Mohawk-Hudson Marathon: Race Report

 "If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!"

-Rudyard Kippling

At 8:20 on Sunday morning, 850 runners lined up in Central Park in Schenectady, and awaited the gun that would mark the start of the 2010 Mohawk-Hudson Marathon. Conditions were perfect. At 8:30 the gun went, the race started, and we ran...

As for the race:

I positioned myself at the front and ran the first mile in 6:35. Too fast. Maybe 10 people were before me, the rest behind. The second mile went by with only 13 something expired and I hadn't slowed down. By the third mile my calves were tight.

I finally pulled back to 7:15, but had already strained my muscles. The remainder of the first half was spent mostly alone. Of the 850 runners, 30 in the front pack were out of sight and the other 820 or so were behind me. 13 miles went by more or less like this.

My half split was 1:32:54: over 2 minutes ahead of pace. The tightness in my right calf and left quad was was mild but steadily worsening. The main struggle of the half was my uncertainty with the condition of my legs.

At 18 my calves started cramping badly. It occurred to me that I might not finish the race. This was when everything began to change. Before, the prospect of my legs failing was a possibility, but now it was happening. My breathing became labored and runners began passing me. I had 8 miles to go.

In an endurance race, the first 2/3 of the race seem almost a prelude to the real race. You spend 2 hours getting to the 18th mile so that you can test yourself and your training over the remaining miles. Anyone can get to 18 in their projected time. What matters is the toll that those 18 take on your body as you enter the final 8. You train to absorb those miles, to deflect those miles. You train so those first 18 don't eat you. The struggle in the first 18 is the mental gamble: how much can you give and still have something left?

I was ahead of pace though it seemed unrealistic to maintain it. But my strategy from the start was simple: hit my splits for the first 20 miles at any cost and deal with the final 6 when they arrive. 2 miles more was possible, so I kept running.

In Once A Runner, Quentin Cassidy describes the third lap of the mile to be the most difficult because your legs scream, you're against the clock, and yet you must leave something for the final lap. In contrast, the fourth lap is simple because you don't have to keep anything in reserve; you open up and your body takes over.

Miles 18-20 were my fourth lap. I banked on the unlikely possibility that something metaphysical, unnatural, unearthly would take me from mile 20 to mile 26.2, and I went all in. And I made it to 20, and I was still on pace.

By mile 20, my form had fallen apart. A runner would pass me, then another, and another. I had now caught the half-marathoners and was having an impossible time distinguishing between marathoners and half-marathoners, which somehow made everything more difficult. I struggled to extract my cheat sheet from my pocket to check my splits and found that once it was out, I could no longer focus my eyes enough to read it.

By 23, all I could feel was a fog of vague, intense pain pervading my lower half. Where before I could isolate pain to my right calf, my left quad, my right arch, now I could only sense an opaque and ubiquitous cloud of overwhelming discomfort. I remembered something about adrenaline taking hold in the final mile and thought that if I could make it to 26th mile, this "adrenaline" would pull me through. By now, the only connection between my mind and body was pain sensation. I felt that I could control my legs only by tossing them forward with my hips, and so I did that. And I continued to hit my splits.

I left myself over 8 minutes to run the last mile. Despite my exhausted condition and unspeakable form, my strategy had so far worked. But adrenaline never kicked in, or at least I left it nothing to work with. I heard people yelling, "Half mile!". Finally, I could hear my dad yelling and I saw the finish line and next to it the the clock read 3:10:24. I was in the final chute and had 35 seconds to cover the remaining distance and it was time to go.

And now there occurred a pure, unadulterated push. I cannot describe it or quantify and I can't remember it. The struggle was the thing, and my taking part in it seemed secondary, if I even took part at all. A three hour marathon concentrated into a 30 second effort...

To qualify for Boston I needed to run 26.2 miles from Schenectady to Albany in 3:10:59. I crossed the finish line at 3:11:07. Three months of training, three hours of running, three weeks of missed training - all came down to 8 seconds.

I averaged 7:18 and came in 54th out of 850. I was the first name in the results without an asterisk next to it to indicate a qualifying time for Boston.

I constantly replay the race in my mind, and I search for where I could have picked up 8 seconds in all of that 3 hours, 11 minutes, and 7 seconds, and I keep coming up blank. And though I feel disappointment, I feel no regret, because I don't think those 8 seconds were anywhere to be found on the course that day. And I gave everything and that was the first time I've done that, and it felt good.