Big Sur International Marathon
April 27, 2008
Last Sunday, my brother, Paul, and I ran in the 23rd annual Big Sur International Marathon. To set the stage for what sort of experience this was for me, I have to tell you a little about my running in recent years. The short story goes like this:
In the late 1990’s and through 2002, I had been on an ultramarathon binge. I ran multiple ultra distance races, including the 2001 Western States 100 Mile Endurance run. My life situation changed a bit for me in 2003 when I was reassigned to become the Commanding Officer of the Navy’s Strategic Weapons Facility, Atlantic, in Kings Bay, Georgia. The one-two punch of living in Northern Florida, a climate and topography that make for a poor ultra running environment and demands of my job limiting the time I had to train, brought my endurance running escapades to a screeching halt. I retired from the Navy in late 2005 and moved to Northern Utah. This gave me the opportunity to get back in shape and restart my ultrarunning hobby. I had a great Spring training program in 2006, and I ran my first ultra in 4 years in June of 2006. That was the Squaw Peak 50 Mile Run. My performance was solid. I was back! Unfortunately, two weeks after that race, I was doing a hard training run in the Wasatch Mountains, and I developed a serious foot injury. My foot didn’t get better with time, so I decided to go to the doctor. One doctor told me I’d never run again. I didn’t like that answer, so I saw another guy. The second doctor didn’t know what to do – another bad answer. Then, one doctor told me he could fix me with surgery. I accepted his services, and went under the knife with hopes of quick repair. I ended up having surgery on both of my calf muscles to lengthen my Achilles tendons. This sounded simple enough. The left side healed up well. The right side never did heal properly, and I have struggled since June 2006 trying to get back into running. Naturally, I tell you this tale of woe so that I have a plausible excuse for how poorly I run these days. The story of Big Sur 2008 may now continue.
Last Fall, I decided to set a goal for myself and pick a marathon to run in Spring 2008. The general idea behind this silliness was to force myself into a training program out of fear of public humiliation and failure at a popular race. I chose the Big Sur International Marathon because it was touted as a wonderful course and it was near my father’s home in California. I passed the idea to my two brothers, Tim and Paul, and to my dad. Both brothers decided to register and train for the race as well. My father, wise man that he is, wanted to do the race, but decided that he wouldn’t want to humiliate his sons by crushing us all, and he took a position to be a spectator instead. My wife, Susan, who consistently runs faster than I do at any distance longer than 10 miles, decided she was not going to have nothing to do with such a silly thing as a road marathon. She is still a trail girl at heart.
So, I began training in Fall 2007, and I was up to 17 miles before I began having trouble with my right leg again. Then, I started having trouble with my left knee. Why not? Life is a matter of balance, isn’t it? Clearly it was not appropriate to have problems on one side alone and not the other. Still determined, I took only the minimum amount of time off before resuming my training plan. By Christmas, I was back to running 10 miles as my long run and somehow managing about 25 miles per week. Then Father Winter paid a visit to Northern Utah and, through the month of January, dumped about eight feet of snow in my neighborhood. Since running through the narrow tunnels dug through the snowy mess for cars was totally out of the question, I took up skiing! I basically didn’t run a single mile outside through the entire month of January and early February.
Did I tell you that back in December my brother Tim talked me, Susan, and Paul into running in the Bataan Memorial Death March in Late March? Yes, this sounded like such a fine idea at the time. We were all liquored-up about the concept of running the rugged marathon course as a coed team. The idea sounded good at the time, and in the end it probably saved my bacon for Big Sur. Bataan was a tough marathon, and we all had to stay together as a team, never getting more than 20 seconds apart from any team member. This meant that all of our weaknesses would hold the rest of the team back and result in the slowest possible time for the team.
Remember, now, that I had not run a single mile in January and early February 2008. The Bataan Marathon was on March 30th. This was only a slight problem from my perspective since I figured I could simply do that old marathon on guts alone. After all, I had experience, right? Surely I could will my way to the finish line, couldn’t I? Okay, maybe not, so I tried in earnest to increase my training miles in late February and early March. It was hard to even think about Big Sur knowing that a hard marathon was looming so closely in time. I tried to do a long run every Saturday morning, and each week I suffered though 15 to 17 miles in pure agony. I have never run slower, and I have never endured such mental frustration from the sport I love. But that marathon date was approaching, my family was counting on me, so, one way or another, I had to push. I knew that my brother Tim had not been training very much, so I stooped the trick of calling him and asking him if he was sure he was ready for the race. I’d hoped he’d say, no!
Me: “Hey, Tim! Are you sure you want to try this thing? I know you haven’t been training much, and I don’t want you to get hurt or anything.”
Tim: “Oh, yeah! We’re in! Can’t wait! It will be a blast!”
In despair, I hung up the phone and realized my fate was sealed. I was gong to have to run this crazy team marathon, and I knew fully well that I was going to hold everyone back. We flew to New Mexico and drove to Las Cruces, the city nearby the race venue at White Sands Missile Test Range. I awoke on the morning of March 30th feeling I should be saying some appropriate prayer like, “Today is a good day to die...” Our intrepid team gathered at the starting line, and off we went into the desert sands of Southern New Mexico. As predicted, I held the team back for the first ten miles. I was despondent – speechless. A five-mile long hill suddenly stood before us, and I picked up the pace just enough to not be the slowest. This was good enough for my morale that I mentally came back to the world of endurance running. By mile 17, I was on fire, and I felt great to be able to run a wicked 10-minue mile pace. What a blazing ball of fire was I! Too bad for Tim though. His lack of training resulted in a painful knee, and he was reduced to walking with short bursts of jogging. Now he was at the back, and we stayed with him as he suffered significant physical pain for the last miles of the race. In truth, his was a heroic finish. None of us could imagine how he did it, but he did. We finished in just under five hours, and placed third among coed teams and sixth among all 102 teams doing the same event as we were. Not too bad! Sadly, Tim’s injury took him out for Big Sur. The California marathon was four weeks away. He could not recover in time.
The good news for me was that I had finally completed a descent training run in preparation for Big Sur. My confidence was back. I was psyched! I knew I’d be slow, but I figured that I could do another 26.2 miles without too much problem. That makes total sense, doesn’t it? Why, anyone can do a road marathon if they could finish a rugged marathon that traversed desert sands and big hills, can’t they? I certainly thought so.
In the three weeks that came after Bataan and before Big Sur, I ran about 30 miles per week on average. I actually did a respectable 20-mile run on the Saturday one week before Big Sur. I felt I was totally ready and had no fear. I guess I’m just funny that way.
Off to California I flew on the day before Big Sur. I got my race number, checked into my hotel with brother, Paul. Though this would be his first marathon as an individual runner, Paul was well trained for the race. Since it was his first race, he had little experience with what to do with his pre-race-night jitters. He fidgeted about the room most of the night, then went into a deep coma sometime around 11pm. I got up at about 3am race day, took a shower, and dressed for the run. I drug Paul out of bed about a half hour later, gave him some coffee, and pointed to his running shoes. In minutes, we were on our way to the starting line via the largest procession of school busses I have ever seen.
At the starting line area, I met up with my good friend Whit Rambach. He is on the Board for the Big Sur International Marathon, so he was posted at the starting line dressed in a suit and tie looking very official and friendly as ever. He wished me luck and told me that he would see me at the finish line. Paul and I went to the middle of a throng of thousands of people gathered up in the roadway of California’s Coastal Highway 1. It was an unbelievable scene. People stood elbow to elbow, back to front, for about a third of a mile back from the starting line. When the starting gun sounded, we could only gape to see if anyone was really running ahead of us. It didn’t seem like it from where we stood. Finally, the throng pushed forward in a slow roll. Four minutes later, I crossed the starting line and started my timer. My marathon, the first individual event of that distance in two years, had begun!
Anyone who has been there will tell you that the Big Sur marathon course is truly beautiful. It is. In fact, I think it is totally appropriate to claim that it may be the most beautiful road marathon course in America. It runs north on Coastal Highway 1 for 26.2 miles, starting at Big Sur State Park and finishing in Carmel-by-the-Sea. In late April, the wildflowers are out in full, and the sea breeze blows a sense of well being through your body like an uplifting nepenthe. The scenery was stunning from start to finish.
So there I was, running along at a blazing 9:30 pace for the first 13 miles. My half marathon split was 2:01, so I figured I had a 4:10 finish in the bag. The biggest hill on the course was behind me, or at least that’s what I thought. So how hard could it be? I was smiling and happy. I felt like a runner, and it was great. All around me was beauty and natural splendor, and thousands of fellow runners. We were on our way to the Promised Land, the finish line! Oh, the glorious finish line! Oh, yeah! I danced as I ran by the many local bands that played along side the road for the runners. I greeted people in aid stations and happily thanked them for being there. I cheered on my fellow runners. I boldly exclaimed, “Semper Fi, Devil Dog!” to the young Marines who yelled out our times and our pace at every mile marker. Yup, I was having the time of my life, right up to about mile 16.
For some inexplicable reason, I began feeling a twinge in the back of my upper thighs. This was odd. I had experienced muscle cramps before, but this felt a little different, and I have never had this in the upper thighs before. A little voice in the back of my mind was telling me that this was not a good omen. Something about this was not right, and I got a little worried. Undaunted, I pressed on, smiling only a little less. Sadly, by mile 18, both of my legs were in full revolt. The cramping that ensued was nothing short of incapacitating. My legs told me, “It’s over you fool! We’re not playing any more.” But my heart told me differently, and my head assured me that I could get through this. “It’s only eight flippin’ miles to the finish line, you sissy! Get with the program, and pull yourself together! Move it!”
I tried to move it, but my legs gave me a notice in the form of complete lock-up. I had to stop and stretch. I walked few yards, and it still hurt, so I stretched some more. I didn’t want to blow all the time by stopping for long, but it became clear that there was no other option. I sat down on the side of the road and went through stretching and deep breathing exercises with my eyes cast to the ground in shame as other runners passed me by. Some of them said, “Hey buddy, you okay?” “Oh, yes!” I replied. “I’m just taking a short break. No problem at all. Have a great run!” I loosened up enough to get back to the painful process of deliberate forward motion, but I had to stop and stretch frequently. In my mind, I kept going over all the things I’d learned from years of endurance running experience. Surely I could reason my way though this epic encounter with pain. I am the DURT Dude! I have to be capable of figuring this one out. But no matter what I tried, nothing seemed to help. More water? Nope. More salt? Uh-uh. How about some food? No, that didn’t help either. Walking was no less painful, so power hiking to the finish line was not the answer. Amid frequent stops to stretch and less happy times in aid stations, I did manage to make forward progress at about the pace of a wounded banana slug. Every step was unpleasant, not to even think of every mile! By then, each mile was an eternity. And still, the cramps continued. Lucky for me, my foolish head-bone was not to be stopped, and I kept going.
After what seemed like an interminable punishment unfitting even a fool like me who would attempt a marathon with so little training, I came upon the mile post for mile 25. The two young Marines yelled the time and pace with determined enthusiasm. It was all I could do to let go a frail whimper, “Semper Fi, you little son of a bitch!”
The last mile was upon me. A big, yellow sign told me so. I had one mile to go, and my spirits lifted to overcome my agony. I began to jog a little more, but when I looked up, there it was. It was another hill, the most abusive hill on the course, fiendishly set in that spiteful last mile. Then I got mad, real mad. I was not going to take this abuse any more. So I just started to run through the pain. If I died, it would have been a good day to die. “So freeking be it!” Cresting the hill, I could hear sounds of excitement and applause in the distance. That bloody finish line was out there, and it was mine, all mine! From the depths of misery I summoned the stuff to run to that malevolent finish line and look like a real runner as I crossed. Whit was there. He came to me in excitement and hugged me with congratulations. In my mind, all I could think of to say was something lovely like, “Get the [expletive] away from me you fool! Can’t you see I’m dying here?” Composed as ever, though, I smiled and gave him a hug in return, and I thanked him for putting on such a wonderful race. Acting experience comes in real handy sometimes.
I walked to the place where young volunteers cut the race chip from your shoes. You know, those quarter-sized little things that you put on one shoe to track your official time, right? Well, after the young man cut the chip off, I gave him the other shoe. I have no idea why, since there is only ever one chip on one foot, but I felt the natural urge to get both sides done. He stared at me in wonder, and I looked down at him, finally realizing that there wasn’t another chip to cut off my other shoe. I smiled and said, “It’s a matter of balance...” and walked away. I met my dad with a smile and told him all was right with the world. Right!
My official finish time was 4:27:13. I’m sure it took me longer than that because I know I spent half the day writhing with pain on the side of the road. But the results were in. I finished that marathon on two feet, and I am back in the saddle again!
Hallelujah! I’m a runner!
