Cleveland Marathon 2010

"Why Cleveland?" a lot of people asked me. "Why not the Cincinnati Flying Pig?"

I had a few reasons for running the Cleveland Marathon. One, it was very cheap: cheap entry, cheap flight, and (thanks to my Dad) cheap room. Two, it was low and flat, at between 500 and 600 feet elevation. Three, I was running it for a girl: my friend JaCinda who, with a bunch of her Royal Oak MI running friends, was driving down for the race. Four, I would have a chance to visit a small, recently-renovated house on Kimberly Ave--the house where, in 1938, a young boy named Jerry Siegel conceived the idea of the greatest hero the world has ever known: Superman.

Monday I did take some time to visit the house. I got some great pictures of the front, which as I said was recently cleaned up and repaired and repainted thanks to author Brad Meltzer and the Ordinary People Change the World Foundation. I knocked on the door, but nobody was home. My kid sister says that was weird, that I wanted to look into some total stranger's house. She doesn't get it.

But before I made my little pilgrimage, I ran a marathon!

Sunday morning dawned with a clear blue sky and promises of a gorgeous but still cool day. This sounds nice, but the forecast for all of last week had promised mostly cloudy skies! So, that was BS. Instead of mostly cloudy, it was all sunny. Fortunately it was still plenty cool; and, as I'd learned on the course tour on Saturday, there would be plenty of coverage and shade as I ran. I will say this much for Cleveland, there's a lot of trees.

I started out feeling strong and very ready for a great race! I kept the 4:00 pacer in my sights (in the distance) for as long as I could, and covered the first 10k in 58:56. I was definitely on track for a 4:05 marathon, maybe even sub-4! I told myself this for the first 9 miles as the course wound through downtown and into one of the small neighborhoods to the west before heading back to downtown. I was pleasantly surprised at all the spectators out cheering--it almost seemed like every house in that neighborhood had someone cheering for us. Although, I do wish they'd had more diverse music tastes. Seemed like every house was blaring either "Beat It" or "Sweet Home Alabama."

At about mile 9 I developed a bit of an interesting problem. Thank to some frustrating headphone issues, I was running without my iPod and my Star Wars. I'd been doing okay without it so far, listening to the cheers in the neighborhoods, the music, and the conversations around me. But at this point, out of nowhere I started having serious self-doubt. Despite the fact that I was running a great race, I was just not feeling it. I have no idea what brought it on, or why; but I found myself contemplating turning off to follow the half marathon course to the finish and quitting. I knew I'd never be able to live with myself if I did that; but try as I might I could not shut out the voice that was telling me to give up. Making this worse was the fact that, as I approached that point, spectators were shouting "You're almost finished!" Of course they weren't talking to me, they were cheering for the people running the half marathon. I had to tune them out and focus on convincing myself that I did not want to quit.

In the end, of course, the part of me that knew I'd never live down giving up halfway through the race won out, and I kept going straight when the half marathoners turned right. Still, I wasn't entirely sure I'd made the right choice until I reached the halfway mark and glanced at my Garmin. According to that, I'd been running for 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds! That did it. Reaching the halfway point in less than two hours gave me a huge burst of confidence that was sufficient to blast that negative self-talk right out of my head. Taking its place was a wild thought: could I possibly finish the marathon in less than four hours?

Of course, loyal readers (and my friends...and anyone who will listen) will know that my goal is to break four hours when I run the Chicago Marathon in October. But this new thought, that I could do it in Cleveland, led me to several interesting mental scenarios that kept me occupied for the next several miles as the course wound its way east, parallel to the shore of Lake Erie. If I broke 4 hours in Cleveland, I said, I could take it easy at Chicago, and just stroll along. Or, alternatively, I could throw myself even deeper into the water. I could take a page from my Olympic hopeful friend Jason's playbook and ramp up my mileage and increase my training intensity and hope to shave off another 55 minutes and qualify for Boston! I was so caught up in these visions that I'm afraid my pace started to get away from me. I wasn't sprinting, but I was definitely moving a bit faster than my pace band dictated. More than once I had to force myself to slow down a bit or risk burnout.

Miles 18 to 21 were in Rockefeller Park on the east side of town. This is a very pretty park that's very nicely shaded, with some fantastic gardens, and a very Central Park vibe to it. Unfortunately, in contrast to the neighborhoods where every resident seemed to be on his porch cheering, the park was virtually deserted. It was a good spot for some quiet contemplation, but I was needing some more distraction. I started to slow down, although I was still on pace to finish sub-4:05 as I climbed out of the Park and onto St Clair Ave. Then I was in for a VERY LONG 2 1/2 miles. St Clair is a major road into downtown, so there were businesses lining the wide street. Translation: very little shade. The sun, of course, had been shining all day, and now I was starting to feel it.

There was one amusing moment on St Clair. Several times during the race, spectators had shouted "Go Superman! Batman and Robin are just ahead of you!" I thought they were all just having some fun with me. But as I ran along St Clair, I saw two men ahead of me, one wearing a grey shirt and blue cape, and the other with a black cape, red shirt, green tights, and a mask. Batman and Robin! I caught up with them in short order and we laughed and hi-fived. I briefly toyed with the idea of hanging back with them so that we could all finish at the same time, but soon discarded that idea. In fact, I have to admit, as much as I was starting to hurt by that time (and I was), and as much as my pace had slipped, I didn't want the Dynamic Duo to beat me to the finish! Just as the thought of how I would feel if I'd quit got me through the halfway point, the thought of being beaten by those two pushed me through the final miles.

At about 25 1/2 miles, my Garmin died! When that happened in St George, I'd poured my frustration in to my run and picked up my speed. This time, I didn't have enough left to do that. Instead, I just slogged along at what felt like a snail's pace. I turned onto Lakeside for the last half mile. I could see the finish line in the distance...it seemed so very far away! I studiously looked anywhere but directly in front of me. At the 26 mile mark, I first heard and then saw JaCinda and some of her friends cheering for me on the sidewalk. Then I focused all my attention on the finish line. As I drew closer, I could see the finish line clock. It was slowly creeping up on 4:12:00. I'd been about 3 minutes behind the clock for the entire race, and even though my Garmin was dead and I was running slower, I figured I was still pretty close to that range. I managed a slight increase in speed, crossing when the clock read 4:11:54.

I made my way to the Live Results tent, where I was told my final time. He had to tell me three times, partly because I could barely believe it, and partly because I'd need the repetition to keep from forgetting. Four hours, eight minutes, and forty-nine seconds. Fantastic.

Official Time: 4:08:49
Total Races: 5
YTD Race Miles: 79.7
YTD Total Miles: 481.1
Seriously, United?: My flight out left from gate B92. My flight home arrived at gate B88. I've never had to walk across the entire concourse before, much less twice!