The 2008 Marine Corps Marathon

I Ran It!

For just 4 hours, 56 minutes, and 57 seconds of work, I got this

Internal editor's note: This is way too long. On the other hand, it's well under 100 words per mile, so maybe you're getting a bargain. I bet I could do a more efficient job of description if I ran another marathon. Get my pace up.

It was a beautiful day for a run; a cloudless blue sky, a gentle breeze, temps beginning circa 50 degrees F and ascending to 65 by the time the race would conclude. I had eaten my breakfast, shoved two nutrition bars and an energy gel in the pockets of my running shorts, and gotten to the start line of the Marine Corps Marathon reasonably early. My parents had seen me off with hugs and wishes of good luck, and once we got started, it just felt like another really long run, albeit with teeming masses of people around me talking and joking, and occasional music I wasn't terrifically fond of on roadside speakers.

There were people lined up in Rosslyn and along Lee Highway (course PDF) making noise, but I tried to stay within myself, seeing the road ahead of me, warming up, feeling my blood flow and warm my cold limbs, climbing the first major hill. Just feeling it out, playing the Sequence's "Funk You Up" in my head ("Don't you give up/Keep going") to try to get into a groove. I was worried that, rather than the soreness I've come to expect from my left heel over the past few weeks, I was going to get the stabbing pain I'd had for the couple weeks before that. The stabbing pain messes up my gait, and with it I'd probably have to walk significant portions of the race, and be really slow, and spend about six hours just being frustrated with myself.

We crossed the Key Bridge, where I saw a couple friends, and though Racing President Teddy of the Washington Nationals was there with me ("Hey Teddy!" I said. "Don't get up too BIG a HEAD of steam!"), it didn't really lift my spirits. I was still nervous, and we had a steady climb up Canal Road followed by a really big hill to come. I messed around with a couple songs to play in my head before settling on the Gap Band's "Oustanding," a song with a nice easy lope to it and an affirmative message. (Psychology is important!)

The big hill comes up from Canal Road on Reservoir Road; I had walked it a couple weeks earlier, for scouting purposes. I had a song lined up in my mind to propel me up the hill, but put it on hold when I heard drums and brass in the distance. Indeed, there was a band at the base of the hill, and they were playing — yes! — the Bar-Kays' "Soul Finger." I get excited when I hear the old brass-driven soul music, and so I became very animated as I approached them and they approached the "BRRAP! BRRAP!" chords. I held up my index finger, swerved out to the side to come closer to the band, held up my index digit and shouted "SOUL FINGER!" at the top of my lungs, just where it occurs in the song. And for some reason this enabled me to bound like a rabbit up the hill, with nary a peep from my heel.

The long runs I had undertaken during my training were like four-hour exercises in disipline for both my body and mind. Mentally, I was distracting myself from what I was doing, settling into a nice runner's high, trying not to get excited or despondent, just being steady. Occasionally I would dig deep for a little more animation, a little more fire, and could usually find it, but I always understood that this resource could be depleted pretty quickly if I wasn't careful. At the moment I shouted "SOUL FINGER!" at the top of my lungs, though, I realized that the course would be full of energizing moments like these, thanks to the entertainment and the people cheering and the general festive atmosphere, and I could reach out and grab them anytime to keep me going. And I did!

For the rest of the course, whenever I was a little bored and saw people with cowbells, I would shout "More cowbell!" They would get the reference and begin ringing even more quickly (most of the time), and I'd feel a charge. To the Marines and others who told us how good we looked and encouraged us to keep going, I said, "Thank you!" and tried to believe them. When cute women held up signs that said "GO HOTTIE GO" and such, I tried to believe those too. To people with cool signs, like the woman whose sign read "Your feet hurt so much because you're kicking so much ass," I'd yell, "Nice sign!" I'd clap in time with music, or with bands. (To the band that was playing "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing," which I tried to conduct with wildly flailing arms while I was running, I would like to offer an apology. Again, I was excited.) And whenever anyone was showing great enthusiasm and I didn't feel like yelling, I'd clench my fist and flex my arm in a gesture intended to pay homage and show the renewed strength I was feeling. (I hope it didn't look like I intended to quit the race and kick anyone's ass. I was smiling most of the time, which probably mitigated that risk.)

There were some other, more random encounters too. Some guy in the Palisades yelled, "Go Red Sox!", to which I responded, "Go anyone but the Red Sox!" (I'm just sick of their D.C.-area fanbase.) A fellow runner looked back at me and said, "That's right," after which I decided he was my buddy and followed him for a while. Later, on the Mall, I heard the same cheer from the sidewalk, to which I responded this time "Go Rays!", referring of course to the team that had just beaten the Sox to advance to the World Series.

"Yeah!" he said. "Go Braves!"

"GO RAYS!" I yelled. "TAMPA BAY RAYS!" Then, to a young woman next to me who looked perplexed, "I hadn't known that marathons provided so many opportunities to bait Red Sox fans. But they do!" That probably didn't help her perplexedness, but it did goose me up the subsequent hill from Constitution to Jefferson.

I can describe the stuff that happened along the course and the fact that it made me run faster; I'm not sure why some of it worked. Earlier on Constitution, there had been a guy with an air horn, and I gestured at him to pump it up. He liked that someone liked the noise, and pointed the horn at me, after which I tapped my hands on my chest in the universal 'Bring it on" sign. And I ran faster, like a beam of noise was propelling me onward. I absolutely bellowed "SILVER SPRING!" when I saw the James Blake High School band at the other end of the Mall, and picked it up a bit to represent Silver Spring. Why would this work? I don't know.

Less obscure was my knowledge that my sister and brother-in-law and my man Robert Kahn would be on the Mall; when I found them, they were holding up a sign saying "ANDREW MALONE ROCKS!!" This sentiment I agreed with. Then they crossed the Mall and, looping back around, I got to agree with them again.

I had other tactics to keep my pace up. The iPod in my mind was a big help on relatively deserted Hains Point, playing Dvorak's Ninth Symphony, or more specifically playing abbreviated versions of the first two movements and the first section of the Scherzo and then about 20 minutes worth of repeats of the trio section of the Scherzo. That's some fine running music there, bouncy and happy without driving too hard. (YouTube's version is too quick. I am sorry.) As noted earlier, I often picked up buddies to run behind for a few minutes at a time; after that first dude, I refined my tailing technique to focus on the rears of comely females, which proved to be potent motivation to stay on pace. And I ate a ridiculous amount of food, which doubtless staved off bonking; I had the food mentioned ealier, plus everything offered on the course itself (oranges, more gels, "performance jelly beans") plus, from roadside cheerers, a Jolly Rancher and some Skittles that thankfully turned out not to be poisoned. ('Tis the season for such worries. Or not.)

To balance all the excitement, I carefully monitored my effort level and aches 'n' pains, taking walk breaks when I needed them and dialing back the pace when I felt I was going too fast. My plan had always been to go pretty slow through mile 16 (reached just as the course approached the Mall), and see if I could push a bit there, then go at whatever pace I selected through mile 21 (after the 14th Street Bridge) and see if I could push a bit there. I didn't feel too much like pushing at mile 16 itself, but I did push a bit once I got onto Constitution, although fatigue combined with the increased effort to make my pace fairly consistent. (The race recorded my pace at 5K intervals, plus the half and the finish; except for an 11:07 pace at 15K (9 miles and change) and an 11:34 pace at 30K (19 or so), I was within four seconds per mile of my eventual finishing pace of 11:19 for the whole race.)

At the 20-mile marker, as we approached the daunting 14th Street Bridge (just after I had passed the Whitten Building and shouted, "Yeah! USDA! Pay me!"), a fellow runner asked me, "Is this the bridge? Did we make it to the bridge?"

"Yeah, this is it," I said.

"That was my first goal, make it to the bridge," he said, smiling. "We made it to the bridge."

"And this is just 6 miles to go," I said, also smiling. "Just a little bit. We're gonna do it." Then we high-fived each other and went forward.

After enduring the seemingly never-ending concrete and asphalt expanse of the bridge and a subsequent tour of the equally scenic beginning of I-395 ("Maybe I'll just run under the sign and down to Richmond," another fellow runner said), we hit mile marker 22, at which point the thought came into my mind clear as a bell: "I can run four more miles. I have that much in me. So I'm going to finish the marathon." That was it, for me; the rest was just doing what I knew I could do.

Indeed, when we got out of the congested, deeply unpleasant Crystal City section and saw mile marker 23, I did a little imagination exercise, putting myself in Montgomery County's Rock Creek Park with three miles to go, seeing what it looked like, remembering how much effort it took, and then running along with that memory. The crowds thinned out at this point, leaving fewer opportunities to engage onlookers, though I did get into some jawboning with a guy in a Dallas Cowboys shirt, an exchange I capped by saying, "We beat you once, and we'll beat you again." So I went back to what I've done to finish out runs since I was just beginning, struggling to do a five-mile long run: Playing go-go songs in my head.

At mile 25, I rolled out the single song that has accompanied more drives to my various running goals than any other, Rare Essence's "Lock It." It did its job once more, the cascading vibes, thunderous beats, and catchy repeated chants putting my legs in the proper rhythm and my mind in the proper frame. And when I came up to mile marker 26, with just a little hill to ascend to the goal, I couldn't just keep it my head anymore, yelling "Unh! I feel it! Unh! I love it!" for a few seconds as I bounded up the hill with a level of energy that surprised me. (Later, I would be a little disappointed that I hadn't dropped the hammer earlier, if I had that much in reserve.) I came across the finish line smiling, got the medal pictured above, and fairly glided (at least in my memory) to the family meet-up joint where my parents and friends awaited me.

It was tremendous fun, much more than I thought it would be the day before (or even six miles into it). Though I had thought I would skip any future marathons because of the heel pain I suffered during training, the experience has made me at least open to doing another one. And even if I don't, I put up them 26.2 miles, and no one can take that feat (or the resulting bling) away from me.

Shining on my chest, aching in my lower body

Arguments Home

Spam-O-Matic Home