Light at the End of the Tunnel Marathon 2019
A Grand Day Out
Light at the End of the Tunnel: marathon #36. There are a few things I want to report about this race. The first is that in spite of clocking my all-time slowest marathon in Boston less than 2 months ago, this time I managed to run my 3rd fastest. I ran a faster time (a mere 17 seconds faster) in August of 2007, and faster still (PR) a year before that. Otherwise I have never run a faster marathon. This means that as I approach my mid-50s I can run faster than I ever did in my 20s or 30s, which is extremely gratifying.
So I hope to reassure anyone out there who has chosen to get older: never mind that old-and-slow stereotype. It’s quite possible that your best is yet to come.
Thing #2: I SAW A BEAR. I might never have said anything about this, had other people not also seen the bear and yelled BEAR, so I knew I was not hallucinating. A young black bear ran right across the trail like 15 feet in front of me — a rotund, lumbering, black furry creature that at first I nonsensically identified as a goat (whaat?). For a brief moment he veered from the diagonal path he was running and came right at me, but then headed off into the woods. I have never seen a bear while out running, let alone during a race. In fact I have not seen a bear in the wild since I was a little kid. It was a helpful adrenaline rush. Hooray for the bear!
Thing #3: Messed up GPS. This marathon is called Light at the End of the Tunnel because it involves running through an old railway tunnel that you enter about half a mile after the start; it is 2.4 miles long, and, not surprisingly, GPS watches tend to lose their signals in there. I expected that my Garmin would get confused, but thought it would settle down after Mile 3. It was about 0.2 miles ahead of the third mile marker — fine. But then it said 4.46 at the fourth marker, and was up to 10.91 by Mile 10. Meanwhile, the pace readings were all over the place: one moment I appeared to be running 16-minute miles, the next it said I was knocking out 6-minute miles. I was obviously aware that it was off, but found that being told I just ran a 6:30 mile made me feel quite good. I’m FAST! I was feeling pretty good, and tried to imagine that I was really knocking out one sub-7-minute mile after another. For a little while the genie on my wrist had me cruising at 5:53 pace and feeling great. This remained weirdly helpful even when the mileage was officially off by more than a mile and I’d logged over 27 miles and yet was nowhere near the finish.
Thing #4: The Team. I joined the Swifts a little under five years ago, but since I started obsessing about finishing the Leadville 100 and my training morphed into endless solo trail miles, I rarely make it to practice. Dozens of women who have now been on the team for a couple of years are completely unfamiliar to me. Nevertheless, I always try to wear a Swifts top and connect with teammates who are running the same races — maybe get a picture before the start or at the finish. I follow what other Swifts are doing (mostly on Facebook) and try to encourage them, and I very much appreciate their encouragement and support. I knew there would be a number of Swifts at this race, but I failed to locate any of them at the start, until I saw Jackie just before lining up. I didn’t expect to see her again until after the finish, as she is much faster than I am.
However, as this course has long stretches that are relatively straight, at some point between miles six and ten, I spotted a runner who had to be Jackie way up ahead of me — possible in spite of my bad eyesight because she is notably tall and slender, has a distinctive gait, and was wearing a bright Swifts singlet and a white hat. I determined that trying to keep Jackie in view for as long as possible would help me run faster. Then I noticed that there were a few pink singlets around her — other Swifts! — and I decided to try to catch up. In the past, if I have faster people in view for any period of time, it is a brief motivational episode. This time, to my surprise, every time the group had disappeared from sight, I would come around a curve and there they were up ahead.
Trying to catch up with my teammates (combined, no doubt, with my faux-6-minute-per-mile pace) kept me focused and pushing for speed.
I kept thinking of something Heather often told us: the group makes you stronger. Indeed.
I ultimately kept Jackie in view right to the end, finishing less than 30 seconds behind her and passing everyone else. I even passed Heather herself (stopped because of a knee problem, and then staying with Meghan to encourage her towards a BQ). It was really nice to be the one waiting at the finish to welcome the others, for once, and the fact that I did not feel awful at the end made it possible for me to fetch water and otherwise help out with the runners who were more exhausted than I.
The only negatives to my tale involved seriously epic chafing and the fact that in spite of loitering about happily celebrating my race I completely failed to pick up my finisher’s shirt. I am hoping I can talk the race director into sending it to me. I spoke with her briefly, inquiring as to whether there were age group awards (there were not — a little bit of a bummer, as I placed second in my AG). I now head into full-on Leadville training with the intention of taking a few more shots at setting a new marathon PR before I really do start to slow down.
