I had lofty goals in my most recent marathon: I wanted to run a 2:30 marathon because I felt like I was in shape, and my training up until this point indicated I could.
I was able to balance long-distance running with being a special education teacher and going to law school at night at the start of the year, and then graduating from law school, taking the bar exam, passing the bar exam, and starting a career as a big law litigation attorney. Thus, so much of my life has been going very well professionally, but I wanted to chase the always elusive goal I’ve had since I started running 16 years ago: running faster and crushing my limits and barriers.
I had done plenty of workouts simulating 5:40–5:45 mile pace, which was my goal marathon pace. I had been running 80 miles a week for almost half a year to establish an aerobic base and had run a 2:37 marathon seven weeks before. I had other built-up races that indicated this fitness. The previous year, I ran a 2:35 marathon on averaging 60 miles a week through the summer. Although that seems like a short turnaround to most people, my friends and I were used to it. I also had a strong season of strong race performances in tough conditions, like high heat and humidity.
However, the race did not go as I wanted it to. I felt very fresh going into the race. I decided to do the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, Alabama. It was December 14, but it was in Alabama, a southern state in the United States known for hot and humid summers and mild winters. I expected it to be perfect marathon conditions, which is around 40–45 degrees Fahrenheit, and I heard from a friend who did it that the course is relatively flat compared to a New York or Boston.
The actual day was not like that. It was 25 degrees Fahrenheit and very windy. The “feels like” temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit. I was worried about the weather, but not that worried. I am a much stronger runner in the cold and wind than I am in the heat and humidity, so I was confident that I could still hit my goal paces.
But nothing could have actually prepared me for racing in that much cold, as confident as I was about my ability to excel going in. Once I actually got on the line, I thought I was going to freeze to death. I wore gloves and a long sleeved shirt under my singlet. Unlike most of the people around me, I was wearing shorts that exposed my legs instead of running tights or sweatpants.
I had a previous marathon in the 2022 Philadelphia Marathon that was similarly very windy and around 30 degrees. But this day felt far worse, and I immediately regretted not wearing running tights. The wind was also a huge factor — it was blowing with gusts of about 15 miles per hour from north to south.
Unlike the Philadelphia Marathon, which has an out and back the whole second half of the marathon, this marathon was a winding course with a lot of turns. I could feel no wind for half a mile, then feel like I was running straight into a wind tunnel the next. Thus, this was a race where it was much harder than usual to build a rhythm and momentum, like many runners like to do in more even split races.
Still, this was it. This was my big race of this training cycle.
I showed up at the line, and the gun went off. I felt like in my fitness, I would have had a shot at winning, or at least keeping up with the winners and finishing somewhere in the top five. When it started, a bunch of runners went ahead of me and I settled in behind the three leaders. I did not pay that much attention to my watch at first — I was so cold and the wind was somewhat unbearable, so I was happy to tuck in. The faster I went early on, the warmer my body got.
Within a half mile, it felt like a normal run, and my body heat had caught up pretty quickly. I looked at the watch and saw that we were running a pace somewhere around a 5:25 or 5:30 mile — too fast. Another runner and I, who were trying to run in the low 2:30 marathon range (5:43 to 5:50 marathon pace), made a conscious effort to back off the pace, and we pulled back to lead the chase pack.
For the next 10 miles or so, I was with a pack of about five runners. We averaged paces around the low 5:50s. It was slower than my goal pace, but I figured that with the conditions, that was a good effort to strive for before warming up and feeling better later on. I wanted to keep the pace easy and sustainable until about 20 miles before going.
The one mistake I made while running with this pack was not the pace — it was breaking the wind for the pack for too long. There were several miles where I led at the front of the pack to make sure we were still on pace. Sometimes it was not that conscious of an effort, but this was just the pace I felt like I should have been going. There were two other young runners right out of college who also took turns with the lead.
However, I did a substantial amount of this leading and should have deferred more and been more content to sit at the back of this pack, especially given how much harder the person at the front was working to break the 15-mile-per-hour winds. I realize I could have backed off and moved to the back of the group after each mile I took the lead, so that is something to know for especially windy races and working within groups during road races.
At mile 14, the race started to unravel. I felt it as the previous several miles got gradually harder and harder. It started to get pretty painful, and the group dropped me from there. I looked at my watch — I was still going at a pretty good pace, and with some slight downhills, I was now running my desired pace, around a 5:45 mile pace. But I was all alone now.
Before I knew it, I started slowing down significantly as the cumulative fatigue of pushing through these conditions caught up much sooner than I anticipated. A lot of people started to pass me. I could tell I was breathing harder, that my legs were feeling a lot heavier.
For the next five miles, it was not going well at all. I did not think about dropping out, but I was feeling very sorry for myself as my pace went from 6:31 to 6:39 to 6:47 from miles 16–18.
I don’t remember why these miles felt so slow and why they cratered, really. Some of it was mental in terms of watching the pack slowly and slowly go out of sight and having a bunch of people pass me.
But most of it was physical — my legs were heavy, my breathing more labored. In short, I was getting tired. There were more rolling hills than I expected, and a 5:45 pace in the freezing wind was much worse than 5:45 pace in 45 degree weather and no hills. My body was telling me I needed to slow down to maintain a good finish, and maybe it was making a smart business decision, knowing I was not going to run a personal best.
Photo of the author fighting a strong headwind
I can just run through a list of thoughts during this very tough five-mile period of darkness and negativity:
“This really sucks right now.”
“I’m disappointing everyone who came out to watch me in the cold.”
“I did all this training for nothing.”
“I’m going to come in last place and everyone is going to pass me.”
“Get to this cone, that marker on the street, that lamp post.”
“This race is over. Why don’t I just jog eight minute miles to the finish?”
I will say that, unlike other races, where it really does not go well or according to plan, I did not contemplate dropping out. I understood it was going bad, but it wasn’t going that bad. I had fallen off pace for running my goal of a personal best, but I knew I didn’t feel as bad as I had at mile 18 in previous marathons where I cratered to a time in the 2:50s after going for a time in the 2:30s. At worst, I would probably run a 2:46, since I could maintain 7-minute miles until the finish.
Although I was in a great deal of pain, I resolved not to give up and just jog it in to the finish. I was going to fight for a consolation prize until the very end. I was not going to cave and just give up, and I was going to give my all and hope I would get a second wind.
I made a conscious effort to make a biomechanical adjustment. I realized that when I get tired, my cadence slows. I try to maintain a longer stride and my usual average of around 180 to 190 steps per minute when running under 6 minute mile pace. When I dropped closer to 7 minute mile pace, I could tell the fatigue was making my cadence slow to closer to 165 steps per minute. Of course, it sounds obvious and intuitive that when you’re more tired and running slower, your legs move more slowly. Most experienced runners know that we’re a lot more inefficient at running when running slower paces.
At mile 19, the race changed, and my focus changed. I focused on making short, quick strides at the expense of stride length. I did not care if, at that point, it looked like I was just shuffling and barely getting my legs off the ground. What did I have to lose at that point? Although very fatigued, this adjustment got me through some miles where there were rolling hills and very intense winds.
From 6:47, I started to run 6:20s miles again. The short, quick strides were making a huge difference. I still felt really tired and did not feel like I was going fast, but undeniably, the adjustment meant I was being a lot more efficient. It was reassuring to see that despite feeling like I was barely moving, I could still maintain 6:20 mile pace.
Slowly and slowly, the people who passed me started to get more and more in sight. I realized I was catching up, but they were still far enough away that I knew I would not catch them immediately. I knew that I could get myself into a lot of trouble if I were to lapse into more youthful tendencies and put in a huge surge to pass these people, so I made sure not to do that. I would gradually reel them in over the course of the last six miles. In those six miles, I went from 14th place back to 10th place.
In the last six miles, I ran each mile at 6:20 pace or faster. This came with hills and a second-to-last mile that was straight into the wind, and this was all significant to me because I did not feel better at any point. It was still just as painful as miles 14 to 19, and I had a lot of temptation to slow down. I was still running as fast as I could while maintaining some reserve for the finish.
But I passed four of the poeple that passed me, sometimes offering a word of encouragement, sometimes just going about my race because I knew they were hurting just as bad, if not worse than I did. At this point in my course, I was seeing a family member or family friend every mile or every other mile, and this gave me a huge boost of motivation. There were many more spectators, and maybe seeing family and having a big group of spectators cheering gave me a rush of adrenaline.
My last mile was actually slowed quite a bit because I was on an island after passing those four runners. There was one intersection at mile 26 where knowing which direction to go was very confusing. I actually came to a full stop for about three seconds as I looked around for direction on whether I needed to turn left or right, to which point a spectator pointed and yelled at me to go left.
Regardless, I finished hard in the last mile and was able to sprint for the finish, knowing that despite the roller coaster of a race, I gave it my all. I won my age group and still got 10th place, so it could have been a lot worse.
Photo of the author at the finish
I feel like I should have done better. But I also feel like I did a great job training this cycle, hanging in tough and trying and swinging hard when things didn’t go my way. I feel both of these things about this last marathon at the same time because I did not perform the way I wanted, but I also salvaged the day and got a consolation prize.
I know this hunger to be always faster and do better is sometimes unhealthy, but what constantly pushes and motivates me to keep going, to keep striving, translates very well in other parts of my life. As an attorney, writer, husband, and Christian, I never want to stay static and take a lot of satisfaction in striving to do better and actually doing better.
For a lot of runners, running is really complicated. We can be very happy about how we performed, and ambitious enough not to be satisfied. Sometimes, certain emotions come at different times. There has always been a part of me that strives and wants to do more and do better, and there has been less of me that appreciates what has been accomplished and is willing to take the consolation prizes when I do not meet my expectations. Compared to other areas of my life, more intention and effort usually correlate to better results, but there have been plenty of times where taking running too seriously and trying too hard have not led to running results.
Everyone else was proud of me and said I did a great job. I’m very appreciative of them and took the compliment. This isn’t like track or cross country in high school or college, where a bad race has scoring implications for the team. The only one judging me for not running 2:30 was me, and although I still wanted to push for more, I was still happy about how hard I tried.
I have preached to my friends who are runners so many times that, as runners, improvement is not linear. We often do not see the fruits of our labor until much later than we want. Just because a runner did not run the time they wanted on one training cycle does not mean it was a waste, because there’s always a next season and next race.
I recall how despondent one friend was after a really bad race one winter. He was working so hard just to run slower and not run any personal bests. There was not much I could really say to make him feel better that day — he was devastated and it was all he could think about. But over the next few weeks, I advised that he had done a lot of great work, and that he would eventually see a breakthrough, if not then, then at some point down the line. He eventually did — he ran a huge personal best in the mile four months later.
But when you are in the mindset of wanting huge personal bests and dreaming of huge gains now, it is so hard to think about what four months later will be like. I think that’s the place I’m in now. Even on a bad day, I still ran a 2:41 marathon, which is saying a lot. I still had a second wind and salvaged the race. I laid a foundation for a strong year next year. On a more technical level, I know I need to focus on mechanics, drills, and strides to maintain that biomechanical efficiency and remind myself to take short, quick strides.
I realize, however, that many of us, including myself, are more defined by how we respond to the bad days than how we celebrate the days where everything goes right and we only see success. It wasn’t going my way, and I felt the whole range of negative emotions when my plans fell apart.
But I responded by not giving up and coming back strong. There will be many days in the future that don’t go according to plan in the future, and I will always be more proud than disappointed if I can respond like today.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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Photo credit: iStock.com
