The Marathon

In 4 days I will run my second marathon.  My first was last year at the Collegiate Peaks marathon.  I have never run one of the classic road marathons, like the Chicago marathon but as I watched “Spirit of The Marathon” on Netflix tonight I still could identify with the experience of the runners profiled: the long training runs, the wall at mile 20, the emotional rush of accomplishment at the end.   I aint gonna lie, I was getting a bit choked up and kind of jazzed from watching this rather corny depiction of the marathon distance.    The marathon might be a made up distance based on a Greek story (and as I learned in the film, the course viewing needs of a British monarch in the late 1800s), and certainly the human body can run comfortably much longer than 26 miles as this weekend proved with the record performances at the 100 mile Western States.  But the marathon seems to be the first distance that really puts a severe test on a runner’s ability to work up to and sometimes past the depletion of their energy stores that comes from a running for a few hours.  It is therefore an “emotional” distance, maybe not as emotional as a 100 mile run, but  most marathon runners will have to manage a possible lack of motivation that can come from the long effort, at least a little, and there is an emotional payoff from the marathon that greatly exceeds the 1/2 or 10K.

So Saturday the Leadville marathon puts on a race on a course that surely is one of the most difficult marathon courses in the United States, maybe second only to Pikes.  The course leaves the 10K town of Leadville and climbs on a gnarly jeep road to Mosquito Pass at 13,200 feet and turns around and comes back, with 3K of gain and 3K of loss.  But it’s not straight up and down to the pass. There is another climb on the way out and hence back, offering a difficult challenge at around miles 18-20, right when your glycogen stores might be getting really depleted, although with this run that could happen far earlier for a lot of runners.  A good time is under 5 hours.  Yes if my time is under 5 hours I am going to give myself an A, and I am not banking on it at all, only 40 or so did it last year.  I give myself a B if I get a time under 5 1/2 hrs.  C for under 6.  D and Fs to follow.  But these are just educated guesses based on my training runs and last year’s Leadville marathon finishing times off the race website.

I am heading to Leadville tomorrow to adjust to the altitude and work from there for a few days.  There isn’t anymore training to be done this week, I put in a moderate workout at ATC today but that will be about it, except for light trails runs.  It’s time to focus on this marathon challenge and enjoy it.   My goal will be to ease into the course and the climbs very gradually and pull that good race naturally and smoothly out of myself.  I really need to even my effort out over 26 miles, something I have little to no experience doing.   All my runs have been 20 miles or under.  I don’t like that and wish I had trained longer.  I don’t buy into the whole “let the race day be your longest run” thing, it just doesn’t make sense to me.  But that’s the way it’s going to have to be for me this time.  

Race report to follow.