Prelude to a Big Break

Hollywood from September 12th to November 27th. There’s so much I would do differently. People’s first inclination is to extrapolate the negative from that sentence. Why? Why not take this away: The affirmation that I’d change a variety of things about the past two plus months is a clear indication that I’ve learned a boatload of valuable lessons. There. Isn’t that better? I say yes.

To properly examine this time period, I need to prove the hypothesis in the previous paragraph. That means we’re staring down the barrel of a two-parter. I’m excited. How am I going to prove it? By talking about marathons.

2004: Signed up for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. At this point, I had no experience whatsoever with long distance running as an adult. None. So I entered into this without an overarching training program. My preparation (if you can call it that) consisted of a haphazard run schedule that crested with a single two plus hour run of 26 km and a bunch of little runs between 8 and 18 km. A marathon is 42.2 km. (Solid plan, loser.)

When the race rolled around I figured I could fake it. Read that sentence again.

At the 10 km mark, I felt fantastic. So I picked up my pace a little bit. When a surprised CL saw me pass the half-marathon marker at just over 90 minutes, I declined her offer for extra Power-Gels and some water. After all, I was one step shy of a teenage Clark Kent chasing a train in Smallville. At 27 km I thought briefly about how I had never run this far in my life. At 30 km my quadriceps said no thank you. By 32 km I peed on myself. (Not on purpose, but that’s what happened.) The last 10 km were an ugly walk/shuffle combo that made me look like somebody trying ice-skating for the first time.

Boston Marathon Qualifying cutoff: 3:10 / My time: 3:24.

Postscript: My legs were absolutely ravaged.

2005: In the afterglow of my wife running roughshod over Ironman USA – see photo – I decided to give the Waterfront marathon another try. Why? Because I’m hyper-competitive and easily swayed by crude, transparent challenges to my manhood. (Her speciality.) This time, instead of trying to “fake the race” I went with the bulletproof plan of doing most of the training. After all, if I could come within 14 minutes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon without lifting a finger (or foot, as the case may be) then a half-hearted swipe at the training program would probably push me over the top. Can you see where this is going?

Race day was overcast and humid. Ultimately this resulted in blisters and toe damage that really should be a in a medical textbook somewhere. None the less, I did an okay job of keeping my pace under control in the early stages of the race, and with 8 km to go, I was right on target… When it all fell apart.

You know when the hot water in a shower starts to run out? It doesn’t happen right away. The water temperature starts to cool down, so you make it hotter. It cools down again, and again, you turn the shower knob hotter. Eventually it’s 100% hot and the temperature is still going down. Nothing to do but wrap it up at that point.

That’s what happened to my legs. From km 34 – 35, I slowed down by about 10 seconds. Interesting. Let’s go a little harder. From km 35 – 36 my pace was an additional 20 seconds slower. Uh-oh. By the 37th km I had to start walking.

What happens when you do 85% of the training? You get 85% of the result.

Boston Marathon Qualifying cutoff: 3:10 / My time: 3:14.

Postscript: I would have been slower than 3:14 if a massive blister didn’t pop with 4 km to go. It was so painful that adrenaline shot through my body and propelled me to an abnormally fast 800 meters. Then I went back to sucking. Witnesses will also attest to the color of my skin (a combination of gray, green and translucent) 30 minutes after the race. (Dehydrated.)

2008: Four years after my first attempt, it was time to try once again. Like before, it was the Waterfront Marathon. Unlike before we followed a plan (provided by our clinic at the Running Room) right down to the meter. With five weeks to go, things were progressing perfectly. I was running 25 – 35 km every Sunday. We were doing speed work during the week. I was stretching. I hate stretching. Just as we began to taper for the race I booked an acting job in Calgary and had to change the plan completely.

Long story short, CL did the Waterfront Marathon (and qualified for Boston). I had to run the Toronto Marathon four weeks later. In Calgary, my regimen was difficult to maintain because of scheduling and not wanting to look like an asshole in a feature film. When I got back to Toronto I knew that I needed two solid controlled runs of 30 and 35 km on a treadmill so I could track my pace. It sucked and it was boring… and I did it.

Race day was pristine. Sunny and 0C at the gun. No wind. Perfect. My pace called for a 4:22 – 4:26 km. I started to hit them and didn’t stop. For the first 18 km of the race people passed me. Lots of people. At 21 km – after a bathroom break that would rival the turn around time for a F1 pit-crew, I started to pass people. I wasn’t speeding up. They were slowing down. 22km. 25km. 30km. Strong.

33… 36… 38… CRAMP. My adherence to the race plan had given me a bit of a buffer to stay under 3:10; so when my ribs started to feel like they were being stabbed at with a prison shank, I took everything in stride. By the 40th km, the cramp was gone and I was cruising home. Even took a little time over the last 500 meters to high five my Mom and consider the accomplishment. It was just a race. But it was my race.

Boston Marathon Qualifying cutoff: 3:10 / My time: 3:08.

Postscript: Eating.

Everything that happened that day unfolded the way it did because of two decidedly negative experiences that illuminated a series of valuable truths. If I had faked my way to a 3:05 in 2004, the impact would have been fleeting.

Moving to Hollywood has been anything but negative. But there have been lessons. And we’ll talk about them next.