There’s a point in every bad marathon where the unspeakable taboo possibility starts to dominate my thoughts: dropping out.
It usually comes when my body is breaking down when I have to run significantly harder just to run slower. Everything is pain. The whole race feels like a complete failure. But I never drop out, and there’s one reason why.
I could tell people what they want to hear. I could tell them “you just never drop out. No matter how bad it’s going, you don’t drop out.” That would be a part of it. I was imbued with this message very early on as a runner. I dropped out of a 10k while I was in college and someone I respected gave the same message: no matter how bad it’s going and how much you feel like the race is a failure, never, ever drop out barring injury.
I have run a total of 10 marathons. I have run under three hours in six of them, finished eight of them, and dropped out of two of them. I’ll go into detail about why I dropped out of the two marathons later, but on both occasions, it’s not like I absolutely hated myself after and felt like a failure, but my day got significantly worse for logistical reasons on one of them.
Dropping out of marathons, in particular, is difficult, and teaches a huge lesson for one of the biggest motivators of huge human decisions and behavior, a lesson that defies inspirational videos and quotes everywhere.
The biggest reason I don’t drop out is not one of nobility, not one of resilience, and not of toughness. The end result is that it looks like I’m tough if I finish a marathon in an almost crippling amount of pain, with my heart rate in the 190s for 20+ miles, but the biggest motivating factor is not to be tough, noble, or to inspire people.
Dropping out of marathons is so difficult because it’s incredibly inconvenient.
In at least four or five of the marathons I’ve run, I’ve certainly had strong thoughts and incredibly strong feelings about dropping out. My heart rate is in the upper 190s and I’m in an incredible amount of pain. My goal has slipped away and is out of reach. I’m getting passed by what feels like five to ten people every mile. Usually, there are other people who are falling apart around me, too, because I am so dissatisfied and disillusioned with my race, I try to encourage the people around me to have a good race.
There was one marathon where this college kid was keeled over and vomiting every half mile that I tried to encourage with pleas of “almost there!” the last few miles. In my most recent marathon where my race fell apart, there were a few guys who were running faster than me the last couple miles, but would stop, stretch, and walk for periods of time. One of them was clearly injured and not doing well. I tried to encourage him, but every mile or so, he would pass me, stop, and the last time I saw him, he let out a huge scream.
Normally, I would not stop in a race since I have to focus on my best performance, but the silver lining of having such a terrible race where you feel like dropping out and where you’re in an incredible amount of pain is that you develop a kinship and affinity for others in the same situation. In my last marathon, I offered one runner clearly not doing well my last gel to help him fuel. It seemed like he needed it more than me since he had to walk every mile and seemed like he was running out of fuel. He thanked me, but he had some more he was going to use on his own.
Every time someone passed me or I passed someone, I would encourage them as well. We were so close, almost there. The pain and suffering would be over, but we were only 10 or 15 minutes away from crossing the finish line.
One reason you don’t drop out is because of these people running around you. So many people are falling apart and in an incredible amount of pain, too. A subpar race does let you build that camaraderie and community of trying to uplift the people around you and be uplifted the same way.
However, the biggest reason I have heard so many runners express and that I have felt is this: how are you going to get back to the start? How are you going to get your valuable items, like your phone, wallet, and keys? What are you going to do if you drop out? Walk ten miles across half the city and have it take three times as long to get back? Beg for a ride when there are road closures everywhere?
I think if you have someone spectating and who will take care of you if you drop out, it does become mentally easier to just throw in the towel. There are plenty of these marathons where my body would have been much better off if I had dropped out. But I have a hard time persuading the people I love to get up at 5 a.m. just to see me once or twice in a marathon, and I don’t push them to do so anyway — it is largely a solo excursion for me.
I remember an anecdote of two friends who are much faster than me. One of them was trying to run 2:30 in the marathon, but it was his first marathon and it was a hot day. He went out pretty fast, then blew up, like so many of us do in our first marathons. The other friend was on his bike, spectating the whole thing.
At mile 17, when it was very clear the race was a disaster when he wasn’t going to hit his goal, and when he was in the most physical pain he had probably ever been in in a run, he stopped and sat on the side of the curb and started crying. He stopped for several minutes and his race was essentially over.
I’ve heard a couple of versions of this, but this is my best recollection of the exchange. The friend on the bike eventually caught up to him and saw him. This was the part of the race that was likely the farthest from the finish there was, and a part where if he dropped out, it would have taken him hours to get back to the finish. The plea to keep going wasn’t one of toughness, grit, encouragement, or inspiration. It was one of practicality.
“What are you going to do? Just sit here? How are you going to get back and get your stuff?” He said. “The fastest way for this to be over is to finish.”
A police officer who was responsible for road closures came by and expressed a similar sentiment. There was no practical way to get back. No one could drive him with all the major roads in the city blocked off for the marathon. He was still in third place in this marathon at the time — even if he had a horrible day, he could still put in a respectable finish.
I eventually passed this friend at mile 25 of the marathon. He was walking, but at times, he jogged to make it to the finish line. When I passed him, I tried to tell him, in as few words as possible, how inspiring his race was to that point. He put himself out there, aimed high, and showed extreme toughness even though it wasn’t working out. He put himself out there and went for it rather than playing it safe and conservative.
I ran a 2:52 and he ran a 2:54, so it wasn’t like either of us had the performance we wanted. I was having quite a horrible day myself where I wanted to drop out at mile 15. But we both knew the fastest and most convenient way for the nightmare to be over was to finish the race and get to the finish line.
Funny enough, 30 seconds after finishing my most recent marathon, which was a disaster where I wanted to drop out for 13 miles, I was interviewed by a local media person. I didn’t catch what outlet he was from, but he asked me if he could interview me, and I said okay. He asked what motivated me to keep going when the race got really tough. I think he expected an answer that was super profound and inspiring, like thinking about God, my family, or some huge hardship I had gone through. But I didn’t say any of those things.
“Uhh, it’s really inconvenient to drop out. How are you going to get back and get your stuff with all the roads closed? Getting to the finish line was the only way for me,” I said.
Convenience is the biggest motivator for finishing a marathon when marathons are disastrous. I haven’t tested whether I could rely on the grace of emergency medical staff and strangers to get me back to the start line to get my bag, and I don’t necessarily want to.
This doesn’t apply when something more serious is wrong, like a serious medical condition or an injury. As intense as marathon pain is, it’s still, mostly, in the normal course of what we signed up for.
But I have dropped out the two of the many marathons I run. They were both virtual marathons. One was in the middle of the pandemic when races were being canceled. I did not train at all prior to the marathon, and by mile 19, I was limping and couldn’t go any farther. Injury stopped me from running, and I had to flag down a stranger on a bike to call my phone and get my wife and my friend to come pick me up at the nearest intersection. There were at least five other runners who I could have flagged down earlier, but they were single women, and I was a shirtless guy limping through the trail, so I waited until there was an older guy on his bike where the implication wouldn’t be that I was a murderer or something worse.
Another time, I wasn’t training at all but had signed up for a marathon. It was a virtual marathon, and I was running on a half-mile loop. I got through half of it before I was in so much pain that I had to just stop and call it quits. My body wasn’t ready and I had been running eight-minute miles at that point, and I was just off. The half-mile loop was less than a mile from my apartment. I could walk back within 15 minutes.
The fact that dropping out was almost as convenient as stopping a run on a treadmill most certainly played a factor in why I dropped out of that marathon.
The takeaway is the most convenient and fastest way for the suffering to end in a marathon is, most of the time, getting to the finish line. The fastest way to get home is to finish the race and get to the finish line. The fastest way to get all your valuable items and get back to a warm, indoor environment where you can rest is to get to the finish line.
Will you be happier with yourself that you finished instead of dropping out? Absolutely. But you don’t think that when every step is pure agony and the worst pain you’ve been in all year. You’re thinking about how to get to the next checkpoint, the next checkpoint, and how it can be over as quickly as possible.
Marathons have shown me how much convenience is a motivator for so much of human behavior. I would say I’ve had at least five colleagues tell me their major motivation for working at my school: the commute is extremely short for them. The school is about five minutes from their house. They can take their kids to school or daycare, and then get to work in a very short amount of time. If they were sent somewhere all the way across the city, they might quit.
I’m not saying convenience is everything, but it does matter a lot, particularly when these practical considerations affect so much more of your day.
When you’re at mile 20 of a marathon and everything feels like it’s falling apart, remember that the most convenient way to get back to the start is to finish.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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