It was supposed to be a training run -- my ‘20-miler’ to help get me prepared ready for the Boston Marathon -- but somehow, thanks to a strong start and a mid-race decision to keep my foot on the gas and go for broke, I ended up celebrating my 40th birthday in style by posting a 4:12:57 time at the ING Georgia Marathon last week in Atlanta.Two weeks earlier, I had a miserable race at the Stu’s 30K in Clinton, Mass., a challenging course loaded with hills, and completed it in the neighborhood of 3½ hours. Physically, I felt great, but mentally, I was coming off a long night at work and already thinking about what I had to do when I went back to work that night. Plus, I had a rotten meal the night before -- hockey rink food -- and hardly anything for breakfast, and I didn’t drink much liquids before and during the race. So I bonked, vegged out, lost my focus, felt like Cougar at the start of Top Gun -- you name it, I was it, and even though I felt fine from the waist down, nothing else did from the waist up.
It was one of my five worst races I ever run, and I followed it up with one of my five best races. Unreal.
First of all, I got a miserable night of sleep -- three hours top -- and a terrible morning getting myself ready for the race. As has been the case with several marathons and big-time races I’ve run, I just couldn’t fall asleep, and when I finally dozed off, I had one of my infamous running dreams -- I was running on some sandy road with 80s pop star Christopher Cross, he was running faster than me, and I struggled to keep up with him. I can’t explain that one.
When I got up, I found out that there weren’t any pins for my race number in my goodie bag and I didn’t bring any KT Tape for my calves. There was two strikes right there. And when I got to my corral at Centennial Park, the site of the ’96 Summer Olympics, I found out that my Garmin watch, which I charged the night before my flight to Atlanta, had been mysteriously on the whole night and out of juice by the time the race started. I was staring at a recipe for disaster, but I had to remember, this was supposed to be a training run.
When the race started, I made it a point to start off slowly and easily and I kept an eye on the clocks that were lined up almost every other mile on the course. At six miles, I was at 54 minutes -- about half-marathon pace -- and I decided to shoot for a two-hour half marathon before easing back on the reins.
But I never did see a clock for the half-marathon mark when we ran through Decatur, or the timing pad near the sidewalk we were supposed to run over. I was in the middle of the road for most of the race, dipping to the sidewalk now and then to grab a quick drink of water, and when I saw the next clock, it was at the 14-mile mark and it read 2:02.
It was at that point that I said to myself, “You know what? It’s your birthday. You’re running in a big marathon with thousands of other runners in a state you have never ran in before. Why not go for it, try to post a good time, and see what happens?”
So I kept on running, stayed very focused, and battled through some hills in Decatur. There were two tough hills on miles 18 and 19, but I handled them as well as I could, and at mile 20, I had a 2:59 time -- just a minute under three hours and just a 10K to go!
But I was starting to slow down a bit. At mile 22, we did an out-and-back on a flat road through Piedmont Park and went over a three-foot timing pad at the mile marker. I had a 3:19, which meant that I slowed down to 10-minute miles, but I started doing the math and figured that if I could do somewhere in the neighborhood of 9½-minute miles the rest of the way, I could actually hit four hours!
It felt like a no-hit bid in baseball, but like 99 percent of all no-hit bids, they come to an end. And that’s what happened to my race after I ran up a short, steep hill coming out of Piedmont Park and onto a side street. My legs were getting sore, I was fading out a bit mentally, and yes, Mr. Porta-Potty came calling in a big way. Another big hill came calling, and at 24 miles, I was at 3:42.
I was spent. The tank read ‘E’ and it wasn’t for Eric. All I could do was hold on tightly and gut it out the rest of the way, but I picked it up just a bit once we got back to Centennial Park for the final 0.2 miles and came home with a nice finish. The race announcer called out my name and wished me a Happy Birthday and that was cool to hear!
All in all, it was a great week. On Saturday, Bozena and I went to the expo at the Georgia Dome, and while the expo wasn’t as big as the ones in Boston or Las Vegas. I did get to see a lot of cool stuff, talk to Rhode Island’s own Dr. Nancy Clark, and listen to Jeff Galloway talk to a small audience about pre-race preparation.
I also got to meet Danny Dreyer, the author of ChiRunning, and he signed my book that I bought last year, but never really had an opportunity to read because I was still sifting through Born to Run by Christopher McDougal. I did read the first three chapters on the beach later that week when we went to Pensacola, and when I’m done (or halfway done), I promise I will give you all a book report and review, but so far, this book is really, really good.
The night of the race -- after a few hours of ZZZZs and two cold showers -- I met up with a good friend from the Rhode Island Road Runners and his wife who moved to Atlanta last year. We had some very, very good sushi at the Sushi House Hayakawa in Atlanta and good conversation and coffee at a Korean coffee house.
We then went to Pensacola on Monday and stayed there for the next three days. Unfortunately, we only got one good beach day on Tuesday and the water was ice cold, but my beat-up legs really felt great after standing in it for close to a half hour. And I ate nothing but crab legs for the next three nights. I did still feel a bit dehydrated from the race and actually had trouble drinking more than two beers, but I had a nice big bottle of Gatorade that did wonders for me!
