Looking Back on My First Marathon

With my ninth marathon, Smuttynose Rockfest, rapidly approaching, and with many preparing to embark on fall marathon adventures, I thought I’d partake in an equally humorous and cathartic exercise and relive the calamity of my first marathon. 

I was a 21-year-old college junior when I toed the line at the BayState Marathon in October 2001. My longest training run had been 18 miles, and that hadn’t been planned -- I managed to get lost in the vicinity of Jamaica Pond and inadvertently add a couple miles to my planned route. (Aside: How the hell did we map out long runs back then? I’m pretty sure I just guessed.) 

My goal, of course, was to finish in 3:10 and qualify for the Boston Marathon. I’d written “3:10 or Bust” on a sticky note that I’d taped to the wall next to class/work schedule. Naturally, I knew nothing about proper marathon training, cross-training, eating or recovery -- though I did have enough sense to write “avoid beer” in my planner in the three weeks leading up to the race. (Yes, I was legal. And no, I didn’t take my own advice.) I was so poorly prepared that I never wore a watch and didn’t think to actually get one until the day before the race, for $7, at my local Walmart. (Hey, I was on a college student budget.) 

I started the race well and maintained a BQ-ready 7:10 pace for at least the first 13.1 miles and, perhaps, longer. (It was 12 years ago, after all. The memory’s foggy) Around the 16-mile mark, though, my legs turned to jelly. I collapsed into a telephone pole, clung to it for dear life, and began the humiliating 10-mile, 90-odd-minute Walk/Jog of Shame to the finish. 

I crossed in 3:22 and change, collapsed on the ground, napped on the futon at my parent’s house and hobbled around campus for a couple days. (I did at least stretch once I’d returned to my Boston apartment that night. Otherwise I very well may still be on the futon at my parent’s house.) 

For a variety of reasons, I didn’t do my second marathon -- also BayState -- until 2006. That one didn’t go as planned, either. I came down with a wonderful bout of runner’s knee the month before, missed my last week of real training and the first week of my taper, and went into the race with no real goal of any kind. Finishing around 3:33 was a blessing as far as I was concerned.

Both races taught me a lot.

• You need a real training plan, and you need to do your damndest to stick to it. 
• You need to set a realistic goal. Especially if, you know, you’ve never run a marathon before. 
• As I was painfully reminded of this in my eighth and, to this date, worst marathon, sometimes it’s better to be smart than fast. Especially if, you know, training hasn’t gone as planned.
• Training for and running a marathon is freakin’ hard. In 2001, my roommates thought I was nuts. (To their credit, they were genuinely concerned about my tardiness on the day of my sojourn to Jamaica Plain.) Today, my wife thinks I’m nuts. (Well, marathon training is only part of it, I suppose. And, in buying compression socks for my birthday, she enabled me.) 
• Most importantly, no matter how badly you bonk, no matter what fluids emanate from your body, no matter what hitherto undiscovered muscles ache, nothing feels more satisfying that running, jogging, stepping, hobbling or crawling across the finish line of a marathon. 

Have fun this fall, everyone. Remember: Even if you miss your time goal, fail to qualify for Boston or get a swanky age group prize, you’re still doing something that the vast majority of the population doesn’t have the intestinal or testicular/ovarian fortitude to even start, let alone finish. 

If nothing else, you will finally get to eat and drink whatever the hell you damn well please, with no fear of consequence, for a few days at least. (Until you start training again, of course.) And a futon in your parent’s basement will suddenly become the most comfortable bed in the world.

What ‘Running Renaissance’ Means to Me

My first post promised a prompt explanation of why I chose “Running Renaissance” as the name for this blog. Yeah, yeah, this isn’t very prompt, but I’ve been mulling it over, and I think I’ve figured out how to best explain myself. 

As I noted, I’ve been running for 17 years. This works out to more than half my life. That said, my running hasn't progressed on a continuum but, rather, has hit peaks and troughs, both of which are worth examining to fully understand why I feel like I'm in the midst of a running Renaissance. 

My running life can be roughly and briefly divided into four time frames. 

Fast Times: August 1995 - October 2001

This is when I grew the most as a runner, from the guy in basketball shoes to the guy who, if memory serves me right, ran a sub-30 5-mile cross-country race as a college sophomore. I fully identified myself as a runner, even though I was never the fastest on the team and sometimes to the chagrin of my college roommates, who had to smell my stinky running clothes. (I learned that hanging them out an open window only goes so far.) 

This era ended with the 2001 BayState Marathon. It was my first 26.2 miles. For 16 miles, I maintained a 7:10 pace, which was setting me up nicely to qualify for Boston. (This was when BQ for men under 35 was 3:10.) Coincidentally, 16 miles was also the length of my longest training run; after clinging to a telephone pole for dear life, I walk-jogged my way home. 

Strange Days: October 2001 - October 2007

I ran less during these years. This was an accident of my calendar -- first the last three semesters of college were busy as all hell, then I was working the wonky hours of a newspaper reporter and finally I had a 45-minute commute to my next job. I never stopped altogether, mind you, but let’s just say weekday runs were few and far between. 

Things picked up toward the end. I squeezed in my second marathon, the 2006 BayState, but a bout with runner’s knee during my taper led me to take things slow. Naturally, I took this personally and vowed to come back stronger. I recommitted to training, raced more and ran my marathon PR at 2007 Baystate -- 3:13:02. (Why BayState? It’s flat, it’s fast and it’s 15 minutes from my parents’ house.) 

The Wonder Years: October 2007 - November 2012

Missing a BQ by three minutes naturally had me dreaming of sprinting down Boylston Street and into the arms of an eagerly waiting throng of supporters. It never happened, of course. My BQ attempts all failed -- I fell short of distance goals during training, I neglected speed workouts, I spent an inordinate amount of time pulling weeds in my garden and, simply put, I didn’t take training seriously. The nadir was the 2012 Manchester Marathon, during which I bonked like I have never bonked before and ran a PW of 3:51 and change. 

The Renaissance: November 2012 - present

All runners wallow after a bad race. This is especially true for marathons, as we spend months preparing for a single race that can fall apart for any number of reasons. After Manchester, I brooded for several days and even went so far as to question whether I had even one more marathon in me. 

Then I stopped feeling sorry for myself. (Like all runners do when faced with disappointment.) I signed up for a Turkey Trot and surprised myself with a sub-7:00 pace over 5 miles. I committed to the Runner’s World Run Streak -- and, just as importantly, the Runner’s World Pun Streak. (I lasted about 12 days until my toe started to bother me and I opted not to push it, but it was still pretty fun.) I signed up for dailymile so I could join the 21st century and stop tracking my mileage in a day planner. I committed to a general yet flexible schedule that included at least one speed workout each week. 

Along the way, a funny thing happened: I started getting faster and feeling better. My 5K, 5 mile and 10K race times dropped. My training runs got faster. My thighs burned a little more after speed workouts. My flexibility improved (albeit from a fairly low baseline). Despite my Manchester debacle, I started to get excited about the prospect of running another marathon. 

"Renaissance" is French for "rebirth." Over the last few months I’ve undergone a running rebirth of sorts, to the point that I’m almost -- almost -- as fast as I was in high school. Age and amount of gray hair aside, the difference is that I’m not going to take this for granted. It took me more than a decade to get back to this point, and this time I’ll be damned if I let it slip away again.