The 2010 National Marathon

My Second Exercise in Convincing Myself It's a Good Idea to Run 26.2 Miles

Spoiler alert: Yes, I finished it

On Saturday, March 20, 2010, I stepped up to the starting corrals of the National Marathon, the number 3096 on a bib pinned to my shirt, wearing my best running gear. I felt much more confident in my training than I had when I rolled up to the Marine Corps Marathon start area in 2008. Unlike then, I wasn't injured, and I had felt good after all my long runs, even the climactic 20-miler. Through snowstorm upon blizzard I trained, making use of the treadmill during the week and taking advantage of Beach Drive being closed to cars on the weekends. (The freezeproof water fountains in Rock Creek Park, which worked even with snow piled all around them, also helped big-time.) For the 20-miler, I ran 2.5 miles down Beach Drive and then just ran back and forth on a 2-mile section until it was time to go back home. A little monotonous, but it's Rock Creek Park, so seeing the same stuff four times wasn't necessarily boring, particularly as the quality of light filtering through the bare trees changed as the sun rose in the sky.

The National Marathon was not quite as well-organized as the Marine Corps Marathon, most notably in the complete lack of signs to tell runners who were approaching RFK Stadium (the start and finish area for the course) where to go. Fortunately, I was there early, since I had spent the night at my sister and brother-in-law's house, just a 15-minute walk from the venue, and had plenty of time to wander around. A veteran of running to and through RFK's parking lots, I even got to use my specialized knowledge, as just before the race I remembered a portable toilet tucked away past a bridge but close to the starting line. I jogged there, found it empty, and used it quickly, while others waited in ever-increasing lines to take their nervous pees. When I jogged back to the start, I saw a huge line of cars waiting on Independence Avenue and hoped they were not full of runners trying to get into Lot 7, because there were about five minutes to the start.

I evaluated my MCM performance in 2008 and decided two main things:

• I needed a stronger core. At the beginning of 2009, I started doing a core routine twice a week in addition to full-body weight training (which incorporates core exercises) three times a week. This has had numerous salutary effects, including making me a more stable runner, allowing me to focus my strength on going faster (or at least that's my subjective experience of what's happening).
• During the week, I need to run as many miles as I am going to run in my long run on the weekend. So when I did my 20-miler, I had run 5, 10, and 5 miles on the preceding Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That appears to be necessary for me to get the strength I need so that the long run becomes an easy run.

These both paid off during training, when I was doing my long runs much, much faster than I had last time. Still, I wanted to be careful about my pace to open the run, both because the estimable Robert Kahn was trying to be in place to cheer for me around mile 7 and because I didn't want to get excited and end up gassed at mile 20 or something. I had my stopwatch and was checking it to make sure I didn't get too happy with myself.

The course runs in two 13.1 mile loops to accommodate the half-marathon that's also part of the event. The first loop, the half-marathon, is by far the more scenically interesting of the two, and also goes through the most population-dense areas, meaning you really do need to save your energy for the second half, 'cause you ain't gonna get much from the crowd.

Saturday was the warmest day of the year so far, a day that started delightful for spring with ample, vibrant sun and ended up feeling actually just a little uncomfortable. Still, seeing dawn's rosy pastels painting the Capitol Dome, the National Gallery, the Archives, the Washington Monument, and other Mall fixtures as we ran blissfully unimpeded down Constitution Avenue provided plenty of distraction from any exertion that early in the AM.

As we navigated the turnaround near the Organization of American States, I passed Batman. Though some may say that it was just a dude dressed as Batman, I know it was the dark knight himself because we had the following conversation:

"So, you're Batman?"

"I'm Batman." Pause. "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

"No, but I'd like to try."

Batman apparently runs lots and lots of races trying to raise money for cancer now, because apparently the Joker has gone into hiding. Here's a photo of Batman from another race.

The joy of seeing Batman helped propel me up the Big Hill. Actually, this was about three ascents interspersed with flat parts: 18th up to M, then Connecticut up to Columbia, then Columbia up forever. When we crested Columbia, a woman behind me said, "I hope to God that was the hill." It just kept going. I was passing a lot of people here: I love running up hills, not so much descending them. Entering Adams Morgan, a DJ was playing Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," which jarred at 8 am but at least has a loping electronic beat to keep your knees pumping. AdMo also featured the biggest, cheeriest crowd anywhere other than the finish line; here (and only here) public support reached Marine Corps-esque levels.

Shortly after we crossed 16th, I got to grab a high-five from Robert (who had an awesome sign that read, simply, "MALONE!", which is now in my possession) and begin the big descent through Howard U. and onto North Capitol Street, interrupted only by another bathroom break. (I hydrated extensively throughout the day, anticipating the heat to come. I didn't cramp, so I guess it worked. I also ate the nasty Vanilla GU packets that volunteers handed out like candy, in addition to the much better-tasting Accel Gel packets I brought and the homemade oatmeal bars that sustained so much of my running this winter.) The crowd support from Howard in past years has been much-hyped, and maybe faster runners got more of it before the students went back to bed or something, but other than two DJs playing, respectively, J.J. Fad's awesome old-school classic "Supersonic" (for which I briefly raised the roof while running) and Ke$ha's vomitous current hit "Tik Tok," the campus appeared to be deserted.

We rolled down North Capitol and onto H Street, which had been advertised as a place where go-go music would be played. This was a Big Lie, and I started to feel a little exhausted from having sustained a pace a little quicker than I would have liked for 11 miles, and also there was no go-go music. When I play go-go songs in my head as I run, my body just locks into a running rhythm, my posture improves, I become more focused, my movements become more efficient, and everything goes better. It must be the beat. Lacking the external go-go stimulus, I grabbed onto a mantra from Trouble Funk's "Pump Me Up":

The funk is here, so you can groove

We want to make your body move

I figured Trouble Funk and I had the same goal with respect to my body. Anyway, it kept me going to the halfway point, even as all the half-marathoners sped up with their goal in sight. (Or didn't, but constantly reassured themselves, "Just a little more." One said, "I am never doing a full marathon," to which I said, "Never say never." This was apparently a comical remark at that point in her race.) I took an extra long walk break at the isolated marathon halfway point, which seemed justifiable, and felt refreshed afterwards.

Once we all climbed the hill from the backside of RFK, the crowds had thinned. It didn't bother me at the moment, for I was trying to get to mile 17, because my girlfriend had pre-arranged to cheer me on slightly before that marker. We had even made plans to blow each other kisses. (Yes, we are still that infatuated with each other.) That worked well as motivation for me, and after the kisses were blown, another (female) spectator commented, "Thirty ninety-six, you're awesome!"

Mile marker 17 happened also to be the point at which the second-half route diverged from the first-half route, sending us into the 9th Street Tunnel under the Mall rather than onward to 18th and Conn Ave. Tunnels are not especially fun places in which to run, and I quickly decided that each of the next nine miles would be accompanied by its own go-go song, starting with Trouble Funk's "Let's Get Small" to get me through the subterranean stretch. (One thing that always surprises me when I run is seeing highway signs as a pedestrian; they look way larger than they do through the windshield of a car, perhaps because the mind has more time to process their size when moving at speeds little more than a tenth of what you'd be doing in a car. Contemplating surreality is a good way to make time pass as one runs.)

It was at mile 18 that I realized the marathon was now two-thirds over and I thus had a good chance of actually completing it. For the waterfront portion of the run, I naturally turned to DJ Flexxx' "The Water Dance," which proved as propulsive as it usually does during my creekside jaunts. On this stretch we got to see the nice side of Southwest: the Potomac glistening serenely in the midmorning sun, shady byways with tucked-away, neat-looking townhomes, and Fort McNair and the National Defense University. In no way did this prepare me for mile 19, which showed us the abandoned light-industrial side of Southwest. Apart from race volunteers and police, there were zero spectators here, and I made the foolish decision to play hip-hop rather than go-go (Kanye West's "Good Life"), which I eventually had to abandon for a reprise of the Trouble Funk mantra from earlier.

Just like that, we hit Mile 20 and had to cross the bridge, at which point I realized that it had gotten really hot. Here I began slowing down to a crawl at fluid stations to down an extra cup or two each time, which added a few seconds per mile to my pace. I routinely passed people, fell behind them at the fluid stations, and passed them again. I also took advantage of my intimate knowledge of running the Anacostia Riverfront Trail to not despair when we had to continue running under the 11th Street Bridge all the way to the Penn Ave Bridge. There's something psychologically uplifting in knowing that what you're looking for is not coming up yet and this is perfectly normal.

When we got onto Minnesota Avenue, shortly after the Mile 23 marker, I no longer recognized my surroundings, but we were close enough to the end that it didn't matter. The gentle hills here felt like forbidding cliffs, but I kept running up them, passing slews of people who gave up and walked, although I had to go out and grab a lot of high-fives to keep my momentum up. Yet when I saw that Mile 25 marker at the East Capitol Street Bridge, it was a foregone conclusion: I had enough in the tank; I was going to be able to keep my pace. I turned on whatever jets I had left as I climbed the hill to RFK's Lot 3 and felt good as I finished.

And I did it in 4:17:11 (really!), lopping almost 40 minutes off my marathon debut. Since I had hoped for a 4:30 marathon, that's really good for me. I won't do another marathon soon — I got really tired of being in training while I was in training — but I'll definitely do one again. The fall of 2011 beckons!

What finishing a marathon gets you nowadays

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