Filed under: Longest Run Ever, The Race, Training Runs | Tags: fight, long run, marathon, running, running routes, struggle
….also known as the longest run before the marathon. Done. Check. Complete. Twenty miles. I ran…twenty miles. I RAN TWENTY MILES. Remember that line in Lord of the Rings when Sam asks, “How far to the nearest crossing?” and Merry replies, “Brandywine Bridge! Twenty miles!” and you breathe this sigh of relief, because you know they’re safe for a little while. Well guess what I RAN THAT today.
I also ran it sick, and I ran it on five hours of sleep. I had a late gig the night before, but I set my clock for five AM, pulled on my clothes, ate my usual pre-run snack, and was out the door at 6 AM. It took me a while. I was slower than I intended, doing a loop from my house, around the entire Charles River path, an extra mini-loop, and back. It took nearly four hours, though I actually added a half mile by accident (twenty POINT FIVE! OH!) and I stopped to use a porta-potty, so that added a few minutes.
Over twenty-four hours have passed, and I’m still sick and still tired – my nose is so stuffed up that I’m breathing through my mouth – but I want to write about this before the feelings become stale. I want to remember everything about it. The solitude of the morning, the sound of feet padding steadily along the path, pigeons cooing, water rippling. The gradual rise and bustling of the city, and the appearance of more runners on the path, some doing long runs, some just out for their morning jogs. The changing scenery, slowly – trees to low houses to college campuses to tall, downtown skyscrapers and then back again. The utter relief of seeing the last mile. The last stop sign. The last hill. The last block.
I think it was when I did my first 15-miler that I first experienced a strange sensation of wanting to cry during a run. Once again I felt it, and I still couldn’t tell you what it was. Exhaustion? Emotion? Both? I don’t know. I just know that I think it was mile 19 and I felt an overwhelming rush of…something. As if the physical and emotional sides to my body had melded together into one inseparable thing. It wasn’t a physical battle, though. It was a mental one. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. And things hurt, but not unhealthily, not badly.
And now it’s done. The longest run before the marathon. A forty-mile week. My training is at its end. This week begins my first taper, with a 12-mile long run, and then an 8-mile long run the next week. I still have to be vigilant, obviously. Eat right. Sleep right. Put in the shorter runs. Buy the stupid plane ticket, already.
Nine months have nearly passed. There is a question lurking. But I can’t answer it yet. Not until it’s done.
3 weeks until twenty-six-point-two.
Filed under: Longest Run Ever | Tags: Boston Marathon, good day, healing, Heartbreak Hill, hills, Inspiration, long run, marathon, nerves, running routes, struggle
I’m sorry. It’s been…almost a month. No updates, no nothing. It’s not that I forgot, it’s that I’ve been a bit overwhelmed. Combine peak marathon training with 10-hour shifts, gigs, and the sudden re-emergence of late-night phone calls, and you get one exhausted girl.
Today’s my first day off in about a week. I have homemade chicken soup simmering on the stove, I’ve got my taxes done, I’ve got my bills paid, and as of Sunday, I’ve checked off my first eighteen-miler.
My friend’s boyfriend drove us to Framingham at 6:30 this past Sunday, five miles into the Boston Marathon course. It was the first time I’d ever done anything like that, and it was a very disconcerting feeling. As the car left the city and began to meander into the suburbs, and then onto tree-lined roads, and a half hour went by and we were still driving, I began to get very nervous. I began to realize that we were far, far away from home, and we were about to be stranded there, with nothing but a couple of Gu’s, a couple of water bottles, and our own feet, and that the only way to get back home was to RUN THERE.
It was a profoundly scary moment.
And then it ended, because we started running, and it was sunny, gorgeous, and three weeks out from the Boston Marathon, and everyone was outside, everyone was running, and there was this amazing sense of community and accomplishment and self-satisfaction. Little kids sat at tables, giving out little cups of free lemonade. The local running stores and shoe companies had set up tents where you could grab a water or a Gatorade. People opened their doors to runners who needed a quick bathroom break. Some of them even gave out doggie treats for those who were running with their pets. There was hardly any traffic, and the few drivers that came by honked friendly greetings and waved.
This was not to say that the run wasn’t challenging. The Boston Marathon is a famous race for more than one reason, and one of those reasons is that the course is NOT easy. The hills are frequent, gaining in intensity as you draw near to the infamous Heartbreak Hill, a slow and steady grind that comes after two steeper hills, when your energy is drained, your glycemic index is rock bottom, and you’re just ready to be done running. We scaled it and survived it, though, and I feel more than prepared for the Pig. It will be hilly in Cincinnati, but nothing like this.
I was very unprepared, as usual, for what that kind of running did to my body. I worked a busy day at the store, and by 4 PM I was so tired and weary that I actually wanted to cry – not because I was sad, but because I felt that crying would be a nice way to relax and let off a little bit of steam. I took an ice bath, but I still had to lean all my weight on the railings when walking up and down the stairs. In the middle of the night, I woke up feeling so awful that I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even identify what was wrong. There was no actual spot that hurt; I just felt incredibly strange. I mechanically went to the kitchen, spotted a banana in the corner, and snarfed it down. It was one of the most delicious things I had ever tasted. I went into the bathroom, popped four advil into my mouth, drank a full glass of water, and slept like a stone. I woke up the next morning and felt fine.
This weekend I have a fourteen-miler, which sounds like peanuts to me at this point, and the following weekend I will be running twenty miles. TWENTY MILES. And my friend will be running the Boston Marathon the next day, so I will have to do it alone.
It will be my last Longest Run Ever before the Flying Pig Marathon.
Filed under: Longest Run Ever, Training Runs | Tags: healing, injuries, off day, running, running routes, shoes, struggle, winter
Yesterday I ran seventeen miles, give or take. I think it might have been a bit too long – though it is also possible I ran more than seventeen miles, because I got a little lost, and my phone, on which I had installed a temporary GPS device, died at mile fourteen.
Sorry for the run-on sentence (hee). I feel quite accomplished that I even finished the seventeen-miler, and I’ve been told I shouldn’t be upset about a bad run, especially since, you know, most people DRIVE that distance to get where they need to go, and complain about the commute time.
The thing is…it hurt, and not a healthy, worn-out way. When I stopped running, my ankles, feet, toes, and knees were throbbing. Admittedly, this week had some variables – most of them my fault – that I hadn’t dealt with since starting my running plan: I didn’t cross-train the day before the run, it was twelve degrees outside, iced tea is NOT proper hydration, my shoes are due for a replacement, I worked six days last week, I finished the route by estimating the time it would take to run three miles on my watch, my paces were WAY out of wack, etcetera…I know, get the violins out for a weep.
Variables or not, though, I’m not risking actual injury by running next weekend’s twenty-miler. At the most, I’ll repeat this week and try to accomplish higher-quality runs. All too clearly do I remember the achilles injury that cost me six months of running in graduate school. Much as I wanted to, I wasn’t ready to run those 6.5 miles after three weeks of training, and I’m similarly not ready to run twenty miles right now.
I’m feeling much better today, though that blasted tendon still aches just a tad. Here’s to an easy week and a quick recovery.
Filed under: Longest Run Ever | Tags: beginners, fight, FIRST plan, half marathon, long run, marathon, races, running, running routes, struggle, Team
Today I ran fifteen miles.
This is very significant. It’s the longest run I’ve ever done. It also really hit home that I am training for a marathon. A MARATHON. It’s interesting, when you think about it. Running is becoming increasingly popular. Thousands of people run races, and many of them run marathons. You should have seen the number of people at Disney. It was as if the population of a small city was running down the road, decked out in thermal tights, hats, jackets, and that look that I’m finding is unique to the serious runner: something in the lines of the face, in the sinew of the calves, some strange determination in the eyes – and something else. A stubbornness, a doggedness. Maybe even a degree of mild insanity.
Fifteen miles is a little more than half of a full marathon. Supposedly, I will be able to run the twenty-six-point-two miles necessary to cross the finish line in thirteen weeks. My college girlfriends have bought plane tickets to see me. I have a hotel room booked in Cincinnati. Fifteen miles, according to the plan, will be peanuts in May.
Today, fifteen miles was really, really hard.
I mapped out a there-and-back route to downtown Wellesley. I prepared the way one would prepare for a race: ate pasta the night before, laid out my clothes, drank a lot of water, slept as long as I could. I filled a small water bottle with Gatorade, set my watch to zero, put my Craft hat on my head, took a deep breath, and went out the door.
There were a couple of long, steady hills, the worst of them at the end of mile 14, but nothing backbreaking. I kept my pace slow, about 11:23 minutes per mile. I stopped only for traffic lights, and there weren’t even too many of those.
The thing that surprised me, really, was just how long I had to run. Even with the Gatorade, I realized that I was getting profoundly fatigued. It was at mile 12 that I began to long for it to just be over, which I suppose makes sense, as my body has only trained to run 13.1 miles. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t breathing, it was just…weariness. I was tired. I was thirsty. I wanted to lie down and take a nap, drink a gallon of chocolate milk, sit on a chair. Time seemed to be slowing down each time I looked at my watch. But still my feet went on, my forefoot striking the pavement, my calf flexing, my knee lifting, circling, again, again, again.
When I reached the top of the final hill and began the descent home, I felt vaguely like crying – not because I was emotional, but because crying seemed like it would be a soothing, relaxing thing to do. I didn’t cry, though, because there was the corner of my street in front of me. And look: there’s that old Asian man who collects bottles and cans every Sunday when the recycling is put out! There he is with his shopping cart full of junk! Smiling, miming my jogging, clapping! Holy crap, I have a fan at the finish line! I hit the lap button on my watch and slow to a walk, and he shakes my hand.
I go into the house, drag myself up the stairs. Chug two glasses of chocolate milk, oh sweet chocolate milk! Turn on the shower until it’s barely warm, get undressed, step in, turn the faucet slowly until the water is cold, cold as ice. No one is home so I shriek madly, letting the frigid water run over my muscles for as long as I can stand it. I get dressed, stretch, take a ten minute nap. Get back in the shower, this time to wash my hair. I let it get hot. Revel in the steam. Dry off, get dressed again.
Next week I am scheduled for the usual: a short tempo, a long tempo, and a long run. The long run is supposed to be seventeen miles. I am worried I won’t be able to do it. This is hard. This is really hard, folks.
I do remember one thing, though. I was training for my very first big race, a half marathon in my old city. I was running with the Team. We were going nine miles on a hot July day. I had never run nine miles before, and I was struggling. One of my friends on the Team ran with me for the last three or so miles. I had to stop to walk a couple of times, and I couldn’t seem to get control of the respiratory element of the run. I was hot and I felt like throwing up. It was awful.
After that, though, everything got easier. It was like 9 miles was some sort of wall that I had to break through. Ten miles was easy, eleven miles was easy. The race was difficult, but nothing like that 9 miler. I’ll never forget that run.
I have twenty-six-point-two miles to go. I’m not giving up now.
