Can You Run 30 Seconds Faster? I Can’t

I ran the Light at the End of the Tunnel Marathon on August 17th.  I was on my motorcycle and on the road by 4am.  Almost the entire way there I was riding in a lightning storm.  I HATE LIGHTNING!!!  This is a pretty cool course.  It includes a tunnel that is over 2 miles long.  The tunnel is pitch black and dripping wet.  138 people ran (or at least finished) this race.  138 people running through the tunnel sounded pretty cool.  The trail runs along the John Wayne Trail in Iron Horse State Park.  This old rail bed was once the path of the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul-Pacific Railroad and goes two-thirds of the way across Washington.  From the Cascades to the border of Idaho.  The benefit of this for a marathon is that nearly the entire course was downhill!

Entering the tunnel

I had just run a marathon a week earlier, Haulin Aspen, yet still I had the STUPID idea of trying for a new personal record on this run.  Since it was mostly downhill I thought it would be a good course for a new PR.  I set a goal of breaking 4 hours.  So 3:59:59 or better.  My previous PR was 4:23.

Lining up for our race numbers

I heard that the tunnel got pretty cold so I started off wearing a coat.  Big mistake.  It was already about 70 degrees and muggy when we started running.  By the time we got out of the tunnel I was soaking wet with sweat.  Not how I expected to be after only a couple of miles.  Well I shed my coat and my headlamp and was off again.  I was running at a pretty good clip.  Faster than I needed for my goal, but it felt comfortable so I stayed with my fast pace.  That was a mistake I would pay for later!

I thought it would be cool to take a picture of the runners behind me.  Oops didn’t think about the flash blinding all the people behind me.

I was also suffering from a bit of knee pain.  I hurt my knee running earlier in the week.  Running too hard too soon after Haulin Aspen.  I resigned myself to the pain and just pushed through it.  Although I’m sure that had an effect on my time.

Another thing that surprised me about this course was how much I felt the gravel roads effected me.  I thought going into it that it would be easy running on these gravel roads since there was nothing technical about it.  However it felt like my footing was always shifting a bit.  Just a barely noticeable amount, but after 26.2 miles it got old.  I don’t know if it was a hindrance or just something I found annoying.

THE WALL

Read any training book on marathons and they talk about hitting the wall.  Usually about mile 20 people will feel totally fatigued and struggle to move on.  This is the Wall.  I have been lucky in my other marathons to have never experienced this.  Not so lucky this time.  Right about mile 20 I felt like I had nothing left.  I reassured myself with each mile by thinking of a training run of a similar distance.  “Five miles, that’s easy, that’s just two laps around Lake Padden.”  Every mile I gave myself this little pep talk in my mind.  It wasn’t working though.  I had to stop and walk several times.  Every time I stopped to walk I could see my goal of beating 4 hours fading away.  However I felt like I was going to pass out if I didn’t stop and walk.

One of several trestles we ran across

I could see the finish.  I looked at my watch.  3:59:00.  I could do it.  I can still make my goal.  I sprinted… Okay I hurled my aching body one foot in front of the other in a very ungraceful attempt at a sprint to the finish.  As I got closer to the finish I could see that the official clock had gone past 4 hours.  I didn’t make my goal.  My final time was 4:00:29.  If only I could have run 30 seconds faster.  That’s okay it is still a new PR for me.  Still really not all that fast compared to the elite runners.

MARATHON MANIACS

This race qualified me for the Maniacs and I have officially been committed to the Insane Asylum.   I qualified by running 3 marathons in 30 days.  Two of them in back to back weekends.  I’m hurting now from running too hard.  So I am taking a few days off from running.  My goal starting September 13th is to run 4 in 4 weeks.  One of which is a 50k (31+ miles) my first.  One  trail marathons and one trail ultra marathon.

I don’t expect anybody to understand why I am running so much.  But for me it is a sense of accomplishment.  Not everybody runs a marathon.  Fewer yet run multiple in a short period of time.  I don’t know if I am a marathon maniac or a marathon moron, but who cares.