CIM Marathon

I was hesitant about shelling out the money to pay for a marathon when I could just run one on my own. It was definitely worth it though. Running with thousands of other people gave me so much more energy, and having a date on the calendar gave me something to train for.

Ari and I trained for three months in Bishop, California, which gave us the added benefit of a bit of elevation training (4,000 ft). We did long runs on the Bishop Canals, endless flat dirt roads, that extend far further then I could ever run. We religiously followed Ari’s training plan, slowly building up to a 21 mile long run and 60 mile weeks.

Two days before the race we drove to Ari’s dad’s house in Folsom. I was getting nervous. Doubts swirled in my head. Was three hours too big of a goal for my first marathon? Would I go out too fast and blow up? Ari was going for a 3:10. Was it unwise for me to try to go so much faster despite following the exact same training plan?

The day before I followed the advice of carbo-loading 10 g of carbs for every 1 kg of weight. That meant eating over 700 grams of carbs. I felt sluggish and bloated. I wondered if this was a bad idea. Our friend Matt showed up the night before the race and joined us for the last few hundred grams of carbo loading. He was not feeling well from a late night bender the night before. We all went to bed early, nervous but excited for the day to come.

I woke up a few minutes before the 4:30am alarm, excited about the race I had been training for for months. Matt, Ari and I parked at the nearest bus stop and got on the bus. We left our phones and all of our belongings at her dad’s house in Folsom. I put a $20 bill in each shoe in case I needed to purchase anything along the course, or in the event I couldn’t find Matt, Ari or Ari’s Dad after the race.

Somehow out of all of the 10,000 participants in the race, my friend Zach (Fievel) was just in front of us in the line to get on the bus. The day was off to a great start! We hadn’t seen each other in months, so the four of us all caught up as we rolled through the Sacramento Suburbs in the darkness.

We arrived at the Folsom Dam, where the start line is around 6am, about an hour prior to the gun. We milled around, waited in line for the bathrooms and did some dynamic stretches. Despite the big crowd we managed to run into Clax, Jea and my mom who were all running the race. I hadn’t seen any of them in months either. We wished each other luck.

I had hoped to run with my friend Fievel, but he had been too busy with work to keep up with his training plan. Clax had a much faster goal, and Ari, Jea Fievel and Matt all had slower goals. I lined up without any of my friends alongside the 3:00 pace group. I planned to try to stick with them, and maybe even make a few friends! I downed a caffeine gu on the starting line, something I only allow myself a few times a year, and soon I could feel the energy pulsing through my veins.

The gun went off and me and six other friends, and 10,000 strangers all glided down the wide boulevard in the crisp morning air. Three months of training had all lead to this one moment. After a week of careful tapering and carboloading, I was finally able to not hold back. The drop in elevation combined with the taper, the carbo load, adrenaline and caffeine, made me feel super human. Something about seeing 10,000 other people get up early, train for months and run fast on a Sunday morning really makes you optimistic about humanity.

I quickly lost the 3:00 pace group in the sea of shoes and legs. I was not sure if they were in front of me or behind me, but I decided to continue on alone.

The first mile went by in the mid 6:30s and it felt almost effortless. Some of my easy runs were at a pace multiple minutes slower, and they all felt much harder then this. It felt like I had to lean backwards to slow down, like I couldn’t possibly run any slower without walking, but I forced myself to let off the throttle completely. I had been warned by so many of the dangers of going out too fast, especially in my first Marathon.

The miles sped by, I ate a gu at each aid station, every 6 miles or so. The first 18 miles felt almost effortless. After coming through the half in 1:27:30, I took the brakes off and started throwing down miles in the 6:20’s. I began passing a lot of runners. Up here, everyone else had a singlet and those $400 carbon plate shoes on, but I had my $10 thrifted shoes and my dress shirt on. Gotta look good to feel good. Gotta feel good to run good. Lots of people were cheering me on “look that guy has a dress shirt on” “look that guy must be late to work” I surfed off the crowds energy, and the crowd was getting bigger the closer I got to the capitol.

The first 18 miles felt almost effortless, but then my legs began to seize up. Pain shot through both legs. I became increasingly concerned, as I had never felt anything like this before. I took some cramping powder and it didn’t seem to help much. Just one more hour I told myself. You’ve walked across the whole conuntry, you can hang on for one more hour.

I through mile 20 and some local high school marching bands were playing Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “This is the wall everyone talks about I thought to myself”, they really weren’t kidding.

I slowed a bit as I climbed the Fair Oaks Bridge and looked down below at the American River. I could see the mid-rise building of downtown Sacramento on the horizon. The crowd swelled, I grimaced in pain, each subsequent mile was more painful then the last.

I walked for 10 seconds, but the searing pain in my legs felt just as bad. No point in that. I made a deal with myself hold steady at 3 hour pace for the rest of the race. I dug deep, back to all of those weeks of long runs in the Owens Valley, running through the cold darkness between the 14,000 foot peaks.

I was in the fabulous forties now, the big houses that the protagonist from Ladybird pretends she lives in, I was counting the blocks instead of the miles, one by one. The crowds swelled as I passed through midtown and then downtown. The cheering helped, but the pain was increasing at a quicker rate. Finally that merciful left turn and quickly another and I was running towards the capitol, towards the finish line, I crossed the line, pumped my fist and slowed to a trot.

I’ve had a life long goal of breaking three hours in the marathon, and I broke that goal by quite a bit with a time of 2:53:41.

I was ecstatic, but also completely drained. I suddenly went from running 6:40 min/mile pace to barely being able to walk and shivering. I found my family at the finish line, and soon my friends all made it in as well!

Clax had broken 2:50, Ari had broken her 3:10 goal by a few minutes, followed closely by Matt who had chugged multiple beers during the race and Zach who despite almost no training still ran under 3:15. A bit later, we all cheered as Jea crossed the finish line.

I didn’t run again for weeks. Spent far too much time laying in bed. Even walking up and down the stairs was painful. Jea pointed out that this was a free trial of extreme age. But it was all worth it, that feeling of floating those first 18 miles at 6:36 pace, the pure joy of running to the capitol with 10,000 strangers I will never forget.