GETTYSBURG, P.A. - The number one rule of Marathon Club? You don’t talk about Marathon Club.
Unlike Fight Club, this isn’t because other people would want to join. It’s because most people don’t want to hear it. They scorn the 26.2 decal on our bumpers. They wonder what internal demons we are trying to escape. They agree with baseball great Kenny Powers that all we are doing is trying to be good at exercise.
So, I will keep this story of my recent Gettysburg Marathon short and sweet.
It wasn’t a great outing. But I managed to do a couple things right. Things that may be useful for my fellow exercisers no matter what distance you are aiming for, what challenge you are chasing.
Some context. I’ve run fifteen or so marathons. Boston twice, NYC thrice. It’s never not been a painful undertaking. The sixteen-week training blocks feel endless. Hours and hours in the cold or heat. Injuries, setbacks, boredom. And then the races themselves always seem like an endless punishment in an outer circle of hell.
My training this time went okay. Last time, I endured eight painful weeks where the overtraining caused me to wrench my lower back in such a way that I couldn’t bend over, lie down, or sit comfortably. I could only run.
This time, I hit my marks, stayed injury free except for the usual bruises and twinges. I did so well, in fact, I was thinking my race would go much better than my last few outings.
Then I got sick a week before the race. One of my boys brought home a bug that was midway between a sniffle and the plague. I was snotty and coughing and pretending it wasn’t happening. I ignored all the balled-up tissues around me that one of my dogs insists on eating when I don’t dispose of them properly.
On race morning at the Best Western I was hacking and sniffling like a champ. Which may explain why I felt off my game from about Mile 5 onward. I could not keep up my goal pace. I knew I would not hit my goal time. But in spite of these shortcomings, I had a couple successes along the way.
The first thing I did right is simply that I didn’t quit.
I wanted to, badly. The course was a hilly 13.1-mile loop on farm roads, which danced back and forth over the Mason Dixon Line and dipped into Maryland. When I dragged myself in at the end of the first loop, I watched a stream of happy half-marathoners veer off to the finishing chute as marathoners were heading back out for a second helping of suffering.
I stopped. I walked a few steps in the direction of my car in the parking lot. But then I turned around and kept going. I told myself I would see how it went and would stop if I got overwhelmed.
After the turn, it was only .9 miles to Mile 14. There, I decided I could do just one full mile to 15.
After that, I knew I could hold on to 16. And at that point the mental math started working in my favor. Single digits! Less than ten miles to go!
Those last ten miles are the usual bugaboo for me. But this time not so much. Yes, they were hard and I slowed way down. I took a few walking breaks. But I kept going.
And even though I was in pain, I wasn’t suffering. That’s because of the other thing I did right, which was to be flexible and let myself change goals on the fly.
I started the day with an A goal of matching my last decent race time of a few years ago. My B goal was just to beat my last race time. But as sniffles and coughing led to fatigue, I came up with a C goal I didn’t know I had: Just let it be what it is and hang on to the finish.
After the race, I wasn’t as wiped out as I usually am. I made my way back to town. I took a shower and then found a decent Irish pub where I could refuel with pot roast and Guinness. Then I took a long nap and when I woke up, I got antsy and made the four-hour drive home instead of waiting till morning.
I didn’t feel victorious or defeated. Just contemplative.
Maybe because I’d walked on Little Round Top the day before. I’d looked down on the horrific landscape of Devil’s Den. I’d seen the boulder-strewn hillsides and fields in every direction where so many thousands had died. And I’d stood on the spot where Chamberlain and his Twentieth Maine had done incredible things to defend the left flank of the Union army at all costs on July 2, 1863. They turned back wave after wave of uphill attack from two sides until their ammunition was gone and all they could do was fix bayonets and charge down the hill into history. That was a real victory. And a true defeat of the enemy.
But at least in my small, insignificant struggle 162 years later, I’d held on, kept going, and lived to fight another day. It seems only fitting that my next battle will be the 46th annual South Salem Memorial Day Races on May 26, in honor of our true heroes (events.elitefeats.com/25salem).
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