4:01:27

Here's the scoop: I've had trouble doing my 20+ mile runs (pure laziness), so I decided to register for Cleveland as motivation. Cleveland, it turned out, became the 20+ run.

Without much training (as I crossed mile 18 I realized it was only the second time in the past year I'd run so far, and only the third time I'd run more than 15 consecutive miles), rest, proper sleep or healthy eating, I somehow survived. It started out pretty bad -- a little over a mile into the race my shin splints got so bad I limped off to the side in tears and decided to quit... before deciding not to quit -- but I managed to salvage it.

And run an 11-minute PR: 4:01:27.

More to come.

Marathon #2: Check

After months of long runs, early mornings, doctor appointments, dessert hiatus and yammering about marathon strategy and not much else, I was hopping in place listening to my 3:40 pace group leader at the Cleveland Marathon. Finally! And as the announcer counted down to the start, I fixed my eyes on the pacer’s balloon-festooned pace sign, where I planned to train my eyes for the next three hours and forty minutes.

The best laid plans.

Let’s call the pacer Marlon. (Just because.) So, Marlon’s getting us pumped to start, explaining that he takes downhills fast so we can catch some “free” speed. We waddled to the starting line, and he shot out the gates.

Good for Marlon.

Not so good for the 50 people trying to weave through droves to find him. We sped down East Ninth Street toward the Rock Hall to swing a left on Erieside.

Hello Marlon and good bye.

Three-quarters of a mile into my 26.2 race, I had lost my pacer. What now?


The day started out swell: I drove downtown with E-Speed and Landon, found bathrooms fast and didn’t feel crippled by shin splints and tight calves for the first time in weeks. E helped get me sufficiently warmed and somehow Salty found me at the start. It was my day. I could feel it! I just had to stick with my pace group.

Why the desperation? We all know I have no ability to pace myself. Even with my Garmin. I’m either all or nothing. No smart in between. I knew I could physically run 8:24/mile for 26.2. But I hadn’t arrived ready to do it on my own.

Imagine my panic when I crossed mile 1 at 8:40 with no Marlon balloons in sight. I was 1/26th of the way into the race and I was already 16 seconds behind! By mile 2, I couldn’t even spy him up the straightaways and fell 37 seconds back.

Logic would have weighed me down in a marathon, so I left that part of my brain at home on Sunday. Thirty-seven seconds isn’t an impossible thing to make up over 24.2 miles. Nor is it impossible over 2-3.

It just isn’t a smart thing.

I inched up my pace on the Lorain-Carnegie bridge and through the west side, pulling within striking distance by crossing mile 4 at 33:52 (8:28/pace). But where was Marlon?

Turns out I wasn’t the only one hunting for the 3:40 group. By mile 5, I had run with at least 20 people (4-5 at a time) who saw the 3:40 goal pinned to my back and latched on a few miles at a time. Even the appointment as pseudo-pacer, however, didn’t sharpen my pacing skills. Panic held me and picked up these first nine splits:

Mile 1: 8:40
Mile 2: 8:45
Mile 3: 8:20
Mile 4: 8:07 (33:52, 8:28/mile)
Mile 5: 8:13
Mile 6: 8:10
Mile 7: 8:18 (58:33, 8:21/mile)
Mile 8: 8:36
Mile 9: 8:50 (1:15:59, 8:26/mile)

Somehow after getting ahead of 8:24 pace, I still couldn’t catch even a good rumor about where Marlon might be waving his balloons. And as I turned onto the highway, into the sun, I felt totally deflated. I gave up. My hammy tweaked and super-tightened as we climbed the first highway hill and I crossed…

Mile 10: 10:16

Lucky for me: I have the world’s most incredible friends.

All but socking myself in the face, I was slumping hard when Salty (who rocked the 10K hard!) appeared on the bridge through downtown to help me through some hard miles. She talked me through my self-pity, blocked the wind off the lake and helped get me to the half mark with these splits:

Mile 11: 9:15
Mile 12: 8:52
Mile 13: 9:52

Not even the joy of halfway would make my hamstring quit. At first I slowed down, took a 30-second walk break and eventually paused to stretch. Then it was 5:00 on/:30 walk for three miles. Nothing. Until I heard the 3:50 stampede heading my way.

Pained but excited, I flipped around every few seconds to scan the group, and in the middle of it all, I found Landon!

(I’ve wanted to run a marathon with Landon since the day I started running. Somehow it all worked out!)

We knew by miles 17-18 we weren’t meeting our respective goals, and once I knew my hammy could hold pace with Landon, we decided to finish the race together. And what could have been a dreadful experience turned into one of my favorite days.

Over the river and through the Rockefeller Park woods in search of few and far between aid stations did we go!

Shade along East Boulevard and MLK served us well, but I would have taken aid stations over trees. Don’t get me wrong: the volunteers were top notch! But the aid stations every 2-2.5 left me parched and floopy as we flopped from one station to the next.

But where there wasn’t Powerade, there was power support. Like my mom and Neil hanging on some shady parts of St. Clair (I was so loopy when we passed that I didn’t recognize Neil until he was running next to Landon for several seconds), and then E and Salty waiting for us around mile 22 or 23!

For weeks I’d envisioned reaching E (the day’s half-marathon superstar) and taking off for an incredible 3:40 finish! Unfortunately, this wasn’t the race.

E kept us alive those last miles. While I felt bad we couldn’t pick it up for her to really run us to the finish, I couldn’t be more grateful for her motivational spirit that stretch (her parents, from Mich., were even there cheering for everyone!).

With the last 0.2 to go, she hopped on the sidewalk and rooted us the whole way, and Landon told me to take off if I had it in me. Too tight to really pick up pace, I bid him to go… and go he did. Landon took off in an incredible sprint to the finish.

And what a finishing stretch: my mom and Neil cheered from one side, my dad shouted from the other and E rooted from the sidewalk. Then I waddled across the finish in 4:11:20 (9:35/mile) 4:12:19 (9:37/mile). Great race.

Not only did I get to run a marathon with Landon, I had way-rad family out to cheer and outstanding friends run me through one heck of a race. Sure, I didn’t run a great time, but I had a great time running it. And how can I complain about a learning experience and a PR?

On my way out, I stopped by the medical tent to thank my doctor for getting me to the race (and thanked my massotherapist for her part of the magic online) and headed home ready to heal my aches, sprains and all the new ouches.

But it’s nothing a little pie can’t cure (click to replay):

Road to May 17

Next time I plan a run in the afternoon, I’ll have to consider the aromatic spots along the way. Talk about distracting! I took a 15-miler today – four warm-up, 10 miles at 8:29/mile and 1+ cool down – to wrap up a 48-mile training week, which almost ended with more than one bucket of fried chicken.

And I don’t generally meat! (Unless, of course, you give me $2 burger night, or even dollar dogs.)

By noonish it was 20 degrees warmer than my typical 8-9 a.m. start. I was also more than 20 times hungrier by that time. Tour de Lakeshore makes for a mostly think-free run, but wouldn’t you know that it’s blocked up with wafty food joints—a couple Italian restaurants, several grills and burger joints, Wendy’s, Burger King and more than a few KFCs. Torture. Pure torture.

The run marked another solid week of training for the Cleveland Marathon – 9 miles around 8:45/mile on Tuesday, 18 with E on Wednesday around 9+/mile, 6 trail miles with E and Salty, and 15 mile today – and the beginning of figuring out what I’d like to do in that race.

When I decided to run Cleveland, I had hoped to just break four hours. Seriously: 3:59:59.99 would have been OK for me. But then I started picking up pace in my runs and feeling more confident with distance. Then I had all these fast birdies chirping in my ear. All this made me start to wonder: what could I do?

After last week’s PR at St. Malachi, I started adjusting my training paces (i.e., my “base” pace inched from 9:18-10:14 to 8:47-9:43) and reminding myself during long runs not to relax into something more like recovery pace. I’d like to incorporate a few more tempo runs—I’ve been touch-and-go on any speed-work lately—over the next several weeks, work on my distance pace, get in more progression runs and take the Hermes 10-miler at a serious pace.

By early May, then, I should begin to understand what I can do on May 17. Do I join the 3:50 pace group or dare I so much as think about 3:45… 3:40, even? Obviously, it’s easy to say, sitting on the couch and feeling fine, that I’d like to push for 3:40. Only the coming weeks will tell, though.

So, let’s see what they’ll say.

If I Can Make it There, I'll Make it Anywhere

Good luck to everyone who will be running the Cleveland Marathon (half, full and 10K varieties) -- it looks like you might get a whiff of good weather. Won't that be the first time this season (knock on wood)?

I, on the other hand, will be in New York, where we will be reliving the last several days of rainy and cold weather. But it's still New York. And I'm really excited to celebrate Betsy and Dan's engagement and to see Mariel in her element.

It's almost midnight and while I haven't quite packed, I did get out for a 4-mile run this evening after work. I ran it a little faster than I had intended (~7:40/mile), but I swear I'm still coming down from my car rage! It was also colder than usual (it had to be in the 40s with the wind that ate at me for half my run), so I couldn't help but get kicking fast!

Starting next week, however, I would like to get back to midday runs and, perhaps, cycling in the evenings. And I suppose I should return to that little thing called swimming too. You know if has been too long since you've been swimming when you have to use the search function on your blog to find your last workout in the pool.

Despite the rain, I'm bringing my running shoes and crossing my fingers for a convenient break in the weather. Not only should I have more time to get in a jog this weekend (and enough cupcakes for incentive) than I did in Portland, I'm far more familiar with Manhattan than the great Northwest. But I won't expect the runner-driver relationship to be any better than it is here in little Stow, Ohio.

Speaking of this little part of Ohio, I visited a new cupcake shop in Hudson yesterday called Main Street Cupcakes. I was pessimistic (as always) about what caliber of cupcakes Hudson could possibly have to offer.

Well, let's just say that I'm a believer. There will be more details to follow, but when I'm in New York, I'm going to search long and hard for frosting that tops Main Street's. And it will be a tough task. But, you know, someone has to do it!