50/50 (18 page)
Weather: 74 degrees; clear
Time: 4:17:36
Net calories burned: 73,301
Number of runners: 44
T
he youngest event in the Endurance 50
was the Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a first-time event. In fact, it was even younger than that. We ran it on Monday, October 9, almost six weeks before its official inauguration on November 19. Our forty-four-person tour of the course was like a dress rehearsal for the new race’s opening night.
Race director Chris Lieberman seemed glad to have the opportunity to practice for the real thing, and took advantage of it by making the experience more like the real thing than we had any right to expect. He provided excellent runner support throughout the marathon and brought the Tulsa Police Department out in full force to guide us safely through the busy streets to the finish line.
Fittingly, a large number of first-time marathoners participated in this first-time marathon. At the starting line, I asked all of the newbies present to raise their hands. Eight arms shot up. Half of the runners attached to these arms explained that they planned to run only halfway, though. I had heard this one many times over the past twenty-two marathons, and had been amazed by how many folks who intended to drop out at the midway point went on to complete the entire 26.2 miles. Sure enough, all four of today’s would-be half-marathoners wound up running the full distance.
In the first few days of the Endurance 50, I was surprised to see such large numbers of first-timers coming out. I had expected our events to draw mostly veterans who were confident of being able to finish a marathon. I’m not sure I would have wanted to do an Endurance 50 event as my first marathon. When you run a regular marathon as your first, you can fail more or less in private. You’re running alone, and if you falter, no one will notice. But in the Endurance 50 marathons, we ran as a small group. Falling off the back of this group and perhaps eventually climbing into the SAG wagon would draw more attention than it would in a larger event. In a sense, the stakes were higher.
Then again, so were the rewards. The Endurance 50 had an unequaled support system. Cheering spectators on the side of a marathon course can offer some encouragement, but a slap on the back from a fellow runner struggling alongside you during the Endurance 50 offered a whole different level of inspiration. Looking back, I see that the Endurance 50 was actually an ideal format for first-time marathoners.
I’m glad that first-timers became such an integral part of the Endurance 50, because watching runners complete their first marathon is a truly uplifting experience for me. Crossing a marathon finish line for the first time is a life-changing moment. In doing it, you prove something to yourself that can never be taken away. You walk away with hard, experiential evidence that you are strong, resilient, and gutsy. It’s one thing to
suppose
you have what it takes to run a marathon; it’s quite another to
know
it, because you’ve done it. First marathons are immensely challenging, even for the most naturally gifted runners. Twenty-six point two miles is just a long way to go, no matter who you are. Anytime you’re able to take on and overcome a challenge of such proportions, you come away with benefits—in the form of confidence, self-respect, and fearlessness—that never fade.
Race Day Tips for Your First Marathon
•
Arrive early.
Get to the race an hour beforehand to allow time to park, make a pit stop, and reach the starting line without feeling rushed.
•
Don’t experiment.
Don’t do anything on race day that you haven’t done on your long runs, whether it’s wearing different shoes or eating a different breakfast beforehand.
•
Layer your clothing.
You’ll often find yourself much colder at the race start than you’ll be once you get moving. Wear layers of clothing that you don’t mind parting ways with along the course. A disposable painter’s jacket is inexpensive and recyclable.
•
Pace yourself.
Before the race, choose a pace that you’re confident you can maintain and stick to it no matter how good you feel.
Even if the process of training for a marathon weren’t extremely health promoting, I would still encourage everyone to run at least one marathon simply for its powerful effects on the mind and spirit. After all, don’t we spend enough of our lives doubting ourselves, thinking we’re not good enough, not strong enough, not made of the right stuff? The marathon gives you an opportunity to tackle these doubts head-on. It has a way of deconstructing your very essence, stripping away all your protective barriers, and exposing your inner soul. The marathon tells you it will hurt you, that it will leave you demoralized and defeated in a lifeless heap on the roadside. It says it can’t be done—not by you.
Ha!
it taunts you.
In your dreams!
So you train hard. You dedicate yourself wholeheartedly, you sacrifice, and you overcome countless smaller challenges along the way. You pour everything you’ve got into it. But you know the marathon will ask for even more. In the dark recesses of your mind, a gloomy voice is saying,
You can’t
. You do your best to ignore this self-doubt, but the voice doesn’t go away.
On the morning of your first marathon, the voice of doubt multiplies, becoming a full chorus. By mile twenty this chorus is screaming so loudly, it’s all you can hear. Your sore and weary muscles beg you to stop. You
must
stop. But you don’t stop. This time, you ignore the voice of doubt, you tune out the naysayers who tell you you’re not good enough, and you listen only to the passion in your heart. This burning desire tells you to keep moving forward, to continue putting one foot boldly in front of the other, and somewhere you find the will to do so.
Courage comes in many forms. Today you discover the courage to keep trying, to not give up, no matter how dire things become. And dire they do become. At the twenty-five-mile mark, you can barely see the course any longer—your vision falters as your mind teeters on the edge of consciousness.
And then, suddenly, the finish line looms before you like a dream. A lump builds in your throat as you cover those final few steps. Now you are finally able to answer back to that nagging voice with a resounding
Oh, yes I can!
You burst across the finish line filled with pride, forever liberated from the prison of self-doubt and self-imposed limitations that have held you captive. You have learned more about yourself in the past 26.2 miles than on any other single day in your life. Even if you can’t walk afterward, you have never been so free. A marathon finish is more than just something you earn; a marathon finisher is someone you become.
As you are being helped away from the finish line, wrapped in a flimsy Mylar blanket, barely able to raise your head, you are at peace. No future struggle, doubts, or failure can wipe away what you accomplished today. You have done what few will ever do—what you thought you could never do—and it is the most glorious, unforgettable awakening. You are a marathoner, and you will wear this distinction not on your lapel, but in your heart, for the rest of your life.
During the long drive that night to Dallas, I couldn’t rest. Walking up to the front of the bus near midnight, I could see two legs jutting out from one of the bench seats, a half-eaten slice of pizza on the table and a half-drunk bottle of beer in the cup holder. It was Garrett, lying flat on his back in the seat sleeping, his arm draped across his face. Koop was on the other side, sitting upright with his arms folded across his chest and his head tilted back and on the headrest, facing straight toward the ceiling. He snored and gurgled a little with each inhalation. Hopps was curled up sideways sleeping on the floor. Gear and equipment were strewn everywhere. It didn’t smell very good.
Sitting politely at the table across from Garrett was Robin, doing her nails.
“Robin?” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, my nails are getting kinda thrashed carting all that stuff around during the day, so I thought I’d redo them,” she answered matter-of-factly.
I went on to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her, explaining that I was sorry to have initially been skeptical of her ability to fulfill the role she was put in and transform our chaotic team into one that was smoothly run, moving without hiccups from one event to the next. Clearly, since coming on board, she had earned the respect and admiration of the entire crew, myself included.
“Thanks,” she interrupted. “Now, could you grab me a paper towel?”
“Huh?” I stared at her.
“I got a little smudge mark on the table. They’re in the cupboard above Koop.”
And so our heart-to-heart conversation ended, just like that. We went on to joke about the scene in the bus looking more like an infirmary than a marathon tour while she continued with her nails. The bus rumbled along into the night, and I knew right then and there that we had hired the exact right person for the job.
Day 24
October 10, 2006
Dallas White Rock Marathon
Dallas, Texas
Elevation: 438'
Weather: 68 degrees; stormy
Time: 4:12:20
Net calories burned: 76,488
Number of runners: 75
The Dallas White Rock Marathon featured our largest field of participants to date, and the largest number of first-timers. We were originally limited to fifty runners, but these slots were filled quickly and a waiting list of twice as many runners then formed. We persuaded the Dallas authorities to let us accept a few more participants, and they graciously increased our limit to seventy-five. Actually, many of the Dallas authorities were runners themselves, so it was an easy sell. Of these seventy-five runners we obtained permits for, more than twenty had never run a marathon before.
QUICK TAKE:
Many first-time marathoners cross the finish line with sore, chafed nipples from four or five hours of friction against their running top. Being wet from rain compounds the issue. To avoid this often unforeseen problem, tape your nipples before the marathon. Regular Band-Aids will work, though a product called NipGuards offers the best protection.
This was not a good day for a first marathon. Mother Nature compounded the challenge of covering the distance with deafening thunder and terrifyingly close-by lightning strikes, as well as a heavy downpour that thoroughly soaked the group. By midmorning, the temperatures had begun to warm, though not enough to dry our clothes—just enough to make them stick to us uncomfortably.
Runabout
The legendary running coach Jeff Galloway has probably trained more first-time marathoners than anyone. Jeff is a hero of mine and teaches a unique training system that includes regular, brief walking breaks. He’s also among the few running coaches who encourage runners training for a marathon to do training runs exceeding 26.2 miles in distance (including the walking breaks). Beginners who follow this advice report that the walking breaks make these “overdistance” workouts perfectly manageable (provided they do them toward the end of the training process, when they’re already pretty fit) and that they’re great confidence builders.
I recommend a slight modification to Jeff’s approach that I simply call runabout. Inspired by the Australian Aboriginal practice of walkabout, it works like this: After you’ve put in some good training and built a fairly high level of baseline fitness, pick a weekend morning to set out the door with a running pack containing a credit card, a cell phone, and some fluid and snacks—maybe also a map or a GPS if you want to get really sophisticated. Choose a direction (say, north) and start running. Keep running until you feel like taking a break. You can jog, walk, or hike—just try to stay on your feet. When you’re ready for some more running, go for it. If you see a Starbucks and feel like a latte, stop and grab one. Stick a straw in it and drink as you run.
Try to make a complete day of it. Don’t worry about how many miles you actually run. Focus on staying on your feet and on moving forward one way or another, whether it’s by running, hiking, or walking, for six to eight hours. Mostly, have fun. Not only will you get a great workout and build confidence for an upcoming marathon, but a runabout is also just an interesting way to spend a day.
Personally, I particularly enjoy starting before sunrise and finishing after sunset. Rarely in our modern society do we spend an entire day outside, and there’s just something enchanting about watching a day go by from the exterior of a building rather than locked inside. There’s lots to be learned from those Aboriginals, Starbucks notwithstanding.
I ran alongside a first-timer who was laboring to get the job done. “I think we’ve got a couple of steep climbs coming up,” I commented, remembering the elevation profile of the course that I’d briefly checked out on the way to the start this morning. I have an aversion to nasty surprises in running events, so throughout the Endurance 50 I made an effort to study course profiles online before the start of each marathon, and to catch a weather report. On this particular course profile, I recalled seeing two pronounced spikes around the twenty-mile mark.
“You mean the Dolly Partons?” he asked.
“The what?” I said, stunned.
He laughed. “It’s okay,” he replied. “That’s what those two peaks are known as.”
They say everything is bigger in Texas. I laughed with the others as we plodded our way up the Dolly Partons. The discomfort of being wet and exhausted gave way to a jovial second wind. Please allow me to retract what I said earlier: Maybe this wasn’t such a bad day for a first marathon after all.
Baby Steps
Day 25
October 11, 2006
Baton Rouge Beach Marathon
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Elevation: 61'
Weather: 87 degrees; humid