26.2 Miles 🔗
Not more than a couple of years ago I had been known to say “why would anyone pay to run?”. In addition to my character development through the cliche never say never, I had talked with a close friend who had finished his first marathon and I desperately needed motivation to exercise.
Tres completed the Austin marathon in early 2022. We had been hanging out virtually over video game sessions, like we had been since the pandemic began in early 2020. Learning about his training, race experience, and sense of accomplishment helped me understand why someone would pay to run. I decided shortly after to register for the 2022 Madison Marathon.
The Training 🔗
I was in the worst shape of my life late 2021. I had purchased a scale as a Christmas gift to myself and was shocked when I saw 175 lbs on the screen after first stepping on. As for exercise, I was running on average one to three miles per week and had just purchased a bicycle trainer to motivate regular exercise. Reflecting on my time of five plus days running and lifting per week in college, weighing 160 lbs, and holding a body fat percentage of less than fifteen percent, this was a wake up call.
In 2016 - during my fitter days - I had done a sprint triathlon; this, and one easy turkey trot, was the extent of my race experience. Luckily, I had friends with much more experience. Hansons’ Marathon Method was recommended by Adam and Britany, and I borrowed a copy of the 2nd edition. Britany had followed the Just Finish plan with success and I decided to try that.
March is when I determined that I had enough time to do the Just Finish plan twice. The plan starts with three-mile easy runs and five-mile long runs in the first two weeks, but bumps up with back-to-back eight-mile runs in the sixth week. This sixth week proved to be very difficult for me. My knees were sore and not recovering between runs; I started worrying about injury. After talking with Tres, he advised that doing a training plan twice didn’t make a lot of sense. Plus, I had miscalculated and I actually didn’t have time to complete the program twice (a theme consistent with my character in this story). I would have to start the plan in July to end it when it was designed to be completed.
I gave up on the plan after six weeks, but didn’t give up on the Marathon. I decided that I would start the training again in July and register for the marathon if I could make it past that difficult sixth week feeling confident. Over the next few months I ran about ten miles per week average with a long run of five miles.
The first two weeks of the plan were very easy since I had been running a lot of three-mile runs before starting over. The third week of the program, I had traveled to Milwaukee for a week and got my first experience running out of my element - trading the hot and sunny central Arizona summer mornings for muggy afternoon midwest runs. I would later travel back to Milwaukee in September for a long weekend only to have my training plans cancelled by the rain.
Training in the desert summer had its pros and cons. If I could get feet on pavement before 6:00 A.M., I would be near guaranteed to have sunny skies, but experience temperatures from eighty-five to ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. The only time my training runs were cancelled due to weather was while traveling.
Hansons’ had scheduled three sixteen-mile runs and one fifteen-mile run. I ran out and backs for the fifteen- and first sixteen-mile long runs, being sure to start with a full hydration pack and handheld. Sunscreen was applied and reapplied and a wide hat was pulled to the top of my sunglasses to avoid excess sun exposure. As part of Tres’s recommendation, I chose to audible the second sixteen for a twenty - two miles slow, sixteen-mile pace run, two miles slow.
Adam paced me on this twenty-mile run on his gravel bike and brought water and good conversation. This was the first time I had done a long run with someone else, and it made me realize how much easier it is with steady conversation to forget about the boredom and ensure I’m keeping a low effort. This run felt really easy, and I was on pace for my original goal of a sub-4:00 marathon.
Instead of doing a final sixteen one week after the twenty (I had messed up the schedule and cut out a lower-mileage week between), I wanted to run a half marathon at pace. Adam paced me again on his bike, but this time I drove to meet him along a popular route. I pushed it a little this time and got the experience of running through an unfamiliar course. I finished with a sub-1:45 half and again appreciated the benefit of Adam’s company.
Long runs get much shorter in Hansons’ after this last scheduled sixteen, going from ten to eight in the last three weeks before the marathon. Over these weeks I definitely started to feel the taper anxiety; I wanted to prove to myself that I could run fast and not overdo it. Each run I was trying to average a sub-8:00 pace, and I nearly did. In the final week of very short runs the anxiety really set in. I knew my valuable time was behind me and I used a metaphor with my friends, “feels like the minutes before an exam and having all of my studying behind me.”
The training really helped my fitness and health. The screenshots show my weight loss and Coros’s base fitness metric as I progressed toward the race.
Gear 🔗
While running can be done with minimal, inexpensive gear, the benefit of appropriate gear cannot be understated. The basics of my kit would be standard for anyone running a marathon, but there was some gear I needed due to where I would be training, where I would be racing, and the fact that I would be running long runs alone.
Shoes are first and foremost when it comes to running equipment. To get the best shoe for my feet, I went to a running store to get a running analysis. They let me try on a few shoes, and I chose the Brooks Adrenaline GTS for my pronation and high arches. I succeeded in turning down the up-sell of custom insoles, and I purchased two pairs of these over the course of training and the marathon. With over five-hundred miles on the first pair, I probably should have gone to the second pair sooner, but I wanted to keep them fresh for the race.
One of my favorite upgrades was to my socks from cotton blend to merino wool. The material is moisture wicking and less susceptible to odor, which meant my socks were much more comfortable, didn’t make my shoes stink, and retained their elasticity much better. I wore these for both hot and cold weather. For race day, I wanted a merino wool base layer top for those same material properties. I would have been glad to have merino wool blend tights for race day, but used what I had instead - Under Armour spandex. I made a last minute decision to buy a cold weather running vest for a top layer, and I wore shorts over the tights.
Hydration was something surprisingly unique to me on race day. I had done all of my training with a 1.5L hydration pack and about 1L handheld water bottle, so I carried them through the race. They add weight and might alter my form, but I’m happy to have all of my water with me, especially during long training runs in the desert. It also helped me avoid the slow downs at the aid stations. An added benefit of these is their pockets I could use them to carry my phone, nutrition, and anything else.
Headphones and SoundCloud Go+ were a serious piece of kit for the mental effort required to finish the long runs and the race. I went cheap on the headphones, getting the most inexpensive bluetooth headphones that would be comfortable for running, and they got the job done. They weren’t noise cancelling and didn’t have great sound quality, which was a benefit when I needed to hear traffic or the energy of the cheering crowd. A week before the race, I had created a four-hour playlist that would transition via my favorite songs through a number of genres with a metal hip-hop section from the 3:15 to 4:00 mark - my intended marathon-finish push.
Finally, one of the biggest difference makers in my training was my watch. I bought the Coros Pace 2 on recommendation from Tres. It has GPS, heart rate monitor, altimeter, thermometer, and more. The battery life is astounding, lasting almost a week during training. The watch and app seriously pushed my training by allowing me to understand how much I was pushing my body to get the output I needed. I mostly watched my heart rate and would watch pace about once per week.
Below is my gear laid out for pre-race.
My philosophy on spending money on hobbies is to do as much as I can without spending money, then buy gear only when necessary. In all, I spent $250 on shoes, $100 on base layer and socks, $125 on top layer, $200 on watch, $75 on hydration, and $50 on music. Including race registration and travel, the total cost was about $1,500.
Pre Race 🔗
Traveling was a fun variable in my marathon experience. My friends, Zach and Jenna, in the Madison suburbs had volunteered to host me and a crew of supporters and runners. Including Zach, we were part of the same close group of friends in college at Madison. Tres, Zach, and another college friend, Isaac, had registered for the half marathon, too.
I landed in Madison on the Friday before the race (Sunday, November 13) and we took it pretty easy that night. Zach and Jenna had smoked a brisket and put together a great dinner that was sure to help race day nutrition.
Tres, Zach, Isaac, and I ran a shake out 2.5 miles Saturday morning. It was so much colder than I was used, about twenty degrees Fahrenheit and snowing! It was a good opportunity to ensure that my kit would keep me warm without impeding my running, plus we got to run with Zach and Jenna’s dog, which was a lot of fun. Saturday was also packet pickup day. We took the opportunity to walk around downtown and campus a little bit, eating some healthy lunch while out. On the way home, I asked that we drive the steepest hill on the course - Observatory Hill. We made it home in time to watch the tumultuous Badgers football team put on a dismal showing in a season-defining game. Dinner that night was for carbohydrate loading with a pasta selection where I chose noodles, olive oil, and toast.
The atmosphere Sunday morning was full of excitement. We woke up at 5:00 A.M. intending to leave between 5:45 and 6:00 with a race start at 7:00. I had a piece of toast with peanut butter and pocketed a banana to eat at the starting line. We parked on Capitol Square very close to the starting area, and the cold was immediately apparent. There was plenty of snow on the ground and - even with my parka - I was cold.
As my first marathon, I didn’t really know what to expect at the starting line. We arrived about ten minutes before 7:00 so I was moving quickly through the crowd to find the pacer I was looking for - 3:30. I was still wearing my parka before the start and handed it to my crew after the national anthem concluded.
Over the course of my training, I had progressed from a 4:00 time to a sub-3:30 time, so that’s where I intended to line up.
Race Day 🔗
The cold was absolutely a factor. I knew it would be, but I was glad I had spent time outside the last 2 days in Madison in similar temperatures. I was also as prepared mentally as I could be thanks to advice from a seasoned marathoner friend in our group who trains in Chicago.
I came out of the gate trying to catch the 3:30 pacer. Running in the crowd was a new experience and I could already tell my heart rate was higher than normal. I ended up catching the pacer and settling into the group around the 1/4 mile mark and at the 1-mile I realized we were ahead of pace and my heart rate was high than I wanted. The crowd was getting to me.
There was about twenty people trying to keep as close to the pacer as possible. The width of the course was nearly completely covered by people running at that same pace. I was toward the back of the group, but more runners would fill in behind me and there was an ebb and flow when we would run by an aid station - many times I was cut off or surprised when suddenly a crowd of volunteers at a table appeared in front of me that I had to dodge. This is how I raced for the first 6 miles.
The entire time with the group, we were running faster than 3:30, hitting 7:30 and 7:45 minute miles. With this, and the excitement, my heart rate was consistently above 167 and often above 170; my goal was to average 165. There were some cool sights as we ran through the arboretum being cheered on by puffed up Toms and I caught glimpses of shimmering snow on the forest floor. I was mostly focused on controlling my heart rate, though.
I fell back from the group after realizing I couldn’t get my body under control while running with them. Wanting to stay on pace, I tried to keep a consistent distance with the group, maybe 200 yards, and to my surprise I often had to slow myself down to prevent from catching them. I was comfortable at the pace and my heart rate was lower than I had hoped from miles seven to nine. At mile nine, we came to the first test - Observatory Hill.
This was the hill we had driven the day before, and I knew what to expect. I had trained running a lot of hills, so I had a strategy. I tried to maintain a consistent heart rate by taking it easy on the inclines and opening up on the decline. I got passed a bunch on the way up, but I gained as many positions and more as I strode down the other side. This is where I noticed the 3:30 pace group pushed pace on the up-hills to maintain and let up on the down to recover - a strategy I knew I couldn’t maintain and was glad to have avoided.
Still maintaining distance behind the pace group, my half marathon split was 1:43:44. Maintaining this would have put me below a 3:30 marathon, but I knew the entire race still lay ahead of me. I was cruising through mile sixteen when Tres’s advice came to me, “the first sixteen is physical, the last ten is mental.” I still felt really good and didn’t seem to hit the point of physical breakdown until mile eighteen.
The course was hillier than I had anticipated, hoping for a flat run with an opportunity to see what I could do after supposedly over-training in the hills, but realizing I was mistaken only on race day. Mile eighteen through twenty-one seemed to be an upward corkscrew with constant up-hill, a section of two-way course, and a turn around. I started to hate it and my pace was slowing. I was seeing splits close to 9:00 miles.
I expected to look down and see that my heart rate was pushing high, but I was comfortably below where I wanted to be, low 160s and even 150s. This was really confusing to me because I was pushing my legs as hard as I could, but my heart had more to give. It was a mental grind to see these slow one-mile splits through miles nineteen through twenty-three. I hit an 8:56 at mile twenty-two on nearly sixty feet of elevation gain as a peak of mental anguish.
I needed to take a final gel at this point, too. Because of the cold, my gels had been like chewing gum and I wasn’t looking forward to this one at the 3:15 mark. I ate half of it and stuffed the unfinished packaging into my pocket of my pack resigning it to the assured sticky and grossness later. I was also nearly out of water, so I had to swing by my first aid stations at miles twenty-three and twenty-four. It began to dawn on me that maybe I had went too light on the calories in during the race.
As I reentered the city just after mile twenty-four, the excitement kicked back in and drove the demons out of my brain. I picked up my pace a bit and knew the area well enough to estimate the distances on my route back. The crowd of spectators grew more dense and the energy was electric. I heard the cow bells and shouts and cheers and my legs felt like they could give me more output. My metal hip hop full of screamo rap music was up next in the queue.
As Look at Me by XXXTentacion started playing I heard the shouts of spectators. I felt strong. The shouts grew louder and I realized I was basically alone in that area. They were cheering for me! I looked up and it was my group all cheering and jumping. As the distorted bass rattled my ear drums and X’s haunting screaming rap echoed through my brain, I pushed it. My friends gave quick high fives as I passed and kept shouting, running with me to try to keep up, but I pushed hard to outrun them and give it all I had. My heart rate near 185 and my pace briefly in the sub-6:00 min mile territory. I had just over a mile to go and I was feeling it.
The last stretch of the race is up-hill and I was in a controlled push. My final splits were 24 - 8:46, 25 - 8:21, 26 - 8:30, and 26.2 - 7:50. Hate by Unknxwn, the song I hoped would be playing in the last 2 minutes of the race jolted my being as I sprinted hard up State St and across the finish line. My official time was 3:35:03.
Post Race 🔗
Immediately after crossing the finish line, I slowed to a jog, then walk. The adrenaline dissipated and my legs felt foreign, I was proud of my legs, but unsure what they were doing now. After three hours and thirty five minutes of not walking a single step, my body had forgotten what it felt like.
I called my fiance, my biggest supporter, to let her know I made it. She had watched the virtual tracking and already knew my official time and splits before I did. It was a short call, but she was so proud and it made me so happy to hear her excitement.
There was a small buffet setup with free the beer that was advertised heavily by those cheering runners along the course. I grabbed a brat and cookie, but had absolutely no interest in beer. After my heart rate came down, I started getting very cold, and the space blankets handed out didn’t help much. We quickly ate our food and headed back to the cars to go back to Zach and Jenna’s.
As of writing, the race was ten days ago and I feel like my legs have fully recovered. The hours after the race, soreness and stiffness radiated through my legs. This dissolved slowly, afflicting various parts of my legs, over the next two days. I first ran again exactly one week after the race; it was a 5k, and I ran a very easy pace. I ran again two days later at a fast pace trying to claim a Strava KOM on a trail segment.
The pain and post-race recovery was much less than I had anticipated. I attribute this to my training. I felt proud to check my official time and splits after!
Conclusion 🔗
Running is NOT a solo sport. I was able to finish a marathon because of the support of my fiance, friends, and those cheering along the race course.
I started running in highschool to escape the demons my parents’ divorce left me with. I still have demons, and running still helps deal with them, but I’m not alone in my trial anymore, and I run for a more positive purpose. Now I run to live a fuller life.
Our physical bodies are the result of our lifestyle. Sleeping well, in-taking nutritious foods, pushing my muscles regularly, and overcoming mental challenges are how I produce a body capable of running 26.2 miles in just over three and a half hours. I’m not as focused on competing with other runners as I am with manifesting the reality that I have created within my body by living a healthy life.
I don’t want to look at the scale in shock again. I know my body will change as I age, but I want to continue to live a life I can be proud of. The motivation of racing has proven to be just what I needed to wake up to this. I’m excited for the next one!
This is the group of runners, from left to right: Tres, me, Isaac, and Zach.
