Lessons Learned The Hard Way

Preparing and running a marathon just takes a little common sense. The fact that we actually want to run a marathon might mean that we are lacking a little common sense.

My first marathon was the Chicago Marathon in 1980 and I made a few rookie mistakes. First, I signed up for it three weeks before the race thus my longest run was only 13 miles. Next, I just couldn’t resist playing touch football the night before the race. Nobody in Chicago actually plays touch football. To top it off, I told my brother to pick me up in Grant Park after the race not realizing that there will be 6000 other finishers.

The week before my 2nd marathon I decided to try out a new trail that I discovered in the woods of Upper Michigan. Well, six hours later I managed to find my way back to where I started.

For marathon #3, I decided to camp out the night before the race. It is hard enough to sleep the night before a marathon let alone on the cold hard ground. Needless to say, I was two miles into the race before I realized that I wasn’t wearing any socks.

Marathon # 4 was on some country roads with just a couple of aid stations. So, you needed a support team if you wanted water. I had a support team, but I just forgot to tell them where and when I might need water. It wasn’t until mile 23 before we connected and then I just drank a can of coke.

I went into marathon # 5 ready to race a marathon vs running a marathon. I was lucky in my first four marathons that I never hit the wall despite that I didn’t take in much fluid. I was more concerned about staying with the pack vs taking water, so I ran through the water stations. I cramped at mile 20 so bad that I could barely walk.

A friend talked me into running with him at TCM. It all sounds wonderful until we hit the 10k mark and I was a minute faster than my 10k time from 6 weeks earlier. It was a long and painful last 20 miles.

In 1996 I ran the 100th Boston Marathon. Rooms were hard to come by so I told a friend that it was ok for one his buddies to stay with us. Well, I was woken up the morning of the race by some strange guy doing jumping jacks in nothing but his fruit of the loom underwear.

At the St. George marathon in Utah, they bus the runners to the start which happens to be 2500 feet higher than the finish area. Since the temp was a nice 60 degrees, I decided that I would be fine in my cotton t-shirt and shorts. The bad news is that is was 38 degrees on top on the mountain.

I usually buy a new pair of shoes within a few weeks of running a marathon. Normally, it is the same type of shoe that I have been using for training, so I am pretty comfortable that I won’t have any problems with the new shoes in the marathon. A few miles into the last time I ran TCM, I knew something was wrong. In my last minute rush to get to the dome, I managed to wear one new shoe and one old one.

We each will learn something this Sunday. Either it will make us a better runner or we can pass what we learn to someone else.