This is my analysis of my experience running my first official marathon, the Madison Marathon, on November 14th.

Prior Experience

I say first official marathon because technically I completed the marathon distance on my own last September. My training that Summer and Fall was essentially to do two or three 4-5 mile runs during the week, then one long 16-20 miler on Saturday. I had been planning to make my attempt in October, but during one 16 mile run, I felt so good at the turn-around point that I decided to keep going. I ended up running from MIT to Babson and back. Well, around mile 22 my legs suddenly stopped working, and I had to walk the 4 miles back home and stop in Darwin’s Coffee to ask for a cup of water. I wasn’t timing is precisely, but, as I recall, the whole ordeal took around 4 hours.

Training

This time around, since I was entering an official race, I wanted to be more deliberate about training. In August, I check Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning out from the library. I planned to do the lowest mileage training plan, 18 weeks under 55 miles per week. Compared to the training I had done last year, this plan was much more mileage. It included more speed workouts and built-in recover runs and rest days. Having a training plan was extremely helpful. It made it easier to push myself to do workouts even when I didn’t feel like it, and it allowed me to relax more on rest days because they were in the plan, and the decision was out of my hands.

That said, even the lowest mileage plan proved to be too much more mileage than the hobby jogging I had done over the Summer. Over the first 9 weeks, I felt myself getting more fit cardiovascularly. It was so rewarding to be able to run a mid-week 12-miler like it was nothing when before, it would have been my weekend log run. On the other hand, I always felt one workout away from an overuse injury, and there were plenty of times I dialed things back or rearranged workouts to give myself more rest when my hip or foot was hurting.

About halfway through the plan (shortly after I had actually registered for the marathon), I had a 14 mile long run scheduled. In context, it should have been sort of a “recovery long run” before a 20-miler the next week. On the day, I lost all motivation to run. Through shee force of habit alone I’m sure, I laced up and ran 4 miserable miles until I stopped and walked back. Not because it hurt, just because I didn’t enjoy it at all. On one hand I was terrified that I had lost my joy for running right after registering for a marathon, but on the other hand I was terrified that I had lost my joy for running right after registering for a marthon, but on the other hand, it was a nice reminder that I really do run because I love to, and I can’t for myself to do it when I don’t love it.

After that, I took a solid week off. When I came back, I was behind schedule and a little out of shape for the even harder workouts that week. I chalked my lack of motivation up to burnout and decided to reduce my mileage. Similarly to the previous year, I ran based on how I was feeling. Around the same time, I had more weekend plans which prevented me from running as much. One weekend I was going to NY, another I was going to a chess tournament. Throughout all of training, I don’t think I ever did a long run farther than 16 miles.

The Goal

Going into the race, I had three goals in mind. My reach goal was to run under 3 hours. In addition to being a nice round number, that would qualify me for the Boston Marathon. However, that would require an average mile pace under 7 minutes which I didn’t think was really feasible give training. My reasonable goal was sub 3:15. That would correspond to roughly 7:30 pace which is a comfortable long run pace for me. If a marathon is just an extra long run, I thought this goal would be tough but doable. In case conditions weren’t good, this also corresponded to a place goal of top 50 based on previous years’ results. My final goal was sub 3:30. There’s not really a justification for this other than it’s the next fifteen minute increment. It corresponds roughly to 8:00 pace. I didn’t think there was really any reason to run this slow. But it’s my first official marathon. Running under 3:30 would be a respectable performance.

The Race

I lined up near the 7:00 pace sign. The start of the Madison Marathon is a long downhill on West Washington. I tried to maintain a comfortable pace while getting free of the crowd. I passed a lot of people on that hill and wound up running with a group of about ten at roughly 6:35 pace. If a guy yelling places at us is to be believed, we were around 30-40th in the race.

I know I should have slowed down, but I felt comfortable running at that pace, and I thought I might be able to stay with this group right to the end and that would be my ticket to Boston. Besides, I hadn’t raced in a group like that since high school cross country, and I forgot how much fun it was to run with other people.

Anyhow, that group stayed together through about the first third. I dropped them on the hills in the University. Aside from a couple other solo runners, I was alone from about mile 8 to 12 when some of them caught me again. They slowly passed me, but I was able to keep a good pace through mile 16. For reference, I went through 15.9 miles in 1:43. Still about 6:30 pace. It was only after mile 16 that I started to hurt and slowed down a bit. A couple others passed me. I tried to use them to push myself, but I couldn’t keep pace.

Around mile 19-20 I started walking. According to the final marker at 20 miles, I was still under 7:00 pace. I tried to alternate walking and running as much as I could. Sometimes my legs were burning; sometimes I couldn’t feel them at all. This continued from mile 20 to the end. A lot more people passed me. My friends gave me a great push to finish strong, but I ended up running 3:26 (137th out of ~1000) with an average pace of 7:52. For reference, the first 6.2 miles took me 40 minutes. The last 6.2 miles took me 78 minutes. Or I did the first half in less than an hour and a half, and I did the second half in more than two hours.

The Postmortem

I have mixed feelings about my performances. I met one of my goals, so contractually, I’m not allowed to be disappointed. At the same time, whenever I visualize the race, I was never walkning. It was sort of an implicit goal that I wanted to run the whole thing. The only reason this was better than my marathon attempt from a year ago is that I started out going faster. I even died earlier this year, so in some measure I was less prepared. I think after last year, I thought that having water and Gatorade along the way would magically make it not hurt.

That said, I’m not really sure what I would change. If I could do it again, I’m not sure that I would have slowed down in the beginning. There’s still risk to that. Maybe I still would have died in the end and gone from 7:30 to 9:00 pace. The truth is that the beginning of the race was more fun than the end was tragic.

What’s Next?

I’m not so keen to think about another marathon right now, but I don’t doubt that I could convince myself to change my mind over the summer and run another one next fall. For now, I’m taking it easy. I won’t run as much in the winter. But in the future, I do want to run with other people. I think I’ll possibly sign up for shorter road / trail races in the Spring (5K, 10K, Half Marathon). Then, who knows, maybe a Triathlon in the Summer.

Acknowledgements

I also have to thank my friends who stood out in the cold all morning to cheer me on and took me out for drinks afterwards when I could hardly walk. Pfitzinger must have forgotten to mention it, but having friends at the finish line makes the whole marathon day much better.

My sneaky music suggestion for this week is Time Out by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.