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So, this is the story of my NYC marathon. to familiarize y'all with my convention here, the blue line is a 7:30 pace, which is the fastest i could have expected to run any significant part of the race. the red line is an 8:30 pace, which i had set as an upper limit for what i'd be happy with at the beginning of my training. my goal was to run it at an 8:00 pace.
the dotted blue line is what i had planned on running the race in. basically, cruising through the first 6 miles, pushing for the next six until i got to the pulaski bridge. then, taking it easy up that and again up the dastardly queensboro, and cruising again up first avenue, into and out of the bronx, and finally slowing down once i started coming back up that sneaky hill on 5th avenue and through central park.
a month ago, i thought i'd be able to maintain that plan, especially after running the army ten miler in 75 minutes without really pushing too hard. i had figured that with a good taper, and fresh legs, i could easily reel off the first ten miles in 78 minutes or so, and still be really fresh. problem is, my legs never got fresh. i think i had too many little bumps along the way early in teh year, that when i piled on the mileage in the training, the foundation was a bit weak. i figured that was the risk of my plan - either run an awesome race, or get really burnt out. oh well!
so anyways, the yellow line is my actual per-mile pace, except for a few spots where i forgot to hit the button on my watch. and the orange line represents my cumulative pace.
so what you see is that i never really could go as fast as i wanted to. those 8:15s early in brooklyn weren't as easy as i needed them to be, which signaled how the rest of the run would go. but i accepted them, and wanting to stick with my overall strategy, didn't push it - i wanted to conserve my energy for later. in the past i always burnt myself out in the first 6 miles, and i was not going to do that again! mile 7 comes around, and i decide to see if i could indeed push it. i accelerated to a 7:30 pace, which felt pretty good, but i couldn't maintain it. not with the hill and crowds at 8. i had one more push at 10, but that was it. my legs were already getting tired.
at that point, knowing the two bridges were waiting for me, i pulled back a bit, and tried to conserve energy. i obliviously ran past the lunchbuckets while enjoying the AC/DC - they shook me all night long - and started looking for them a mile too late. disappointedly, i ascended the pulaski bridge, and approached my nemesis. this year, the queensboro was not my undoing. i took a nice easy sub-9:00 mile up it, walked for a bit, and came down, remembering that the down-leg was what had punished my quads in the past.
turning onto 1st avenue, seeing the crowd, i had hoped for more of a boost, but again, my legs were fading. they weren't shutting down like they did last year at this point, but they were just getting more and more tired.
the bronx was a long slog, as always. and while its always nice to leave, it just means you're that much closer to the last big sneaky hill.
now, the two previous times i'd run new york (not counting the time i ran with mrs.mm), my return to great island of manhattan was a time of great pain and suffering. ordinarily, my muscles would be misfiring up a storm - my calves would be twitching with nearly every step, or the muscles on the inside of my quad, or my hamstring, and it would be evident in my now-faltering stride. as a muscle would misfire, i'd jerk the leg, getting it down on the ground, and shuffle the next stride, then test it out again on the third. eventually, i'd be walking by the marcus garvey memorial park between 124th and 120th. but not this year. i was slowing, sure, but i was still running. shuffling a bit, but definitely running.
then i got to the north end of the park, and i think my least favorite part of the race. the spectators are starting to thicken, but the course starts going up. you don't notice it at first, and might not notice it at all if you weren't running a marathon, but its a hill. a sneaky, long, painful hill. and i hate it. here, i walked. i was forced to. see, at mile 22, i started getting the first of many cramps. oddly, it was my forearm, from carrying a little disposable camera through the race. but coming up the hill, just after passing the 23rd mile marker, my legs finally had had just about enough. still no misfiring, just plain old fashioned cramping. i think i could've dealt with it, except the little muscle on the front of my right shin started giving me crap, too. that was the signal to start walking up this hill.
i didn't walk all of it, but i certainly walked enough of it. the 12-minute mile is proof of that fact. but the crowd is always super-supportive at this point. they know you're hurting, and they want to see you keep going. reaching the top of this hill, and making the turn into the park, is a glorious accomplishment. now, finally, it feels like the finish is... just... over... there...
granted, there's couple of ugly hills in the park, too. my mom and father-in-law, who had been following me around all day, seeing me at 8 miles but missing me at 17 (they thought for sure i had gone through already - they left just before i got there!) were waiting at mile 24 for some final encouragement. i paused and handed off my waist pack which had dutifully carried my gu's and a few candies. asked by my mom, "how do you feel?" i enthusiastically responded "terrible!" and, flashing a smile, continued on with my struggle. at the next hill, i had to stop for about 30 seconds to massage a burgeoning cramp in my left leg.
i ran the last mile and a half from there. i couldn't wait to exit the park and return to the raucous crowd along central park south. i covered the last 1.2 miles in 12 minutes, bouncing back nicely from the hills, and the last incline up to the finish didn't faze me one bit! as i approached the finish line, i heard an announcer say that, while some scrub-wearing runners were starting to finish, they still hadn't seen anthony edwards, and i yelled "goooose!" apparently, so did everyone along the race course...
i crossed the line, somewhat triumphantly, got my medal, my mylar space blanket, and my food bag, then made my way to the baggage trucks and the park exit.
...
of course, the day very nearly didn't go well at all!
you see, at the staging area in fort wadsworth on staten island, there are several "athlete villages" set up. there's an orange village, a green village, and a blue village. the start of the race is split up into these three groups that each take a unique path over the bridge and for the first 8 miles through brooklyn. and the race uses a wave start, where the fasted third of the runners start in the first wave, the middle third is in the second wave, which goes off 20 minutes later, and the final third after yet another 20 minutes. i was in teh first wave.
so i get to the athletes village. and in the village there are several announcements being made over loudspeakers, in english, french, german, spanish, and, i think, japanese. the announcement i hear most often is that the baggage trucks close up proptly at 9:30. i also hear an announcement, maybe at 8:45, that the corrals for the first wave were opening. what i don't think i ever heard were what time the corrals for the first wave would be closing. so at 9:05, i'd just dropped off my bag and had begin making my way to the orange corral.
and then i hear, "it is now 9:05. the corrals for the first wave have closed. if you are not in the corral, you will have to wait for the next wave." and i start running. and so do many other runners who also had never heard any such announcement regarding the closing time for the corrals! finally, i get to the orange corral, and there are several runners trying to cajole the race volunteers into allowing them through the gates.
other runners are vaulting a temporary 6' chain link fence.
i'm weighing my options.
one runner tries to push his way through the gate. a volunteer pulls him aside, and yells to another volunteer "get his number - he's disqualified!"
they see a guy climb the fence "you, you're disqualified! give me your number!"
i consider the alternatives. can i sneak in somehow? should i wait? is tehre another, friendlier gate?
if i miss this start, my mom and father-in-law will have wasted their time coming into the city and running around all over the place and will never see me. they'll assume they lost me in teh crowd, and will leave the 8 mile well before i ever get there. they'll do the same for the 17 mile. and not knowing anything of my fate, will probably not see me at 24 miles either. and i would have no way of communicating with them - telling them what happened and how to adjust their plans. and i'd be running with a slower crowd, too, which would probably screw up my race plan.
ten feet back from the gate, there's a line of porta potties along the fence. and there's both a a gap between the porta-potties and the fence, and between two portapotties. one guy goes over unnoticed. then another. i make up my mind - i'm joining them. i climb up atop the fence. i'm nearly 200 lbs. the fence has little support. it sways back what feels like 2 feet, but might only've been one. i steady myself, and swing my leg over, preparing to slide down along the back of the porta-potty. another runner takes to teh fence, and i kick out my left leg for balance, feeling a twinge in my quad.
i dismount the fence, safely on the inside of the corral, but curse myself that, "damnit, did i just pull my fucking quad?" i was worried that it would bite me later in the race. thankfully, it would not. my left quad was about the only muscle in my legs that didn't give me crap during the race... inside the corral, i asked another fence-jumper if he ever heard them announce a closing time for the corral. he had not.
at this point, with me safely mixed amongst the crowd, teh race volunteers had become wise to our spot, and clamped it down. they'd softened, though, and were offering transgressors the option of staying and being DQ'd, or leaving hte corral unpunished to wait for the next wave (or to try again to sneak in).
needless to say, i'm annoyed it went down that way. i swear i never once heard an announcement of 9:05, but heard countless 9:30's. i really didn't need to climb the fence and risk injury or disqualification, i guess, but i felt a principled right to that corral, and an obligation to my fans. some of whom i missed anyway.
...
in the end, i'm happy with how i ran. i stuck to my race strategy, as far as overall approach to the course if not meeting my pace goals. given that i spent the first four months of the year actively recovering from a pair of calf pulls, and most of june resting soreness deep in my right quad, and then piled on almost 600 miles of running in teh next four months, i can accept that my legs were probably burnt out a month ago, and just couldn't bounce back in time for a fresh marathon. i made it through a grueling training plan, and am already looking forward to making my next leap forward in time.
i beat my previous PR for new york by 20 minutes, and ran my fastest marathon by 12 minutes. not bad for my legs being tired at the start!
i'm already sketching out a two-year plan for my next marathoning goal. we'll see how that one goes. lets just say, i need to get a lot faster still!
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This weekend D-Dad and I went to Bermuda so I could run the 10K there. It was a rough course - much hillier than any course I've ever done before (including four miles in Cincinnati in 2003). I wound up walking up the hills in order to complete the course - that sucked, but I still had a good time. The scenery was gorgeous, and when I entered the stadium at the end of the run, my name was announced, and that was very cool. Plus I got this medal, which is the same medal the marathoners and half marathoners received in today's races -
