The Best Marathon You’ve Never Heard Of

By now those of you who are interested know that the St. Jude’s Memphis Marathon was canceled due to safety concerns as a winter storm came through west Tennessee on December 6^th and 7^th.  This, of course was the marathon that I’ve been training for and the cause that I’ve been raising funds for.  It was disappointing but we totally understand and support the decision.  The next morning, on what would have been race day, the temperature was 20 degrees with a wind chill of 9 and the decision to cancel became brilliant.  So I left Memphis with 5 race shirts, a Christmas ornament, and a 26.2 sticker for a race that I didn’t run.

  

That was Saturday.  By Sunday the group that I had trained with was blowing up our Facebook page with ideas of how we could run our marathon (or half marathon) without waiting for several months.  The idea of keeping our mileage up or training back up to marathon mileage didn’t appeal to anyone.  By the end of the day we had settled on a do-over (or mulligan) to take place on the 16^th at 8am.  The good folks at Fleet Feet in Brentwood volunteered to provide support and water stops and the Memphis Mulligan was born.

Now this is where it goes from very cool to super cool.  I’m a realist when it comes to running and I knew that since I’m the slowest in our training group, I was destined to spend a very lonely 26.2 miles.  There were only about 15 of us running and most were running distances less than a marathon, soooooo I decided to reach out to some friends who had been instrumental in encouraging me to run.  Obviously no one was ready to jump in and run 26 miles but I just asked them to run whatever they were comfortable with.  I wound up with 9 humans and two dogs who ran anywhere from 1 mile to 8 miles with me.  The only time I was alone was the first 8 miles of the day.  In addition to my running buddies, I had my own personal mobile cheering section.  Lori and the girls showed up at water stops with noisemakers and also coordinated the runners who were trying to connect with me.

The course was really challenging for me:  long gradual inclines for a good amount of it and concrete sidewalks for more than three quarters of it.  I began to experience leg cramps at about 15 miles and had to walk off and on to keep my muscles from seizing up.  Most of my “posse” had run at least a half marathon before but no one tried to get me to push it.  Our focus was to finish and I did just that.  It wasn’t fast and it wasn’t pretty but it was 26.2 miles and the first and probably last Memphis Mulligan was in the books.

This is what I’ll take away from all of this:  if you run (or walk and run), you’re a runner and you have the respect and support of the running community.  Speed doesn’t matter and neither does distance.  When I crossed my “finish line” the folks from Fleet Feet were still there cheering for me even though I was the last one and everyone else had gone home.  They stayed and celebrated with me and my posse. 

Since then I’ve worn all of my shirts proudly, hung the ornament on the tree and put my sticker on my car.  About a week after the Mulligan, the soreness was gone and I got back on the horse.  I may never run another marathon but I will run the Country Music Half in April and it’s time to start training for that.

The Smell of Failure

About a month ago I experienced three straight weeks of different illnesses that kept me from training.  The middle week was a kidney stone that needed to be blasted.  That was accomplished on a Monday evening under general anesthesia but my doctor cleared me to run the Middle Half-Marathon that Saturday.  It was a pretty miserable run and I feared that my quest to run the St. Jude's Full Marathon was over.  I hadn't felt good in weeks and I had missed several long training runs with my group.

Usually I don't run on Mondays - it's a short "recovery" run and my old knees can use a break from the pounding.  Last Monday I decided to run three miles at lunch to shake out the cobwebs.  As I was getting my running gear out of my bag I got a whiff of a very familiar smell.  In case you're going there, my clothes were clean!  The smell is the unmistakable scent of nylon and spandex - it's not a bad smell but it always smells.  They say that one of the biggest memory triggers is smell and I have to agree.  My mind immediately took me to my training runs.  Not only do our long training runs typically happen on the same course but my mid-week runs are usually in the same place as well and I wouldn't call many of them successful.

The thought of another run in the same place actually made me feel a little sick.  I decided to find somewhere else to run.  I thought of the trail at David Lipscomb but didn't want to run in circles.  I thought about Crieve Hall but I hadn't mapped anything out.  Finally it dawned on me to go to Radnor.  The road is closed to vehicles and you can get three miles in easily.  I only checked my watch to make sure that I ran as far as I needed to and didn't worry about time.  When I was finished I had paced out much faster than I had been running.

A beautiful day and a beautiful place and it was just what I needed!

The next day I mapped out a 6 mile run in Crieve Hall and, although the larger streets aren't very runner friendly, it was good to be in my old stomping grounds and remember who lived in which house.  Again, a really good run at a good pace.

On Thursday, I had a 10 mile run planned and I went back to Crockett - the place of recent bad memories.  I reversed my regular route so that the scenery would at least look different.  The temperature was dropping and it was pretty windy but that all encouraged me to run well.

Saturday was my first long run in a while and at 18 miles would be my longest run ever.  It was 27 degrees at 6am when we started.  The first 13 were really good.  The next 3 were OK and the final 2 were hard, but I did it!  

Hopefully I've replaced some bad memories with good ones and I know that I'm encouraged and excited about running my first full marathon.

Finally, I'm still a little short on my VIP potty goal.  Here's the link to my fundraising page; won't you consider donating to St. Jude's?

Steve's St. Jude's Fundraising Page

How Do You Eat An Elephant?

This is the third week of training for the St. Jude's Marathon and to be honest I've struggled some. The mileage during the week isn't much different than what I typically run and I've done well with it.  The weekend runs have been harder. I'm a slowpoke and our group is small so I run by myself most of the time. It's not a huge thing but there's no one around to push you when you need encouragement.

The 12 mile run last Saturday added a new wrinkle to our route: a half mile hill. Ok, it got in my head and even before I got there I was already walking.  I finished the 12 but it wasn't pretty.

I had a 6 mile run on the calendar for Thursday and I decided to use the part of the 12 miler with the hill to map it out. As I looked at the map I realized that if I ran the route one direction, there was a long steady ascent to the peak elevation but if I reversed it the elevation seemed to increase in smaller increments with flat areas in between.  At least that's what I told myself. (To steal from Yogi Berra, 90% of running is half mental). It seemed to work - I had a good run at a good pace. 

It reminded me of the old joke:  how do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

I think that's going to be my mantra for this training:  one bite at a time.  One mile at a time. One tenth at a time. One step at a time. 

It's also a good mantra for fundraising. One dollar at a time.  No one has the resources to fully fund a state of the art medical facility that doesn't charge families for treatment but together we can make a difference, one dollar at a time.

Won't you click the link below and donate to St. Jude's?

St Jude's

The VIP Potty

This is really happening.

Ever since I started running in college I've always thought I would run a marathon some day.  Years ago when I had my first two knee surgeries the surgeon told me that I would never run distance again.  At that point my longest distance was the occasional 10K but I took his word as gospel.

If you know me, you know that over the last two and a half years I've gone against what the doctor said.  I began walking regularly and changed my eating habits.  When  I began walking crazy amounts of miles on my Saturday walks, I decided to start running a bit.  A bit turned into a lot and with the encouragement of friends and the training of the good folks at Fleet Feet in Brentwood, I ran my first half marathon in April of 2012.  In the year following that, I ran three more and have decided to "scratch my itch" and attempt my first full marathon.

I chose the St. Jude's Memphis Marathon in December of this year for several reasons:  the first had to do with training.  One of the pacers from Fleet Feet was offering a training group for those who were willing to raise money for the hospital as St. Jude's "heroes".  An additional benefit was that you received a guaranteed spot in the race.

As I started the fund raising process, I was given lots of info about St. Jude's and realized what a worthy cause it is.  One startling bit of information was that most of the funds raised by race entries go toward the logistics of the race.  To really make a difference we need to raise money independently.

My fund raising has gone pretty smoothly.  My first goal was $500 and I hit that quickly so I raised my goal to $1000.  I'm now $100 away from that.

At this point you may be wondering what all this has to do with the VIP potty.  Well, each fund raising level has it's perks.  If you hit the $500 level you get a ticket to the pre-race pasta party.  If you make it to $1000 you gain access to the VIP tent.  My sincere hope is that the VIP tent has VIP potties so that I won't have to stand in line at the regular potties.


Won't you help put me in a VIP potty?  The goal is within reach!  Here's the link to my fundraising page - it's a pretty easy process!

St. Jude's Heroes