It's been almost four years since I wrote a blog post. I'm was never under the impression my musings brought much to the table (in fact I'm not sure they ever got read at all). But when the idea was brought up to start blogging as a club, I decided to go searching through my old posts for perspective.
My last entry came the week after I started my first full-time position, a couple months prior to the Ottawa marathon. It's interesting looking back at the thought process in preparing for my first test at the distance, especially the uncertainties swirling around my preparation. In many ways, those anxieties still exist, constantly questioning if the plan I'm laying out makes sense. I think this is as much a function of my personality as a lack of experience; I’m always wondering if there is a better way of doing things.
I didn't survive the full training block for Ottawa that year. I had signed up for the race to give me focus amid a rough patch during the autumn of 2013, and because I believed the marathon would ultimately prove to be my best distance. The race prep provided me with the focus I desired, but I frequently struggled with some injury or another, my peroneal tendon finally giving out six weeks out from the race. After a month off I was back running and ran 2:43 off the base I'd built up over the course of the winter, well off my original sub-2:30 goal. I was perhaps a bit optimistic.
The following spring I raced the Boston Marathon, after an even more prolonged injury, this time affecting my knee. A lack of running coupled with the undulating course destroyed my hamstrings in the final four miles. In the home stretch, I crab-walked (literally) toward the finish line in just under 3 hours.
Frustrated with having trained for marathons through the two coldest winters in forty years--then breaking at the first sign of spring--I resolved to focus on shorter distances through the first half of 2016. The arrival of Victoria Coates and the formation of our informal "VCTC" group in Hamilton made this decision easier as she had no interest in running marathons.
A bit lower (though more consistent) volume and a forgiving winter carried me healthy and fit going into the spring for the first time in several years. I ran personal bests in the 1500m, 3000m, and 5k, and was feeling refreshed and motivated. It was time again to consider the marathon.
The Draw of Fukuoka
In my high school's library there was a small sports literature section where a surprising number of running books were stocked. Knowing little about running, I picked through each volume, encountering names like Arthur Lydiard, Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine for the first time. I read about New Zealand's stunning triumphs at the Rome Olympics, and Dave Wottle's dramatic last-to-first finish in the Munich 800m final. I also read about Frank Shorter, and the race that made him an Olympic favourite: the 1971 Fukuoka marathon.
Before the IAAF world championships, the Fukuoka Marathon was effectively the world championship of running. From 1966 and onward the organizers would invite the premier marathon runners from around the world to face off with the best domestic Japanese men, a recipe that would produce many memorable performances. In 1967 Derek Clayton of Australian became the first man to run under 2:10, and Canadian fans know Jerome Drayton was a three-time champion who famously ran the current national record of 2:10:09 in 1975. In 1971, it was Frank Shorter who surged at 14 miles and beat many of the top competitors that he would trounce one year later in Munich to kickstart the running boom in the United States.
The appeal of Fukuoka has always been similar to the appeal of Boston for me: a race of historical significance, one of the cornerstones of the sport's history. Boston is legendary for its undulating course, its point-to-point route and Heartbreak Hill. Fukuoka is legendary for its competitors.
I didn't have travel plans for 2017, and having already run Boston, Fukuoka would serve well as my next excuse to take a trip overseas. The only uncertainty was the most crucial part of all: achieving the qualifying time.
I could probably go into great detail regarding my training and how it differed, but I tend to think there are many ways to crack an egg. My problem was I was the one cracking, so I backed off on the stuff that was breaking me. My training was basically 10k cross country prep with longer races and runs on weekends. It was missing marathon pace work, but I arrived on the start line on Halloween of 2016 healthy and ready to take my shot. Required to run under 2:35, I battled the wind, rain and loneliness (it was a ghost town out there), taking 2:34:30 to run from Buffalo to Niagara Falls. And so the dream of Fukuoka coalesced into reality.
Across the Pacific
I didn't miss a scheduled long run or workout in my Fukuoka build, but my glutes and hamstrings started giving me trouble in the final couple of weeks. I was worried enough about them to schedule several sport massages the week before national cross country, and combined with some days off my body started to come around.
On the plane ride overseas my hamstrings tightened up, even with getting up and walking around. I wasn't too concerned about it as I'd have a few days to stretch them out once I arrived in Fukuoka, which did indeed happen...
Except I got lost on a run two days prior to the race. You might blame it on the lack of grid pattern streets, the general confusion of the area I was staying (my taxi driver from the airport actually got lost trying to find the hotel), or the dearth of English signs. The only real culprit was my own hubris that caused me to forego my original plan of running a boring out-and-back route and instead trying to spice things up by doing some sort of loop...meaning 40 minutes turned into almost two hours lost, trying to find anyone who could help me navigate back to the hotel. Thankfully a nice clerk at 7-Eleven had a map and pointed me in the direction I had to go or I might still be there.
Who looks out at this and thinks "Maybe I'll do a loop" ??
Thanks to that less-than-ideal adventure, my hamstrings were beat up again. By race morning they were feeling better, and lacking any other real excuses, I decided to go for it and take a run at sub-2:30, that old goal time from Ottawa made new. With bib 454 of 510, I lined up at the front of the last group of fifty starting in the B Group in Ohori Park (the A Group started in the adjacent stadium) with numbers 453 to the left of me and 455 to my right. I can't think of another road race I've done where they actually lined us up according to bib.
Once I was in place one of the officials started pointing at me and gesturing. Thoroughly confused, I looked helplessly at the British guy two bibs over who explained that they wanted me to tuck in my singlet and perhaps move my number higher up on my chest. I looked around and noticed everyone had their singlets tucked in, so I did that, but the official seemed to want to press the whole number on the chest thing, to which I told anyone who would listen, "it's a club logo, I'm not covering it up." I even took a few steps back and tried to slip in behind some other guys to make me and my offensive logo less visible. Thankfully the official dropped the issue when he realized the start time was inching closer as he glanced at his watch. I'm not really sure what he was worried about anyway- I'm racing out of the back of the B-group, hardly a threat to end up on Japanese television coverage.
In the final minutes before the start, our group of fifty was moved methodically up to the next group of fifty, and each group moved up every thirty seconds until about four hundred of us stood behind the start. At 12:10 the gun cracked and we started making our way down the path and out of the park to join the elites.
Everything is cute in Japan…even the distance markers in Ohori Park.
I passed the first kilometre in about 3:37, including the seven seconds to get across the start line after the gun had gone off. The pace felt fine so I stuck with holding roughly 3:32s and feeling it out.
My first five kilometres (17:54) were conservative, though I already felt like I was constantly passing people as I moved from group to group up the road. After each surge I would try and settle, figuring I might have found a group running the effort I wanted, but the pace would feel off and soon I would get antsy and start moving again. Around 15k I passed my girlfriend Zorn, and our friends Jackie and Scott who would be travelling with across the country after the race. Since I was expecting them around 17k I didn't see or even hear them as I went by, but Zorn got a decent action shot.
It was mostly Japanese guys, honest...
The bib numbers of the guys around me show how much I had moved up already, though I find it funny that in a race that is 95% domestic Japanese, the photo Zorn got was when I was running with two other westerners. At this point I was moving well; my only concern was my hamstrings- I was already getting twinges in both of them that would cause me to tense up and alter my stride. The only thing I could do was keep running and hope they held up.
The stretch from halfway to the turnaround (after 31k) was probably the best segment of running for me in the entire race. Likely aided by a bit of a tailwind, I clicked off splits consistently under 3:30 and continued to pass groups of runners with regularity. Unfortunately not long after that point, fatigue and a light headwind started to kick in, and by 35k my hamstrings were spasming badly.
I did my best to latch onto a group of runners who came past, only losing ground when the spams would force me to slow down. As bad as my legs felt, the road to the finish was scattered with runners in worse shape than me, some reduced to walking or vomiting up their sports drink.
The stadium couldn't come fast enough, so when I heard Zorn and the others cheering from the stands as I entered I got caught up in the moment and hammed it up, cupping my hand to my ear like Hulk Hogan. I was hit with the worst of the spasms shortly after as punishment for my showboating.
Act like Hulk Hogan and maybe you deserve to get run down in the last lap.
Anyone near me in the final lap ran me down, but after a pitiful shuffle down the finishing stretch I crossed the line and pumped a fist. Pathetic finish or not, I had hit my goal with an official time of 2:29:13. It might have come four years later than I originally planned, but maybe I appreciate it more this way. Better late than never at all?
Not pictured: Old Japanese couples asking me to take photos with them.
Thanks for reading.
Side note:
The results http://www.fukuoka-marathon.com/results/index.php show that my impressions about constantly passing people weren't fantasy; of the top 200 finishers, only 4 went out slower in the first five kilometres than I did. No one who finished in the top 100 started more conservatively in the first 10k, and only two men who were behind me at the halfway point finished ahead in the final results, even with my failing hamstrings in the latter stages.