LA Marathon

I ran the Honda LA Marathon presented by K-Swiss today. It was, beyond a sliver of doubt, the most difficult thing I have ever done, mentally and physically. Several runners collapsed during the race and had to be tended by ambulances. There is rumor of one death. For me, for everyone, marathons are serious.

After the marathon team banquet last night, I came home to get some shuteye before my 2:40 am alarm. By nine o'clock I was in bed; by eleven, I was finally asleep after four trips to the bathroom to relieve my bladder, overfilled by all the liquids I drank during the day, hoping to flush my system of a slight cold I picked up on the Oregon road trip. (Mine was a slight cold; Emma's was a full-fledged terminal illness. She had no voice yesterday, and we were really worried about the marathon and all. But more on that later.)

I woke up several times throughout the night. Consciously, I wasn't particularly nervous about the marathon, but I couldn't sleep. My pre-marathon impression of the race was...optimistic. I've been training with the USC Marathon team since October, and with them I completed a 22-mile run three weeks ago. It was hard. Very hard. But in my naivety, I assumed this was because we had limited resources. You can only carry so much food and drink on a run like that, and you need a lot in order to replenish your body. At the marathon, however, people are handing you drinks left and right, passing out oranges and snacks and all kinds of goodness. Accordingly, I assumed the marathon would be easier than the 22-miler. Have I ever made a bigger mistake? The marathon was orders of magnitude harder. Anyway, my body must have known otherwise because I hardly slept at all, climbing groggily out of bed at 2:40 to silence my alarm and make my way down to the carpool, which met at Denny's at 3:30 to take those of us USC runners on the 4:30 shuttle from Santa Monica, to Santa Monica, in time. (Since this marathon was a point-to-point race (I think that's what it's called) rather than a loop race, you need to park your car at the end and find a ride to the beginning. So we met at Denny's and drove to Santa Monica, parking and taking marathon shuttles back to the starting line. Mine left at 4:30. Hence the 2:40 wakeup.)

The car ride was fun. We were in high spirits, eager to run, feeding on the excitement of the event. In the shuttle, we mused on the fact that it required a 35-minute drive on the freeway to transport us to our starting location. It was ominous. We arrived at Dodger Stadium around 5 and got out to have a look around. They were letting runners onto the outfield, so my carful of runners went out there for awhile, talking and watching the promotional videos for the marathon broadcast on the big screen above us. They had all kinds of people promoting the event: Pete Carroll, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Elaine from Seinfeld, and Chef Gordon Ramsey, to name a few. They all named their favorite mile in the marathon and explained why. We were slightly skeptical, doubting that Chef Ramsey had ever really run a marathon. They then showed a sped-up view of the route we would be running, and it was terrifyingly long. So we decided to find a bathroom instead of watching the depressing video any more.

This is where the story gets interesting. And this is going to be a long story. Therefore, the ratio of interesting material to the dull pontification already expelled will be quite favorable. The first bathroom we found was crowded with people. There was a line, and it didn't look like a nice bathroom anyway, so we decided to wander through the stadium and see if we could find a better one. The further we walked away from the marathon corral, the less people were in line for the bathroom. Eventually we found one with no line at all. But at this point we were getting a little greedy, and from outside I had seen a bathroom sign on the second level which I insisted nobody would be using, so we found an escalator and decided to try our luck on the upper deck.

As soon as we got upstairs, it was apparent we were in a more private area. But I figured they could throw us out if they wanted, we were going to have a look around, and if possible, find a bathroom. We first decided to steer clear of the stadium suites on this level, preferring instead to search in the concrete hallway, but there were no bathrooms in the concrete hallway. We got to the end of the concrete hallway and were disappointed. No bathrooms. So we asked an official-looking person if there was a bathroom we could use, and he directed us into the stadium suites to a one-person bathroom, complete with toilet and urinal. I think it is fair to say that this adventure was a success. But wait, there's more. After we all used the bathroom, we were compelled to give the stadium suites a more thorough examination. We didn't make it very far down the hall before being confronted by a tall, athletic man in a white sweatshirt. He asked us if we knew where we were going. We stammered and stuttered and made the answer to that simple question empirically obvious. My spirits fell and I waited for him to direct us towards the exit with a kind word and a swift kick from his 200-dollar running shoes. But the most amazing thing happened! He told us we could hang out on the couches! And he was the president of the LA Marathon, Russ Pillar! The guy who's been sending me emails for the last three months telling me to get ready for the marathon! So, needless to say, we sat and basked in the glow of his reflected glory as he walked around preparing things for the marathon and ignoring us. Before too long, a familiar face was walking down the hall. It was Chef Ramsey! And he was in running clothes, causing us to immediately retract our skepticism at his marathon track record, so to speak. He and the president of the marathon took some pictures together, then Chef Ramsey said good morning to us. I know! It was awesome! We were sitting in some chairs in the hallway outside of the suites of these important people, it was still glaringly obvious that we didn't belong there, and yet we were allowed to stay, and it was awesome. I told Emma she should come up there, and apparently she led a group of about twenty USC runners to the escalator, where security guards had been installed. So they couldn't come hang out with us important people. I also met a guy up there who raced in a wheelchair. He was probably in his mid-forties. I told him it was my first marathon and he said I would either love it or hate it. I asked him how many marathons he had...done. He replied, "This will be my forty-fifth." My jaw literally dropped. It was similar to the time Emma found out an undergrad-looking girl on the marathon team was thirty years old. I was blown away.

We finally had to leave our isolated palace above Dodger Stadium and descend into the ranks of the lesser people. We found the rest of our team and spent the minutes up to the start of the marathon putting our belongings in bag check and waiting in a horrendous line for the porter-potties. (You have to pee a lot when you're a runner.) As we waited, we watched with disdain as runners, exasperated with the wait at the porter-potties, instead climbed the bushy hill behind the toilets to do their business. At first it was only a few people who partook, but by the time we were near the front of the line, there were tons of people climbing up there, both men and women, number one and number two. They had fashioned a real society up there, holding up blankets for each other while they did the deed, though some runners chose to bare all in front of the hundreds of people waiting patiently below. Eventually, the lines in front of the porter-potties had to be condensed, since the wheelchair people were about to start the race and the lines extended into the track. And this condensation proved to be our downfall. As people moved forward, they spread out and filled the gaps between the lines, so instead of orderly lines there was a mob of people yammering to use the bathroom. It was about this time that I saw the true genius behind the society on the hill, and I joined them with much haste.

And then it was time for the race to start. Emma, Laura and I weaved our way through the starting corral, but we still didn't get very close to the starting line, so when the marathon began, it took us a good seven minutes to cross the starting line. Luckily, with the technologically-advanced tag in our bib, our times did not actually start until we crossed the starting line, so we didn't suffer any loss of time. And we were off....We circled around Dodger Stadium, descended into downtown LA, ran past Chinatown, past the Disney Concert Hall, then pointed our shoes westward toward Santa Monica...and kept running.

As I ran, I realized the marathon would be difficult. Because it was continuous. It sounds silly, but I had conceived of the race in brief snippets. There's the first part, then, you know, a middle part, and then there's the end part. What I didn't realize is that there are tons of parts in between all these parts. Mile 5 is EXACTLY as long as mile 23, and you have to run every step of both of them, and every step of every other mile in the whole damn race. Even so, I felt pretty good at the beginning of the race. I was making good time; even now, I am amazed at how well my body has adapted to running. I will be the first to admit that I do not have a runner's body, but this doesn't mean I can't be a good runner. While training for the marathon, I ran 575 miles and lost about ten pounds (from 205 to 195). I was, I am, a good runner. The first thirteen miles of the race proved this. I would never have been able to start this race, much less finish it, if I had not joined the marathon team and trained with the other members of the team. I reaped the rewards of this training in the first half of the race.

The race was crowded, the whole way. There was never a time when I was running with nobody nearby. I suppose this makes sense: there were 26,000 runners, and even more spectators. It was very helpful to hear strangers cheer for me, expounding USC and its greatness, telling me to Fight On. There were a looooooot of people out and about today. I even saw some people I knew in the crowd! Professor Habinek, Eddie, Stephen Gordon. I'm glad I was a part of the event.

Which brings us to the second half of the race. It's a funny thing, mental strength, mental toughness. As I reached the 14-mile mark or so, I began my old tricks to keep myself running. I tried to think of other things than the pain growing in my legs, singing songs to myself, looking around at the other runners. Around mile 16 I decided to hold onto a paper cup and take a bite out of it whenever things got a little too tough, forcing myself to transplant the pain, giving it a physical release. The cup got about ten bites before it was tossed aside. And I just kept running.

I stopped for the first time around Mile 19. I had told myself back at mile 10 I would take a bathroom break, which was really just a subversive ploy to rest my legs a bit. I realized this, and so I didn't stop at mile 10, or at mile 15. I became hellbent on finishing the race without stopping. At mile 19, I broke this resolve. I ran into the bathroom and relieved myself quickly, so as to maintain the illusion that the stop was a necessary nuisance, that I would have rather kept running nonstop. But that's not the truth. I stopped because I was tired. I could have held my stomach together until the end of the race. I stopped because I couldn't do it anymore. And so I emerged from the bathroom with a false resolve not to stop again.

I began to walk on the route around mile 20. My legs....I don't have to explain the pain. Everyone knows about pain. The truth is that the battle was not physical, but mental, and around mile 20 I faltered, mentally, and so I walked. Emma caught up with me after a little bit. I tried to run with her, but ended up walking again after less than a quarter mile. She looked strong. She ran extremely well today, despite her cold. She ended up beating me by a few minutes.

Miles 21-23 were a hellish combination of running and walking. I had hit the wall. And not the wall that you think is the wall but actually is a barrier of pillows and marshmallows. No, this was the wall. Of brick. And mortar. And children's tears. People told me to Fight On, and I just looked at them. What else could I do? During this section I had goals for myself, nonetheless. I would tell myself that if I ran to the top of the next hill, I could walk for a little while. Or once I passed the mile marker, I could walk again, as much as I needed. My breathing came in shallow gasps. I consumed oranges and water and Gatorade, none of it made a difference. I was in pain, and worse, I was mentally broken. At each milepost, I would see the precious time ticking away. The worst part was that I had run a very good race until this point. My goal of four hours was still attainable. But brutally so. I would never make it. I tried to convince myself that I didn't care about the time.

In the middle of mile 23, a fellow Trojan caught up with me and encouraged me. I had never really spoken to her before. Our team trains together, but we don't really know each other. She told me to lengthen my stride, that it would lessen the pain and allow me to run better. I followed her advice, and it worked. It may have been adrenaline, or placebo effect, but my legs felt better, and I ran fast. I wanted to finish under four hours.

This is where I suffered a revelation about mental strength. You cannot distract yourself from the pain forever. Eventually you must accept it. You must realize that it hurts, hurts terribly, and run anyway. In this respect, I don't think my marathon experience was unique. I believe everyone arrives at this juncture. Marathons are hard. And that's exactly why people do it.

I ran fast for the last two and a half miles. It was exhilarating, and terrifying. My mind was on the verge of panic. I could easily have cried. But as I ran, I counted. I started at 60, and counted down, slowly. If I lost count, I would start again at 60. When I got closer to the finish, I started counting from 20. The finish was still far away when I reached zero, so I started over. These are the moments of which I am proud, because despite the weakness in my body, my mind was strong, and I ran, I compelled myself to run towards the orange banner in the distance. When this banner turned out to be the 26-mile marker instead of the finish line, meaning I still had two tenths of a mile to go, I could have collapsed with disappointment (and nearly did). But I regained my composure and finished strong.

HERE'S MY STATS!
10K 00:53:13 Pace 8:33 Predicted Finish: 3:44:32
20K 01:45:01 Pace 8:27 Predicted Finish: 3:41:33
30K 02:42:14 Pace 8:42 Predicted Finish: 3:48:11
40K 03:45:32 Pace 9:04 Predicted Finish: 3:57:54
Finish 03:55:27 Pace 8:58

(A marathon is over 40K. Isn't that crazy?)

I crossed the finish line and immediately had to sit down. My friend Scott was there, and he helped me walk over to the side of the finishing area and sit down. I was extremely dizzy. I tried to stand up multiple times, but found myself leaning on my knees for support, overwhelmed by dizziness. Walking was out of the question. Eventually I was brought to the attention of the medical staff at the end of the route and they came over to have a look. I suspect I was suffering the effects of runner's high, and to an extreme degree, because I was as cheerful as a bluebird. Maybe I was delirious, but I'm not sure I've ever been as socially adept as I was after the marathon today. I told them I wasn't dying, I was just dizzy because I had just run a marathon. I insisted they bring with us the snacks I had procured at the finish line. I was hoisted to my feet, and my arms were each slung over a beautiful volunteer lady. They took me over to get my medal, and I chatted with them about why anyone would ever run a marathon when it was so much easier to just jump off a building. They took me inside and deposited me into someone else's capable arms, which aided my descent onto a cot. I lay there and bantered with the workers for awhile. One of them asked if these mango things I was eating were any good. I told him I had just run a marathon and they didn't taste like heaven, so that should tell him something. They asked me to sit up. I was tickled pink because my sweat had seeped into the cot and imprinted the "Fight On" on the back of my t-shirt onto the cot. I pointed this out to anyone who would listen. They asked if I could stand and I replied, "We won't know until we try," and promptly failed to stand up.

I was in a very pitiful physical state. I am confident I have never felt as weak, as vulnerable, as close to death, as I did after I finished the marathon. It was very, very scary. I didn't realize how badly I hurt until I finished. My breath came in gasps, so when I talked it was with stomach clenched, the words forced and rigid. But that didn't stop me from back-talking. When I finally stood, they wanted me to walk. Naturally. After I had just stood so well, couldn't we be happy with that? They led me to an adjoining room where people in similar death-defying states of physical existence were slowly walking a circle around the room. I loudly complained that doing laps was about the last thing which would help me feel better after running 26.2 miles. But walk laps I did, my arm wrapped firmly around the shoulders of my chauffeur. Eventually I declared I could walk on my own, so she left me and I promptly sat down and wallowed in my pain. The others in there were friendly. I think we had a bond forged of mutual suffering. I also realized that if any one of them were to attack me at that moment, I had utterly no defense, so it was to my best advantage to get on their good sides. And so we talked and shuffled around the room, and when we couldn't shuffle anymore we sat until the medical people told us to shuffle some more. In this way I passed a good half hour in that room. I was incredibly dizzy. One of the medical people poked his head in and said, "You? You're still here?" with a mischievous smile on his face. I told him to go away, I was about to set a lap record on our makeshift racetrack.

Sadly, I had to leave that happy place eventually. It took me awhile, but I finally felt confident enough to venture out into the real world. I think everyone was sad to see me go. Fortunately, on account of my impaired condition, it took me so long to go that they were all, in turns, able to express their well wishes before I had even shuffled off their doorstep.

After leaving, life became a bit more grim. Now that I was rid of my staff of fun medical folk, nobody cared about my pain except for me. I couldn't even walk. I could not walk. I teetered back and forth on stiff legs because I could not bear to bend them. I would shuffle a few steps, then stop, resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath and allow the pain in my legs to subside before continuing another few steps. Now, eight hours after finishing, I walk like House. Another runner was laughing at me and asked me how I was doing. "So bad," I replied, with conviction. He agreed.

By the time I had found the rest of the USC Marathon team, I was entrenched firmly in the depths of self-pity. I found Emma and hugged her and told her what a great job she did. She asked me how it was. "Bad," I said, and tears threatened to fall. It was bad.

I got my bag from the bag check and sat down with the rest of the team. My friend David came down to see us after the race, but I was so pitiful, so overwhelmed that I could hardly talk to him. I had begun to break again, mentally, after realizing how difficult was the simple task of walking. I knew if I spoke it would be to point out to all of them the degree of pain I had suffered, the pain I still felt, because this consumed my thoughts. And so I was silent.

Finally, we made our way home. There was a terrible traffic jam, so it took us an hour and a half to cover a half-hour's distance. I slept a little bit. I was quiet. I was thinking about what I would write in my blog, how I would recover from the marathon, mentally more than physically.

I do not, as I have already stated, think that my experience of the difficulty of the marathon was unique. I don't think my pain was any worse than anyone else's pain, or that my accomplishment is any greater. On the contrary, I feel beaten. The marathon beat me, as soundly as I have ever been beaten. I failed mentally, several times, before I failed physically. I feel as though today was a series of crushing defeats followed by a small victory. I have not gained a greater respect for my own strength as a person, but rather a more accurate appraisal of the depths of my weakness. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I worked harder than I have ever worked. I did it, and for that I am happy. But the marathon beat me.