TECHNIQUE AND STRATEGY
Avoid the tendency to overstride, and go smoothly and easily on the downhill stretches (where you can damage your quads). Allow gravity to assist you. And if it’s windy, get behind a group and slipstream—it will save physical and mental energy. Allow your legs to relax and extend behind you. Your core is strong and solid, your legs are the springs.
In 2002, I ran alongside legendary three-time Boston women’s winner Uta Pippig of Germany until she dropped me at Cleveland Circle, Mile 22. The crowds loved Uta, and the cheering and noise swelled as she approached. She smiled the whole way, and I wonder if this was how she cued herself to relax, as she fed off the crowd’s energy, present in the moment. You could barely hear her footfalls—she ran over the road, not into it. Her posture was tall, her arms relaxed, and she efficiently used and conserved energy.
When you relax and let the springs do the work—you can fly!
Uta ran 2:28 that day, a strong fourth place, and I finished a few strides behind her in 2:29. She exemplified how our brains govern our effort: when we are positive-minded, energy naturally flows through the body.
smiling and flying at the Harper’s Ferry Half Marathon
THE LAST FEW MILES
You have hopefully saved some energy for the later stages of the race, which is where things get tough and life can seem miserable. Fatigue will set in, your springs will lose bounce, and your heart rate will rise. At this point, you can’t afford to think about how far you have to go or about how relieved you’ll feel later, or if you’re going to hit the wall and slow down.
You’ll spend the last three to four miles mostly in gas (sugar-burning) mode as you try to maintain speed. Your breathing rate will elevate until you’re getting only four, or sometimes three, steps per breath cycle. This is fine. You’ve conserved gas. Stay relaxed, and speed up only when you can “smell the barn,” which typically occurs around Mile 23. (In Boston, that’s when you see the Citgo sign.)
From training, you have built and enhanced your running form. But your form will begin to “drift” as you fatigue. You’ll become sloppier. Simply remember to land softly (especially on the downhills) and think:
Don’t overstride.
Harness elastic recoil.
Keep posture erect: run tall.
Face forward and look ahead.
Maintain good hip extension.
Relax arms, like chicken wings.
Run over the ground, not into the ground.
Find and maintain rhythm.
Relax your lower jaw.
Try to avoid movements that are painful—even though all movement by now may feel uncomfortable. Make adjustments to your style. Play around, while maintaining your rhythm and spring. Distractions abound on the sidelines, but for you there are no distractions. Just peace in the moment. Relax.
A decline in blood glucose can trigger a sense of doom—so take in a few calories. And when you hit Mile 21, think of it not as five miles to go, but four and change. Mile 22 is three and change. Compartmentalize each mile by running a single mile at a time, counting down the mile markers. Have faith in your training and race plan. Smile and take a moment to enjoy the crowds, if an urban race, or the peaceful setting if in the countryside.
MANAGING YOUR MIND
The best marathoner in the world, Eliud Kipchoge, says, “A smile is what actually ignites my mind to forget about the pain. That’s the beauty of a smile.”
The most important organ used in running is the brain—your mission control. Competitive runners learn how to interpret and respond to the signals that the body sends to their brains. The sensation that you have reached your capacity for further effort—the moment when your brain says You’re done—generally occurs when you have utilized only about 60 percent of your capacity. The brain is going to protect you from harm, and is designed with a self-limiting governor. But it is also designed with work-arounds that allow you to turn off the initial messages and tap into another level of reserves. You can talk back to your brain and tell it that you need and want to continue.
Nonetheless, the brain, which likes homeostasis, will resist your persistence (Twenty-six miles? You gotta be kidding . . .), and it will urge you to slow down or stop. It will read your physical state as one of serious peril. That’s when “sympathetic” stress kicks in and your level of cortisol elevates—which is good for sprinting from a wild animal but not for marathon-style hunting.
So, assuming you are medically healthy, you’ll need to outwit your brain.
How to do that?
Work around the bad patches by cultivating (and remaining in) the parasympathetic, stress-free zone. Seek out a calm, stable zone for your mind. Alter your stride. Sing a song. Slow the breathing. Again, relax.
You made it!
SHORT IS BEAUTIFUL
Now, after all this discussion about running a marathon, I’m going to admit something that may surprise you: competing in marathons isn’t always healthy for us. If the pre-race training is relaxed, aerobic, and fun, the occasional marathon can be a worthy challenge. But the level of effort needed for racing competitively over that distance should be tapped into infrequently. I recommend running no more than two or three marathons a year. A total of one is perfectly fine for a lifetime.
You can’t hurry a chicken laying quality eggs: there is a season for it, and an interval between events, and there are no shortcuts or hacks. When runners train too hard and race too frequently, they end up in a chronic state of managing recovery debt. Their bodies don’t catch up.
In terms of health, the half marathon is safer than a marathon because there is less chance of injury from repetitive stress. Nearly two million runners entered half marathons in 2017—almost four times the number that entered and finished marathons. (More women than men raced in events of every distance.)
The 5K and 10K runs are all-gas, mostly sugar-burning events. A glycogen-conserving strategy isn’t needed for races of less than an hour, as long as you’ve filled your tank with a healthy meal the night before. But when runners who are in “great 10K shape” try to run a marathon in all-gas mode, they tend to crash when their glycogen stores run out.
If you are hesitant about running a marathon, yet it still seems to be drawing you, then run it for someone, or for a cause. I coached the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training in Denver for several years. My wife, Roberta, a pediatrician, ran her first marathon in Cozumel after committing to this cause.
WHERE A MARATHON TAKES US
Perhaps the best reason to run a marathon is that it can act as a waypoint in overcoming what for most of us are daunting obstacles: inertia, distraction, and busy-ness. I have an insanely hectic life, and find myself rationalizing that there are more productive ways to spend my time than to run through the woods or enter a race. But once I’ve dropped everything, torn myself away, and am out running on the trail or road, I am always thankful.
The power of the group makes us stronger.
The next time you are running, ask yourself: “Do I regret coming out?” Time spent on the road or on trails is a modest price to pay for the health and well-being you gain.
Uncertainty abounds every time I queue up at the starting line. But I learn something new each race. Mainly, I’ve learned that significant challenges, such as marathons, are what make us human, and make us better fathers, mothers, and friends.
DRILLS
In the appendix, this page, please see the 16-week Marathon Plan (from the Military Times), and the links to my training info in Dr. Mark’s Desk, which is linked in the book’s web portal, runforyourlifebook.com. These plans and schedules aren’t rigid requirements, even if you’re planning to run a marathon. They are meant to help gauge whether you are on the right track to the starting line. T
he race itself is the final lap.
A note on racing in the heat
Race conditions such as heat or humidity can make a mockery of weeks, if not months, of sustained training.
Forty-eight hours before the 2012 Boston Marathon, the race committee alerted the participants that the race temperature would be in the “red zone” and prudently warned that although hydration is important, overhydration is dangerous.
The Boston course temps reached into the nineties. Race officials treated nearly 2,100 cramping and weary runners in three air-conditioned medical tents stationed along the course and at the finish line. More than 150 were sent to hospitals. Many of the elite runners didn’t finish.
Meet the heat. Boston Marathon, 2012.
Heat is a powerful brake. I played it safe and finished nine minutes slower than my time the previous year (but came away with fourth in the forty-five-to-forty-nine age group). More important, I avoided the medical tent by following good racing practices.
Too often, runners mistakenly believe that drinking a copious amount of water will lower the body’s core temperature. But overdrinking won’t cool you down. Cooling comes primarily from an evaporative effect. I repeatedly cooled myself by pouring water over my head and body. Thankfully, the humidity was low enough for this to work—the water actually evaporated.
Conventional wisdom is that the body will somehow dry up if we lose fluid. But “dehydration”—a nonclinical term with no real definition—is normal to a degree. Typically, the best runners finish marathons in a “dehydrated” state, with core temperatures above baseline. But they are not ill, just appropriately warm and tired and in need of some recovery. An ingrained human response of “I am hot and must drink more” is slowly being replaced with “I am thirsty, so I should drink.” Not surprisingly, heatstroke occurs more frequently in shorter events, when the body’s engine is working at max output.
Here are a few marathon cooling strategies—inspired, you might say, by our own human evolution:
If warm conditions are predicted, try to preacclimate. Emerging from a winter of running, especially, the body needs to reengage the sweat mechanisms. Simply overdress for your training runs. In seven to fourteen days of acclimation, you will increase plasma volume, lower heart rate during exercise, decrease sodium concentrations in sweat, increase the sweating rate, and enhance blood delivery to the skin.
Drape an ice-cold towel or splash cold water over yourself before the race, which will let you take on more thermal load. Don’t warm up beforehand. Have an electrolyte popsicle.
Keep the body wet, for evaporative cooling. Grab water on the run and pour it over you. Use sunscreen sparingly (only on key areas, such as your nose) because it beads the sweat and water, and that water rolls off without evaporating. The evaporation of water on the surface of your skin is what cools you.
Seek out and move toward the shady parts of the route, even if it means a few added steps. Radiant heat is direct thermal gain from the sun.
Avoid running in a tight pack. Get some air around you and avoid absorbing the heat generated by a crowd.
Drink when you are thirsty. You may want to carry a bottle and take sips, which is preferable to chugging water at an aid station. You will lose fluid, so don’t drink to replace every ounce lost. (The glycogen and associated stored water that you expend over the course of a marathon can add up to four pounds.) We are designed to do this safely as long as we replace fluids later, at a meal, for instance. (That’s what the post-race party is for.)
Manage your electrolytes (critical during events of four to five hours, especially), as this will help maintain better fluid balance. During a race, you can drink small amounts of sports beverages to get some electrolytes. Better yet are electrolyte tablets, gels, or powdered mixes (I prefer UCAN Hydrate). Even the anticipation of food and water—swishing a carb drink, for instance—gives your brain a boost. (Rehearse this before the race.)
Turn off your watch and let common sense set your pace. Anticipate at least a 2 percent drop in speed for every increment of 9°F (5°C) over an ambient temperature of 54°F (12°C).
Dress white and light, and pretest how your shoes and socks perform when they are wet. (I don’t wear socks, and run in light, minimalist shoes or sandals, so this isn’t an issue for me.)
Be smart. Don’t run in the heat if you are poorly conditioned, have existing medical problems, use dietary supplements (especially stimulants), have a history of heat illness, or are taking prescription medications that affect heat regulation.
A few words on racing in the cold
The 2018 Boston Marathon provided an opportunity to experiment with the flip side of racing in the heat. Thirty thousand runners were served with pelting rain, a brutal 30 mph headwind, and a thermometer that never rose above 35°F. It was the perfect formula for super-cooling the body, short of jumping into the just-thawed Charles River. The Boston Globe counted 2,500 runners (including 25 elite racers) seeking treatment in the medical tent, mostly for hypothermia, and 5 percent of the starting runners, including many pre-race favorites, failed to complete the course. The fastest finish times came in 10 to 15 minutes slower than usual for Boston. Desiree Linden, the first American female winner in thirty-three years, came in at 2:39—a quarter hour off the average of recent years’ winning times for women. The men’s winner, Yuki Kawauchi, finished 10 minutes slower than the usual winner’s time—while humbling the field by beating his closest challenger by 4 minutes. I ran it in 3:04, my slowest-ever marathon. But I was proud, if I may say so, that a dose of grit (and some race smarts and experience) kept me from the medical tent.
In hypothermia-inducing conditions, the most important strategy is to keep your core warm and dry. Here are a few simple tips:
Trust the weather forecast, and get the right gear. Tech shirts alone will not repel the rain, so get a good running jacket (or at least a vest). In Boston I used an awesome jacket made by On.
A good base layer is essential. The best I’ve found is made by XOSKIN, a U.S. company.
Wear a hat, gloves, and even a hood (for the rain).
Cut the wind on your face and exposed skin by applying sunscreen or olive oil. It keeps the cheeks warm and happy.
Stay warm and dry before the start: wear plastic bags over your shoes, and anything to protect you from the cold, wind, and water. Trash liners can work (which you can recycle).
Try consuming warm drinks and a few extra calories of food before the start. In cold weather your body burns extra fuel to simply maintain normal body temperature.
Keep moving. Movement generates heat. If you stop, you’ll start shivering.
At the finish, quickly recover your warmth! I’ve found that a post-race hot shower (or even better, a sauna—a friend’s hotel in Boston this year had one), will jumpstart normal life again.
Below is my kit for the Boston Marathon 2018. It’s not pretty, but it worked: XOSKIN base layer, On running jacket, hood, hat, gloves, sunscreen on face and legs, calf sleeves, and grit.
CHAPTER 13
The Runner’s High:
The Mind of a Winner
Running has made being depressed impossible. If I’m going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured I’ll come back with clarity.
—ALANIS MORISSETTE, singer and actress
Running is how I get a front-row seat to the calming, enjoyable spectacle of experiencing endorphins as they do their magical tap-dance inside my brain.
—BILL KATOVSKY, author, co-founder of Natural Running Center
For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to the rain, and look to the day when it suddenly is as e
asy as a bird in flight.
—GEORGE SHEEHAN, M.D.
MYTH: Running is painful and exhausting.
FACT: Running can be fun and relaxing, and it enhances the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which stimulates cognitive ability, long-term memory, and the growth of new neurons.
Those of us who run daily know what it’s like to miss a day or two. A feeling of restlessness—for some, even pain or anxiety—sets in, growing into a compulsion to duck out of a meeting, to get moving, to stretch, to exert, to breathe, to be outside. Finally, once out and running, the cluttered mind clears. A feeling of calmness and relief flows in.
Despite the tendency to view running as painful and masochistic, the sheer abundance of dedicated runners (some of them even run through injury and illness) suggests that it must have a pleasurable and rejuvenating net effect. Whatever suffering we endure while running is almost always temporary, and when done right is virtually nonexistent. Yet the mental effects—relaxation, enhanced mood, and focus—linger long afterward.
Run for Your Life Page 18