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On June 21st, 2003 Kris and I completed Grandma's Marathon in Duluth Minnesota. In many ways, it was a tough day on the course for us. Both of us got sick the week before, and the weather was warmer than we would have liked. We completed the course in just over 4:39. The day of the race and just afterwards, this felt a bit disappointing. We'd trained well, and were probably just a bit unlucky. As more time goes by, I think less about the disappointment and lots more about the day and the accomplishment. The event was very well organized, and the crowds were great. The city of Duluth opens its arms to the runners and their companions. It would be difficult not to enjoy running Grandma's. Perhaps someday we'll go back to Duluth and try again. The course is flat, and the lake spreads out beside you for the second half. The crowds give off lots of energy. And the finish line by the big bridge is nice and cool. Getting Ready AgainI had a sneaking suspicion that my elation at completing the 2002 New York City Marathon would perhaps spark Kris' interest in doing another marathon. She'd been lukewarm to the idea after finishing the race together in San Diego. Still, with her approaching a milestone birthday, and with me committing to sustaining my marathon training for a while, the idea that she might decide to do another one wasn't that remote. Two of her friends decided to do the 2003 San Diego Rock 'n Roll Marathon in early June. Kris was interested, but decided that she'd rather do one closer to original home. She decided to do the well-known (at least in running circles) Grandma's Marathon in Duluth MN. This fell two weeks after her birthday, and coincided nicely with our annual summer visit to the Midwest. She planned her training utilizing Galloway's book Marathon, the same as I'd used when training for New York. She also began consulting Galloway's training website for a schedule. At the same time, I'd decided to train for the Vancouver International Marathon. This is the same race I'd decided on for my marathon debut back in 1997, only to opt out due to illness. My father made the trip to watch me do the half, and purchased a nice jacket for me. Since then, I've wanted to do this event, if only to say I deserved to wear this fine garment he'd purchased for me. Sometime in early January, Kris proposed that I run Grandma's with her. I'd be somewhat envious of her choice, being a flat course, and notably fun. Of course I her invitation. For the most part, we trained separately. There wasn't an easy way to run with the two kids. Usually Kris ran with her friends Ursula and Lee Ann, and occasionally other of the Buff Babes. I'd keep to my routine of running alone, or occasionally with my friend Paul. Kris and I compared notes and traded pacing information. She seemed to think that I'd pace her. I know perfectly well that she can potentially outpace me, dragging me along as she did in San Diego. In order to be able to do Grandma's in June, I needed to revisit my goal of running Vancouver in May. Basically the more time I could afford myself between races, the better. I considered doing the Yakima River Canyon Marathon, but eventually settled on the Whidbey Island Wings of Gold Marathon instead. This turned out to be more challenging than Vancouver or Yakima River. You can read about my training and race here. Following the race in April, I needed to carefully juggle mileage in order to land prepared in Duluth on June 21st. Two weeks after the race, I did an 18 miler, walking one minute per mile. This went reasonably well, although the mile repeats and next long run (23.5 miles) were not as easy. The middle of May found me lacking a bit of confidence, but still pushing on. I was also feeling the cumulative effects of eleven months of training. You can see the variance in my training calendars. The weeks are sort of hot and cold, in terms of mileage and quality. Heading into the final long run before race day, I must do my best to remain focused on pacing Kris. I would have loved nothing more than for us to achieve her primary goal of breaking four hours together. Ready or Not ...The week before the race was very busy for us. Things were impossibly stressful for me at work. Kris was trying to clear her plate at work. Rachel was just busy (as always). Kayla was finishing her year of kindergarten, and getting ready for her school play. We attended the play, and the year-end potluck, and then caught our flight to MSP. I'd come down with a nasty cold that seemed to settle in my chest. I worried that my wind and stamina would be way down on race day. I'd missed my last long run, and had not done much in the week before the race. This can work either way - it could give me a chance to recover, or it could mean that I'd not feel "ready", despite having prepared well in the weeks before. Kris had a mysterious stomach ailment. She was not sleeping well at all, and was very concerned that she might not be able to run. After arriving in Minnesota late Wednesday, we both saw doctors on Thursday morning to see whether they could offer us some magic. We spent Thursday at the Solem cabin in northern Wisconsin, before heading up to Duluth on Friday. We picked up our stuff at the expo (which was fairly large), and dropped our stuff off at our room in the University of Minnesota-Duluth athletic dorms. These accommodations weren't at all fancy, but they were inexpensive and very convenient. The alternative for us would have been staying in Moose Lake (about 35 miles south) for a lot more money. Friday night, our friend Tanya invited us for a great dinner at her beautiful house in Duluth. Several other runners were there enjoying some delicious pasta dishes, but most of the dinner talk was around things other than the race. We really enjoyed ourselves, and managed to relax quite a bit. An added bonus was that Tanya (who is a physician) offered Kris some medical advice that may have helped her a bit. By 10, we were back in the dorm, stuff packed and ready for the next morning, and closing our eyes. Race DayOur day began just before six. We climbed out of bed, into our running clothes, and headed for the bus line outside. Kris had been up a lot during the night, but felt that she was ready to give this a try. We both tried to snooze on the bus out to Two Harbors.
After the horn went off, it took nearly three minutes to get to the start. Things were pretty gummed up for a while, but we were able to keep a reasonable pace. For a few minutes, there was a train full of supporters cheering us from a track parallel to race route on Highway 61. That was pretty nice. We wondering to each other how one secured seats on the train. The first mile was a pretty brisk one for me. Normally 9:14 would have been fine, but it felt to me as though I was moving just a little faster than I wanted. On the other hand, Kris felt great. She felt that she'd be able to keep this pace. I worried that I wouldn't, but decided to try. The next few were a little slower, but close enough to trick me into thinking I'd be able to push a bit and make it up. I actually forgot to stop for the walk break. Fortunately Kris didn't, otherwise I'd have pressed on to mile 2. We were on the old Highway 61, through the woods. The road was a slowly undulating ribbon of hot asphalt, drawing the heat. By mile five, I started to notice that I was losing more fluid than normal due to the heat. This wasn't a big issue, as I'd packed 48 oz of Accelerade with me, and there was plenty of stuff available at the aid stations. By mile seven, I began to feel that the heat was an issue though. I wasn't tired, but I was slowing. And I did not feel like I'd be able to kick a while to make time up. We passed a guy wearing an ugly light blue tux. He was boiling in it, but still managing to outpace us. He commented that he'd probably get married in this tux someday, if he ever married. I felt he didn't have a hope of that, presuming he let his spouse see the tux in advance. By mile nine, I'd still not really settled down. I was still concerned about the heat, and it seemed Kris was getting there too. She didn't want to talk at all, and was slowing down too. She asked me to just keep running. At this point I was about 10 meters in front. We'd meet at the mile markers, to make sure we walked for the same amount of time. When we got to the marker at mile eleven, I remember looking back to see Kris. I made for the sport drink, and grabbed some ice for my head. After stuffing some in my cap, I looked for Kris but didn't see her. I wound through the crowd, but still didn't see her. I thought perhaps she was in back of me, so I stopped a bit longer, but had no luck.
Right around the 14 mile marker, I spotted a short (sorry Kris) woman wearing a grey shirt and blue shorts ahead of me. I ran to keep up, and was not disappointed! She told me that she'd gotten concerned when she heard an ambulance heading back the other way. I asked myself whether I looked that bad already. Miles 15 through 17 were slower yet, but we pressed on. We spent some time exposed to a nice lake breeze for the first time. As we went uphill right around mile 17, Kris cramped up, and needed to walk. It was a bit discouraging, as we had nine miles left, but when your calves cramp, you'd really better listen, or risk not finishing at all. Truth be told, I was a bit relieved. By then, I was kind of hanging on myself. The extra walking time was somewhat welcome. I suggested trying two minutes of walking, and two of running. Kris wasn't as interested in deciding on a particular system as simply seeing how she felt along the way. As we went up and down a few low hills, and headed into town, we probably spent equal time walking and running. By mile 20, we were making our way through some nice neighborhoods, and there were more people outside watching. The noise was welcome, and I'd relaxed a bit. Kris' heart rate didn't seem to come down too much without us doing a significant amount of walking though. By now, it was clear that we were not going to break 4:15, and that 4:30 was not likely either. For a short time, we ran with a 4:30 pace group. When we fell back again, I wasn't terribly disappointed. The group leader was a pretty loud, aerobics-teacher person, shouting encouragement to her minions as they made their way on Lemon Drop Hill. While I'm sure this worked for some, it didn't do much for me. When it was time to walk again, I wasn't too broken up about it.
Reaching mile 23, we began to keep our eyes open for Kayla, Eric, Katie, and Don and Eleanor. Since about mile 21, we'd been telling ourselves that we needed to run when we saw them. It had served as a reasonably good motivator for us. We ended up running quite a bit until we finally spotted Eric. He saw us waving, and then ran very quickly (much more quickly than we were moving) back to alert the others. We stopped to kiss Kayla and say hello to everyone before we pressed on. By now, we knew that we could walk in if we needed to. Of course, we really didn't want to walk, so we ended up running as much as we could at the end. We made our way through downtown, and turned out towards the water. The course swept a big circle around as we made the final set of turns to the finish. Kris was really in quite a bit of pain by now. Every once in a while during the last mile, I'd hear a cry of pain from her, and hope that she was okay. I still cannot believe how she persevered through the race, the last stretch in particular. It was a big relief to finally cross the finish.
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There
was a sea of runners out there, in the lot of a car dealer. We had
time for two trips through the potty lines before it was time to find our
place in the starting lane. We noticed that it was already quite warm,
a bit warmer than I like to run. Not much to do about that however.
We wound through the crowd, finding our way to the proper pacing sign - sort
of. We situated ourselves near a 4:00 sign, which was next to a 4:30
sign, and behind a 4:15 sign. The 4:00 sign looked a little more
official though, so that's where we landed.
This
was a very bad thing. The field was still quite crowded, and I wasn't
sure whether she was ahead of or behind me. I was frustrated,
remembering that I really only had one thing to do (keep Kris in view), and
I'd failed to do that. For the next three miles, I'd alternate
speeding up, slowing down, running backwards, and even turning back into the
crowd, trying to find her. I'm sure this annoyed some people, but I
really didn't care. One of the runners jokingly asked me whether I was
showing off somehow. I explained that I was looking for my running
partner, but somehow failed to convince. Perhaps he thought running
backwards was my novel way of stretching. I passed the halfway point,
flashing a peace sign to a course photographer, but feeling discouraged and
a bit concerned about Kris.
