It’s hard not to look down at the road during a bad stretch like this. I’ve mentioned that you should never look back during a race, but it can be equally important to keep your focus on the competitors in front of you. I might not have physical contact with them, but I do want to maintain some semblance of psychological contact.
“Keeping the lasso tight” is how we used to describe it in college. There might be some separation between you and those in front, but we always tried to keep it close enough that we could cover the gap with a quick surge.
Looking down, on the other hand, is admitting defeat. It is the tacit agreement your mind makes with your legs that you just don’t have it in you to hold on. You are relegating yourself to your own little world within the race. No-man’s-land.
The longer this gap between the leaders and myself persists, the more likely I am to go there. The lasso is fraying; I’m holding on to a shred of a cord of rope.
The problem is that I’m used to running alone. Running -- and racing -- solo is my comfort zone. I have a bad tendency of falling back into that zone in the second half of races. Call it a mental block, a psychological weakness, an inferiority complex; whatever you want, it is more a mental problem than a physical one.
When confronted with the Suck in a race, we have the choice to embrace it or fall back into our comfort zone. My comfort zone is running solo, and too often I’ve made the choice to hide in no-man’s-land. As my grasp as the lead pack weakens, that is where I am heading right now.
***
Throughout my running career, I’ve never really had training partners. In high school I was mostly on my own; we just didn’t have the legacy of a program that some other places had. It didn’t help that it was a small high school of less than four hundred students, which meant that getting bodies out for the cross country and track teams was always difficult. Hell, getting bodies out for any sport besides football, basketball, or baseball was a challenge. It’s not like the cross country team was the only one struggling for people.
That said, our team had it the worst. Distance running is the least sexy sport you can choose, and in the age of smartphones, technology, and instant gratification, it can be hard to sell people (especially high schoolers) on a sport that entails daily suffering and rewards patient, long-term improvement. No, most people would rather have a sport they can capture in an instagram post or a name on the back of a jersey. And if you just sat on the bench your whole career, even better: all the notoriety for none of the suffering of actual competition.
Most cross country meets, we would toe the start line with six athletes; varsity was top-seven.
Somehow I lucked my way into a small scholarship at an even smaller D-1 university, and things initially improved. For the first time in my career, I was training with people who were faster than me.
That first season was a revelation. I ran my longest training run ever (12 miles!) in a pre-season summer practice with a few of the upperclassmen. By the end of fall, I had tacked on four more miles at their behest. In workouts, I was getting dragged through intervals faster than I had ever thought possible. During a race I would look around and be surrounded by teammates. There was a level of confidence knowing that you had guys right there to back you up. You might be suffering in the race, but you’ve worked out alongside every one of your teammates every day all season, so if they could press on then you could to…
Sometimes in distance running -- in all endurance sports, really -- having partners to train and suffer with makes everyone faster, stronger, tougher; more enduring. It’s nice to have people around you to kick your ass every day.
As I grew into a more leadership role within the team, that dynamic began to change. The upperclassmen who were better than me graduated; pretty soon I was the upperclassmen who was leading the new recruits through the paces.
My long runs became longer than everyone else’s, my mileage was higher, and my workout and race paces were faster. I loved my teammates, don’t get me wrong -- they are still my best friends -- but by the end of my college eligibility I was back where I was in high school: on the cusp of the next level, running by myself most days.
Then, one week after graduation, I really was back in high school. I had moved back home and was running in my old neighborhood while everyone else in my graduating class went their own separate ways: some to a new job in a new city, some to grad school, and some back to their parent’s homes.
Post-collegiate running -- hell, post-collegiate life -- became a solo activity. Training was entirely lonely.
That has continued through most of my training for Boston. The town of Flint Hills is not exactly a hotbed of distance talent. I eventually did run with the high school boys a few times, but that couldn’t be considered real training; more like mentoring sessions. The only times I truly ran with other people were in races.
Even my last workout five days ago was lonely. It was a simple one, just a few 800m repeats at about marathon effort to dial in the pace. It was an overcast, windy day on the track. Rain early in the day had given way to gusting winds out of the southwest, the leading edge of a warm front coming through. From the morning until the afternoon, the temperature had nearly doubled, from 31 degrees to 59. In 24 more hours’ time, it was supposed to heat up by 20 more degrees to nearly 80.
In other words, it was a standard spring day in the Midwest.
With the winds whipping through, there had actually been a tornado watch in the early afternoon, so all spring sports practices were cancelled for the day. I had been substituting, which meant that I would have the track to myself after school. Like I said: the loneliness of the long distance runner.
It was actually coming through the finish of my third 800 when I heard, “2:28, 2:29, 2:30,” which was also exactly what my watch read.
I looked over and there was Amelia, still in her teacher clothes, leaning over the fence holding her own stopwatch.
“How many have you done so far?” She asked.
“That was my third,” I replied, not really out of breath.
“And what were your first two?”
“2:32 and then 2:30.”
“Solid. How many more?”
“Probably just one more. No need to overdo it marathon week.”
“Good call. Keep this last one consistent then.”
She had stepped onto the track at this point.
“You ready?” She asked.
I toed the line.
“Set...Go!”
Accelerate into the turn, find your rhythm on the backstretch, head down and arms pumping as you turn into the wind… I had run this track so often I didn’t even have to think anymore.
“74, 75...perfect!” She was right, my pace was perfect. That was the whole point of the workout, after all.
Coming through the finish line the final time, I stopped my watch at the same time she called out, “2:29, right on!”
I slowed to a jog, turned around, and trotted back to the finish line where Amelia was waiting with a fist bump.
“Last workout before the race?” She asked.
“Yes, just some rhythm 800s to get my legs used to the pace. Felt pretty easy.”
“It looked pretty easy. I hope you know just how fit you are.”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out on Monday. This is some crazy weather, though, isn’t it?” I did always have a way with words…
“And it’s about to get hot. Are you ready for that?”
***
I am not ready for that. In fact, I don’t think anyone in the field is. Winter pushed so far into March and then April this year that this weekend is turning into the first truly hot one of the year. Mother Nature just decided to skip spring and go straight to summer.
Like the marathon distance itself, the sun today is oppressive and unrelenting. And as the time slowly creeps toward noon, it’s only going to get worse. All parts of my uniform, from my singlet down to my socks, are soaked with an unholy mixture of water, Gatorade, and sweat, with salt creeping in at the edges.
At that moment, looking up to see where the next closest competitor is (not particularly close), I stride right into a small pothole carved out of the late winter. As my right foot rolls outward, stretching on the lip of the hole, my whole leg tenses up and recoils reflexively.
My stride chops, and panic takes over for a second. Shit! I hope I didn’t roll my ankle! In a race as long as a marathon, sometimes something so simple can end your day.
Backing off the pace for a few strides, I am able to do a quick body scan. I did not roll my ankle; that has settled back to normal. But for the first time, I do notice something else on my right side which I hadn’t taken stock of yet. There is a slight pinch on the outside of my foot, where my pinky toe meets the shoe. And on my heel, at the back of the shoe, I am feeling a little raw.
Blisters. Great. Like I said, sometimes you come undone thanks to the littlest things.
This mile, all alone, passes in 5:09. So far, for the past mile at least, my closest competitors haven’t extended their gap.
**********
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