Photo by Mike Rosowski By Dena Evans
I’d had some serious exposure to running in my life. In an alternative middle-school PE program, I walked 55 miles in 22 hours, and ran 29 miles in short stretches over the course of one day. I was no stranger to the endurance athlete’s crippling quad flames. In the high school and college years that followed, those formative experiences dissolved into a comfort zone of middle distance running, bracketed by revolving seasons of soccer and basketball, and finally into the coaching profession, where I spent my days telling other people how far and how fast they should go. Running a marathon was the last thing I felt like doing. One day, however, the marathon finally found itself shuffled to the top of the deck. I decided it was time to saddle up and find out what all the fuss was about.
My decision came about as much out of curiosity as out of the need for a goal and diversion when I quit my job as women’s cross-country coach at Stanford. My coaching experience also suggested that preparing for anything too fast and short would require me to make a commitment to training I was not logistically or mentally prepared to make.
It was that coaching side of my brain that led me to the second annual Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. It was close, which was key, and it was relatively flat, also key as I knew the distance itself would be challenge enough. It was far enough ahead when I signed up in July that I could plan a sufficient number of weekly long runs. I asked my husband if he could commit to taking over parenting duties while I did those long runs, and, with his OK, I found myself doing the first that very Saturday. That 70 minutes at sunrise in Las Vegas, while there with him for a business event, was my longest run in a year and a half, since becoming pregnant with my second daughter.
The only part of training I hadn’t figured out yet was, um, why on earth I was doing it. I’m a fairly athletic person who likes running, but I do it mostly out of habit because it was the last organized sport I participated in at school and in my coaching work. I tend to get in ruts where I eat the same thing over and over, wear my hair the same way for years and years, and buy the same type of shoe over and over. Was running a rut?
I wondered if athletes who like running are drawn to marathons, or whether, in training for and running a marathon, marathoners become de facto runners along the way. As a person who ran, and who spent several years of my life with not just runners, but good ones, did I just get sucked into the notion that if you ran long enough a marathon was your eventual destiny? Where was the line between participation and competition? And could I ever be happy with a decision to simply participate when my life so far had been about how to muster good competitive results regardless of whether or not I felt like it? After spending years giving advice on how to run, could I take some myself, even from those whom I’d coached? If I really tried and failed, would I lose their respect?
Weeks turned into months, one identical pair of trainers into another, 70 minutes into 2 hours 25 minutes, and I readied for race day. A desire to canvass and explore more trails for a group of professional runners planning to winter in the area took me on some new runs west of Highway 280. To kill a couple hours in New York City on the day of a friend’s wedding, I ran 1 hour 52 minutes in Central Park, buying Gatorade from the vendor with sweaty dollars tucked in my shorts and practicing fluid intake in the 80-degree heat. Stroller runs with one or both daughters allowed me precious time for decompression. And I satisfied my weird goal of running to my house from the San Francisco Airport out of curiosity about the distance (along the San Francisco Bay Trail, 18.4 miles, according to my handy Garmin GPS device).
As the race approached, I flip-flopped between thinking competitively and telling people I just wanted to finish. I processed advice from athlete friends and even from Runner’s World, my reading of which was completely emblematic of my uncertain status—finisher or competitor? I took a free subscription from a few accrued airline miles. Universally scorned by the hardcore competitive crowd as a watered down rag for the masses, it encourages blasphemy such as walking during a race or running a marathon on a 3-day-a-week training plan, and each month it offers a new list of 10 ways to lose weight. The horror! It is, however, fun to read if you know the people featured or want to catch up on what John Q. Runner is up to these days.
The October issue featured a big article on Deena Kastor, once a summer camp roommate and now the American record holder in the event I was about to do for the first time. The November issue had Olympian Jen Rhines on the cover. I’d raced against her at the Penn Relays, and now she was a two-time Olympian! I tried not to focus on such disparities. You cross paths with someone in the days of untapped potential; then you think back and realize either how mediocre you were, or how poorly you have stewarded your opportunities. Passing thoughts, yes, but definitely obstacles to finding one’s focus. The coach of both of these athletes, Terrence Mahon, was the person for whom I was scouting running routes as he had recently taken the reigns of an elite team that trained in Mammoth Lakes.
“Hey Terrence, I saw the spread on Deena. Are you ready to become savior or anti-Christ?” I was ribbing him over the nonsensical bashing or glory he’d receive in the running community depending how Deena did in her upcoming race.
“Did you see the picture of her doing the speed ladder?” he said. “That’s what I was talking about in the stuff I sent the other day.”
He had e-mailed me the plyometrics and strength work he planned for the young team members.
And later…
“Hey guess what finally came in the mailbox today? Your wife on the cover of Runner’s World. Where did they find that corn field?”
“It was actually New Jersey.”
“Hey, tell Jen that as a first-time marathoner, I am following all of her advice, so I hope she was serious.”
She had given a few bullet points to help us newbies.
So, which was it? Was I part of the “cool crowd,” too much in the know to actually read Runner’s World, having discussions with coaches of top athletes about training, helping our nation’s best runners ascend to glory? Or was I just another goofball on the side of the road, huffing and puffing my way to the finish line?
I decided that I was going to have to make a goal time and stick to it. I did take Jen’s magazine advice and studied the elevation changes so that I would know which part of the race promised to be faster-paced. I packed bars into my waistband, and carbo-loaded conscientiously during the two days before race day. I navigated the occupational hazard of motherhood, fighting back a cold four or five days out, and after we put the girls to bed, I drove to San Francisco to bunk with my sister-in-law for the early start the next morning.
After little sleep and an unwelcome case of G-I distress, I found myself at once out of practice with the byproducts of nervous energy and coldly intellectual about how it was not to affect my outcome. Coach and athlete in one brain. Too crowded.
"Along the way, signs assured us that we were 'one step closer' to this or that, whether it be 'moving out from the shadows' or a foot massage. This was not your father’s marathon."
After an emergency stop at a coffee-shop bathroom on the way to the start, I leapt from the car in running attire and found my way to the start, consciously taking no warm-up. I had grabbed the 6:30-9 minute pace bracelet at the expo two days prior, and got a spot just a few rows behind the empty box where the elite start had occurred. Some 15,000 women (and a handful of men, described somewhat clumsily as the “men who support them”) we listened to Carol Lewis, erstwhile long jumper and longtime TV track analyst, handle emcee duties. It was odd to be listening to her here in the middle of San Francisco’s Union Square in the dark. Next came the inspirational comments of the biggest individual fund raiser for the race’s designated charity, leukemia and lymphoma research, and a cameo from Joan Benoit Samuelson, who seems to appear at a big race each week. (That day, she would run 1:29 for the half—her idea of an easy run, I assume).
The countdown. Voices increase. Seconds decrease. Then I start my watch as I cross the mat at the banner.
II.
Everything about the Nike Women’s Marathon—the title, the designs of the marathon-sponsored clothing, the website—was aimed at attracting more women to the brand while convincing them that they were improving themselves along the way. Along the course, one could take advantage of a jacket check at 2.5 miles for those who wanted to stay cozy at the starting line, an oxygen bar with several different flavors at about 10k, two Ghiradelli chocolate stations (OK, at mile 23.5, the last thing I am doing is wrestling with a fully wrapped, neat square of chocolate, no matter how good it is, and believe me I am a chocolate person). We were offered Luna Bars, Clif bar Shots, and even a “pedi-care” at mile 14 if you just wanted to take a load off and get your barking dogs massaged (those poor masseuses!). Before the race, we’d received e-mails with the inspirational stories of other runners, and along the way, signs assured us that we were “one step closer” to this or that, whether it be “moving out from the shadows” or a foot massage. This was not your father’s marathon.
The participants were of many different stripes as well—the elite start featured a pretty modest roster of 3-to-3:30 types along with a slightly more competitive half-marathon field. On the other end of the spectrum, the Team in Training contingent began its quest for the most part at 5:30 a.m. I started conservatively, but I don’t think anyone who started with me passed me after the initial downhill rush of the first mile. As I made steady progress along the San Francisco waterfront and into the Presidio and hilliest portions of the course, I had the opportunity to pass both my fellow 7-a.m. starters, the Team in Training walkers, and, eventually, even some of the elite-start marathoners once we diverged from the half-marathon route.
Again, I found myself considering the question of my true running identity. Every few yards, one of the Team in Training folk would shout, "Go team!" and receive a chanted reply. The desire to just finish, no matter the time, the desire to honor a loved one with an effort commemorative of their fight against disease, to wear purple shirts festooned with puff paint and safety pinned with pictures, Gatorade bottles strapped to their waists—that, I realized was not my club. Team in Training is an unbelievable organization that has raised multiple millions. But it has also received grief from the non-Runner’s World world for taking up spots and supposedly diluting the quality of these big races. The organization’s fliers encourage runners to “make it more meaningful next time,” as if an athlete couldn’t do that without a fund-raising group.
I was primarily struck by the unwavering sincerity with which each purple shirt greeted the events of the day. One purple shirt actually high-fived me. Another thanked me as I ran by (and I assume thanked many others ahead of and behind me) for being a mentor to them! I realized, faced with this Oprah’s book club of the running world, that however much I admired their charitable work and spirit, I carried a reserve of runner’s snobbery from my semi-successful days in the this and other sports. I would never shed my competitive instincts.
Along about nine miles, I passed two former track teammates from Stanford cheering from the side, and was momentarily buoyed much in the way anyone is when they hear their name called out among the masses. A mile or so later, I realized they were supporting two other former teammates, both of which were far better distance runners than myself, and who greeted me cheerfully as I came up. I saw a former fellow Farm Teamer jogging on the side in her own neighborhood, and at least three women I had coached ran the half, including the winner. Like myself, each has had to find a way to negotiate the gradual descent into age-mandated competitive decline, but here they were doing it in style, with several flavors of Oxygen at their disposal.
I was encouraged to be passing my former teammates, and picked up some steam during the next few downhill stretches. Shortly thereafter, I came up behind a woman I had known for years as a soccer enthusiast (and good player in her own right), as well as in her current vocation as a personal trainer around Stanford. As I greeted her along the way, she asked me why I had not started with the elites. This, I think, kind of summed up my no-man’s land situation in the running pantheon. She just assumed, because I had been kind of fast in a track event of some kind, and since I had some sort of loose affiliation with others who really had run fairly fast, that I would be among the elite group here. “No,” I assured her, “I didn’t even know they had an elite start until a couple of days ago. It’s my first one anyway—I don’t even know if I can finish!” She knew I was joking and scoffed at the notion of dropping out. Still, only 40 percent of me wanted to compete. The other 60 was still in participation land. As such, my attitude mirrored that of the race itself.
For example, in one of those quirks of road racing, the half marathon route broke from the marathon route at about 12 miles, only to regroup with the marathon route when it looped around at about mile 15. Finally, both races finished under the same banner. My family was utterly confused as to when I would appear, as people were walking yet seemingly ahead of me. My husband (given approximate splits by his dutiful wife) was trying to look out for me, yet was standing there with my daughters wondering why mommy was running so slow, or did they miss my finish? When the routes converged at mile 15, supposedly one side of the street was for halfers and the other for marathoners, but nobody knew that. I found myself weaving through walking spectators and walking participants, then squeezing through a suddenly narrow passage near the mile marker, just barely avoiding collision.
Though there were only 13 marathon finishers ahead of me, weaving among halfers moving at a 3:15 half-marathon pace, I felt a little let down. What was a fairly exciting moment for me in the presence of several hundred spectators was somehow completed in absolute obscurity. The walking half-marathoners received far more applause for their effort for traveling half as far and half as fast. In retrospect, of course, that was completely in keeping with the spirit of the event.
Finally across the finishing mat, the girl power continued. Tuxedo-clad, attractive young men handed out finishers’ necklaces from Tiffany & Co., a huge booth beckoned us to come take a picture with our buds, music pulsated, someone handed out bananas and free Jamba Juice cards, and the ubiquitous metallic blankets crinkled by. Carol Lewis, in her ski hat and sunglasses on the still-overcast day by the beach in San Francisco, acknowledged the band, a group of men losing street cred by the minute, dressed in cute fleece hoodies and Nike Shox trainers, singing U2 covers to a crowd of women reclining in comfy beanbag chairs. Finishers’ shirts were DriFIT V-necks in bright blue with a picture of a ponytailed female bounding off on a run and a female symbol where the “o” should be in Marathoner on the back.
I’d set a goal of 3:30 and finished in 3:15. I ran the second half faster than the first, and was fairly consistent throughout in my level of output. Although my longest training run was 18.5 miles, my biggest casualty was a self-destructing right big toenail that I was worried about primarily as a source of compensation, potentially leading to a stress fracture in my left leg. Again, my brain was too small for both coach and athlete. I was encouraged by the outcome, albeit ravaged by the soreness in the days afterward. I thoroughly enjoyed myself out there and as the miles melted away, it felt unbelievable to be trying hard and getting something for it instead of guiding a toddler only to have her disobey again and again, or coach an athlete only to have no control over her ultimate execution of my instruction.
The only one of the inspirational signs that got me was one right around the chocolate station. It told me that I was “one step closer…to becoming a marathoner.” OK. That actually spurred me on. A marathoner. Something I had never been, and something I would always be, should I finish.
Over the last little hill and down the two miles into the finish, I think the scales changed in the ratio between competitor and participant. By the time I had navigated the half marathoners, clutched my finisher’s necklace, and greeted two current collegiate athletes who used to call me their coach but had spent this day encouraging me, I was barely able to lift my legs yet, unafraid of the elements, waved off the foil blanket.
They hugged me and told me, "Good job!" I said thanks for the cheers and that it was a lot of fun. Then, suddenly, before the thought had even fully formed in my mind, before I was completely conscious of what a marathoner does at that point and from that point on, before I realized I was acting on a thought that hadn’t occurred to me in the 30 years, 4 months, 23 days I had been alive, something happened. After the Carol Lewis yelling, Team in Training walking, high school cheerleader braying, chocolate bar waving, Tiffany’s necklace earning circus I had just experienced, I bent at the waist, resting my hands on my knees. And turning to one of them, I blurted, “Hey, do think I qualified for Boston?”
Dena Evans is the former women's cross-country coach at Stanford University, where, as an undergraduate, she was on the track and soccer teams.
