That was the general mantra for my trip to NYC last weekend. This bad idea wasn’t of the last minute, spontaneous, or intoxicated variety, but more of a long drawn out spiral of pain into which I was descending since April. In the end  Kona + 3 weeks + NYC marathon = stupid idea.

A few co-workers of mine ran the Boston marathon, which seemed to prompt the question, “Mike, what have you run at Boston?” My current Boston PR is 00:00:00, and those few questions were the drugs in my drink that took me home and made me think this was a good idea.

I despise open marathons. Running 17 or 18 miles relatively fast is enough running for me. Ironman is totally different. On the Ironman marathon, you find out what you are made of (in my case, wax, butter, snow… something that turns into a stagnant puddle on the road when it gets hot), in on open marathon, you just find out about pain and boredom (and getting chicked). 

Anywho, my friend Mark Vermeersch (who had run 2:37 at Chicago 3 weeks prior) came with me to be my pacer, and constantly remind me of how stupid an idea this was. You see, I could be the worst pacer ever when it comes to running races. I ran 2:49 at Chicago a few years back, with a 4:48 opening mile. The plan was to try to run 2:45, negative split… no sub 5 min opening miles. I felt like I’d recovered well from Kona, and done enough running and biking to maintain some fitness, so I was going to shoot for a PR. I derived some complex algorithms, which led me to believe there was a %40 chance of running great, and a %60 chance that my legs would break off my body at about 18 miles. I heard Ryan Hall was shaking in his Asics when he read my stats. 

In summary, my statistics were dead on. First half in 1:22, just cruising. Mile 15 took us up a long rise over a bridge, and my quads were starting to feel the effects of all the pounding on the pavement. Mark was also starting to feel some unpleasant effects, and sprinted off ahead to “take a huge dump.”  We reunited at mile 18, and my legs were Done. Trashed. Dangling by a thread. It wasn’t so much fatigue as it was soreness from the impact.  Mark had to pick body parts off the ground and carry me back to the Millennium Falcon.

Mile 18

After that I completely lost track of distance, and time, it was just about git’n ‘er done. With 100m to go, Mark stopped, reattached my legs to my body, and got a full body waxing.

Mark, checking out my bod….oooor maybe my stupid tan lines

Realizing I still had a chance to break 3 hrs, I unleashed an epicly epic sprint (it was epic), and crossed the line just ahead of Mark with 6 seconds to spare. I was hoping to run faster, but this was a gamble to begin with, and I totally fell apart and still broke 3 hrs, which is my new “blowup PR.” I decided to take my shoes off after the finish, which was another bad idea, because I was too sore to bend over and pick them up.

2009: DONE! 

Over and Out! (unless I think up some more inspiring material)

Mike