Those are the alleged last words of Pheidippides right after he reached Athens with news of the victory in Marathon. It's doubtful that this story is true, but it's a great sentiment that encompasses marathon victory. Of course, legend also has it that he died right afterward.
I was reading a friend's blog that she started about her quest to qualify for the Boston Marathon. By the way, it's really good and can be found heeyah:
http://twentysixpointtwoormore.blogspot.com/Anyway, a friend of hers asked her to name her favorite race ever. That got me thinking that I'd never written a race report about my favorite race. After Boston 2006, I started making race reports after important races. They included some running geek stuff, some personal insight stuff, and some miscellaneous stuff. I'd usually share them with friends and/or post them on the Running Times forum. However, I never thought about doing a report on my hands-down all-time favorite race.
That's a photo of me after the 2004 Grand Rapids Marathon. Landon is hugging me and I am actually crying tears of disbelief and joy. As much as I love running, that's the only time that a good race brought tears. My emotional reaction was due to the fact that I had just accomplished something that I thought was impossible. Like most people in life, I've set a few goals and achieved them. Getting my doctorate was a tough goal, but I never thought of it as impossible. Same with previous athletic goals. However, qualifying for Boston was different. Qualifying for Boston was something that I thought was never going to happen. At the instant this photo was taken, it was the first time in my life that I'd ever achieved the impossible. It might also be the last because, at least for me, moments like that don't roll around very often.
Of course, I thought qualifying would be well within reach when I ran my first marathon. I was 28 and thought that some good times posted during training were sure signs that my first marathon would be fast. I didn't quite expect a Boston qualifier, but I did expect to be able to manage something around 3:15. What ended up happening is that my friend John and I went out WAYYYYY too fast, paid for it over the last 8 miles and literally limped in with a 3:45 in the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon. The only saving grace is that we beat Oprah, who was also appearing in her first marathon that day. After recovering, I still thought I had a fast marathon in me. I was stupid the first go around, but proper pacing would win the day in my next attempt. That happened one year later. I was partially correct. I paced much better, slowed a little at the end and got a 3:33 in the 1995 Marine Corps Marathon.
This got me to start thinking that I should make my goals a little more reasonable. Breaking 3:30 would be a good start. I set my sites on this goal and trained with my brother and his friend Marvin for the 1996 Marine Corps Marathon. To make an excruciating story short, I felt so bad during this marathon that I quit at the halfway point; already well off pace. I tried to redeem myself one month later in the Philly marathon and clicked yet another 3:45.
After this disappointing effort, I met a few good running friends that pushed me. I could tell I was getting faster so I was eager to see what I'd do in the 1997 Philly marathon. The answer was 3:35. This is when the reality hit that I probably wasn't ever going to break 3:30, much less qualify for Boston. Actually, the qualifying for Boston part was passed off as a pipe dream a couple of years earlier. After this race, I stopped running races for a while. Dawn and I got married and I was starting a new job at Michigan State. My competitive fire was stoked by my new job and I felt like any running goals were ludicrous in the face of all my new responsibilities. I ran a bit, but it was without any immediate performance goals.
Then I read the book "Running with the Buffaloes" by Chris Lear.
Lear spent the 1999 season with the University of Colorado cross country team. It's a remarkable book for many reasons, but what grabbed me was the immense amount of mileage that these kids ran. Before then, I'd subscribed to a "quality over quantity" approach. However, here was a team that was consistently among the best in the country and their "secret" appeared to be simply running more than other teams. It dawned on me that every training cycle I had gone through I had only changed the quality of my training. I had tried the latest interval workout, tempo run and carbohydrate loading schedule. I had never gone old-school; that is, I had never just put my body through as many miles as possible and come back for more. Fifty miles per week had always been the line that, if crossed, threatened to cause overtraining, injury, and fatigue. Nonetheless, running high mileage was the one thing I hadn't tried.
I began by running an hour a day and just added to that every three weeks. It was far from exciting and glamorous, but I gradually ratcheted past the daunting 50/week mark, on to 70 and was averaging in the 80's for a while by my best estimations. I did add in track workouts and tempo runs, but the cornerstone of the program was miles. Paradoxically, I minimized my long run to a maximum of 2.5 hours a week and probably only ran over 16 miles one time. I just focused on consistently running a lot of miles every day. Some days I'd do it in one big run; some days involved two shorter runs. I remember visualizing that I wanted to become someone who could fall out of bed at 2:00AM and begin running and my body would immediately respond. I don't know when I started to think about qualifying for Boston. It might have been there right from the beginning. I do remember thinking that this mileage thing was working when I broke my 10K personal record by 45 seconds on a hot July day. I had barely touched any interval or track work; yet I easily coasted to a fast (for me) time. By then, I'm pretty sure that I began to think of the Boston Qualifier as possible. At least it wasn't a pipe dream anymore.
By the time the marathon came around I knew I was ready for a big race; I just wasn't sure how big. Charts, tables, and other methods of estimation suggested I could break 3 hours if I had a good day. However, I would take the Boston Qualifying time of 3:15. To make sure I gave the latter my best shot, I started the race with the pace team that was gunning for that specific time.
I remember our first mile was way too fast. Something like 6:45. After that, our pace team leader composed himself and started clicking off 7:20's. We were faster on some, slower on others, but I consistently felt like we were out for a jog. I wasn't getting tired and felt like this was all some big warmup. The miles kept clicking off and I wasn't feeling it. I wasn't taking in carbs other than the gatorade at the aid stations, and I honestly wasn't having much of that. I was a good 7 years older than my last marathon effort, but my legs felt younger. That was the story through mile 18. Then I decided to see what I could really do during the last third of the race. I took off and left the pace team with the pace leader exhorting me to "get going". Adrenaline got me a 6:45 for the next mile and then I began to click off consistent 7 minute miles. I couldn't believe it. I was passing so many people at a point in the race where I was used to being passed. I started to fatigue a little towards the end, but it was nothing like the past. I cruised through the finish line in a 3:10:12. It not only qualified me for Boston, but it would have qualified me even if I were 10 years younger.
I sat down so a volunteer could take my race chip off. It still hadn't dawned on me. I was just happy to get a good time. While I was sitting, Dawn came over and said "We're going to Boston!". I loudly echoed her phrase "We're going to Boston!" and Landon came up behind me and gave me one of his patented bear-hugs. I began crying the aforementioned tears of joy. At that moment in time, the weight of achieving the impossible had just gone from my head to my soul. Not surprisingly, this connection didn't happen until I shared the accomplishment with the people I love the most. Later I found out that I had actually finished 3rd in my age group. I still have that trophy in my office today.
I've run enough since then to realize that 3:10 isn't elite, nor is it even sub-elite. It's just a time that a guy with ordinary athletic ability thought was impossible but achieved one day. A time that many others routinely equal or beat. I might run faster than that one day, or I might not. Regardless, I won't ever feel the sense of awe that I felt; at least not from another race. Between age and experience, I now know too much to think that I'll end up with some other extraordinary running accomplishment that I currently think of as impossible. I'll have to settle for the kind of achievements that we typically get in life, the kind that are attainable, but take work. I thank God for those achievements, but thank Him all the more that I have a picture of achieving the impossible.
