My coach believes in running your first marathon as a learning experience. The idea is to choose a goal pace that provides a challenge but also falls easily within one's capabilities.For the 2005 Baltimore Marathon, I was pretty sure that time for me was 2:35, right around 6-minutes per mile. How easy it was for 16 miles, and how quickly that feeling changed: There was a six-mile climb, the temperature spiked up, it was windy, my feet began to blister, I began to have some stomach cramps. One mile I was gliding along at a contained, calculated pace; the next I was gritting my teeth, fighting to keep my momentum.
I wound up running 2:43, and I learned that there is lot more to the marathon than simply that of running said distance at said pace. In each race new intangibles creep into the picture.
In this year's New York City Marathon, my first marathon in the U.S. since 2006, I refamiliarized myself with just how hard this race can be.
I had the privilege of participating in the sub-elite program, and in the morning I boarded a bus full of other nervous, twitchy guys like myself. Lead by a police escort, the elite and sub-elite buses left Manhattan at 6:30 a.m. An hour later we reached our staging area in Staten Island, where I saw both the women's winner (world record holder Paula Radcliffe) and the men's winner (Marilson Gomes dos Santos). At 9 a.m. organizers walked us over to the start, and I recall looking over to my right and seeing the rather intimidating sight that is the entire span of the Verrazano Bridge, the first two miles of the race, a tough climb followed by a sharp descent. When we reached the start, I jogged a couple minutes up the bridge, the biggest hill on the course. When I returned I felt the wind whipping flat against my back.
The sub elites start at the front of the bridge on the side opposite the professionals. I made a mistake in not pushing myself to the front of this start. I considered myself unworthy of the position, but when the race started I found myself getting boxed in by slower runners. After a jerky first mile of 6:15, I tried not to overstride on the downhill and passed through two miles in 11:45.
The streets of Brookyln were packed with spectators. I had been warned not to get too caught up in the atmosphere and risk beginning at an unsustainably fast pace. But the headwind one might have expected to calm down after the bridge remained in force, and it made 5:40s feel more like 5:25s. I was cold, my legs were tight and I found it hard to settle into any sort of rhythm. While I wore a wool hat and gloves, I think arm warmers would have been a help.
The thing to do on a windy day is hook into a group, and unfortunately I seemed to be out of sync with those around me, as I was simultaneously passing and being passed. My first 5k was 18:06. That's fine when you factor in the bridge. I continued to run my own race in the hope that I would eventually find a pack. While I did not seem to be running many 5:40s, naturally the split would vary with all the inclines and downhills (very little of this course is perfectly flat).
I went through 10k in 35:40, closer to goal pace, and took a gel. Then, approaching eight miles, I heard someone call my name. I took a quick look back and saw my good friend, Bill Hoffman, leading a pack on the professional side of the road.
Bill and I used to train together in New Jersey. We had the same coach for a while, and he has long been a runner I've looked up to. He works hard, knows a ton about the marathon and has a PB of 2:24, which got him 10th at the 2005 national champs.
Coincidentally, Bill's last marathon was also the 2006 Chicago Marathon, for which he had been in great shape and was aiming for a sub 2:22 Olympic trials qualifier. An achilles injury, however, hampered him on race day (he still ran 2:26) and required him to miss more than a year. While he was not able to put in the same volume prior to New York that he had in the past, Bill had nonetheless gotten himself in decent shape, and was hoping to run about 2:33.
At eight miles, when the two races merged together, Bill's group was a block ahead of me, and it became very clear to me that I needed to catch them. For two miles I basically ran as hard as I could, passing through 10 miles in 57 minutes and catching the group about a minute later.
I tapped Bill on the shoulder and we exchanged a few words. Meanwhile, the next two miles were the most comfortable I experienced in the race. Running inside a pack, the effort was much easier; I did not notice the wind as much.
We were running about 5:45-5:50 pace, and I was beginning to adjust my goal to low 2:30s.
My confidence had been shaky through the windy opening miles, but the marathon, in a sense, is all about rolling through the good patches and not panicking during the rough ones. I could see we were heading for the halfway mark in about 1:15; I was feeling fluid and my confidence was rising.
We were at 12.5 miles, a silent bunch utilizing a slight downhill. I was in the middle of the pack. It happened very quickly: Someone stepped on my left heel and my shoe flew off behind me. I ran about 10 feet back, picked it up and moved toward the curb. My hands were frozen; I would have been unable to untie the triple knot. There was a guy, about my age, standing right there. I handed him the shoe and asked him to untie it. He did not even flinch; he accomplished the task in seconds and handed it back. I put the shoe on my foot.
"Can you tie it, too?" I asked. "I am sorry to ask you to do this but my hands are numb."
"No problem," he said. "It's just like NASCAR."
I do not know who this individual was, but I cannot thank him enough. Because of his help I lost 45 seconds as opposed to several minutes.
In the end, however, I think I lost a lot more than 45 seconds. The pack went through the half in a few ticks over 1:15. I went through in 1:15.46, my rythym disrupted with less than three miles before the big climb up the Queensboro Bridge. Had I been able to stick with the group, this might have been an entirely different race. Instead, the second half was a struggle.
I did not give up. Like my coach told me before the race, I tried in every mile to get as much out of myself as I could. I held it reasonably well together through 18, running about 6-flats. At 19, where I saw my dad, things got really tough, and if I did not have such a wonderful mix of family and friends cheering for me in the 20s, I am not sure I would have gotten through it.
It was surreal running through those final miles in Central Park, through a stretch of the race I knew so well from watching it so many times on television, and then the final stretch to the finish. Later that afternoon, in my parents house in New Jersey where I watched the highlight show on NBC, I would marvel at how swiftly Paula Radcliffe crossed the finish line in victory and swooped up her child as if she had just finished another Sunday training run.
Never have I been so dead tired at the finish line. My vision was fuzzy; my emotions were wacky. Again, I can't thank my family and friends enough for their support, for the cheering on the course and their kind words afterward and then their aid in walking me to the car. My lips were practically blue, and my sister gave me her sweatshirt to put on top of my jacket.
I finished in 2:41, 146th place, and I wonder what might have happened sans shoe mishap. I like to think I might have run 2:34 or 2:35. Maybe that seems like an overestimation, but on this tough day in New York, my dad, for one, noted that the only runners who did not seem to be suffering were those who found groups to work with.
The result was less than I hoped for, but I also gave it my best, fought as hard as I could. You swallow the result. You try to think of new ways to improve. And perhaps you hop right back on the horse.
