statue of the legendary John Kelly who ran the
Boston Marathon 61 times, the last time at age
84. The statue shows "young" John Kelly joining
hands with "old" John Kelly as they both "finish"
the marathon.
Wow. Today I ran 16.3 miles and let me tell you, that last .3 definitely counts.
It's the same finish each time I run with Fitcorp - up the incredibly steep part of Beacon Street near the Boston Common and State House for about .2 or .3 miles. Tough.
Just when you're almost done, you've got this one last major hurdle to overcome. Its one of those marathon things that makes you dig deeper, go further and see if you've got it in you.
Luckily, this time, I did. But only just.
I started today's run with these two girls I met about 6 weeks ago, BU third year medical students named Angela and Sylvena. They're very sweet and share the interesting medical stuff they're learning with me while we run and in return are subjected to any and all medical horror stories I can think of, inevitably resulting in TMI I'm sure, but anyone who's run long distance knows that sometimes it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you keep talking - just for something to do during the long, boring miles.
They started super fast this week, so luckily for them, I couldn't keep up after 5 miles, and they didn't have to listen to any more weird doctor stories for the rest of the run.
But, that meant I had to do the last 11 on my own, which was a little bit daunting because that's several hours of running with no one to talk to, nothing but your own thoughts. Its times like that when marathons are more mental than anything else.
During most of these training runs, we inevitably wind up on the actual Boston Marathon course and at least on part of the 4 mile stretch of "Heartbreak Hill." It's just a question of "at which mile?"
Heartbreak Hill itself isn't actually that bad. It's not as steep as say, San Francisco cable car hills or the street I lived on in LA, Marathon Street. It's just a series of steady hills with occasional plateaus - for 4 miles. For anyone who's done the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco, the hills are like those. Except you hit them at mile 16. And the first 10 miles of the Boston Marathon are downhill. So when you hit these 4 miles of hills, you already want to die. Just setting that up...
Today, I happened to hit the hills at mile 8 of my run. And in my head, I froze. I got nervous and actually stopped running for a second, took some "goo" (in my case Powerbar Gel) and water and then started up the hill. For a moment, I even thought about walking.
This is crazy. At mile 8 of last week's run, I felt like I could run forever. When I hit this spot on April 20th, it will be at mile 16. I KNEW it was mental and I knew I had to do something to change the way I was feeling.
So I thought about Evan. Evan was my college boyfriend, a serious marathoner who did his best Boston Marathon in 2:52. I've never personally known anyone faster - and I've known a lot of runners. He was the best. Tragically, Evan's life ended far too early at age 31, just as he was getting into ultramarathons.
Mile 16 is the mile I'm running for Evan on marathon day because it's where Heartbreak Hill begins. I know he had to summon the courage to conquer that hill the many times he ran the Boston Marathon - and I know if he was here, he'd do whatever he could to help get me through those hills. So at the point where Heartbreak Hill began today, after I took my goo and started climbing those hills, I thought of Evan, and how much strength, courage and determination he had - and how he'd give ANYTHING to be doing exactly what I was doing at that moment. And I got through it.
The rest of the run was very much like a lot of long runs: periods of discomfort, even pain, followed by bouts of euphoria, or at least momentum and a comfortable pace.
I never listen to music on long runs, but fearing that maybe I'd be alone today, I brought the Ipod, just in case. With less than 3 miles to go, just after Kenmore Square, I put the headphones on, set the Ipod to "shuffle" and hoped something inspirational would come on. And it did.
First came St. Elmo's Fire, which had never sounded so good. Then Raspberry Beret, and as I was climbing that last .3 up Beacon Street and towards the State House, Amadaus kicked into gear.
Every time they sang "A-ma-de-us" I changed the words in my head to "You-can-do-it" and repeated it over and over again til I was at the top. Just then, the song changed to one of my favorite new songs, "The Story" by Brandi Carlyle, which is much more introspective and emotional, and I started to feel emotional.
I don't often cry tears of joy at the end of a marathon. There are usually so many other things going on to distract me (not the least of which is usually some pretty intense pain.) But once or twice, I've wept at the end of a long training run because it's somehow purer then. There are fewer people around and it's just about the fact that you did this thing that you didn't think you could do.
In this case, no one was watching (but of course I'm telling everyone now) and I was alone on Beacon Street having run 16.3 miles mostly alone and faster than I've ever run that kind of distance, and it's going to sound corny but I thought of my mom and how proud she would be and how proud I am of myself that I just kept going - even when my hip started to turn to steel and didn't want to move and my knee twinged a little bit and exhaustion overtook me from time to time, and I was all alone. And I did cry tears of joy; serious, euphoric, bittersweet joy.
So, it was a great run. I won't be doing such a long distance again til Valentine's Day, so hopefully by then, the midweek trainings will make 16.3 miles slightly less painful. Or maybe not. It's all a learning experience, all a challenge - a rewarding and fulfilling challenge indeed.
Now I'm off for a nap to rest up for an incredible meal tonight at Prezzo in The North End. And dessert. Lots and lots of dessert.
