In my first marathon, I didn’t have 16 more in. This mile, the 11th, was my last good one.
My first marathon was at the U.S. Olympic Trials in New York. It was my first season out of collegiate competition and a perfect autumn day in New York City: a crisp, cool morning; slowly warming as the day progressed, no breeze whatsoever. A few of the professional runners started with a light long sleeve and shed it for their singlet midway through the race. I just had gloves and arm sleeves.
To qualify for the Olympic Trials, you have to run faster than the time standard set by USA Track & Field, the national governing body for all things running in the U.S. The time standard was either at the marathon distance or the half marathon -- in a sense, I sort of lucked into the qualifying via the half. I initially hadn’t planned on qualifying; I was just starting to explore the post-collegiate road racing scene and didn’t really know what I was doing. I hopped into a race in the late summer, relying on leftover fitness from my college track season, and found myself being dragged through crazy splits by a pair of journeyman Kenyans who raced the road circuit. They ended up dusting me over the last two miles fighting for the prize winnings, but in doing so carried me to a time under 1:05, which was the qualifying standard.
In just over an hour, I had a new goal: two months to my first marathon.
The Trials are a brutally simple format -- take the fastest 150-200 men and women in country (each), put them all on the starting line together (with just each other, no other filler), and have them race 26.2 miles over a four-loop course in front of thousands of live spectators and multitudes more on TV. The top three become the U.S. Olympic Marathon team. Simple.
On that day I knew I had no business contending for the team. In all reality, maybe 15 of the 150 competitors has a legitimate shot of making the team; for the rest this race is their Olympics. I had no delusions of grandeur; I was just happy to be there.
Unfortunately, when you’re just happy to be there, it doesn’t really matter how you do when you actually are there. And I ran terribly.
The first half was mostly fine, although I remember my quads starting to ache around the sixth mile. Not exactly what you want to be feeling with 20 more to go. The 11th mile was the last that I ran in 5:20, which had been my goal pace. I believe every mile after that one was slower than the one before it, although eventually I stopped looking at my splits.
The hubcaps started to rattle around mile 15, the wheels came off at 18, and the car caught fire after 21. From there to the finish, I walked further than I ran.
The worst part wasn’t the disappointment of running poorly or the embarrassment of walking in front of all these spectators and competitors. The worst wasn’t even being passed by most of the women in the field. No, the worst part was the abject helplessness of having absolutely nothing left in the tank. I couldn’t will myself to go faster; walking was my top speed.
More than anything, I remember the look of forlorn pity I got from the spectators. That sucked.
I ended up running splits of 1:10 for the first half marathon and then 1:32 for the second half. I think I covered my last 5k in over 30 minutes, slower than many couch-to-5kers. On the bright side, I wasn’t last (it was close, though).
Self doubt won that day. But I did end up running a time that qualified me for the Boston Marathon, so here I am.
I shouldn’t dwell on that race while this one heats up, literally and figuratively. For the past two weeks, I had been checking the weather forecast religiously. Every day it seemed like the temperature inched up a couple degrees and the chance of precipitation dropped accordingly. Two weeks out called for a high of 74 and an approximate temperature of 65 at the start. Not perfect conditions, but we’ve all run in worse.
The next day the high was forecast to be 76 and the start 66. Then 77 and 69. By the the one-week-to-go mark, the high was above 80. And then, two days before Marathon Monday, I checked for the last time. High of 83; 71 on the starting line.
Fuck me.
The marathon gods were just toying with us. The last time race day was similarly hot it completely ripped open the field. On the men’s side, that race was won in 2:12-something, which is an absurdly slow time by elite standards.
I try to keep Amelia’s “weather is your equalizer” advice at the front of my mind, but for the first time I’m starting to notice the sun take its toll. We’re not even halfway yet, and my singlet is soaked. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m drinking from race-provided Dixie cups while everyone else has his own private water bottle.
We had a relatively late winter this year in Kansas. It had been warm through most of December and early January, but then old man winter came with a vengeance during the later months. I was still running in the occasional flurry into April. Then, in classic midwest fashion, we had less than a week of beautiful spring weather before the summer heat arrived. And here I am in eastern Massachusetts, racing on the hottest day of the year so far.
But before I can get too distracted by the heat, I notice that for the first time in miles some of the athletes in this lead pack are looking around at each other. Every runner had been locked into his own little world, but that mindset seems to be shifting.
A pair of the Americans, led by Rod Kelley, gradually move to the lead. One of the Japanese guys follows in their wake, while the other hangs on to the back of the pack with me. In the span of just a few minutes, the African runners have been swallowed into middle.
The pack hasn’t dropped anyone yet, nor has it added any more competitors. For all intents and purposes, the pack has remained the same amoeba since the first mile. But things are shifting, and this feels like the precipice of the first serious shake-up on the day.
We cross the 11th mile in 5:04, which makes for our third straight negative split.
**********
Comments
Post a Comment