C.: Well, d.c.’s busy writing his paper, and the Astros aren’t playing today, so I guess I’ll red teh next chapter in d.c. scot’s BEYOND THE THIRTEENTH MILE: THE IRON MAN CHRONICLES. I’m on Chapter five of that book, andI didn’t get a chance to read on Sunday, since the Astros and the Texans were playing important games. This chapter is called “The Marathon.” I hope that this chapter doesn’t fit that description, or I’ll never get my twenty hours of sleep before going to The Kennel to fill in for Ralph while he’s on tour with Beauty and the Glowfish.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE MARATHON
1100: Bike Leg; the bottom of Sugar Mountain; loop one:
I need to look at my bike computer. It keeps details of my cycling. That’s a good distraction, to concentrate on that rather than the distances involved in this race. What did it register as my maximum speed coming down Sugar Mountain? I tried to slow down when it hit 38 mph because that’s as fast as I’ve ever gone on a bicycle, even in Lubbock at the Buffalo Springs One-half Ironman distance triathlon when I was coming down that 15% grade hill. I know I saw two fours before I stopped looking. Oh, well, I survived. Only five more times to go. I’m glad this isn’t the run course for this race. It’s a full marathon!
I wasn’t sure I could even finish my first marathon, much less this race four years ago. I guess that doing something difficult, like running a marathon, gives one self-confidence that they can do something extremely physically challenging…
***
There’s a charm to doing something that is extremely physically difficult that changes one’s mind about his or her limitations—both the mental and the physical ones. Cycling 102 miles in one day was this event for me.
Riding a bicycle up hills with as much as 13% grades can be extremely draining on your physical as well as your mental capabilities, but it can be just as satisfying and exhilarating as it can be draining. How someone can ride a bicycle, even a top-of-the-line one for 2300 miles over three weeks, as the elite riders in the Tour de France do every year, is still beyond me. Running a marathon is beyond most people's comprehension of their physical abilities as well, but I decided to give it a shot.
I heard the following conversation between an experienced runner and a novice at a 5k (three and one-tenth mile) fun run:
Novice to experienced runner, "I've never run this far before, but I kind of like it. What other distances are feasible for a novice runner like me?"
"Well, after this, there are five-mile runs, they’re okay. If you enjoy running that distance, you might try a 10k (6.2-mile) run. If you enjoy that, you might try a 10-mile run. Anything over that," said the more experienced runner, "separates the real crazies from the sane people."
Much of running, cycling, and even swimming is as mental as it is physical. That is to say, your body cannot do what your mind tells your body it cannot do. There are many exceptions, though, as my mother told me as a teenager when I first started having knee problems. Her story was the one of Glenn Cunningham, the first American to run a mile approaching the four-minute barrier.
Cunningham ran a 4:04.6-minute mile before anyone thought that running a sub-four-minute mile was achievable. His accomplishment changed many people’s minds about this. He had been told he would never walk again (much less run) after being caught in a schoolhouse fire and severely burning his legs as a seven-year-old child. The fact that his older brother died in the fire makes his story even more amazing to me, since most people would have a hard time recovering from such a tragedy.
A determined soul, Cunningham literally tied his hands to a plow, allowing a horse to drag his legs until he could walk and then run behind the plow. As a runner in high school, Cunningham would need to have his legs massaged on a regular basis, and his uneven stride was never a thing of beauty. Cunningham went on to win a silver medal in the 1500 meters- also known as the metric mile- in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin (Glenn Cunnigham;Kansapedia, Kansas Historical Society. recalled 12/20/2022. https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/glenn-cunningham/12027#:~:text=Born%3A%20August%204%2C%201909%2C,Floyd%20died%20from%20his%20burns.)
Cunningham’s determination, I believe, exemplifies one of the best speeches ever given, by the greatest orator of the 20th century, Sir Winston Churchill: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force…” (never given in, never, never ,never 1942; America’s National Churchill Museum recalled 12/19/22https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/never-give-in-never-never-never.html
Roger Bannister is recognized as the first athlete to run a sub-four-minute mile. He was, officially, the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile. Cunningham’s time in the mile run still amazes me, though, since he established the American record for the mile run that lasted for three years, despite the childhood trauma he had suffered. His determination is an inspiration to those of us who have suffered injuries and want to overcome them.
Willis Reed and Kirk Gibson both pulled off heroic events playing their respective sports (basketball and baseball) on one good leg. Mickey Mantle played all but one game of his illustrious Hall of Fame major league baseball career on one good leg. He stepped on a sprinkler head chasing down a fly ball in his first game in the major leagues. This resulted in knee problems that plagued him throughout his brilliant major league baseball career.. (Friend, Harold; MIckey Mantle’s Worst Injury; It Was Joe Dimaggio’s Play; https bleacherroprt.com> New York Yankees recalled 12/20/2022 .https://www.google.com/search?q=mickey+mantle+knee+injury&rlz=1C1MQFJ_enUS1002US1003&oq=Mickey+Mantle%27s+knee+in&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i22i30l2.7420
Because he tore his right ACL in game two of the 1951 World Series–an injury that was never repaired or rehabilitated– Tommy Lasorda onced pegged him as “the best one-legged baseball player on the planet,” a large compliment coming from a manager of a rival team. Lance Armstrong is a story unto himself. (Aside: Yes, I’m now aware that Armstrong was accused of cheating by taking performance-enhancing drugs when he won his record seven consecutive Tour de Frances. However, the allegations are still unproven, in my and many other people’s opinions who are in the medical industry and familiar with how drug screening is done properly. The “B” samples produced by the race officials three years later would have been disqualified as evidence in an American court of law. Urine samples have a shelf life of 24 hours. Despite this sketchy evidence, for anyone to win seven consecutive Tour de France bicycle races, with or without pharmaceutical help, is still an overwhelmingly amazing feat. This is especially true since Armstrong overcame testicular cancer to accomplish this, a common hazard for male cyclists. And for all of you conspiracy theorists who think he had a motor of some kind in his bike, these bikes are weighed on a regular basis to make sure that they’re heavy enough to race with. The lightest a bike can be is 6.8 kg, or just under 15 pounds. A motor would have added at least 20 pounds to Amrstrong’s bike, and definitely would be noticeable).
I don't know how professional athletes function while in pain, but I have discovered a few tricks of my own. Thinking about something pleasant or doing complicated math problems (how long it took me to run each mile, aka splits) can be helpful. Since distraction has been proven in the medical field as an effective way of dealing with pain, and taking painkillers before an endurance event is not allowed by the rules of the respective organizations that govern these events, I highly recommend this technique.
The Houston Marathon has a warm-up series that can really help novice runners build stamina as well as confidence leading up to the marathon, and I needed both. Different running coaches use differing approaches, but for someone like me, who is trying to do it with a minimum of coaching, the warm-up series sounded like a good idea. It consists of three runs, a 20-kilometer (12.4 mile) run, a 25-kilometer (15.5 mile) run, and a 30-kilometer (18.6 mile) run. The runs are staged about three weeks apart to allow the runners to sufficiently recover and are done in this order.
I was under no delusions of grandeur about being able to break the four-minute per mile barrier. I simply wanted to be able to say, truthfully, that I had completed a marathon. As a result, I decided to participate in the warm-up series of runs before attempting my first marathon. I believe that swimming, for the most part, is all about technique.Usually, the person with the best technique swims the fastest. Cyclists can be given a slight edge by investing in superior equipment, and sprinting is all about God-given speed. Distance running, however, is all about hard work, mental toughness, and determination. Not your run-of-the-mill determination, though. The type of determination to which I’m referring is the type of determination that high school football coaches from the American South call having a "fire in your belly." An average athlete, with enough hard work and determination, can make him or herself into a decent long-distance runner, if he or she has the desire to do so.
For my first two marathons, I set the same goal—four hours. The first had its share of setbacks: plantar fasciitis in my left foot that required a cortisone shot in it (as well as missing one warm-up race to rest it). This is a common injury in novice distance runners, and the only real cure is rest since it’s largely due to overtraining.
***
I was a sprinter when I ran track in high school, mainly because I had convinced myself that I couldn’t run the distance events. I had, however, begun to enjoy my training runs with Adelina, and my times were steadily improving. I decided that, if my right knee wasn't going to stop me from running a marathon, neither was my left foot—or the nasty sinus infection I developed two weeks before it. Deep down, I knew that if I ever wanted to complete an Ironman distance triathlon, I must first see if I could complete a marathon, no matter what the circumstances.
This race, though, had more than its share of challenges. A monsoon came with gale-force winds during the first warm-up race, and that wind was in the face of the runners at the finish line of the 20k run. The next race, the 30k, was in sub-freezing temperatures at the start. It also began in the dark, with over 2000 runners bumping into each other at the beginning. This didn’t prepare any of the runners well for the balmy, 80° F. temperature that the actual marathon would bring, in spite of the fact that it was held in mid-January. (This is not unusual weather for Southeast Texas in January. However, January and February are the coldest months of the year in this area of the country, making early in the year dates the most feasible for endurance activities. The Houston Marathon is usually held the day before the Martin Luther King holiday. That gives most of the participants some extra time to recover.)
With my adrenaline flowing at a maximum on the day of my first marathon, the first ten miles flew by. Unfortunately, around mile 15, my right knee slipped out of place, and I had to re-adjust it. However, the crowd of thousands of spectators kept me going until mile 20, when people began to fall over into the grass. To worsen the mental strain, I began to have cramps from dehydration, and by mile 25, I was in severe pain.
"I quit!" I heard myself say loudly, fully intending to pull out of the event even though I could see the finish line from my viewpoint. (Mile 25 is at the crest of the largest “hill” on the course, although it’s really an overpass.)
Houston is famous for its flat terrain, making this course a desirable one for those trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Qualifying for that marathon would give the participant a chance to be proclaimed “World Champion” by completing that brutal course in the shortest amount of time. I wasn’t trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but my goal was to finish this course. I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly at this point. Fortunately for me, an alert spectator intervened before I could pull out of the race.
"You've run 25 miles," he said. "Certainly you can run one more."
Looking both in front of and behind me, I could see no other competitors for at least one hundred meters. This made me believe that person had been placed at mile 25 with his encouraging words just for my benefit.
"You're right, " I gasped, encouraged again. I trotted as fast as my fatigued legs would carry me, finishing about 50 minutes over my goal, but I did finish, which still put me into an elite group.
My second marathon would go much more smoothly, largely because I completed all three warm-up races as well as an additional 10k along the way. I made a new friend in this warm-up series, and I was able to pace on her, a finisher at the Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon the year before, for the better part of two races. The weather, however, was much the same, and I again missed my goal, although I did improve my time by about 15 minutes.
My focus wasn’t on myself for this race, though. Instead, I focused on Jerry, a friend and sometimes training partner who was just getting over a hernia surgery. He decided to run the marathon, anyway. He was committed to a charity to raise money for it, and so he was determined to finish. He did so in five and one-half hours, the legal time limit at the time. (The time limit was later raised to six hours to encourage more people to compete in this race. It was an effective strategy. The race has more than doubled in the number of participants since my first attempt at completing this course. The organizers still allow the slower runners and walkers to finish the course if they are close when the time limit expires. The caveat is that they don’t collect a finisher’s medal.)
After the marathon, Jerry decided to join Luke and me in our quest to complete a full Ironman distance triathlon.
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