3:58 of Staring at a Wall: The Journey of My First Marathon
I had always wanted to run a marathon, but until recently, the furthest distance I had ever traveled was 15 miles. For the last few years, I’ve been running intermittently, sometimes 3-5 times per week, other times maybe twice a week. My family and I just recently moved into a new place and much to our delight, we found a treadmill left behind in the basement. It was now game on! No more excuses of weather or anything else I could come up with in moments of weakness, I now could run every day if I wanted to.
It had been a little while since I had been putting in consistent miles, so I started very slow. I committed to 20 minutes every morning for a week. The following week, I started alternating between 20 and 30 minutes every day. The third week I did 30 minutes every day until week 5, when I started putting in an hour every morning. Most days I would do an hour with no agenda, just hop on and go. Some days it would be slow, some days it would feel fast, some days I would bump up the incline - whatever my body was feeling that day. On Wednesdays, I would interval speed work, ranging from 30 seconds all out, to upwards of 5 or 6 minutes at a challenging pace.
After about three months, my legs and lungs were starting to feel strong and I had an idea. Why don’t I just run my first marathon right here in the basement, or as I like to call it “The Pain Cave”? Hmm, that seems like a cool challenge. So I started putting my plan into place. I chose my date as Christmas Eve morning, which was just a few months away, plenty of time. I started to think about my specific goal and decided I wanted to go sub 4 hours. That seemed respectable and attainable, but not easy. I made the mental commitment and kept on doing what I was doing, waking up and running.
The day finally came and I woke up early and SO pumped. I jumped out of bed at three am, went downstairs, made myself my morning protein and coconut water smoothie, drank some coffee to get the systems going, filled up 4 water bottles with water and Skratch Labs (carbs), and went into the basement to start warming up. I knew I needed to stay at a 9:11 minute mile pace and had practiced that pace many times leading up to the day. I was feeling quite confident and ready. It was Christmas Eve, and I even planned on doing a fun “12 Days of Christmas” workout afterward with a buddy. Easy peasy.
After a pretty lengthy warm-up, I did about half a mile to a mile at a pace slightly above where I needed to be, hit the bathroom, and threw on the longest movie I could think of - “Saving Private Ryan” and hit the run button. The combination of good music and a movie that showed people doing something badass and in a much worse situation kept me humble and entertained, even though I was doing something tough, and made the first two hours go by like it was nothing. I certainly had to fight boredom, but honestly, I felt pretty good. However, right around 2.5 hours the movie ended and everything started to change. I had gone through almost all of my water bottles, I needed to pee SO badly, and the pain was starting to kick in, but overall I was fine.
When I hit the 3-hour mark, my right calf was starting to hurt, and by now, the movie had been over for 30 minutes, and I was about to pee my pants. Right then, my wife walked down to say good morning. “Good morning,” she said. “CAN YOU GET ME ANOTHER WATER BOTTLE AND PUT ON DUNE?” I barked, almost delirious at this point. I was so desperate for another sugar-filled water bottle and another movie to take my mind off the pain. She gave me a displeased look for all the sass, but was very patient and did exactly what I had asked - she’s a saint to put up with me and knew I was hitting a wall.
Every time I thought about peeing for the last three hours, I increased my speed a bit to make sure I still hit my goal if I had to jump off, so I knew I had bought myself some time. I jumped off the tread, grabbed one of my empty water bottles, did my thing, and jumped right back on. A painful decision, but oh so necessary. Getting my legs back up to speed was not an easy feat, not to mention at this point my right calf felt like it was going to fall off. At this point, I had 4 miles left and was starting to lose hope because I was in so much pain and discomfort. So much so that I had to slow down, by a lot - to almost a 12-minute mile for roughly 2 miles. I thought I was done for and I wasn’t going to accomplish my goal of sub 4 hours. I sat in self-loathing for a while, strongly considering giving up, but I didn’t give in to that voice in my head.
With about 2 to 2.5 miles left, I realized I could technically still get it done, I had about 16 minutes left until 4 hours. Somewhere deep down, I found a second gear, I mashed the speed button and got the pace to a 7:45 pace, then a 7:30, and with the last mile and a half to go, a 7:15 pace, I was moving. It took everything I had, but I held the pace and watched the treadmill hit 26 miles, then 26.1, two more clicks of the speed button, I had to get this done. And finally, I saw it, 26.2 and 3:58, I had done it. I was so pleased, but also so exhausted. I basically crawled off the treadmill, went straight to my ice bath, sat there for three minutes, crawled to my bedroom moaning the whole way, changed into nothing but a pair of shorts, came back downstairs, got on the couch, asked my wife to cover me in every blanket we had, and fell asleep for about two hours. What a way to kick off Christmas Eve! And no, me and my legs didn’t make it to the “12 Days of Christmas” workout, I was set for the day.
I reflect on this now and am truly proud of the effort. I set a goal, planned out my training, and worked hard to set myself up for success, and even though it got very difficult, almost breaking me, I got the job done. I grew as a person, I grew in my belief in myself, and I learned I never EVER want to do a marathon on a treadmill again, what was I thinking? This approach to life is one I plan to continue, doing hard shit regularly. Stepping outside my comfort zone, being okay with being a beginner, and allowing myself to nearly fail and even fail - that’s where I learn the most about myself and make myself the most proud. This won’t be my last marathon, shit, I even plan to do some ultra-marathons, because it’s hard, and I like pushing myself to my very limits. We live in a world full of creature comforts these days, but the comforts aren’t what make us stronger. Discomfort and challenge are what forge us into more than we ever thought possible. To live BLDR, we must think and train BLDR. We must step outside our comfort zone and create, through adversity, the person we want to be. Get out there and do hard shit, I’ll be right there with you