When I got off the couch a couple of years ago, couldn’t run half a mile without walking and couldn’t hold 7:15s for more than thirty seconds, I was completely in awe of Boston Qualifiers. These were super-humans in my book, and I thought I’d never be able to toe the line at any marathon, let alone get there with the intention of trying for a BQ. But a shitload of training the last few years plus the fact that running just clicked with me this year, and I got it into my head to give Boston a shot. So I trained my ass off from August to November, setting a PR for running miles in a month with 206, and using speedwork, trail variety, and an addiction to FUN as key elements in training.

Fast forward to the morning of the Monumental Marathon in Indianapolis. It’s 28 degrees with a chilly 5mph breeze, and I’m armed in tights, a base wicking layer, extremities protectors, my favorite shoes, and a dream of Boston. The plan is to stick with the 3:10 pace group for at least the first 5 miles, see how I feel, and either pick it up or stay steady. I stick with this group for the first half of the run, either just ahead or right with them when the winds pick up and I need some bodies around to stay warm. The city skyscrapers have faded to the background and we’re into the neighborhoods, tree lined and quaint. Stay focused, stay steady, keep it easy. The race starts at mile 20.

Along the way, I’ve been drinking Infinit and taking GUs every 45-55 minutes, just like in training. Since it’s so cold, I’m not focused on taking fluids as much as getting enough carbs to keep up with my body’s increased need to keep warm. Legs are feeling great up to mile 7, and settling in nicely to the pace up to mile 13. But something’s not right in my gut. I’m still cold all over and neither hungry nor thirsty, with a burgeoning tightness in my stomach just under my sternum. I need some space to get my head into the race, so I pick it up and pull away slightly from the pace group. “Tumbling Dice” just came on, so I've got Keith and Mick there for me too.

There’s a second group of guys doing 7:10 - 7:12s, so I hang just back from them and zone out in these middle miles, 13-18, maintaining form and trying not to let this feeling stop me from drinking and taking GUs, but the chills and inability to warm up are casting a lingering fog in my brain. The water bottle is feeling like a brick in my hand, which mirrors the feeling in my stomach as I get to mile 20, where Alaina and my parents and the Cody pup will be waiting for me, and I really need that bump. My cheering section is boisterous, giving me a huge shot of adrenaline and a chance to ditch the water bottle. There’s a slight downhill from 19-20 so my splits are looking better, but everything else inside is starting to shut down.

Miles 22 to the finish are always going to be hard. No doubt. This is where you need to tell the demons to fuck off and focus on the positive. But there’s not much positive happening physically. I’m pushing it as much as possible, using my arms to get the sticks going, reminding myself that THIS is the reason I went to the track early, THIS is why I did hill repeats. This is where Boston lives and dies.

But this is unlike the fast finishes I did in training. Every time I take a deep breath, my diaphragm hits that rock in my stomach, which sets off a nausea throughout my entire body. As the chills start to course through my system and all out nausea sets in, the pace group catches back up to me. I’m holding their pace just barely, and I try to stay with them at mile 24, but I’m seeing stars and ready to pass out or puke or both. The group pulls ahead, ever increasing its pace. Running and I are having another one of those conversations. Langston Hughes comes to me, asking, “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like a sore-- / And then run?”

Luckily, the clocks the race organizers have up at this point tell a different story. One of a last bit of hope. Doing some fuzzy math, I figure that if I can just hold on to 7:30s with one foot in front of the other, I’ll make Boston by a few seconds. Coming back into the center city is awesome. As the towers get bigger, the stage becomes elevated in my ring. The crowds get louder, the buildings more historic, and the finish line just around the corner. I turn it up and glance at my splits for the last mile: 7:13s.

I can do this! I turn the final corner and see my family and Alaina screaming “GO GO GO!” with more intensity than I’ve ever heard from her, so I know it's going to be very very close. I turn on the afterburners with flashbacks of the hot corner at IMLP, where the crowd cheered en masse and the clock ticked down from 10:59 toward 11:00. I sprint the chute, crossing the finish line at 3:10:30. The catchers at that moment are all busy attending to other finishers. Calling faintly for water, I feel that burn in my stomach retch violently to my throat as I fall to all fours and throw up four times all over the street.

Now that’s rock and roll.

They wheel me to the med tent, which I really need to stop visiting after races, and get some chicken broth and water, feeling like a million frozen bucks for toughing out a race finish time that was once just a pipe dream. Also awesome: this is a 27 minute PR from my previous (first) marathon, and a great boon for 2011. I can’t wait to start running again.


Me and Infinit aren't on talking terms anymore.