Running a marathon with my son, great success!
What a gift!
2020 presented us all with some real disruptions and challenges.
Who knew the full extent they would take. When we were still in the early
stages of the pandemic, we all still thought there was a chance things would
return to normal quickly. In June, my fathers’ day gift from my son was an offer to run
a full marathon with me and to do it at the Marine Corps Marathon in October.
Wow! I was already registered for the event and this was to be my 9th
full marathon; 7th MCM. This was to be Jim’s first full marathon –
and he was not even registered yet!
Some quick maneuvering and a whole lot of uncertainty
First things first, whether or not live events were going to
happen in 2020, we needed to investigate ways to get Jim registered into the
already sold-out event. The entry lottery for the Marine Corps Marathon had
already happened in March and all of those slots were filled. The only
remaining option would be to get into a sponsored/fund-raising slot or, to wait
until later in the summer when the event allows for slots to be transferred from
folks who decide they will not run. And considering the growing complications of the pandemic, indications were that transfers would not happen this year.
I was already a member of their group having run in their 9/11 Heroes Run a few times with a local NJ chapter. Their process for MCM fund-raising application was very straightforward and Jim and I discussed it, and he agreed with the spirit of their fund-raising cause. Through many of his great friends and colleagues and some support from his employer he was able to raise the funding and we were off and running.
What exactly is a virtual marathon?
As the pandemic continued to unfold we all experienced changes and modifications to the order of things. Public events were beginning to be threatened or cancelled as the summertime took on a completely different form. Summer events soon became cancelled. With so many running events scheduled for the autumn season, we saw daily updates and guesses and projections for whether events would be held or not. To their credit, the Marine Corps Marathon organization was very straightforward and transparent in their communication and we soon began to give serious consideration to running the race virtually. Simply put, you maintain your registration for the event, you wear your race bib and run the full 26.2 miles anywhere, log your time and get your finisher swag.
Training together, now this is getting good!
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| Cross country league champs |
Aligning our training became the next challenge. Ultimately
we agreed to run our weekly long runs together at a common pace. I already knew
my marathon pace time and it was a bit slower than Jim’s half marathon pace but
that worked out OK. He needed to slow his pace down to adjust for the double
distance of a full marathon - increasing from 13.1 miles to 26.2 miles is a substantial jump -- and matching my training pace on our long runs worked.
Spending time together
Part of Jim’s original plan to run a marathon with me was to share the experience together. And of course, that ultimately means the race day event itself. But that is just the tip of the marathon iceberg. The time spent training and especially the weekend long runs amount to a lot more time than the race event itself. For example, for this race, we each ran approximately 575 miles from June through October and over 300 of those miles were on our weekly long runs.
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| I would use a few hats on our long runs |
As I have written about before, training for an autumn race
in the US east coast means the majority of the 20-week training program is
during July, August and September. We began to set our start time for our
Saturday long runs earlier and earlier in order to get a jump on the heat and
humidity. Nutrition, fueling and hydration play a significant role in the
training program and to start an early morning run requires an even earlier
start on breakfast fueling and other assorted bodily functions.
Where shall we run this virtual race?
We had lots of talks about this and we considered things
like family support, folks cheering us on, stretches of road in somewhat safe
places, etc. On one of our Saturday training runs we bumped into some folks who
run with Team RWB; Red White and Blue (teamrwb.org). This is a great
organization whose mission is to enrich the lives of America’s veterans by
connecting them to their community through physical and social activity. I was
very familiar with Team RWB as I always run events in affiliation with the Wear
Blue, Run to Remember organization (wearblueruntoremember.org). These
organizations are philosophically aligned to similar purposes We mentioned to
these folks that we were training to run MCM virtual and they said they were
doing same and that they already had a course plan – would we like to join
them! From there, it all fell into place. We coordinated with the great Central
Jersey chapter of Team RWB and their race course along the NJ shore line.
Logistics and family support, how about a motorcade!
This virtual event did not have the usual crowd support and fanfare in Washington DC but hey, much easier for family and friends to attend and support us since we are local in NJ. Call it serendipity, Jess and Joe were already planning their relocation back to NJ and they had located an AirBnB house to rent while they went house-hunting. The AirBnB in Highlands NJ was a stone’s throw away from the start point of the Team RWB course on Sandy Hook. So, Jim and Alyse (and Wednesday) and I stayed there overnight on Saturday October 24 to make an early start on Sandy Hook at 06:00 Sunday morning the 25th.
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| 06:00 on race day |
The Team RWB folks have some members who affiliate with the NJ chapter of the Rolling Thunder organization. Rolling Thunder’s mission supports the POW-MIA issue. They are not a motorcycle club – although they do have an active group of their members who ride. A few of their members graciously agreed to provide us with some road support for the event and what a treat and benefit that was. Of the 8 runners that morning, we broke into 3 separate pace groups and one rider stayed with each of the groups for the entire 26.2 miles.
The run itself
I won’t go through a full recap but I will point out a few highlights. The weather we really great for the run. We started out in the dark at 06:25 with temperatures a chilly 45 degrees and breezy. We had trained a bit on this course and we expected the onshore breezes to be at our back most of the way. It was a beautiful morning vista running south on Sandy Hook as the sun rose in the East over New York City.
Jim and I had trained with and carried hand-held water and our Tailwind nutrition powder and we had
coordinated with family to provide water support every 8 miles. Right on
schedule, we promptly found Alyse at the mile 8 marker at 08:00. We were
warmed up but Alyse was freezing and kept Wednesday in the car – it was a bit
chilly for her. We thanked Alyse and continued along expecting to see Jess and
Joe and Bonnie for the next water support stop at mile 16.
The course came off the Sandy Hook peninsula and along the towns
of Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach and Long Branch along Route 36. We were able to
bounce out to the boardwalk from Long Branch to Deal and Asbury Park and then our motorcade support would meet us back along Route 36. At mile 16, right on schedule, Jess and Joe and Bonnie and Nala were there with water, a hug and a cheer. Alyse had also caught up to them so
we had the whole group to pump us up for a couple of minutes as we refilled our bottles and then we went back on our way. We
headed back to the boardwalk and stayed there along the coast toward Spring
Lake.
More evidence of the great running community
We saw other runners doing a virtual New York City Marathon that day – lots of high-fives along the way. At one point as we were beginning mile 19
along the boardwalk near Belmar a woman was running toward us and asked about
our bibs. We said we were at mile 19 for MCM and she promptly turned around and
offered to do a mile with us. What a nice gesture and a motivation boost. She
told us that she had been registered to run the Berlin Marathon and it was
cancelled. Lots of good runner geek talk between us and that mile went by quickly
and she left us at mile 20 and she said; “… just 10k left.”
We got a bit turned around with the race course mapping at
mile 23 but we did sync with family, told them we were OK for water (thanks to
the Rolling Thunder guys who had some bottles) and we would meet them at the
finish line.
He is a bit younger after all
As we straightened out our course confusion and got back on track I told Jim – “if you have it in you, go ahead at your own pace to finish”. We had discussed this throughout our training and although we agreed it made sense to run together – we always considered that one of us may lag behind or go out ahead. For those final 2 miles Jim gained a few hundred yards on me and crossed the finish line where family and friends were all lined up and cheering and placing the MCM medal around his neck.
I came along promptly after and they repeated the celebration for me too.
We took lots of pictures and the Team RWB folks also had a friend take some too.
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| I was in my 50's when I saw my first marathon. Sisi got to see her first and she was not even 4 yet! |
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| Bon's been at every one -- sometimes it's warm, sometimes it's raining, sometimes it's cold. But she is always there! |
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| The whole group. You guys made the finish line very meaningful, thanks for supporting us! |
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| MCM #7 in blue (www.wearblueruntoremember.org) |
We all retreated back to the nearby AirBnB for a big pizza lunch. There was some more running -- some spectators were still motivated to get their own miles in for the day.
Nice swag
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| 2020 was the 45th annual Marine Corps Marathon |
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| A great time was had by all |
Summary thoughts
It was surely different to do this virtual event. Had it not
been for Jim joining along through the training and the event, I’m not sure how
I would have done it alone this year. Similarly, it was an amazing accomplishment
for him – to stick with and do this event without the normal fanfare on race
day to provide that inspiration and motivation. We will stay active and then begin
our training for the 2021 live event sometime next summer. I just can’t wait to
do the full DC trip and for Jim to get the full marathon experience; to watch the MV-22 Osprey flyover, to cross under the start line archway after the howitzers signal the start, to feel the solemn honor through The Blue Mile, to get that extra boost of adrenaline running through the national mall through the 20 mile marker -- only 10k left -- and then to have
a US Marine place that medal around his neck at the finish line.
