Man On A Mission

Like the act itself, it has taken me too long to write about breaking 3 hours in the marathon. The desire to do so predates my cancer diagnosis which is over 8 years old. But still if this blog is about wanting to remember things that brain cancer changed, there is no way to deny that this, this was one of those things. 

I intended and thought myself capable of doing so in my first one back in 2010, when I was 29 years old. I was doing a series of races of the the Austin Distance Challenge. Each one was the longest thing I'd ever done period and the first time I'd really started to start training since college. I'd gotten a little faster each race, taking a couple of seconds of the pace from a 10k to a 20 miler, consistently dropping. It gave me enough... hubris... to believe I could do my first marathon at the fastest pace of any race. That didn't work out so well with me walking a fair share and finishing in 3:19, missing my goal by almost a minute a mile. I'd try it again two weeks later for a 3:23 in Fort Worth. 

I didn't try it for every marathon I did, the next one the one that I put off brain surgery for it was just trying to get a Boston Qualifier which at the time was 3:10 and I hit a 3:07. I'd try again at Austin but hit a 3:16 the next time around. I was going to try when I ran Boston but I had a seizure a couple of week before and barely broke 4 there. I'd get within one second slower at the marathon I won with a stroller  that put me on the media map but still about 8 minutes away. I'd be on pace in New York, Utah, Idaho, even requalify for Boston with a 3:04 under the lower 3:05 standard and try again at Boston but no matter how much my pride kept saying yes, my body kept saying no. I'd chalk it up the medication side effects like throwing up or improper training or bad weather or or or... I even took it to where I had 'almost' just accepted that maybe it just wasn't in me. The closest I would get would be in Seattle where my watch wasn't working, there was no clock at the finish line and I didn't see my results till my little brother printed them out and I had missed it by single digit seconds back in 2016. I took 2017 off doing marathons altogether despite it being the highest mileage year in my life. The only one I would do in 2018 was Austin during humid weather, always my kryptonite on the revamped course, which in my opinion was harder. I signed up again for 2019 within days of failing at it. 

Why couldn't I hit it? By all counts, the guy who could break a 5 minute mile several times in his 30's, who had broken an hour in a 10 miler, who regularly still breaks 18 in 5ks and 38 minutes in 10ks and the very far back of 'elite' standards had a soft marathon time. The Austin marathon was hard but it was also home. So this year, I didn't train harder for it. I didn't follow any schedule or any plan. I just made a mission to run the course, to run every chance I got, to tell the body that maybe my mental capacity had memory issues but if just once, at least once, it would share that with my body that it would forget how to quit or at least forget how to slow down

Some people travel to destination races that are flatter or even down hill. The latter are not eligible for World Records due to having gravity be a contributor so I didn't want to ever do it there. I wanted my personal records to have the same standard. Like most good things in my life, I got there with good company. I trained more and more with my friend Chris who was training for a different marathon in California in December during most week days. On the weekend, I did a lot of my long runs with my wife since we were doing some runs together. On Sunday, I added a second long run with my friend Steward who was trying to hit his first Boston Qualifyer and we ran over and over the Austin marathon course until I learned it turn by turn, street by street. Spatial orientation being gone was no longer going to be relevant since I knew the landmarks. I started doing a gigantic percentage of Kiana's training runs with her, something that well is not really an easy task anymore making for a few two a days most weeks. I started to have an IT band injury and plantar fascitis. I rolled and ignored it. Three weeks from the race, in where most people start their taper, I did my first and only 100 mile week.

I got to the race line with hotter and more humid weather than I prefer. I'd lost my shirt by mile 1 from being over sweaty. It didn't matter. Chris and I were running together and we both had a goal of breaking 3, him primarily helping me do so as he's done it many many times. I let him know I intended to drop him in the end, he smiled. A warm up mile in the first one, passing the 3 hour pacers by mile 2 and on the pace I wanted to keep for most miles 6:45 per mile by mile 4. At mile 6, there was a car almost driving onto the road. I yelled at them to stop and they tried to argue with me they needed to go that way. While keeping pace, I informed them with strong conviction the road was closed. A friend who didn't quite see what was happening told me to focus rather than be yelling at the street; I'd argue that in that particular moment, I was properly focused. We kept going through friends that I knew from Runlab, from a Track Fundraiser I helped with was holding a water stop further up. Every time there was a steep hill along the course, I did what I do, I surged up and then got back on pace. When I got to half way, I was on pace with a little under a minute to spare. I let that build no confidence because I'd been there before. Got into the lonely section where we've split up from the half marathoners where it was uphill into the wind (that's actually true grandpa) but I took the wind as nature cooling the sweat not holding me back. I remembered the jokes Stewart and I had shared there. Chris and I made new ones. We had to laugh at the fact that the one place I nearly, out of force of habit, I almost crossed the street to get to the sidewalk I was literally almost run over. Humor is still my coping mechanism so I thought of headline, "Man trying to break 3 hour marathon gets broken by car into 3 pieces during same marathon."

As we headed to the east side, there was Mariachi under a bridge right before a hill, I definitely surged up after hearing that. I passed by the Team Japan group around mile that was holding a waterstop that had invited me to speak to their runners and tried to remind myself what I'd said to them that no matter how it goes, I should appreciate the fact that for 26.2 miles they were shutting down roads just for me. About a mile later, Chris said well this is the longest I've ran since my marathon over 2 months ago. I don't know if that was the right thing to tell me or the wrong one but I'm like ok time to leave this guy and there was nothing dramatic, I just slowly started speeding up. This was shortly before mile 20. Never in my entire life have I gone unpassed after mile 20. Too many times, I've gotten passed too many times because I was falling apart. I decided then anyone who passed me was now who I was racing in. As I passed a friend I was hoping he'd be the one and said come on now you're getting passed by an old fat man. It didn't motivate him as I'd hoped. At mile 21, I thought oh man I'm feeling good I got this. All course, I would never once check my pace. I would simply look at the band that had the splits I should hit at each mile marker. Since mile 3, I'd been ahead of it and growing. By mile 22 the body was hurting but I still thought I'm fine; heck I can even slow down to a 7:30 pace with what I've got in the bank. I kept trying to smile internally and said this is the longest I've ever ran without music, I'm going to do a whole marathon without any music. At mile 23, I put on the music. At mile 24 I was like I think it's about an 8 minute pace I have to keep, am I doing the math right? I hadn't slowed down but I was thinking about it. At mile 25, wait if I have almost two minutes to spare it's a 9 minute pace I just have to hold right. There are 3 hills in the last mile. I heard someone say there was a special place in hell designed for whoever designed that. I pretty much agreed with them on each of them. The last hill is a hellish one itself and lots of people would tell me they were cheering me on. They said I didn't acknowledge one of them or react. One said they stuck their hand out to high five and I did. I have no memory of that.  I was singing in my head that I was very close to achieving this mission of nearly a decade of pursuing. Then well I could sign

I don’t ever want to run, I don’t want to start a fight

I just want to do my dance up until the morning light

I don’t want to fall sleep; I ain’t looking at the time

I’m addicted to the streets; baby steady on the grind

And I aint’ taking no more shit; I ain’t never going to start

I ain’t never going to quit till I make it to the top

Cause I’m a man on a mission 

You can’t stop me now

No one had passed me after mile 20. I got across the line without stopping my watch but knowing that when I was looking up the time started with a 2. That's all i needed. Literally danced at the finish line where the announcer said, if you can dance that well at the finish line then you didn't run fast enough. Those people who can't dance have to express their jealousy somehow I suppose ;). I had always said I wouldn't retire from the marathon until I broke 3 but excused myself on bad days that it was just an arbitrary number. But last September they lowered the Boston Qualifying time to under 3:00 (it's theoretically lower for me since I'm older but I've always said I'm never going unless I qualify under the strictest standard). It took me one try once they raised the bar. 

I'd stay there and watch Chris come in and also break 3. I'd watch Stewart hit his qualifying time. I'd hang there till my wife crossed the finish line and also qualify for Boston. It was her fastest marathon since we became a couple, though only her 2nd fastest ever. She was disappointed in that; her approach to life, that on a day she beats most of the field and qualifies for Boston she considers a bad day is impressive. Still we found some comfort in the fact we'd both come in 31st in our genders and 7th in our age groups. Talk about equally yoked. They had some bloody Mary's near there as it was getting colder. That's good for body temperature. 

But the good times didn't end there. There was a girl who I've written about here before, Kayleigh Williamson who was on her try to complete the Distance Challenge for the 3rd time. On her first try, I was the one who had to tell her that despite getting to the finish line by walking on the sidewalk she was ineligible because she didn't have a proper time. She said she would be back. If you google her name, there have been too many articles about people being impressed with her doing that because she has Down's syndrome. I've never once thought that was what made her victories sweeter. It was the will power. The fact that immediately after failing she'd come up and tell me that she'd be back next year. The fact that she and her mother had started a club to help others. I was at a couple of finish lines where she gave me some meaningful hugs and I apparently was more endeared it by than hers because when people saw the picture, her mom told me she pointed out to people that I wasn't her boyfriend. Man, the number of women who recognize and point out I'm out of their league should make me grateful that I'm married now. The Distance Challenge finishers get their jacket at the party a couple of weeks later. I was waiting with Kayleighs at the finish line. She was beaming and apparently at least my eyes got hot again because they started sweating as I handed it to her. 

I would write things about her on social media and I spoke about her during the award but I never once mentioned anything about her health. It is perhaps because I'm aware that people mentioning your achievements in light of a condition can be trying. Part of my past struggles with the Austin marathon is that the course passes along the place that fired me, it passes along the place I had my brain biopsy, where the brain cancer surgery started. It passes along places I've had medical appointments, ones I've given speeches about this process and a place I had a seizure in the middle of a 10 mile run. In many of the times I've ran it and on training runs, I mention that to people as we pass by it. The only two times I thought of my brain cancer in those 26.2 miles was when passing by some Livestrong people and some Camp Kesem people and the honest truth is that the only thought I had there was, aren't I lucky to be friends with some of these people? There may be times where my brain cancer becomes a lot more relevant again in many ways and there certainly will be again but for 26.2 miles, I got to just run this town at a 6:48 average pace to finish in 2:58.06. Mission accomplished.