On October 2, I ran the Twin Cities Marathon. Lately, I’ve been running marathons every other weekend. This was going to be an off weekend, but it’s hard to pass up a hometown race, and this is one of my favorites.
When I signed up for the
race, I was cautiously optimistic that I would be healthy enough that I could
run on consecutive weekends. My sciatica
has improved significantly, but I keep re-injuring the proximal hamstring
tendon in my left leg. It was showing
improvement before the Tallinn Marathon, but I aggravated it when another
runner stepped on the back of my left heel, just as I was lifting my foot.
I rested for the next
week, and that really helped. It felt
better in the week leading up to the Heartland Marathon, but then I had another
mishap. During that race, I tripped on
some uneven pavement and absorbed a lot of shock as I struggled to keep my feet
under me.
Since that race, I’ve
been icing it and getting more rest. I
only ran once during the week. My plan
for this race was to pace myself according to how my left leg felt. I expected a little soreness, but I wanted to
find a pace that didn’t seem to make it any worse.
In the meantime, I had an
epidural steroid injection for my sciatica.
It hasn’t bothered me as much lately, but I still notice it. I suspect the synovial cyst in my L5/S1 joint
had already partially drained, but this injection should help significantly
with any inflammation around this nerve.
I had the injection on Friday.
They wanted me to rest for the remainder of the day. I asked them if it would be OK to run on
Sunday. The doctor said if I could run a
marathon a week ago, there was no reason I couldn’t run one this weekend.
I waited until Saturday to
pick up my race packet. Packet pickup
was at River Center in downtown St. Paul.
In addition to a long sleeve T-shirts, the race packet included a
hat. The T-shirt and hat each had designs
noting that this was the 40th anniversary for this race. It was my 14th, so I’ve run about a third of
them.
I went to the expo just
before lunch, so I could have lunch at Cossetta’s, which is a few blocks away.
One of the side-effects
of the injection I had on Friday is insomnia.
I didn’t get much sleep Friday night, so I took it easy most of the day
on Saturday. I went to bed early that
night. I slept better than I did on
Friday, but I had to get up pretty early.
The race starts in downtown
Minneapolis and finishes in downtown St. Paul.
The race organizers discourage driving to the start. Instead, they want you to take the transportation
they provide. You can ride the light
rail for free by showing your race bib.
Alternatively, they provided buses from two of the hotels in downtown St.
Paul.
One of the places I could
catch a bus was the Radisson. There’s a
large parking lot next door where I’ve always parked in the past. They charged $30 for event parking on race
day. I didn’t remember it being that
expensive, but it’s been a few years since I last ran this race. I didn’t have a backup plan, so I paid the
$30 dollars.
I could’ve walked to the
nearest light rail station, but catching a bus at the Radisson gave me an opportunity
to go inside and use their bathroom before boarding the bus.
I was expecting a long
line to board the buses, but people were getting onto buses almost as fast as
they showed up. I was on a bus and on my
way within a few minutes. As the crow
flies, it’s only 10 miles from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis. It didn’t take very long to get there.
The race starts on the
eastern edge of the downtown area, next to the football stadium. Once we were dropped off, there wasn’t any place
to go inside to stay warm. The race
provided a gear check, so I wore warm layers and waited as long as possible
before checking my gear bag.
The temperature at the
start was 55 degrees. That’s great
weather for running, but I expected to feel cold once I took off my warm-ups. Surprisingly, I didn’t. There wasn’t any wind as we were waiting to
start.
I was assigned to the second
of three start corrals. The first corral
started at 8:00 AM. My corral started
six minutes later, so it wasn’t a long wait.
As I crossed the line and started running, I forced myself to take short
rapid steps. I’ve found that shortening
my stride eases the discomfort in my left leg.
It’s not my natural stride, so it’s hard to keep it up. The only way I can force myself to keep my
stride consistently short is to maintain a fast cadence, which is tiring.
I didn’t have a good feel
for how fast I was running. The rapid
cadence made it seem like I was running fast, but my stride was so short that I
easily could’ve been going slow. I didn’t
know for sure until I finished the first mile.
I ran it in 9:36. That’s pretty
close to the pace I ran in my last race, but that was with a more natural
stride. Running that pace with such a
short stride was more tiring. I had
doubts about sustaining that pace.
Anytime you’re running in
a large race, it takes a few minutes to settle into your pace. Before that, it’s too crowded, and you’re
held back by people in front of you who haven’t reached their pace yet. As a result, my time for the first mile was misleading. I started that mile slower and finished it
faster. That became apparent when I saw
the time for my second mile. I ran than
one in 9:15.
I knew that pace was too
fast, but slowing down wasn’t easy. I
had difficulty slowing down while maintaining a fast cadence. It didn’t help that I was starting a downhill
section as we got close to Kenwood Park.
I wanted to slow down, but I actually sped up in that mile. I ran it in 8:54, which was clearly much too
fast.
Before long, we reached
the chain of lakes in southwest Minneapolis.
The road here wasn’t as wide, and I sometimes found myself boxed in
behind a few runners who weren’t going as fast.
I used that to my advantage.
Rather than try to get around them, I forced myself to stay behind them. In was never long, though, before I found
myself out in the open again. There was
an ebb and flow to my pace, but I gradually moderated my pace. Over the next few miles, I slowed down to 9:05,
then 9:15, then 9:25, and finally 9:35.
When I got to 9:35, I stopped slowing down. That pace still felt tiring, but it didn’t
seem ridiculously fast.
Running around the lakes,
I found myself instinctively running the tangents. I’m so familiar with these parkways that I
never needed to look ahead to see when a turn was coming. I just knew.
I could’ve run this part of the course with my eyes shut. Besides running this race 14 times, I’ve also
run numerous shorter races around these same lakes.
After seven miles, my
pace stabilized in a narrow range. For
the next eight miles, I was never faster than 9:25 or slower than 9:35. The pace didn’t feel sustainable, but I was
doing what I had to. My top priority was
running in a manner that didn’t aggravate my injured hamstring tendon. I knew I risked running out of gas later, but
that was a lesser concern.
After leaving the lakes,
we ran along Minnehaha Parkway. The next
few miles had some small hills. Here, I
found it easier to maintain a short stride.
Going up a hill, I naturally shorten my stride. It’s like shifting into a lower gear. Going downhill, I take short rapid steps to
lessen the impact.
When we ran under the
Nicollet Avenue bridge, there were drummers set up under the bridge on both
sides of the road. That brought back a
memory of my first marathon, which was also on this course. Under this same bridge, a four-piece brass
band was playing the theme from The Muppets.
Musicians always set up under the bridges, so they can stay dry if it
happens to be a rainy day. That wasn’t a
concern today.
At 11 miles, we briefly
left Minnehaha Parkway to run a lap around Lake Nokomis. This lake used to be the site of the FANS
24-hour race. Over the years, I’ve
logged more than 800 miles around this lake.
I’ll always feel at home there.
The Minnesota Vikings
were playing the New Orleans Saints today, but the game was played in
England. Over there, it was an afternoon
game, but in our time zone, the game started at 8:30 AM. I was about halfway around Lake Nokomis when
I heard a spectator say that the Vikings were winning 13-7 at halftime.
When I reached the halfway
mark, I was more than two minutes faster than I was in my last race. I was on pace to break 4:10. It occurred to me that I never saw the 4:10
pace group. I’m pretty sure they were
lined up somewhere in front of me, so I should’ve passed them by now. Maybe I passed them early in the race, and it
was so crowded that I didn’t notice them.
I didn’t expect to break
4:10 today. I wasn’t even confident that
I would break 4:15. Since the early
miles, the pace had felt tiring. Your pace
should never feel tiring in the first half of a marathon.
Most of the aid stations
had water and Nuun. Just past the
halfway mark, I reached one that also had pickle juice. It might not sound appetizing, but I drank a
glass of pickle juice. For the first
half of the race, it was cloudy. Now the
sun was coming out. I expected the
temperature to warm into the mid-60s, so the salt in the pickle juice might be just
what my body needed as it got warmer.
When we got back onto
Minnehaha Parkway, I found myself working harder to stay on pace. That wasn’t a conscious decision. I just did it. I brought my shoulders forward and started
driving with my knees. As I did that, I
realized I wasn’t maintaining the same fast cadence. Realizing I was letting my stride get longer,
I worked hard to force myself back into a faster cadence with shorter strides.
From time to time, I compared
how I felt today with how I felt at the same point in my last race. I felt like I was working harder than I
should be at this point, but I recalled feeling the same way 14 miles into my last
race. For the first time, I had a faint
glimmer of hope that I might be able to keep up this effort for 12 more miles.
When I drank at the aid
stations, I usually slowed to a walk for a few seconds and then quickly resumed
my previous pace. At 15 miles, I started
to notice most of the runners ahead of me were also walking through the aid station,
but they weren’t as quick to start running again. I had to get around them and look for the
people who were still running. Then I
had to match their pace.
It was getting warmer,
and I started to notice more and more of the runners around me were either
walking or slowing down. I could no
longer rely on anyone around me to run a consistent pace. I had to do it on my own. I had to keep lifting my effort to stay on
pace. That often meant gradually moving
past most of the people around me.
I was running north along
the west bank of the Mississippi River.
When I ran under the Lake Street Bridge, I knew it was only one more
mile to the Franklin Avenue Bridge. That’s
where we would cross the Mississippi. I
could no longer think about all the remaining miles. I had to segment the course. My immediate goal was to stay on pace until
the Franklin Avenue Bridge.
When I finally got to
Franklin, I had to go up a ramp to get to the bridge. It was tiring, but I worked hard to sustain the
same pace. As I neared the bridge, my
watch recorded a split. Despite the
ramp, I ran that mile in 9:25. I was getting
tired, but I was still keeping up the pace.
As I crossed the bridge,
I heard a large group of spectators cheering loudly. The cheering seemed to follow me as I crossed
the bridge. I looked to my right and saw
about 30 young men running across the bridge on the sidewalk, while continuing
to cheer. It turns out they were all
cheering for one runner, and that runner happened to be just in front of me.
After crossing the
bridge, I saw the number “3” painted in the street. That was the three mile mark for the 10-mile
race, which started 40 minutes before the marathon. Both races start in downtown Minneapolis, and
they share the same finish line in St. Paul.
The 10-mile race takes a direct route, while the marathon takes the
scenic route.
I had seven miles to
go. Up until now, our route had been
somewhat circuitous, but the last seven miles would be much more direct. Knowing that made the remaining distance seem
more manageable.
As I came off the bridge,
I reached another aid station. The cup I
grabbed was fairly full, so it took a few extra seconds to drink it all. I was concerned that I would have difficulty
getting back to my previous pace. It
helped that the next mile was slightly downhill.
Now I was running south
along the east bank of the Mississippi.
For one mile, it was relatively easy.
Then I started a three-mile section that’s slightly uphill.
Mile 21 has a slight
uphill trend, but it’s not that noticeable.
I put a little more effort into maintaining my pace. Despite my effort, I slowed to 9:38. That was my slowest mile so far, but only by
a few seconds.
Mile 22 has a more
noticeable hill. There’s a point where
you turn away from the river and run up a long gradual hill. I saw a lot of people walking on this
hill. In the past, I’ve sometimes walked
part of it. Today, I was determined not
to slow down any more than I had to. I
knew I’d slow down a little, but it wouldn’t be for lack of effort.
As I neared the top of
the hill, I saw some of the buildings of the University of St. Thomas. Then I made the right turn onto Cretin and
the left turn onto Summit Avenue. When I
finished mile 22, I saw that I slowed down by another five seconds. That wasn’t bad.
It was shortly after
turning onto Summit Avenue that I noticed how much the balls of my feet
hurt. It didn’t feel like I had
blisters. There was soreness all the way
across the ball of each foot. After thinking
about it for a second, I realized why they hurt so much.
I’m normally a heal
striker. I make contact with my heal and
then shift my weight to the front of my foot.
Because I was keeping my stride so short, I was making contact farther
forward. I was striking the ground with
the balls of my feet. I’ve never run
like this for an entire marathon, so it’s not surprising that my feet would
hurt. Late in the race, my painful feet slowed
me down as much as my fatigue.
The next mile, along
Summit Avenue, is also uphill, but only slightly. Earlier in the race, you wouldn’t notice, but
I was already tired. I tried hard to
regain my pace in this mile, but I couldn’t do it. I slowed down to 9:59 in that mile.
I knew exactly where the
high point was on Summit Avenue. As I
got there, I knew the rest of the course was be much flatter, and in some
sections, it would be downhill. I was
running out of gas, but I fought hard to bring my pace back down.
It occurred to me that
the Vikings-Saints game might be done by now.
Right on cue, I heard someone in the crowd say the Vikings won. I saw some spectators on the other side
looking at their phones. I asked them
what the score was. They just said, “they
won.”
It wasn’t until after I
got home that I discovered how close the game was. The Vikings won by a field goal, but in the
closing seconds, the Saints attempted a field goal that would’ve tied the
game. The ball hit the upright and
bounced out.
In the last three miles,
I started to have some mild discomfort around my tailbone. When My sciatic nerve gets inflamed, I feel
the pain in my right leg or right hip.
This was different. It was mild
soreness right through my tailbone.
Maybe it was residual soreness from the injection I had on Friday. Maybe it was sore muscles in my lower
back. All I know is it was something new,
and that was disconcerting.
In better news, I still
wasn’t experiencing any increase in the soreness in my hamstring tendon. If anything, it felt less sore now than it
did earlier. Its possible, I didn’t
notice it as much because my feet hurt so much.
In the next mile, I
brought my pace back down to 9:36. I
slowed down during that tough three-mile stretch, but I wasn’t coming apart.
After the 24-mile banner,
I saw the 8-mile banner from the 10-mile race.
I knew when I got there, I would have exactly two miles to go. I was tempted to look at my watch. I had been paying attention to my individual
mile times but not my total time. If I
looked at my watch now, I’d have a pretty good idea whether I would break 4:10. On one hand, seeing I was on pace to break
4:10, would give me more incentive to finish strong. If, however, it was out of reach, I might be
too discouraged to keep up my effort. I
decided I was better off not knowing.
To my right, I saw a
large sign saying, “free beer,” I’ll do
a beer stop if I don’t care about my time.
I’ll also do one if I’m killing it.
At this point in the race, I cared about my time, and I was hanging on
for dear life. If it was any earlier in
the race, I would’ve skipped it. With
less than two miles to go, I didn’t think it would hurt, so I paused for a
second to have a beer.
At 25 miles, I reached
the last aid station. Having just
finished a beer, I didn’t feel like drinking again this soon. I pressed on.
My time for that mile was
disappointing. I slowed down to
9:45. I knew the last 1.2 miles would be
mostly downhill, so I fought to pick up the pace.
Halfway through that
mile, I looked to my left and saw a cross above the trees. It was the steeple of St. Paul’s
Cathedral. I would pass the cathedral just
before getting to the 26 mile mark. When
I reached the cathedral, I had to turn my head to look at it. It’s the second most majestic landmark on the
course.
As I reached the 26 banner,
I saw that I had brought my pace back down in that mile. I could see the finish line ahead of me, and
it was all downhill.
The runners around me
were all passing me as they put on their best finishing kicks. I was still taking short rapid strides, so
there was a limit to how fast I could go.
I maintained my effort, but I couldn’t speed up like the people around
me.
The Twin Cities Marathon may
have the most majestic finish line of any race I’ve done. Beyond the finish line, you can see the
Minnesota State Capitol, and you’re running right at it. I had my phone with me, and I wanted to take
a picture, but there’s no way I was going to give up any time when I was
fighting to break 4:10. I crossed the
line in 4:09:36.
This race is almost all
on tree-lined parkways, and the leaves were just starting to turn color. Appropriately, the finisher medal depicts a
leaf.
There was a variety of
finish line snacks, but I didn’t feel like eating much. I ate a banana and picked up a bag of potato
chips to bring with me to the beer garden.
As I neared the end of
the finish line chute, I finally stopped to take a picture of the capitol. It’s not the same view you have as you’re
approaching the finish line, but you get the idea.
I knew the layout of the
finish area, so I made my way straight to the gear retrieval. I was impressed by the efficiency of the
volunteers. Within seconds of seeing my
bib number, they were already handing me my bag.
Later, as I was relaxing in
the beer garden, I took a picture of St. Paul’s Cathedral looking back from the
finish area.
I ran more than three
minutes faster than my last race, despite employing a stride that probably wasn’t
as efficient as my natural stride. I was
able to maintain a rapid cadence and run on the balls of my feet for an entire
marathon. I’ve never done that before.
Throughout the race, I felt
mild soreness in my hamstring tendon, but I never got the sense that I was making
it worse. That was my overriding
goal. I’ll have to wait and see how it feels
in the next few days, but that’s encouraging.
It’s hard to believe that
just four weeks ago, standing upright was painful, and I could only walk by
hunching forward. Today, my sciatic
nerve was never an issue.
Well done!
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