Just Like That, I Ran My First Marathon

At the end of July, I published an essay titled “The Marathon Suddenly Became a Serious Matter.” At the time, I could never have imagined that this “serious” matter would become real a month later.

The plan I made then was three 10k+ runs on the treadmill each week, two outdoor 15–20k runs on weekends, roughly 60–70km of weekly volume. I stuck to it reasonably well (over 80% completion). I remember my first 10k at Olympic Forest Park: my lungs were about to explode, yet I turned in an 80-minute result, and I thoroughly despised myself—after all, during that period I could easily do 11k+ in an hour on the treadmill. Later I learned LSD; I shifted my pursuit from speed to running time or distance, and found things much better. After that, 15km and 18km fell beneath my feet one after another.

Then came a three-week business trip to the Bay Area. I had to resist the temptation of good food and keep running—oh, the misery. I arrived on a Saturday; on Sunday I hurried out early to Lake Elizabeth, where I had run on my previous trip. You might think: it’s just running—find any place and run, why be so pretentious? Actually, this programmer mainly liked the convenient drinking fountains there; hydration was easy. And one loop around the lake is 2mi: about 3 laps for 10km, under 7.5 laps for a half marathon, and a little over 13 laps for a full marathon—so easy to calculate! When my body felt it couldn’t take any more, I could also trick myself: just a little farther and it’s another full lap. So even though it was nearly half an hour’s drive from the hotel, I went without hesitation.

That Sunday I planned to run 20km, a little over 6 laps. I ran lap after lap; by lap 7, past 20k, I suddenly thought that a little more would be a half marathon, so I tricked my poor body and ran another 2km.

After the run I went back to the hotel and soaked my legs in the bathtub for 40 minutes after breakfast before they recovered. That afternoon, the sight of stairs made me tear up.

Once the business trip settled into a routine, Monday through Thursday I mostly dragged myself up at 5:30 a.m. for a 5k run. The hotel had new treadmills, and to my fury, no matter what combination I tried on the new machines, the maximum was only 5k. Fine, 5k it was: about 26 minutes to finish, 5 minutes to cool down, back to the room for a shower, and just in time for freshly made breakfast. Beautiful.

The second week, on Saturday, I arrived at the lake 20 minutes early. The reason: since I could run a lap in under 20 minutes, if I ran 26km I could still, like the previous weekend, catch the tail end of the hotel breakfast.

The weather was excellent—neither hot nor cold, overcast, no sun, and very little wind. After 8 laps I felt full of energy, so I decided to push on and run 30km for fun. As for breakfast, skip it; after running back I wouldn’t want to eat anything anyway—just guzzle juice. But while mulling over this plan and going to the car to hydrate, I left my keys in the trunk… The 30km assault didn’t happen, but it led to another amusing story: how to elegantly pry open a car door.

This morning I left even earlier; I arrived at the lake before dawn, hoping to make up for last time’s regret. I leave next Saturday, so this was also my last long-distance run of this business trip…

Honestly, at a little after six the sky was gray, and running alone by the lake was a bit scary—afraid of being robbed mid-run. I nervously finished two laps; various tattooed, muscular men appeared a few times, but not one pulled a fruit knife to my neck or a revolver to my temple. ^_^ Daylight came, and more morning runners gradually appeared.

More than two hours later, 26km was behind me. I was also gradually struggling, unable to maintain a sub-6-minute pace—first the soles of my feet hurt, then my thighs grew sore, and my heart began to feel uncomfortable. Discomfort elsewhere was bearable; heart discomfort or pain was absolutely not. So I slowly lowered my speed, and the discomfort in my heart gradually eased.

But my body had already begun begging me: stop… Relying on the “watching plums to quench thirst” trick learned from Cao Aman, I kept deceiving my body, and finally barely reached 30km; my pace had fallen badly.

30km left me at an awkward spot on lap 10. Since I still had to cover the next 2.4km to get the car from the parking lot, why not just keep running? Another 200m and my body went on complete strike; my legs no longer obeyed, heavier than lead. My pace had basically dropped past 8 minutes, so I simply switched to walking.

I walked briskly for 1km, and my pace was actually 9 minutes. I felt this was good: walk briskly first, walk a bit and rest a bit, then run. But once I started walking, I could never run again.

After 10 laps, I drank some sports drink and felt as if I had a burst of energy again and could run some more. Then another lap. I ran 600m at about a 7-minute pace, my heart began to feel uncomfortable again, so I quickly slowed down and switched to brisk walking. Thus, at around a 9-minute pace, I “ran” another 3km. By then it had been nearly four hours since I started running. Lap 11 was over.

When you have run 36km, especially when you know you’ve run 11 laps and have 2 laps left to complete a full marathon, you inevitably want to grit your teeth and finish one more lap, and one more, pushing the distance closer and closer to 42km. As Forrest Gump said:

And when I got there, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going.

So just keep going. At 38km my back began to ache sharply, making even maintaining a walking posture difficult. But I never relaxed the 9-minute red line, because it was the precondition for me to “run” under 5 hours. Then lap 12 was completed smoothly.

I once again went back to the car to replenish sports drink and Googled the marathon distance. I remembered it as 42.195km, but was afraid of misremembering: after finally getting this far, to fail to finish because I ran a few hundred—or even a few dozen—meters short due to memory would be so silly.

Back on the track, I suddenly felt no pain anywhere. I summoned my courage and started running again; immediately my body used pain to force me to slow down—so that pain-free feeling was an illusion produced by extreme fatigue and numbness. I obediently walked briskly, calculating my distance to the finish 0.25mi at a time (there were markers along the track).

Finally, I “ran” 42.29km in 4 hours 50 minutes 40 seconds. No finish line, no tape to break, certainly no applause—only me silently congratulating myself.

I threw myself onto a lounge chair by the lake and sprawled out—by then I couldn’t care less about appearances; there was no appearance left. My whole body was covered in salt grains, looking exactly like a freshly salted frog waiting for the wok. After lying there a while, I adjusted my inelegant posture and sat in the chair watching ducks for ten minutes, gathering energy. At last, feeling I had gathered enough strength to drive, I drove off.

During this full marathon I drank three 600ml bottles of sports drink (130kcal each) and ate four chocolates (70kcal each). I had actually brought quite a few chocolates, but I didn’t like them; they made my mouth dry, so I forced down four. The park provided drinking fountains right beside the track, making hydration very convenient, so I didn’t carry too much drink. After four laps I started taking water every lap, half a bottle of sports drink every two laps, and two chocolates. Total burned: 3322kcal; replenished: 670kcal.

Besides convenient hydration, there was another good condition for running here: temperature. California temperatures are like Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia—freezing in the morning and evening, maybe 17–18°C; after the sun comes out it gradually warms, reaching perhaps 30°C by noon. On the first lap I still wore a jacket, only taking it off after my body temperature rose. Cool temperatures help performance greatly; if I had gone to Olympic Forest Park today, I probably couldn’t have run even 25km.

That’s it. I look forward to running a bit more and walking a bit less in my second marathon. The revolution is not yet successful; comrades still need to work hard!