Marathoning is a game of numbers – yesterday the numbers were in my favour!

Curiosity killed the cat; right now the cat is actually my quads. A year ago I became curious to see what my cycling body could do with a marathon course. The only road running event I had done was the Waterloo 10k Classic in 2002, but I had done a bunch of running as training for adventure racing. My longest training run had been 28km, but that took place on dirt trails, up and down steep hills and while wearing a pack full of AR gear. After seeing Heather dedicatedly train with the Running Room last year and complete her first half-marathon, the curiosity was born. I threatened through the fall that I would begin training for the Ottawa National Capital Marathon at the end of January as the Running Room schedule prescribed.

An unexpected move and another large life change around that time turned my world upside down, but my usual plan of “tell as many people about what I hope to train for and then I will have to do it so I don’t feel like one of those guys who is all talk” worked and I felt compelled to begin my training approximately on schedule. I was pretty good at the “I’m cross training” excuse at first, but by the end of February when I spent my first weekend in Ottawa since I had moved there the schedule had worked its way up to 19km. Much to my delight, my first Sunday morning run with the Running Room felt surprisingly good and not over paced. Every Sunday morning until the end of April was subsequently spent socializing on the snow and ice covered paths of Ottawa while running. There are so many unique experiences and conversations that came from these runs, but too many to write here.

Once classes ended at the end of April, I went back to the routine of never spending a weekend in Ottawa again and my Sunday morning runs became a little more creative including a 33km run on Mont-Royal on my own (BOOOOOOORIIIIING!!)

Cut to the chase Andrew: Finally race morning came. There I was standing at the corner of Elgin and Laurier and I felt unusually emotional. The past couple months of pounding the pavement, mentally preparing, sitting at my computer calculating what my pace and heart rate for every kilometre of the course should be (gotta love excel geeks), sacrificing doing long rides with friends (that one really hurt!), calculating race nutrition, and constantly tethering in my mind what my goal time should be had finally ended and all I had to do now was run. The emotion grew after the gun went and the timing computer that beeps every time a runner passes by was at a constant squeal; quickly populating a list of bib numbers. Each number toting a unique story that was to unfold in the epic journey upon which they were embarking.

The first kilometre was by far the toughest. I had very little concept of what my body was capable of and the first kilometre lead me to believe that keeping my heart rate at 146BPM was going to feel like a** and leave me behind the 3:20 pace bunny. Luckily stripping my “warm-up” goodwill shirt, seeing Leanne on the roadside, and having my body finally turning aerobic, I relaxed and I found that I was able to stay approximately on pace for a 3:15 finish holding the HR in the high 150’s.

The first half went by with a bit of a grin on my face as I was putting in my time. I was heeding the advice of many (thanks Patrick) to keep at a comfortably fast pace for the first half and enjoying the Rockcliffe scenery and spunky race volunteers/spectators/police (yes, even the police were smiling/clapping/encouraging). Although km 15-20 didn’t feel the best, I was convinced that I would feel better later.

I was right, after surging the pace a bit and kicking it up a notch heading over the half-way mat in with the encouragement of the growing crowd, my body found a new equilibrium in the high 160’s. Now going along the canal which I considered my “home” territory, I was moving faster according to the race plan. I started to pass more and more people as my mouth grew more and more parched. I was falling a little behind on my eating schedule, but my stomach wasn’t processing the gels as quickly as usual. No matter, I had bigger fish to fry as I surged the pace a bit again passing under the 30k banner. I now tried to keep the HR above 170 and was breathing a little harder, but it still felt good.

All the fun and games are over with now, here comes km 32. I had heard so many things about this point and now the mystery was to be revealed. I grabbed my last gel for the course and changed my demeanour from calculating and enjoying to “game face.” My internal words of encouragement started to be said aloud as I rounded the arboretum and sucked back some badly needed water at the second last water station.

Careening down the hill to Dow’s lake I kept repeating “Let the legs go. Use the hill. Tall. Efficient.” over and over again. I had reached a new level of focus as I missed a roadside friend that had come to cheer me on (sorry!). My words had now become “Come on guys (I always talk to my quads), keep pushing we’re almost there” in an increasingly raspy tone. At km 39, I thought I was feeling the onset of the famous wall. My hamstrings suddenly twinged in unison and I said multiple times aloud “uh-oh!” I did about four half-speed strides which seemed to calm them enough such that I could continue my aggressive pace and drive my HR into the mid-170’s.

Game time. 1km to go. The street side crowds had kept growing proportional to my pace. I took 10s off my previous kilometre and I knew that I could bring just about any pace home now. I took another 15s off my per km pace as the distance to the finish line was now counted in hundreds of metres. I couldn’t wait anymore. When the 200m sign passed overhead and any pain my muscles felt had completely disappeared from the endorphin high of the situation, I hopped up on my toes to finally cure that curiosity “what am I capable of?” Something inside me responded and I covered the last 200m in 37s.

Any sort of grace, power, confidence, and any other positive quality that I may have shown over the last 200m quickly disappeared as I turned into a flailing ball of limbs making squeaky grunting noises as my cardiovascular system struggled to keep up with demands at a HR of 189BPM. I managed to stay standing, but the help of a volunteer at the finish line was greatly appreciated while the blood returned to my brain. I double checked that I had stopped my watch at the line. Yep, I had stopped it at a time of 3:13:24.

Summary: Happy with my performance. I accomplished almost all the goals I had set out for. I successfully did a negative split (did the second half faster than the first), I didn’t blow up or bonk, I came in well before 3:20 and I had a good push to the line. The only thing that would have made the race sweeter is if I somehow managed to shave another 2min 25s off and qualified for the Boston marathon next year, but I filed that under “pipe dream” about a month ago so I didn’t mind at all.

Thanks again to Leanne (ahem, Dr. Mueller) for keeping me injury free during my training, Running Room instructors for their wisdom and support, Mike for filling many training hours with good conversation, Heather for inspiring me with the idea and of course you for actually reading until here. I didn’t think you would :P (P.S. I didn’t proof read this, too long!)

NOW GET ME BACK ON MY BIKE!!!!!!!!