Marathons

An article of mine entitled “How To Prepare For (And Run) An Interesting Marathon” was published in the July/August edition of Colorado Runner Magazine. Download a copy of the article here (PDF, 0.99 MB). It demonstrates that one does not need to run a gazillion miles to successfully complete a marathon. Well, sort of…

The course was to be undulating, with a 1200-foot ascent starting shortly before Mile 1 and ending at roughly Mile 13. The Mickelson Trail consisted of dirt and gravel, a type of terrain I’ve always regarded as slower than pavement. Most of all the race was just one week after the gruelling 52.4-mile Rocky Mountain Double Marathon, an event that one would think should take a few weeks to recover from. Clearly, then, the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon was a race that I should not have been doing for time. Conventional wisdom dictated that I should just aim to finish, or maybe not even do the race at all.

“[Bleep] it,” I thought, as I looked out the window of the charter bus that was taking us marathon runners to the start in Rochford. The awe-inspiring Black Hills of South Dakota — considered sacred by the Lakotas — had seemingly lit a fire within me this weekend with its stunningly lush and ponderosa-laden views. “Forget conventional wisdom. My legs are feeling good, and the scenery is too spectacular to be giving anything less than my best.”

“I am going for a P.R. [personal record],” I resolved.

In the next few hours I would find out whether these thoughts were full of warranted optimism, or supreme naiveté. Continue reading »

My preparation for this race will probably not be garnering any praise from Hal Higdon, Jeff Galloway or any of the marathon gurus. According to my training log, in the four weeks prior to the Colorado Marathon of Fort Collins, I had run just five times for a total of 28.4 miles. While a mental break and physical recovery were called for after Ironman Arizona, I couldn’t help feeling a bit like a rock star showing up to a big concert, having only sung in the shower a few times since the release of his last album. No matter though — to make up for this deficit of training, I was going to race smart. Real smart.

At least that was the plan. My race savvy was questioned by more than a few friends at 10:00pm on Saturday night, or exactly five hours before I was supposed to be waking up. As it was, here we were in a bar, shooting pool. Continue reading »

It took a simple press release to make me decide that the first marathon I was going to run in 2006 would be in the Big Easy.

“In an unprecedented move to assist with the rebuilding of New Orleans,” the article read, “the 41st running of the Mardi Gras Marathon and Half Marathon will donate all net proceeds to a special Hurricane Katrina Fund called ‘Back to the Big Easy’. This fund will give all net proceeds from the Mardi Gras Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K to local charities based in the city to help with the Big Easy recovery efforts.” Continue reading »

Here are excerpts from an email I sent out after the race:

Yes, I FINALLY did it! I can finally say that “I ran against George W. Bush and won” and make sarcastic remarks about “mission accomplished” etc., haha. So my final time was 3:34:27, in Portland (on the 4th). That is better than Junior’s best time (3:44:52) by over 10 minutes. Continue reading »