I’m not in this picture. But this is what the final stretch looks like.
You come running into the Akron Aeros baseball stadium to cross the finish line.
They cover the ground with some sort of material. It’s soft and squishy.
The guy who heads up the marathon (I can’t easily find his name, off hand) shakes your hand as you cross the finish line.
This is my third marathon (Chicago, Pittsburgh and now Akron). Akron is the smallest of the three. But it is run incredibly well. All three are run well. But I’d say its as good as Chicago. While Pittsburgh is good, there were a couple mistakes they made that put it third on my list.
Akron marathon gave out wind breaker jackets this year. Their medals are beautiful. Their spaghetti dinner was delish and well run. And I love running into the stadium to finish. That’s a really cool touch.
Here are the points I’ve been thinking about:
On Time
I finished 4:58… just under 5 hours.
Time is a sensitive topic for me (and probably for a lot of marathon runners). As a person who runs marathons, you probably are in the “achiever class.” You’re a competitive person. And you like to set up goals just to knock them down. I could be wrong that most marathoners are like that. But I’m like that and it doesn’t take a stretch of imagination that a certain kind of person runs a marathon.
Geoffrey Kiprotich won the marathon with a time of 2:19:34. I had not quite gotten to the half way mark at this point.
I don’t know what Geoffrey was doing at noon:
- Getting up from a nap.
- Finishing a tasty lunch with the mayor
- Relaxing after a refreshing shower
I was just trudging over the finish line, my head swimming in dizziness. Starving and feeling queezy.
This is a hard reality to shoulder.
Overall, I was the 1260th person to cross that line. The 875th male and the 126th in my division, out of 147.
For an achieving sort, being number 1260 sucks. I can usually be in the top group of virtually anything I do. And here I am, the 1260th person of 1519 total people to finish. There were only 1009 men to cross the line.
I’m in the bottom of the bottom. That’s not a position I normally reside in.
It’s not uncommon for me to walk away from finishing a marathon feeling like a total loser. That was the prevailing thought after Pittsburgh.
But I also know this… less than 1% of the population has ever finished a single marathon.
On top of that, I made a conscious decision not to work on time this summer. It was a brutally hot training season. I decided I was just going to have fun this summer running. I wasn’t going to suffer.
As it turned out, I finished faster than I thought. My last 20 mile run before the marathon was finished in 4 hours. I was concerned I was going to be well over 5 hours during the race.
Also, I ran most of the day with a guy who was running his 230th marathon. He wasn’t in a hurry.
These are my numbers that came over from the chip on my shoe:
3.5m: 00:39:20
9.2m: 1:40:23
15.5m: 2:46:53
18.3m: 3:17:57
26.2m: 4:58:24
Here are the numbers for each mile from my watch:
Total: 4:58:29 (I was pretty close to my chip)
Mile 1: 10:59
Mile 2: 10:34
Mile 3: 13:19 (we got stopped at a cross street here. A couple wheel chair people where crossing)
Mile 4: 9:48 (I was with the 10:53 group. We were making up for lost time.)
Mile 5 & 6: 20:38 (I sometimes would miss a mile marker. But this was still a fast time for me.)
Mile 7: 10:25
Mile 8: 10:44
Mile 9: 10:34 (you can see our pacer was really pushing us to not only catch up time but to give us a little room to breath at the end.)
Mile 10: 10:58
Mile 11: 10:32
Mile 12: 10:51
Mile 13: 10:28
Mile 14: 10:32
Mile 15: 10:48
Mile 16: 11:20 (Welcome to the wall. Our pacer said that no matter if you are running a marathon, 50k or 50 mile, this is always the worst. He said it doesn’t get any worse than right now. I agree with that. But I’m not sure it got much better. This was also where the hills started coming.)
Mile 17: 10:19
Mile 18: 11:07
Mile 19 & 20: 23:01
Mile 21: 12:41 (I made a conscious decision to not suffer the rest of the race. First, I hadn’t trained at the pace I was running. So I was starting to get really tired. I’m not sure if I could have kept up with the pacer the rest of the race or not. But at this point I let that group go. That was a little sad for me because I LOVED this pacer. He was an amazing person. The best pacer I had ever seen.)
Mile 22: 14:02 (I gave myself a few minutes to walk during this mile.)
Mile 23: 12:25 (This is the point at which I had to be really honest with myself. Looking back, honestly, I felt worse at mile 16 than I did here. But your mind plays tricks on you. It was trying to tell me I was tired and should walk more. I compromised and just slowed my pace. I really wanted to just be happy.
Mile 24: 14:13 (I can’t recall why this was slow. Oh! I did stop at this point and take a picture with a friend who came out to see me. That could have accounted for it.)
Mile 25: 13:05 (Just running a slow pace at this point. My thigh muscles had been cramping up for the last few miles. This happened to me in Pittsburgh too. I attribute it to all the ups and downs. The Akron Marathon is definitely hilly. Not as bad as Pittsburgh. But they add up.)
Mile 26: 14:55 (this was actually 1.2 miles. I didn’t see the 26 mile marker. So the time here was pretty good.)
And that was the end.
I haven’t really yet come to peace with my marathon times. But they are what they are. I try to remind myself that I’m running to relieve stress. I have never trained for time. So I really can’t expect myself to be fast when I never work on being fast.
I guess I would just like to be naturally fast. But that’s not who I am.
Spectators
Rocky mentioned last night the strange juxtaposition of spectators versus the runners. The spectators come out with their coffees and stand or sit around as they watch other people killing themselves running all around town. You have one group of people sitting around relaxing. And you have another group of people exerting themselves to the ends of their abilities.
The interesting aspect of that however is that we both need each other. Runners love spectators. They are always one of the top aspects that runners mention that go into a good marathon. The runners come out and try extra hard one day because, in large part, of the spectators. We love the encouragement.
And in return, the spectators come out to see these insane people running all around their town.
I don’t believe marathons would be nearly the “thing” without spectators.
We need each other.
I see this as a metaphor for life. We all need each other:
- Democrats versus Republicans
- Blue collar versus white collar
- Poor versus rich
One could not exist without the other. Each is equally important.
Cow Bells
Runners also love cow bells. In past marathons they worked very hard at getting these out to the people. For some reason, Akron didn’t have enough cow bells.
I’m thinking next year maybe SageRock will get a bunch of cow bells to give away.
A marathon just isn’t quite the same without cow bells.
Marathoning
I asked Rocky last night what she thought of the whole marathoning experience. I brought it up because my mother-in-law had mentioned yesterday that she could think of a dozen other things she would rather do with her time than killing herself running 26.2 miles.
I actually rarely ask myself “why” I do anything these days. It’s an impossible question that defies an answer most of the time.
I have a t-shirt that says something like, “because there’s a road.” That’s pretty much my philosophy on why I achieve anything. I like to achieve things (for a reason that I never seek an answer because the absurdity of it all is skin deep). And so I just make lists of things to do and do them because they are there. It’s my hobby.
But my mother-in-law brings up a good point. Are there other things I would rather do? Did I ever actually even ask myself if there would be something I would rather do than run marathons? No.
I asked Rocky about this. In her perfect clarity, she said: Marathons are achievable by most people. Pretty much anyone can run a marathon. (If you’ve never watched a marathon, I recommend checking one out just to see the vast different sizes, shapes and ages of the runners. My pacer probably could have stood to lose 10 pounds himself. But he, incidentally, dusted me and that wasn’t even his normal running pace. He usually runs an hour faster.)
She said, with some dedication and persistence, most people can get a marathon done. They just have to want to get it done. The “wanting” is the secret. It’s making a commitment to a goal that, while you can do it, you definitely have to want it for an extended period of time.
It’s that persistence that makes it worthwhile. You learn things about yourself and you grow as a person.
And that’s it for me. I’m looking for the dark corners of the world and myself that I haven’t seen. I believe that I am nothing more than a tourist on this planet. All I’m doing is looking around and exploring for about 100 years and which time I will have to go home (incidentally, a home that is way more boring than any home you go to in this world.)
I want to see what this place has to offer. That’s why I ran 3 marathons. And with that, I’ve seen something that less than 1% of the world has seen. I like that.
My Future
With all that, that’s the end of marathoning for me… at least for a while. I get it. It’s a test of endurance. It’s a test of dedication and determination. And while I wouldn’t say I passed with flying colors (i.e. my finishing times), I did pass. I’m a marathon runner. I have the 26.2 sticker on the back of my van because I’ve earned it.
And because I view myself as a tourist on this planet, I want to see what else is out there.
The next stop… Rocky and I are going to start hiking. (Mountains are in my future.)
Like with marathon running, that Rocky rightly says is accessible to most people, I believe most accomplishments are accessible to most people. You just have to want them. Nature cannot withstand the relentless pursuit of a willful human.
I’ve got to see what this mountain climbing is all about.
Oh! I do still plan on continuing to run. I plan on doing more races: 10k and half marathons. Rocky has noticed that I am usually happiest right about the 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 mile mark. She’s right. I always feel great at that point.
One of the downsides to marathon training is the time commitment. 4 hours on a Saturday morning is a big commitment. Training for a half marathon is probably 2 hours at most. And an hour or 90 minutes is about the amount of exercise the doctors want from us anyway. So, backing off will be more inline with spending more time with my family. That will be nice.
Hiking will let me spend more time with Rocky. So, this is all a new frontier that has a lot of benefits.
And that’s the story of my Akron Marathon adventure.
I would recommend this marathon to anyone. It’s very professionally run. And its a big accomplishment because of the hills.
Would I recommend marathon running?
Let me say this first, if you have a healthy heart and no major physical detriments (I’ve read about people with arthritis and lupus running marathons. I’ve seen people puking running marathons. I’ve seen people barley being able to walk finishing marathons. A blind guy beat me yesterday.) you can get a marathon done.
Will you be scared? Yes.
Will you be in pain? Yes.
Will you want to quit? For sure.
But you can get it done.
Should you do it is a whole other issue. My recommendation here is to take a moment and think about what you want from your life. I am shocked to find that most people rarely address this. “I want to be comfortable.” That’s something I hear. If that’s your goal, “to be comfortable”, then hell no you shouldn’t run a marathon. There’s nothing comfortable about it.
As I mentioned, I see myself as a tourist on this planet. I just want to experience stuff. So that’s why I did it.
So, look at your M.O. (modus operandi), your “method of operating” and go from there. If it fits with your life goals then you’ll be able to make the decision yourself.
If you don’t know what your life goals are then deciding on whether a marathon is right for you could be a great opportunity to start living your life with a clear direction. If you can’t decide what your M.O. is then I might suggest running a marathon. You’ll figure it out by the time you get across that finish line… I pretty much guarantee it.