2015 Freedom’s Run Marathon

It was around mile 22 that I started wondering what had gone wrong. That’s pretty standard. Mile 22 is a deep, dark hole in every marathon. I had just passed a guy who had missed the mile 21 marker, and was despairing of ever seeing it. “We passed it about a half mile ago,” I said. “You’re not just messing with me, are ya?” I assured him I wasn’t. The mind plays funny tricks on you. Under no circumstances would a marathon runner ever kid around about distance with another marathon runner during mile 22, but the marathon runner’s mind at mile 22 is a funny, suspicious thing, and tends not to trust others, even other marathoners at mile 22. My nickname for that guy was Struggle.

I hadn’t really made any mistakes. Nothing had gone spectacularly wrong. I decided, there in mile 22, that there was nothing I would have done differently in the week leading up to the Freedom’s Run Marathon. In the 18 weeks leading up to it, I’m sure I could have done things differently (first change: don’t get mono), but that last week, everything was as solid as it could be. I had good, full meals on Thursday and Friday, without overloading. My legs felt relaxed and stronger than they had in a while. I got a fairly decent sleep two nights before, with a slightly restless sleep the night before (this is normal and expected). Even the weather cooperated – clear and breezy, and it was cool enough that there was no energy suckage when I was running in direct sunlight.

The closest I came to a race-ruining mistake was when I went to bed the night before. I needed to get up at 4:00 to get myself prepared and to the starting line by 7:30, so I went to bed a little after 8 PM. As I lay in bed thinking that this would be my first marathon where I’d spent the night before in my own bed, I realized I’d forgotten to set my alarm. So I took care of that, and all was well. Crisis averted.

After my standard race morning breakfast from Dunkin Donuts, I got my running gear on, and generously applied calamine lotion to the nasty patches of poison ivy on my legs. Fortunately, the poison ivy was not a factor in the marathon. It looked spectacularly gross by the end though. All dressed and gathered up, I drove to the finish, took the shuttle bus to the start, took care of bathroom needs, and was ready to go.

Freedom’s Run, instead of kicking off with the Star Spangled Banner, started with a woman singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, while we hummed along. It was a great moment, if for no other reason than the novelty. It’s nice to see the Union getting some love once in a while. The RD also made a point of telling us that we’d be running by John Brown’s Fort in Harper’s Ferry. The “starting line” was duct tape stretched across the parking lot – I realized when I saw this that everyone would be running gun time, and not chip time. This wasn’t a huge deal, since there were only 390 people at the starting line (341 finished within the cutoff). So I officially crossed the starting line only about 10 seconds after the start.

Elevation chart

The first few miles were uneventful. A little up, a little down, a little stiffness in my legs to work out. Mile 5 was steady downhill, even a little steep in parts. I ran the first few miles a little ahead of my goal pace (which was 10:53 per mile), but I wasn’t overdoing it. It was just easy to go a little faster on the downhill. I stayed with the Lady in Green (the 2010 Baltimore Marathon shirt, if you’re taking notes) for the first two miles before I decided I needed to slow down a bit, and lost her.

Mile 1: 10:17
Mile 2: 10:15
Mile 3: 10:26
Mile 4: 10:47
Mile 5: 11:30

At the pedestrian bridge to cross over the Potomac, there’s a spiral staircase going down on the Maryland side. Not really runnable, and it basically made me look stationary as far as GPS was concerned, but a nice touch. From that point, for the next 10 miles, the course was flat and easy over the C&O Canal Towpath. I encountered Fun Guy (as he passed people, including me, he’d ask how they were doing). I managed to keep up with Fun Guy for a mile or so, staying about 40 yards behind him, and then I pulled ahead at the aid station at mile 11-ish.

This section was great – easy soft ground, and very flat. The JFK 50 Miler (which is on my bucket list) gets on the towpath at about the same point Freedom’s Run does, but it goes for 27 miles before getting off. Some people who have run the JFK 50 call that section mind-numbing, but I think I’d like it. What can I say? I like flat terrain.

Funny thing, though. I’d been on the towpath for about 7 miles when I noticed my legs were getting pretty tired. Now, if your legs are getting tired 12 miles into a marathon, you are screwed. I knew it, my legs knew it, but there wasn’t a lot I could do except push through. I decided I just needed to make it to the aid station at mile 15 (the end of the towpath section), and then evaluate whether I should stop and walk for a bit.

Mile 6: 10:38
Mile 7: 10:44
Mile 8: 10:48
Mile 9: 11:12
Mile 10: 11:10
Mile 11: 11:09
Mile 12: 12:04
Mile 13: 11:40
Mile 14: 11:29
Mile 15: 13:40

I made it to the aid station almost at the end of mile 15, and stopped while I drank a Gatorade. One of the volunteers gave me a funny look, and said, “Are you ok?” The natural answer to that, after a shaky 15 miles, and nervous about being able to run the next 11 miles, was to give a confused smile and say, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I thought maybe I’d had some pained expression on my face, or I was making too many old man grunts. I only noticed later that the main patch of poison ivy on my right shin was oozing nastily, making it look like I had some sort of plague. It really never bothered me, but she must have thought I’d been bitten by a zombie.

Coming off the towpath, we encountered the first of the major hills. Actually, it was the worst of the major hills. I usually feel terrible about having to walk in a race, especially so early in this case, but nobody ran up this hill. It was brutal. And it lasted almost all of mile 16. I did not regret walking for that part.

This is when I noticed that the mile markers were about a half mile ahead of my watch. In other words, when we hit the mile 16 marker, my watch (and the watches of the other runners around me) read 15.5 miles. This is annoying. It’s not that I care about the total distance. Whether I end up running 25.7, 26.2, or 26.7 miles at the end, it’s still an accomplishment. But not knowing whether you have 2 miles or 1.5 miles to the next aid station, or to the finish line, is a huge mental problem. I don’t know where we lost that half mile, but it happened to everyone consistently, so it can’t be blamed on the usual quirks of GPS gear.

Anyway, for the next few miles after the big hill, everyone I was running near would walk the uphills, and run the downhills and flats. Here, I encountered Fortnight (he’ll be running the Marine Corps Marathon, which is 2 weeks after Freedom’s Run), Sullen (who turned out to be in a good mood, but had his head tucked way down when I first ran up to him), and Dark Blue (who was wearing earphones).

Dark Blue and I held steady with Family (a woman whose husband and two kids came out to pace her on their bikes for a mile or so) through the Antietam Battlefield. I’ve run a couple 5ks through the battlefield, and thought I knew what to expect with the rolling hills, but they were way bigger this time. I don’t know how they managed to make the hills so much bigger for this race. A feat of modern engineering, I tell ya.

Looking back on the brutal hills of mile 19

Family’s husband told her and those within earshot (which was just me, because Dark Blue was wearing headphones) that there was a guy playing bagpipes at the top of the hill at the mile 19 marker. I love bagpipes, so that was something to look forward to. And when I heard them, it got me all misty eyed like bagpipes do, but multiplied by 19 miles. Getting misty eyed in a marathon is a pretty normal thing for me, but it usually doesn’t happen until near the end. So here I was running uphill to get to the guy playing his bagpipes for me. I decided that he’d come out here just to play bagpipes and watch people run, so it wouldn’t do any good to be walking when I first got to him. Fortunately, the bagpipes gave me the boost I needed to get up that hill, and carried me for a solid 400 feet after that. I even finally passed Dark Blue, who hopefully turned off the music in his headphones so he could hear the bagpipes. I decided that I needed bagpipes lining the route for the next 7 miles for the effect to really make any difference. Also, I would need lots of drums. Unfortunately, it was just the one guy.

Note the authentic 19th century chain link fence

Mile 16: 14:09
Mile 17: 13:39
Mile 18: 13:24
Mile 19: 14:00
Mile 20: 16:08
Mile 21: 15:21

It was here that Fun Guy, who I’d passed during mile 12, finally caught up to me and passed me, and Dark Blue and his headphones pulled ahead as well. I knew I was having a Bad Day. This was where I started to try to figure out what had gone wrong. And it was also when I caught up to Struggle. The half mile discrepancy between our GPS watches and the mile markers had gotten into his head. Assuring him that we were, in fact, in mile 22 helped me out a bit. Offering encouragement to others is a good way to encourage yourself.

And it worked. After walking most of mile 20, I was able to start picking up my downhills and flats again. Running uphill was not in the cards at first, since every time I tried, my calf (I forget which one) started to cramp up. But during mile 22, even running uphill became a possibility. I had crashed, and crashed hard, but I was running again, albeit slowly.

I knew that the last big hill ended right at the mile 23 marker (the course marker, not GPS), because I’d driven by it the night before on my way to pick up my race packet. Even though it was kind of steep, knowing it was the last one helped me run it. I passed Dark Blue and his headphones again, and caught up to Fun Guy, who was walking, so I stopped and walked with him. “We meet again,” he said. We ran together for a little bit, but he started to pull ahead again, and I never caught up. A woman who I had not seen the entire race, and had no energy to nickname, passed me and then Fun Guy a hundred feet in front of me.

As I came down the last hill and got to the last photographer, I tried to make myself look good for the camera. No matter how deep you have dug, no matter how dark your soul, no matter how destroyed your legs, you always brighten up for the race photographers. That is the rule. Coming into the final turns, I heard someone gaining on me. Fun Guy was too far ahead to catch up to, so my mission was just to not let this guy behind me pass me. On one of the turns, I managed to look back and saw who it was: Struggle. How about that.

Mile 22: 12:09
Mile 23: 12:56
Mile 24: 13:36
Mile 25: 14:14
0.78: 10:35

Official time: 5:16:34

I crossed the finish line at 25.75 by my watch, about 3 seconds ahead of Struggle. I finished 1 minute faster than my slowest time ever, but because the course finished a half mile early, I’m calling this my worst marathon performance ever. That said, I think the course earned it. The hills were like nothing I’ve run on, except for maybe the Harper’s Ferry Half Marathon, which also kicked my ass, and was my worst half marathon performance ever.

But the nagging question was: why were my legs already tired by mile 12, before I’d even hit the first of the hills? The first 14-15 miles of this course were downhill or flat, so I shouldn’t have been feeling so tired at mile 12. But remember how I said the towpath was “easy, soft ground and very flat”? Soft is the key word there. It had rained the night before, and even though the towpath wasn’t muddy, it had a little give. This meant each step took a little extra energy, and running on that for 10 miles just took its toll. 100% of my runs are on road or sidewalk, so I wasn’t used to a soft path. Anyway, that’s my theory.

So, what’s next? I have the Richmond Marathon in 5 weeks. The last time I ran the Richmond Marathon, I’d had a very disappointing marathon 5 weeks beforehand, and ended up running a personal best, so let’s hope that happens again. But in the meantime, I think I’m going to work soft dirt paths and hills into my training.