Second chances

The American Discovery Trail Marathon didn't turn out the way I had wanted it to, and I had worked too hard and gotten too much faster to accept a 4:15 result. I was vulnerable, frustrated and desperate for a second chance when Claire B posted a link on my Facebook wall for the Ventura Marathon: at sea level, flat, fast, and still before the Boston 2014 cut-off. I knew that I could finish 2 marathons in the same week (The Big Disappointment was on a Monday, and Ventura would be run on a Sunday), but would I be setting myself up for another disappointment? I must have walked over 5 miles in Colorado, so I didn't think that I had pushed my body too hard, but the whole problem was that at 7000 ft, I had no idea how to gauge my efforts. Maybe my body was completely trashed and I just didn't know it. It's not like I was going to get to run a big workout to gauge my fatigue. But then again, I would be coming back from 8 days at altitude, which I figured had to count for something. The deciding factor was that I had nothing to lose. It couldn't be worse than another 4:15 finish.

I'm going to take a moment here to express my thanks to my wonderful, patient, long-suffering, supportive girlfriend/fiancée/co-pilot/support crew/chauffeur/massager of sore muscles, who I will give the pseudonym of Richie Porte after the world's most selfless domestique. Richie Porte moved her scheduled vacation so that we could be in Colorado exactly the week I would need to be for the race. She then suffered through a sprained toe, a bogus speeding ticket (and the retainer for a lawyer), inhumane customer service, lost (and found) designer sunglasses, and ham in her vegetarian entre, in addition to my griping about not drinking coffee, griping about not eating pizza and ice cream, and impossible dietary restrictions in the week before my big race. And when all that was over and all of our efforts had come to naught, when I looked up from my iPhone in Colorado Springs and said, "There's a race in Ventura next weekend..." she didn't miss a beat. She said, "Do you want to do it? We could drive down Saturday and come back on Sunday..."

I am the luckiest self-absorbed endurance athlete in the world.

And so it was that after sleeping only 3 nights in our own bed, Richie Porte found herself driving me 5 hours down to Ventura on a Saturday morning to check in to yet another hotel and wake up at 4am to spend another boring morning watching another stupid marathon. I chattered on in the passenger seat about my race plan (or lack thereof). "I have no idea how this is going to turn out. If I'm not there at 3:30, don't be worried. Actually, if I finish at 3:40 I'll be totally stoked. Actually... if you haven't seen me by 3:50 I want you to walk backwards up the course because if I haven't finished by then, then I'll really want to see you in the final miles because that means I fell apart. Actually... will you be seeing me somewhere in the middle? Last time I was sad that I didn't see you at mile 20 but it was just because I was having a bad race and... maybe it would be better if I saw you before the turn-around and I can tell you how it's going so you won't have to wait so long at the finish line. Or..." ...and so on until she really should have wanted to slap me in the face.

After some minor parking drama at packet pick-up, it was on to the hotel in Oxnard: the kind of place that shares a parking lot with Denny's and where dangerous-looking addicts glare out of dark hotel rooms with open doors and you wonder if you'll get shot at night walking to the ice machine. I busted out my homemade high-carb dinner while Richie Porte ate some Mexican take-out and then I promptly took a Unisom and passed out. So I missed the mariachi music that someone played in the parking lot all night, and Richie Porte had to fill me in on it the next morning (no Unisom to help her sleep). At 4:15 I woke up and sat on the hotel floor eating oatmeal (a lighter breakfast than last time) and waiting for my poop to cook. This time, it dinged in time and I put on my race outfit feeling ready to rock and roll. Then, beet juice, Starbucks, and back to the Ventura pier with enough time to wait in multiple porta-pottie lines if necessary.

Maybe the best thing about the Ventura Marathon was the bathrooms: there were so many that there was never a line, there was always toilet paper and hand sanitizer, and they didn't even start to smell. I think I pee'd 4 times before the race started, just because I could. I knew I should have warmed up a bit before the start, but it just didn't seem worth the extra energy expenditure so I just kind of bounced a lot.

I lined up with the 3:35 pacer and bounced and wiggled through the national anthem. I didn't plan to sacrifice myself by hanging on the pacer's shoulder for as long as I could this time, I just figured it would be a good place to wait out the nervous first few miles when pacing yourself can be so disorienting. The pacer didn't inspire much confidence. He wasn't much taller than I was, with a stocky build and the race had dressed him in this god-awful bright pink shirt. I would not allow myself to be paced through a marathon by someone in a pink shirt, even if he was a man.

When I'm suffering, you can see it on my face. In
this picture, I was suffering. In Ventura, I was relaxed.

The race started, and I held myself back and stood next to the pacer and started counting steps and breaths. When I had counted to 100, I looked down at my watch and saw that we were running an 8:13 pace. Stupid pacer, you're ruining it! I thought, and I let myself drift on ahead. Right from the starting line, and up through the 24th mile, I paced myself by making sure that every breath equaled 8 steps (4 in, 4 out), and every 100 breaths I would look down at my watch and make sure that I was still on pace (faster than 7:45, then I should slow down, slower than 8:00, then I should pick it up a bit, and make sure that the average pace stayed below 8:00, or 8:12 if things were going badly). Soon I fell in pace with a group that was running on pace with my breathing and stepping. Around mile 5 one guy turned to another and asked, "Are you shooting for 3:20/3:25-ish?"

"Uh oh," I said out loud. But I had been pacing conservatively by feel, not by my watch, and I felt so good! A the 6-mile aid station I stopped to refill my water bottle, and kept them at a steady 50 meters ahead of me, until I refilled again at the 12-mile aid station and fell 100 meters behind. Right before the turn-around, I saw Richie Porte and the dog waiting for me with a big smile on both their faces.

"You're on pace!" Richie Porte yelled.
"And I feel good, for now!" I said. "Who knows what's going to happen in the next 14 miles, though." Secretly, around mile 11 I had started to feel things that may or may not turn out to be a big deal later on. My hamstrings felt tired, and a new painful spot that had appeared in my left foot two days earlier was tingling and going numb. I consciously made myself let my pace bunnies get away and settled back a bit to let my body relax.

My splits for the first half marathon tell the story of a comfortable pace:

1. 7:56
2. 7:50
3. 7:42 (uh oh, that one was too fast, should probably slow it down)
4. 7:52
5. 7:50
6. 7:55
7. 7:54
8. 7:54
9. 7:55
10. 8:03
11. 8:01
12. 8:08
13. 8:07

The turn-around involved running around endless cones and through a parking lot before turning back and running back the way I'd come. While running the figure eight, I recognized a familiar face: a client that I'd done a few sessions with months ago. I shouted his name and we managed to get a quick, "Good to see you, what time are you shooting for, good luck!" conversation shouted across the street before we each ran our separate directions (I was ahead of him, for the record!). As I settled back into my counting, I realized that the excitement had nudged my pace too high and the shouting had robbed me of precious oxygen. I tried to settle back into my 4-in-4-out rhythm, but now suddenly all of the wind had been taken out of my sails. 

When I crossed with Richie Porte again a mile later, she and the dog came out and ran with me for 100 yards. "I don't know what happened. I turned around and all of a sudden, it's like I have completely different legs!" I complained. 

"It's okay, just run your race," she said. "I'll see you at the finish whenever you get there." 

"Are we running uphill or something?" I asked.

"Ummmm... no." But it felt just like a false flat where the road looks level, yet every step seems to take 2% more effort and you're inexplicably slowing down. I had turned into the wind, but could a 5mph wind really make that much of a difference? I tried to calm down and find my 4:1 rhythm.

This picture, taken at mile *5* of the SF
marathon gives you an idea of how much
sweating is a problem for me: note, shorts
are also plastered to my legs.

I had been reading some interesting theories about race nutrition lately, including Matt Fitzgerald's theory that your race performance is only limited by the amount of carbohydrate you can ingest in a marathon, and also an interesting theory put forth by Fitzgerald and Tim Noakes that we didn't need much, if any, fluids during a race. (It bothered me that these theories contradicted each other, since carbohydrate must be ingested with a certain amount of fluid to be absorbed properly. This is probably the only Fitzgerald book I don't recommend.) I had been experimenting with different amounts of fluid intake during my runs and found that far from needing less fluid, hydration and electrolytes in particular seemed to present the biggest "wall" on my long runs, not carbohydrate. After a few experimental "low-fluid" runs, I had gotten so desperately dehydrated that it had taken me weeks to catch back up and I was seriously worried about my body's ability to absorb enough fluid to keep up with my daily sweat rates. In other words, I am one sweaty motherfucker. I can't run on the treadmill for more than 10 miles without getting off to change because after an hour and twenty minutes, I have sweat completely through my shorts, the sweat has run unmitigated down my legs to soak my socks, and soon after the uppers of my shoes, after which point it soaks the soles of my shoes and I start slipping on the treadmill belt. I had had a come-to-Jesus moment a few years before in a 50K when salt tabs had led me to the strongest finish I had ever had in a race longer than 13 miles. Ventura on this morning was cool (in the mid-60's), but foggy. A marathon in the same conditions in San Francisco had flattened me 2 years earlier when I hit the electrolyte wall at mile 12. 

After much agonizing, I had decided to run with a water bottle rather than just drinking at aid stations, and now I was glad for it. I used the water to slosh down twice as many electrolyte pills (2 every 3 miles instead of every 7), as well as a Honey Stinger gummy chew at every single mile marker. I didn't notice a difference with the gummies, but every time I took a pill, I felt a little better for a few minutes and was able to pick up my pace again until just as suddenly I would hit another wall. I tried taking even more electrolyte tabs, but a sharp cramp in my stomach told me to quit that bullshit pretty quick. At this point, the damage had been done, and everything that I could shove in my face was only going to delay the inevitable, it wasn't going to bring me back from the dead. 

The next seven miles told the story of a slow, insidious death rather than a dramatic explosion. 

14. 8:07

15. 8:15

16. 8:18

17. 8:22

18. 8:32

19. 8:41

20. 8:40

By the time the little guy in the pink shirt carrying the 3:30 banner had passed me around mile 18, my pace had deteriorated too much to catch back on to his pace. At the moment he passed me I looked down at my watch; the average pace that had brought us both to that exact spot in that moment in time was 8:00 miles. Damn! I thought as he passed and I stared at his back for awhile. If I could keep my average pace under 8:12 for the next 10K, then I could still break 3:35, but as my gas needle dropped down to E, I knew that I was going to deteriorate faster than that. 

It's funny. For years I always imagined that if I got to this point, where something phenomenal like a miracle Boston Qualification were within my reach, I thought I would dig deep and find something special inside to force myself over that finish line if it killed me. But the body can only go as fast as it will go, and now my breathing was ragged and getting more and more labored, even as my pace slowed down. I remember thinking, This is exactly how hard I breathe in a 10K race, only now I'm not running 7:15 miles, I'm running 9:15's. I've never felt this before, being this out of breath so late in a race. I'm falling apart, but I'm still running hard. This must mean that I'm doing something right. A few miles later when the 3:35 was well out of range and all I wanted to do was walk for a few sweet seconds, I took solace in the fact that as dismal as this pace was, I was still racing in my own pathetic little way. 

The final miles show a body that is in distress, but not completely breaking down. 

21. 8:43

22. 9:02 I tried drinking Gatorade somewhere through this mile. It was the most vile thing I'd ever tasted, and I was glad again for my water bottle. 

23. 9:12 Here I dropped my second-to-last gummy on the ground, and managed to get the last one in my mouth. As I watched the gummy bounce on the ground, I decided that carbohydrates too were important. I lamented that gummy for the next 2 miles.

24. 9:27 Here I finally stopped counting steps and instead reminded myself over and over, "Just stay alive..." (Note: This my slowest mile was the only mile slower than my average pace in Colorado.)

25. 9:09 My water bottle empty again, I decided to throw it to the side of the road and lighten my load. I knew that my goal was out of my reach, but no one could take a PR away from me now. After slinging the bottle into someone's yard, I looked up to see a cop directing traffic 20 feet away. "Thanks for coming out," I said sheepishly. "Keep it up," he said. Phew!

26. 9:06 Please finish respectably, please finish respectably, please finish respectably...

In those last delirious .2 miles I spotted Richie Porte in the crowd. "You're gonna break 3:40!" she yelled. 

"I missed my goal time, but I don't give a flying fuck!!! I did it!" I screamed, not caring how many children were in the crowd. The crowd started cheering louder for me. The biggest sprint I could muster for that last quarter mile was 8:25 pace and I stumbled over the line more thrilled than if everything had worked out to plan. I had run a 3:38:44 in spite of everything, dropping my official PR by 19 min and even beating my unofficial PR by 4 and a half minutes.

True, I had fallen short once again of completing a Boston Qualifying time, but I have never actually cared about running Boston, because I already have. But for all these years it has been eating at me that I cheated by running Boston as a bandit, and that no matter how hard I tried, I didn't seem to be able to get anywhere close to a qualifying time. Until this summer, it seemed just as likely that I would run a BQ as that I would make the NBA draft. Now I knew that had my legs been fresh, I could have pulled out those last 4 minutes. Moreover, since I had gatecrashed Boston in 2008, the qualifying standard at the time had been 3:40, which I had finally broken. In that moment it was enough for me. I nearly broke down crying.

I asked the chip-cutter-offer if I could sit in his chair so that I wouldn't throw up on him, and when I finally got myself out of the finishing area, there was Richie Porte and a very overstimulated dog there to hug me in all of my slimy, sweaty, nastiness. Once I sat on the curb, my quad started to cramp. I said, "AAAHHHH, my quad is cramping up! My quad is cramping! AAAAAHHHHHH! This has never happened to me before!!! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!" Just like a grown-up person would yell. Richie Porte pulled me back to standing and pushed me over toward the food table. Food ingested, we found our way to an indoor handicapped bathroom where she untied my shoes (which I couldn't reach), helped me pull off my shorts (which I could barely reach), and I rested my arms on her shoulders as she pulled off my sports bra since I couldn't lift my arms above my head without my shoulders cramping up. Then she gently re-dressed me in fresh clothes and led me back to the car, where we would soon be sitting on the 5-hour ride back to the Bay Area without my taking a shower. I'm telling you, I'm the luckiest stinky person out there. 

On the drive back, I slowly came back to life. My stomach went through periods of violent cramping and nausea while I alternately forced down the water that I knew I needed and the coffee that I insisted that I still wanted because I had earned it. It took me hours to pee again, and when I did, the beet juice came out darker than it had gone in. That was the most exciting part for me, and I wanted nothing more than to not flush in a gas station toilet, and then hide outside the bathroom to spy on people's reactions. But sometimes in life you don't get everything you want, even though you worked REALLY hard for it and it would make you really happy. Sometimes you have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing yourself what you've done, and that not everybody is going to understand why you're so proud of yourself. So I flushed the beet pee, and we drove on home. 

Different story, same result

Why this should have been the best marathon of my life:
I did my first marathon in 2004, and ever since then I have had grandiose dreams of getting faster. Grandiose dreams and lots of training plans, that is, but I'm never as excited to lace up my shoes as I am to hit the road. After the first 4 weeks before I lose interest and move on to the "whatever the fuck I feel like doing today," training plan. But this time I trained for an entire summer for this marathon alone. I also made a huge jump in volume, going from about 35 miles per week to 90 miles per week in my base phase (although I wasn't thinking of it that way at the time).

In my youth I used to shout to anyone who would listen about how I was a high-volume athlete, and how I always got faster when I was overtrained. Then I got older, life took me down a few pegs, and I tried the lower volume version of "whatever the fuck I feel like doing today (the 1 hour or less edition)." I found that I was able to run a 4:15 marathon on a standard marathon training program (Boston 2008), running only when I felt like it (San Francisco 2011), or absolutely no running whatsoever (Sugarloaf 2010), so I figured my 3:57 PR would probably stand for life.

I was as amazed as anyone else to find that running 18 miles a day was making me faster – MUCH faster. Running 35 miles per week, my 10K PR had been 51 minutes (8:13 pace), and I had never quite broken the 24-minute barrier for a 5K. I ran 3 10K's in preparation for this marathon: at about 46:30 (7:30-ish pace), 45:30 (7:17 pace), and 44:30 (7:07 pace). In the second of those three races, I ran my first mile in 6:13, and still continued on to a then-PR by holding a pace in the mid-7's, when the previous fastest mile I had EVER run under ANY conditions had been 7:00. I had hopes and beliefs in myself as a runner that I never thought possible. For once, I was seeing results.

I am someone who loves to try to predict the future with graphs and formulae, and so I have a Jack Daniels VDOT calculator on my phone that I check almost daily, and my projected marathon finish time from actual results was dropping nearly every other week. When I ran the prescribed paces, for once I was actually able to complete all my workouts to specs. Adding to my confidence, any speed workout I did on the treadmill, I did at a 1% incline just to make sure I wasn't cheating, and I still hit all my numbers. Where I hadn't been able to run a 5K at 8-minute pace in the past, 2 weeks before my marathon I nailed a 26.2 kilometer race simulation at 8-minute pace, 1% incline. I know it is foolish to believe too much in these tables, especially for the longer distances where fatigue can have the greatest effect, but I had run 18 miles a day for 30 days, and all of my speed work had been slow marathon speed work, so my marathon was sure to be even BETTER than my 10K performances, right?

This was going to be my year.

The race I chose was the American Discovery Trail marathon in Colorado Springs. Most of the marathon would be on a dirt path, which I hoped would cut down on the cumulative fatigue of pounding on pavement (which is what makes a marathon so much harder than a 50K, for me anyway). It started at 7000 ft elevation, but I hoped the 1300ft net drop and average negative 1% decline would make up for the altitude difference, right? And I had been training at 1% incline on the treadmill, so that would be my insurance policy, right? (When I say, "Right?" you should shake your head solemnly.)

Doing everything right
This was going to be my year, and this time I was going to do everything right. I showed up at altitude 5 days ahead of time to get acclimated to the elevation. I learned the best way to fat load before carbo-loading, and then carbo-loaded as best I could at restaurants for the last 2 days. I drank 7 to 10 liters of fluid per day for a week to make sure that my chronically dehydrated body could finally catch up on fluids. I walked around with my own shaker of low-sodium Himalayan sea salt and shook it in my water and food for 4 days (more minerals than regular salt, and ionization that improves absorption). I picked foods based on what had the highest potassium concentration. I ate chia seeds by the spoonful before chugging tons of coconut water because chia seeds slow fluids' emptying from the stomach. I cut caffeine completely out 8 days before the race so that it would have the maximum effect on my endurance on race day.

This next section will be all about poop
So now you have the back story, and all of ingredients that led to my demise. If you have been reading my blog for a long time, then you know that A) I am a very shy pooper, and B) my GI tract quits before my lungs and legs every single time. In a good week at home I might only go number 2 three to four times in seven days. I had been on the road for nearly a week, eating unfamiliar foods, using unfamiliar bathrooms, and not drinking coffee. By the time I went to bed the night before the race, I had a week's worth of fatty restaurant fare foods backed up in there refusing to come out. My GI tract, and not so much my race strategy was what kept me up half the night before the race with worry. Would I get it out in time, or would I be running with this extra baggage?

I woke up at 4:15 and finally had what I had been waiting for for over a week... No, not the poop, the coffee. But the coffee did help me "break the seal" so to speak on my other week-long poop abstinence. I had eggs on toast, which has been my breakfast of champions since the years of know-it-all youth, even though it has felt pretty heavy for me lately, now that I'm a "fast" runner. I downed some last-minute coconut milk with chia seeds in it to help me hold on to some last-minute hydration and electrolytes. After 5:30 (1 hour before start time), I didn't take in a single sip and waited for what I was sure was going to be the best crap of my life to marinate.

In the car, I finished the last of my pre-race fluids (a bottle of beet juice: don't ask, it works), and finally felt the timer on my poop-cooker ding. Finally! But as we pulled up to the race start, so did a bus, which evacuated a couple dozen runners from its own bowels and deposited them right in front of me in the porta-pottie line. Each line fed 2 porta-potties, and I was about 20 runners back from the long-awaited completion of my last pre-race preparation. As I waited and waited, I could feel my bowels losing interest. 'No! No! Just a little longer,' I begged them. But then, with only about 5 people in front of me, the worst thing that could happen happened. A man went into a porta-pottie, and did not come back out. I watched his door stay closed for over 5 minutes (I know because when it had been a long time and he still hadn't come out, I started my stopwatch), while the other porta-pottie had to deal with the rest of the demand. When I finally got to go to the bathroom, a sad, dry little turd from the Jurassic period was all that was left to me, while the rest had crawled back into its den to ride along for my whole race. With the way the lines were, there would be no second chances this morning.

While I had been waiting for the bathroom, I scoped out the other runners. This crowd looked more like the start of an ultra than a regular marathon: I spotted no "chunky" runners. Rather than Team in Training jerseys, I saw race t-shirts from a surprising number of 50- and 100-mile ultras. Rather than "supportive" Asics shoes, I saw Hokas, Newtons, and other signs of a more advanced crowd. But I belonged here, right?

A Website really should warn you about these things...
I found the 3:30 pacer, and he pulled us off to the side to explain our strategy. "Alright, folks. This race is downhill, but it's not easy. The first 9 miles are going to be the steepest down, so I'm going to be running a bit faster than pace to pick up some time before the hills..."

'Wait a second! I hadn't trained to run FASTER than 8-minute pace at altitude. The downhill was supposed to take care of any gaps created by the altitude. And HILLS?! What hills?'

"...Then, once we reach the air force base, it's all rolling for the next 9 miles, so we're going to be going through those rollers right at 3:30 pace. Try to stay with me. They're not tall, only about 30 or 40 feet each, but they're steep..."

This was where I knew I was fucked. Hills that were only 30 feet tall wouldn't show up on a 26-mile elevation profile, but I had learned from my final training runs this past week in Boulder that even the slightest hill could have me doubled over just to maintain a 10-minute mile.

"...Then, the last 8 miles are pretty flat right on to the finish. I suggest you run in front of me if you want to keep your pace. Good luck! Let's have a great run!"

The guy next to me was a chatty type. "This race is usually cold at the start. Some mornings you can see your breath and you're shivering before you get running."

"You've done this race before?!" I asked. "Where are you from?" I forget where he was from, but it was at sea level. "How much slower would you say this marathon is than a sea level race?"

"I'd say 15-20 minutes. Those hills aren't tall, but they're steep. That's why I'm with the pacer, I usually run about a 3:15."

Right then was when I knew that this would not be my day. I had pulled another rookie mistake, and underestimated the altitude. But I was not the only one. This gentleman would be among the rest of the walking dead who would stumble home long after the 4-hour mark had come and gone. I wanted to go get back in the car get more coffee, bring it back to the hotel, and read a good book. This was a waste of time.

After finishing, I found a forum thread that I should have looked at months ago. It said that at 7000 feet, there is 25% less oxygen than at sea level. Running at 5000 feet you can expect to add 10s to your mile time, 50 seconds to a 5K, and 2 minutes to a 10K, and expect more deterioration for longer events. Other runners suggested expecting a 10% decline in performance. But I didn't know any of that yet. 

The Race

We began running and I felt good running with the pace group. I felt like I had enough air, and the rhythm felt fine. I felt good running that 6:13 mile at the beginning of that one 10K too... until all of a sudden I didn't. If running at altitude is about 10% harder, than maintaining this 8-minute pace was the aerobic equivalent of running at 7:20 pace. But how could I know that? at the moment I felt good and had no objective way of knowing that the shit was about to hit the fan.

We couldn't have been more than a mile in before my stomach started acting up and my bowels let me know they were finally ready. I knew from experience that this could only end one of two ways: I would either slow down considerably and feel sick for the rest of my race, or I would feel sick until my body finally gave up and I started puking my guts out. I made it to between 3 and 4 miles, and then I ducked into a porta-pottie and let the pace team go, and my 3:30 goal for good. However, the phantom poo had struck again, and I struck out in that first porta-pottie.

I ran until half way through mile 9 by myself, in the no-man's land that lies right after a pacer where only the flotsam and detritus of the race – those runners who took it out too fast – languish in their own world of pain way earlier than it is appropriate to be in that much pain. But nobody falls apart at mile 4; nobody but me so I was alone. I floated along, maintaining an average pace of about 8:18 per mile, unable to eat or drink as my poop went thunk-thunk-thunking in my intestines like the last tennis ball in a tube. At least I didn't feel like my bowels had turned to liquid anymore, I just couldn't eat or drink.

At mile 9 I had gotten my hopes up again for some relief, and ducked into another toilet. I let out a fart that felt like came from as high as my shoulders, but there was no ammunition behind it. Now even further behind and more discouraged, I stumbled back out onto the course to face the hills with my whole body feeling like it was made of lead. By this point, I could barely feel my body. I wasn't in any pain, I just had that out-of-body sensation you have when you've got a bad cold and you've taken too much medicine. Nothing hurt, my breathing wasn't labored, but every cell in my body was urging me to lay down and stop. Running 18 miles a day, I had gotten very good at continuing to push through all levels of fatigue, but this was different. I just couldn't will myself on. When the 3:40 pace group caught up with me, I was moving so slow that I had to stop and walk while they passed or else the disorientation of being left behind by the tide of so many people at once would have been enough to knock me over. Eventually, around mile 13 I felt a stabbing sensation in three places in my stomach, just like a side stitch. I let out a moan and gave up on finishing this thing running. I walked until the pain subsided, and then resumed plodding along at a jog until the pain was back.

All through the 9 miles of hills, I felt like the walking dead. I couldn't run up the hills, but sometimes I couldn't run down them either. I was unable to respond to the cheers from spectators and encouragement from runners around me. Even in my worst moments, even when I'm puking or I can't breathe I can pluck up a sarcastic comment, a wave, or a grunt. This time I couldn't even lift a finger in acknowledgement, and the race was barely half way over. And yet, my legs didn't hurt. My whole body felt like NOTHING.

After mile 18 I was walking so much that I had given up even running in a 1-to-1 ratio. I counted 100 paces, then would make a decision as to whether I could keep running or not. I never made it past 300 paces, and would need several minutes afterward to recover. A few weeks before I had started marathon training, I had done a 50K where I ran up 9 straight miles of hills on the 100-pace-plan, never once stopping to walk. If there was one mercy in this race, it was that my GPS had stopped during one of my porta-pottie stops, and I didn't know or care how far behind pace I was. And at least I held off the 4-hour pacer for 30K, that was something to be proud of, right?

You would think that if I had held off the 4-hour pace crew (9-minute miles) for 18 or 20 miles, then I would still mostly be surrounded by people running at that point, but all of those around me seemed to be in the same slow boat to hell that I was. I met two runners who claimed to be 3:20 marathoners, and passed them both. I talked to a college student from Boulder who said she couldn't feel one of her feet. I watched one girl climb up from all fours onto wobbly Julie Moss legs and stumble drunkenly on at mile 24. I saw a man white as a sheet completely unconscious in a ditch while a medic on a bike worked on him. Absolutely everybody that I talked to had a story about how their day had gone horribly wrong. For some it was the heat, others blamed it on the altitude, while others blamed the deep soft dirt that they had lain only a few days before after the trail had been washed away in last week's flash floods. ("Hey, I didn't know we had a beach in Colorado!")

Normally I have very vivid memories of the sequence of my races, but this race featured neither vivid pain, nor crystal-clear impressions of the course. In my mind, I only have isolated snapshots, and when I crossed the finish line I remember feeling exhausted without really feeling like I'd pushed at all. I crossed the finish line in 4:12, and then sat on the ground, dazed. I had finished in the same time as my last 2 marathons official marathons: Sugarloaf in 2010 after not running a step in over a year and a half, and I had run San Francisco in 2011 without running more than 3 or 4 miles in the year and a half that had passed since Sugarloaf. How could this happen?! I had run a 3:42 on the track only a few months before with no aid stations, pacers, or expectations. I could think of no explanation for my terrible performance but the altitude and (whispered: constipation).

Oh well. Another A race. Another race report about choking.