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| Joe Verdone offered cooling relief with his garden hose for runners, including Thomas Schnitzer of Cambridge, as they tackled Heartbreak Hill. John Blanding/Globe Staff www.bostonglobe.com |
My overwhelming question to my wife on Wednesday morning, 48 hours after completing the 2012 Boston Marathon, was this: how do I take all that fitness and hard work the last three months and completely change the game plan, turn off the adrenaline and denial that got me through the hard work of training and almost here to the start line, and come up with some other goal like run easy, or just finish, or break 2:50 or break 2:59? I said, simply, I don’t know how to do that.
I hate the marathon. Hate, hate, hate, hate the marathon. No one ever believes me, but it really is true.
Why do it? The best answer I can muster is because my father ran the
marathon. I do many things based on such
strange rationales and such choices make me who I am.
In the months leading up to April
16, 2012 I set eight personal running bests (PR’s) in a row. It has been the most blessed and favored
season in a 30 year career of competitive running. I’ve enjoyed virtually every moment of it,
including the camaraderie of the team, the gut wrenching races, the training,
the discipline of diet and sleep. My
professional endeavors as a pastor, member of the running, fitness, and
nutrition community have all taken a positive turn. My family of five is thriving as never before. In the words of my people, God is Good, All the Time, and All The
Time, God is Good
But I knew God being good would at
some point look like an end to a streak of PR’s. And yet, even with a predicted race day
temperature of 87 degrees Fahrenheit between Hopkinton and Boston,
Massachusetts, I was unable to come to grips with God’s word that the end of
this little streak would come on April 16, 2012. Oh, the arrogance. I still figured, and conservatively, I
thought, well, I’ll still break my soft
PR of 2:50 in the marathon. I’m so much
more fit than 10 months ago. Then
why not set up for that? I could have
gone out for the first half in 1:25, and still I went out in 1:22:30. IDIOT.
I tried to enjoy every moment of
this historic event, but I was HOT. I
was hotter than I have ever been in all my life and the work, the put your head
down and work that ought to begin at mile 15 or 18 or 21, began before the 5K
mark. Hydration belt and all, I put ice,
water, Gatorade, Fluid, CarbBoom,
oranges, icy pops, freezing cold towels, sponges, and salt tablets into and
onto my body for 26 miles. I stopped
around mile 17 for five minutes to go to the bathroom. I’m usually pretty good to go in the GI and
bladder department and yet, Monday gave the sense that intestinal and/or renal
failure were lurking around the next bend and thousands of people may see me
lose control and even though this most loving of loving crowds will probably
cheer for me even in a pool of my own filth, I don’t really want to ask them to
cheer for such a god-awful spectacle.
I lingered in fire hydrants and
under hoses.
I took off my hydration belt and
told a man to put it to good use.
I stopped, took off my shoes and
socks, and ran in the last seven miles in only my shoes. Why? Delirium,
I guess. The sense that if I changed
something, maybe my life would improve.
At mile 25, and at a standstill, my
left quad fluttered around as I looked down and thought, that’s not good. After I ran
backwards, sideways, stretched, and finally stopped for a good long while to
stretch and a beloved fan yelled from across a divided highway, Hey, 1142, you can fix your fuckin’ knee
later, now run. The crowd cheered in
what to me sounded like a standing ovation and I did, try, to run. If given the opportunity I would kiss that
Masshole as he helped me move to completion more than all the rest. There’s nothing like a well-placed and
well-timed cuss word, especially when offered with love.
I wanted to drop out of this race
like no other race. And I have dropped before and I believe there are
good reasons to drop. 2005 at
Chicago. My second baby was three months
old and I was so tired, oh, so tired. I
dropped at mile 19 in what was then the best shape of my life and lived to
fight another day.
But Monday, as I looked ahead at the
Boston skyline, I thought of several things.
First, I don’t know how to get on the “T” and wandering around off the course and away from the safety of
this sea of spectators, runners, and medical personnel seems somehow like a bad
idea. Second, I bet you, I just bet you,
the fastest way to my hotel room and a shower and air-conditioning is to keep
moving of my own volition to the finish line on Boylston Street.
Third, I’m not a medal guy. I don’t run for the medal. It’s just not my thing. But I do have one of them that I have kept
over the years that I am looking at right now between my hands and arms in my
Durham office. It reads, 21st
Annual / Kiawah Island Marathon / pretty pelican picture / 1998. Fourteen years ago I thought I would cruise
through my first marathon to a Boston qualifier. Oh, the arrogance. In the spirit of my father’s running, I did
have imposed upon myself the old-school barrier that I would have to break
three hours to run Boston, but no worries, I wasn’t even close that first
time. Thirty-six minutes shy. I didn’t break three hours in the marathon
until June, 2011. So this fourteen year
project did need completing on April 16, 2012.
I did not and I do not want to have to go back to Boston. I might go back someday, but I might
not. For now, it is finished.
My suspicion is that people will
respond to my race in a complimentary style.
You did a great job gutting it
out. 3:06 is a time you should really be
proud of… and such. And everyone is
entitled to their own feelings, feedback, just as I was given free reign with
my reflections. But, and I’m really
being honest, which is what I hope we always seek, I am extremely disappointed. I can go out right now and rock a 3:06 in the
middle of the night. Seriously, I
can. This was for me, while I had to
finish as I have laid out above, an epic failure. I was not disciplined, not enough to either
defer or run faster. I was not very
tough out there. Read about hero’s like Patrick Reaves, look at the pictures,
you’ll know a really tough guy. I was
distracted by my bowels, and the heat, by my own weakness and internal safety
mechanisms like keeping myself alive or at least moderately comfortable. I wish I’d either had the courage to defer to
next year or simply f*%#in’ run harder as my mile 25 friend said. But I didn’t.
And all of that, while it may seem
overwhelmingly harsh, is okay. I’ve
learned a lot. Disappointment and
suffering is where most of the good
stuff in this life happens or at least where the good stuff is cultivated, at
least that’s been my experience. Joy
comes in the morning, but we have to work and suffer to get to the morning.
I will run again, probably pretty
soon. I really do love to run. That’s all this was ever about anyway.
