Marine Corps Marathon

One month ago, Sarah, Grace, and I traveled to Washington DC to visit the family of my eldest cousin where we would run together in the Marine Corps Marathon.  Our journey actually started 20 weeks earlier when Kevin and I began a training regime which would allow us to complete the marathon "in the upright position."

The methodology behind the training would be very different from any running I had ever done before.  As a high school varsity athlete for track and cross country, I was accustom to running as hard as I could and as fast as I could for as long as I could, maintaining or surpassing a desired pace, of course.  I used this old training style to train for my first marathon, the Walt Disney Marathon in 2007.  During training I was plagued by tiring long runs and the inability to really extend my long distance capacity beyond the 13 mile point.  I also did not run in the two months prior to the marathon.  On race day, once again, I was only able to make it to the half marathon and walked the entire second half of the race with soreness and pain in every muscle below my waist.  This time would be much different.

Not a very happy finisher - Disney 2007

Jeff Galloway is a legendary long distance running trainer and has developed a method of training that has been gaining notoriety in past few years, mostly as a way for people who never thought they could run long distance to not only complete an endurance run, but also not to feel like crap when they were done.  Galloway even became the "official trainer" for the Disney Marathon - go figure.  This method, which consisted of purposefully walking at regular intervals during a run, was quite foreign to me and mentally off-putting.  I mean, seriously, who walks on purpose during a racing event?  After several weeks of training, however, with my endurance steadily gaining, my recovery times short, my pace remaining consistent as the mileage increased, and nary an injury in sight, I was beginning to believe.  My longest distance run before the race would only be 15 miles, due to my hiking expedition, working in New Zealand, and just a tiny bit of laziness.  Even so, I felt good about race day.

5AM Pre-Race group photo 

Sunrise over DC from near the start line.

The Washington Monument is in the background.

On October 30th, a family friend, my cousin, and myself woke at 5am to begin preparing and traveling to the start line of the Marine Corps Marathon.  It was a beautiful morning - cloudless skies and a brisk 35 degrees - perfect marathon conditions.  Twenty thousand runners plus would join us.  We had a few set backs, like needing to stop and pee several times in the first 8 miles (I guess that's what happens when you hydrate for 3 hours before the run instead of just getting up and going running like in training) as well as loosing our run-walk timing device (we think it fell off on a pee break - maybe) but the running was easy, the fans were many and cheerful, and the course was beautiful. With the run-walk method, we ran well and stayed together for over 18 miles.  I was not able to keep the pace beyond that and the other two continued on.  I continued running and walking, mostly walking, and completed the race with a time of 5:29:09.  

At mile 23 I took a few minutes to hang out with my supporters, Sarah & Grace.

The group "after" photo - much better than the 2007 after photo - smiling this time. 

Not that you didn't trust me... the finisher's certificate. 

I beat my Disney time by less 10 minutes, but the difference in how I felt, and the enjoyment I experienced during the race was large.  I'm an official endorser of the Jeff Galloway training method.  Next up, run a marathon and actually complete the entire training regime.  Plans for Disney 2013 are already in the works!

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