it was uphill going toward the Iwo Jima Memorial. I finished in just under six hours.
In the years that followed I have run other races (more MCMs, National Marathons, and various half marathons and other distances, such as the Army Ten Miler). The practical “lessons learned” include: using “Glide” on various body parts to prevent chaffing (Glide is much better than using petroleum jelly since it provides better protection and is a lot less messy); incorporating stretching, core and upper body exercises consistently as part of my training program; using electrolyte replacements during the race (“Endurolytes” from Hammer Nutrition, for example); and listening to what my body is telling me and scaling back when necessary. But the most important thing about running a marathon is what you learn about yourself. I sometimes talk with individuals who are younger than I, are in better physical condition than I was at their age, and who in fact may be runners themselves, but for some reason feel that they could never do a marathon. Make no mistake, there are those who cannot and should not commit to running a marathon, but there are others who, if they took the chance, would find out what they can accomplish if they would only set their feet on that path. Once you have done it, you can look at other challenges in your life in a different light. There are more possibilities than you can imagine.