Hartford Marathon

I signed up for the ING Hartford Marathon exactly 15 days before the event. Three days later, less than 12 days before the event, my foot started to hurt. The next day, 11 days before the event, I stopped running altogether. So when I found myself all dressed and ready to go in my brand new shoes, waiting with Cranky, Angry, and Bobb-O at the start it was the first time that I thought, What the hell am I doing?! I hadn't run more than 13 miles in one go since August 25 when I ran 31 miles. Before that, I hadn't run over 10 miles since August 2 when I did the ironman. Before that: 31 miles on May 25, and before that a marathon on April 21. So basically, I hadn't trained for a marathon in 6 months. I hadn't realized this until now. Suddenly this seemed like an even stupider idea than usual.

Also, since I'd pretty much written off this marathon because of my foot, I hadn't put any thought into how I was going to run it. "Start out slow, and then taper off." Who said that? I don't remember. But what was "slow"? What pace could I shoot for? How much fitness had my body lost in nearly 2 weeks off the road? Oh, whatever. It's not likely that I'm going to finish this thing. I'll just run on feel, I thought. I elbowed my way to the back of the crowd until I found the 4-hour pacer, with the 4:05 pacer standing right next to him. That doesn't seem right, I thought.



They made us stand around in the cool air for a ridiculously long time while a bishop that sounded like the bishop in the Princess Bride blessed the crowd, then the race director said a few words and gave a shoutout to half the runners in the audience, then the ING representative said a few words (none about how we're all going to hell and there may very well not BE an ING to sponsor the race next year), then the race director had a bit more to say, and finally it was time for the national anthem. I was freezing. They found someone that could actually sing, which was very nice, but she drew out eeeeeevery siiiiiiiiiingle note in the whoooooooooole national anthem. Did I mention I was getting cold? Then the race director spoke some more and told us they were waiting for the road to clear. Then there was silence. A couple of minutes later, the crowd started moving. I hadn't heard a gun? Oh well.

It didn't really matter that I had seeded myself right behind the 4:00 and 4:05 guys, because all the walkers, wide loads, and slow pokes must have lined up with the 3:00 pacer. For the first two miles all my attention was focused on getting around the walkers and waddlers just so that I could start running. I wound up accumulating an extra .2 miles dodging around like that. Two tenths of a mile that I would really, really regret later.

Other than that, I felt great. I running felt absolutely effortless. At one point I looked down and I was running a pace in the low 6's on a downhill while sprinting around someone who was already slowing down, and it felt totally easy. Finally around the fourth mile I settled in to a pace that felt comfortable and was excited to see that it was in the mid-8's. Two weeks ago I'd run this pace and I couldn't hold it for more than a few miles, but now it felt effortless. Whose legs were these, and when would they want them back?! I fell in with a guy named John, and we started chatting and passing people. Our pace was steady and it felt great, so I didn't really mind that we were running in the low-to-mid-8's. I noticed we were picking people off, but I didn't feel like I was in a hurry.

By now we were out of the city of Hartford and running a several-mile out-and-back along one loooooooong street. It did occur to me how easy it would be to just hop over to the other side of the street. I think it would be fun to cheat in a marathon someday, just as long as I didn't lie about it later. But I didn't cheat, I was feeling good. Less than a mile from the turn-around I spotted Bobby trotting next to a race official on a bike and chatting away. I didn't even have time to say, "I must have missed my other friend," when I spotted Cranky plugging along behind him. Bobby in front of Cranky? How did that happen? Homeboy's going to be hurting by the second half of this! As it turns out, Bobby had started out chasing after the 3:10 pacer (his Boston qualifying time), then thought better of it. But Bobby doesn't feel pain like normal people feel pain, so I was sure he was alright. And who was I to talk? I was only a few short minutes behind Boston pace myself.

I crossed the 10-mile timing mat in 1:26:46, or 8:41 pace, and by the 13-mile mat I'd brought that down to 8:39 (official times, Garmin says I was going even faster because it knew I'd run the extra .2 miles!). I hit the half marathon mark in 1:53, roughly 5 minutes faster than my half marathon attempt 2 weeks ago, faster than I'd ever run a half marathon before. Oh shit. You're not supposed to do that, I thought. I told John good luck, but that I should let him go on ahead. Then I laid off a bit. I still felt fine, but I knew that would change very soon. I could feel the foot, but lots of things hurt in a marathon. My foot hurt just as bad now as it had at mile 4, which is to say, not much at all. To be honest, the biggest complaint in my feet was the growing blister on my right instep, but even that wasn't the worst blister I'd ever had. This was shaping up to be a pretty good day.

And then around mile 14.5 my quads seized up. I kind of quit stretching months ago, and I've been getting tighter and tighter all summer and fall. My quads have been especially tight since I quit running, and I'd tried to make a rare appearance at yoga on Thursday to fix it, but I got there to find class was canceled. I'd meant to stretch on my own, I really had. But I didn't. Now my quads were two giant, seizing rocks. I could still run just fine, but I knew if I stopped and stood there like a flamingo to stretch out my quads for a few minutes, I would feel much better. But I was running on pace to do a 3:50 marathon if I could just keep going... So I didn't stop.

There was lots of shade along the course, but it was getting sunny and warm. I skipped the aid station at mile 15, and planned to fill up my handheld bottle at mile 16. But the mile 16 aid station never came. The aid station didn't appear until mile 16.5, and by the time I got there, I was parched. I had to walk the Mile 17 aid station as well to get some extra water in me. With my quads doing what they were doing, I think I was low on electrolytes, but I'd forgotten my nuun, and I was running with the poor man's nutrition: gumdrops instead of gels or blocks. By mile 17 I was starting to play mental games to break up the next 3 miles until Angry was going to pick me up and run with me from the 20-mile mark.

At mile 19 a woman tried to talk to me and all I could do was grunt. I was still holding roughly 9:00 pace, but it felt like I was running through Jell-o rather than air. Then, SPLAT! I hit the wall. Every other muscle in my body jumped onboard with my quads and quit working on me. This was too early!!! I can usually get to about mile 23 before feeling this bad! I still hadn't hit the 20-mile mark. Oh well, Angry would be picking me up soon, and he could distract me from imminent death.


Angry was supposed to meet me after I came over a bridge. I crossed what seemed like a bridge over some railroad tracks around mile 19.5. No Angry. We went under an underpass (which is kind of like a bridge), no Angry. We went over something that I could have sworn was a bridge, and then ran down a hill to pick up footpath along the riverfront. Still no Angry. We ran up over a big-ass bridge which seemed like an insurmountable hill. One guy yelled, "YOU'RE ALMOST THERE!" I wanted to kill him. "YOU'RE HOME! BACK IN THE CITY! NOW BRING IT IN STRONG!" the guy next to him yelled. We still had 5 miles to go. I really, really wanted to kill them, even if the effort of doing so was my final act in this life. I came down off the bridge thinking, Better Angry never showed up, because I think I might have killed him. I think I'd rather die in peace. People all around me were not only walking, but some were stopping altogether to stretch or just sit down on the road for a little while. I wanted to sit down.

I came down off the bridge and then up another steep grade, and then there was a tall man running towards me. Angry! I looked at my watch. Mile 21.5. "Where the fuck have you been?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. Good thing Angry's one of those people who's hard to offend, because I was GROUCHY.
"I said I'd pick you up when you came over the bridge," he said.
"You said at mile fucking 20. I've been over a LOT of bridges between mile 20 and here!"
"Well it's nice to see you too."

Angry told me about how his 5K had gone this morning, and I tried to listen, but I kept losing the thread of the conversation. We were starting to run down something that looked like the auto mile. "And this is where I park my car during the week..." Angry told me.
"I don't care," I said.
"I know you don't."
Angry started to spew some Angry-style mumbo jumbo. "Shut up," I said. Again, good thing he's not easily offended.

We came back to the river, and the path kept climbing up 30 feet to road level, and then dropping back down to the river unnecessarily. It felt like I was climbing a mountain. I had to walk a couple of the hills. "Talk to me," I said. "Tell me a story about something funny you did when you were a kid."
"You'd have to ask my mother about that..." Angry said.
"Your mother is dead, so you're going to have to tell me about it," I said. I was grouchy, but even I knew that I had gone too far with that one. I regretted it. Angry let it go. He told me a story that involved blood and stitches. "Oh my god! I don't want to hear that! Didn't you ever do anything CUTE?!"
Then, suddenly a crowd whooshed by. "Oh shit! There's the 4-hour guy!" I yelled, probably louder than I meant to. One or two people chuckled. I tried to keep up, but he was pulling away on the undulations. I looked down at my watch: he was definitely going too fast.

At roughly mile 24 I was having trouble keeping 10:00 mile pace. We ran away from the river and started running through an industrial district and over some train tracks and access roads. This looked like the part of Hartford where the Hartford mafia would dump bodies. We hit mile 25 and Angry started describing the lay of the land for the rest of the way. It involved hills. I was not happy. I started to pick it up as we came back into the part of the city where you would not dump a body. People were standing there with signs, cheering. I saw a sign that said, Looking great, Bart! I said, "I am Bart. I'm looking great." Then I saw a sign that said, You can do it, Susan! "I am Susan," I said. "I can do it." Then I saw a sign that said, I love you, Daddy! "I'm somebody's Daddy. Somebody loves me," I said.
"You're really cranking," Angry said. I was running about 9:00 pace again.
"I want to sit down so bad!" I said. I just wanted this to be over with. I looked down at my watch. According to my Garmin I'd already finished a marathon, but I still had another .3 miles to run. It felt like it would never end.

Angry peeled off leaving me to run the final stretch by myself. I put my head down and ran as hard as I could. Apparently I passed the 4-hour guy doing something stupid at the end. I didn't notice. I vaguely remember 2 people being directly in front of me. I couldn't tell you if I passed them or not. All I know is that I did NOT make a pretty finishing photo, and the announcer pronounced my last name wrong.

Watch time: 3:58:56
Official time: 3:59:00
Watch distance: 26.48 miles
Official Distance: 26.2 miles
Watch pace: 9:01 min/mi
Official pace: 9:07 min/mi
Placing: 805/1900 overall (42%), 45/128 AG (35%) I finally cracked the top 50%!!!
10 mi split: 1:26:46 (8:41) / 10 mi watch: 1:25:36 (8:34)
13 mi split: 1:53:12 (8:39) / 13 mi watch: 1:50:59 (8:32)
20 mi split: 2:56:25 (8:50) / 20 mi watch: 2:54:22 (8:43)



All I wanted to do was sit down, but there were no chairs in the finishing area. They gave me my medal, a big, heavy thing with pointy edges that could do some real damage if used correctly, and hobbled off to the end of the finishing area where Angry was poking his head above everyone and waving his arms like a cartoon character.

"I want to sit down!" I said, then I sat on a low wall. "You know you're sitting in a thorn bush," Angry said.
"I don't care!" I said. I stood up and tried walking, but my traps seized up. Bad. "Oh my god, Angry! It hurts! It hurts! Can I lie down?!"
"Do whatever you need to do," he said.
So I found a patch of grass and lay down yelling, "Owwwwww! Oooooooooowwwww!" for all the world to hear until the pain passed. Then I tried to change my shirt, and when I got stuck with the damned thing wrapped around my head and my arms knotted in the damned shirt above my head, Angry had to swoop in and extricate me. My entire chest was torn up and chafed where my sports bra and the seam to the collar of my shirt were. I had red spots the size of credit cards under my arms where my sleeves had been rubbing. I gingerly put on my other shirt, and we hobbled away to find Bobby and Cranky.

We found them by the gear trucks where they had apparently picked up their bags and moved about 10 feet before collapsing into a pile of mylar and sweat on the grass. Cranky had run a 3:25 to qualify for Boston again, and Bobby had pulled off a 3:27 for a 23-minute PR and a full 18 minutes faster than his seed time. Despite nearly dropping dead at the 20-mile mark, I had also had a pretty breakthrough race: breaking 4 hours, setting a 14-minute PR, and having a way stronger first half of the race than I was expecting. This was a "training marathon", so I didn't really mind taking a gamble on the first half if it meant blowing up on the second, because I was never quite sure I'd finish. "Hey, that's pretty good!" Bobby conceded.
"Pretty good?!" I said. "Bobby, that was fucking awesome!" I said. "But I'm never running one of those again."
"Didn't we say there was a fine on saying that?" Cranky piped up.
"Whatever," I said. "This time I mean it!"

We lay there for awhile, me with my legs sticking up straight in the air, picking at our food before we finally staggered off to clean up and get some lunch. Waiting in a Starbucks for Bobby and Cranky to turn up for lunch, I found a perfect pea-sized blister on my instep, ripe for the popping. "Oh my god! Don't pop it here!" Angry squealed, but I couldn't help myself. He curled his long, beautifully toned legs up to try to get out of the way, but somehow I accidentally got him with the spray. Good thing Angry isn't easily angered.

Final Thoughts

Overall, despite a rather horrendous finish, I consider this marathon a success. I think that once the foot heals for good, I've figured out a lot about how to train to run marathons faster. My foot is as fucked up now as it was the first day I hurt it, but no more. I am REALLY going to let it heal this time, and then brace yourselves. I was really happy to see how the speed work I've been doing over short distances translated into faster speeds, even when I started to feel like shit (up until roughly mile 20 I was still under 9:00 pace -- except the mile I spent about a minute at the aid station).

Things that I have learned:
~Rest really does make you faster, but it has a trade-off with muscles stiffening up.
~I have gained the confidence that under the correct circumstances and with more focused training, I could probably hit the 8:20 pace that I would need to hold to qualify for Boston.
~Yoga is worth getting up at 4:45 am for.
~There is no way in hell that I'm pulling off a 3:40 in Disney World in January with the fitness platform that I'm building off of, so I might as well sit back and enjoy it when I'm there.
~My feet belong in Asics.
~Don't forget your Bodyglide on marathon day.
~Speed work is the shit. Michelle is also the shit, and I would say that at least 7 minutes of my 14-minute PR are thanks to chasing after her and the other 7 minutes are thanks to advice from Mary, Damon, and Mindy.

Things that I would do differently:
~I would do more 18-22 mile training runs to stave off the inevitable crash.
~Don't forget the Nuun, or at least have something salty in my bag of tricks because pure Gatorade is not enough for electrolyte replacement on a hot day.
~Eat lunch the day before. Drink enough water the day before.
~Rather than running 3 times per week, I would ideally like to run 4-5.

Thoughts about Boston:
I think that I could qualify for Boston, but I don't think I can, nor do I want to do it at Disney. I'm not too attached to the idea of actually RUNNING Boston again, but I do feel like I owe it to the running gods to at least qualify after running it as a bandit last year. My half-assed goal to qualify for Boston this winter is more related to a desire to "become a fast runner" than a desire to actually run the race again. I believe that once you can qualify for Boston you can consider yourself a "real runner", so I want to qualify. Running it would just be a formality. So I'm going to play it by ear, but perhaps I'll give a BQ another crack at the Hyannis marathon in February. Maybe.

Previous marathon race reports:
Boston Marathon, April 2008
Cape Cod Marathon, October 2007
Barcelona Marathon, March 2007
Big Sur Marathon, April 2004