2009 Buffalo Marathon – Sweet Revenge and Waterguns (by Steffi)

Background: I knew I could do better than my 4:18 in Pittsburgh. Yes, I'd had a cold, but mainly I had an attitude problem: Instead of embracing the misery and toughing it out, I whined and pouted. In retrospect, I can only shake my head at myself. Once the last symptoms of the cold were gone, I felt ready to redeem myself in another marathon. Niels assured me the training benefits would still be there, and I took his word for it.
We decided to run the Buffalo marathon on May 24, which is also our wedding anniversary.

I didn't ask him to run with me, but he volunteered. (Really, he did.) To summarize Niels's recent running achievements: He ran three marathons in one month. That's Boston on April 20, Pittsburgh on May 3rd, and Buffalo on May 24 – two days after his return from the Netherlands. What a machine!

Goal: Run the whole thing, don’t stare at Garmin, don't get angry at Garmin, don't get angry at mile markers, and enjoy the experience.

Special Feature: Come catch the magic at Buffalo: enjoy the fabulous pre-race pasta dinner! It is seriously the nicest and best pasta dinner I know. Grab mysteriously yummy Spaghetti & meatballs in a church community center and listen to the race director's enthusiastic speeches! Everything is oddly perfect: The meat is firm and perfectly seasoned, the pasta is al dente and there's just the right amount of it on the plate, the salad is crisp, the cookies are sweet, the soda is sparkling, and volunteers refill the little parmesan bowls. All of that – for free!

I should add that I've participated at the Buffalo Marathon three times: 2007 as spectator, 2008 as half-marathoner, and now, 2009, as marathoner. And the pasta dinner was perfect every single time. Better than the endless lines in Boston! Better than the bizarre multi-dimensional crowd-control challenge in NYC! And...this exhausts my comparisons.

Race. First half. About 800 runners did the marathon, and many more did the relays and the half marathon. It's a good-sized race, but still nicely informal: Walk from the hotel to the start, line up – no big deal.

The usual pushing and weaving at the start...I don't mind it. It's nice to take it out slowly, and before we know it we're on a slightly uphill street that will eventually lead us to the harbor area. For now, we trot upwards. The Buffalo marathon is supposedly flat. A lie, but hey, who wants to obsess over details? There are some long uphill stretches.

Also, I'm running the first mile in six minutes – according to my Garmin. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this is because the little timepiece is so scared and confused by all the skyscrapers, and desperately tries to hold on to the bounced-around satellite signal. I would guess the first mile was probably 9:15. I'm mostly ignoring the Garmin for the rest of the race. (See below.)

Overheard conversation: One old guy to another: "I should be going at 10 min/ mile pace" (huff, puff) "...but I'm figuring I'll put some money in the bank..." Let's hope the bank had a good interest rate.

We continue to take it very easy. Running feels good. It's overcast and slightly warm/ muggy. At some point (mile 6?), I manage to lose Niels at a water station and stand a bit by the wayside, watching and waving.

The first gel. Ew. Funny how you never get used to that slimy stuff. Still, it's necessary.

There's a similarity between Pittsburgh and Buffalo, in that the first half of the course, which is also the half-marathon course, is rather unattractive compared to the second. Halfers, you're missing the show! Okay, Buffalo's first half has a nice stretch along Lake Erie, but it also has some dubious stretches through a ghost town with abandoned factory halls and...I don’t even remember. Parking lots? Highway overpasses?

It starts raining...luckily, since it takes away some of the ominous thunderstorm atmosphere.

And, of course, the need for a port-a-potty comes up at around mile 10. I also find one, but when I try the door I hear dangerous slimy kraken sounds inside. I quickly escape, not interested in the details.

One sweet moment though, when we pass a church. A monk and the priest/ minister stand outside and cheer us on, offer their high fives, etc., and they're wearing robes!

As we approach downtown Buffalo, which is also the halfway point/ half-marathon finish, there are more crowds, and they're amazing. As are the volunteers. Seriously, the first half of the course might have its depressing/ bizarre moments, but the spectators are so nice. Much appreciated.

Anyway, as the halfway point looms, we have to deal with being overtaken by the halfers who smell the finish and mount their final charge. It hurts to feel like a rock in the stream. Cruel: We're approaching the finish with them, hear the music, the announcer, etc., and then...when they get to go straight on, mere seconds away from being done...we have to take a turn. Onto yet another slightly uphill street. But there are women with oranges.

As soon as I see the citrus fruits, I'm seized by greed. I grunt something like "Hmmm, nom nom oranges yum" and grab some slices. The woman holding the basket smiles indulgently, yet again convinced that running is good for your sanity, I'm sure.

A quick glance at the Garmin reveals that we pass halfway in about 2 hrs, which is fairly slow, but as a reward I still feel very good. So does Niels. At this point in the Pittsburgh marathon I hated everything. I mean it. Everything and everyone everywhere, ever. Now I'm far from it. So far, I'm liking the "running by perceived effort" approach, even though, as I tell Niels, we probably won’t break four hours (the original goal for Pittsburgh).

Second half. We continue through nice residential areas of Buffalo. Many old red brick buildings, of which I always approve. At mile 15, things start to become slightly unpleasant, but it's still possible to ignore the fatigue for longer stretches of time.

At some point, we leave the shady neighborhoods and run along a cemetery. More hills, and no shade – the sun is coming out, and sending us a nice greeting card saying "there's more where that came from." We make our way up yet another "gentle slope", and Niels shares his personal trauma. During his last Buffalo marathon (2008) he was overtaken by a guy in a pink tutu. Pink tutu man toyed with him for a while, staying about 100 m in front, but "right here," Niels says as we approach an underpass, "right here, the pink tutu man put the hammer down." His escape demoralized Niels.

There's no pink tutu man today, but sun, sun, so much sun.

Mile marker #17 - this is where I gave up in Pittsburgh. Mile marker # 17 gets the evil eye and a soft hiss.

A port-a-potty is standing on a hill, so lonely and monolithic. Time to finally take care of business. It should have been a matter of seconds; however, the roll of toilet paper is giving me trouble. There is no loose tissue. The toilet paper roll is a closed system. It's impossible to free a sheet from its perfectly smooth surface. So in the end I'm standing in an overheating, smelly brown plastic port-a-potty pawing at a roll of toilet paper. The marathon: A metaphor of the human condition.

And we run the tangents in the sun...

Mile marker # 18! Somehow it feels significant. A man opened all his car doors and is playing loud music for us, the sweaty crazy people:
She's a brick! House!
Mighty mighty, letting it all hang out.
Yeah she's a brick! House!
The lady's stacked, that's a fact, ain't holding nothing back.

Special feature II: Kids with water guns! We're leaving the cemetery / park for a while and enter an enchanted, rich, succulent neighborhood. More water, Gatorade, and oranges are offered, and then these angelic kids appear. "Water?" Out of reflex, we say, "yes!" and they give us a shower with their water guns. How perfect! And they aren't the only ones with this bright idea. Everywhere, people are standing in their front yards, ready to hose down/ gently mist the runners. Much weaving ensues as I zigzag between showers and orange baskets, feeling like a human hoover depleting the citizens of Buffalo of their citrus fruit and water resources.

Niels: "The Big Two Oh." Now things are definitely unpleasant. But Niels also points out that the only people overtaking us are relay runners, who are still fresh. So things are okay within the parameters.

Still, the legs are getting heavy. It feels as if we slow down, but post race-analysis of our mile splits reveals that we're running at approximately the same pace all the time (excepting potty adventures). The most logical explanation: Inertia. The muscles are locked in a certain pattern and won’t stop until they just...can't...go...on...anymore.

No memory of miles 21, 22, and 23. At mile marker 24, the voice makes its first appearance. It's a perfectly reasonable, cheerful voice basically telling me that we put in a great effort so far, and that it would be perfectly fine to walk the rest. Niels encountered that same voice in his Berlin marathon, so I'm prepared for it and try to ignore it. However, it is a very, very compelling voice.

And another uphill...past a church. Spectators claim that this is the last hill, and then they laugh. Are they mocking us? Or is the laughter a hallucination? More and more resources are diverted from the brain and pumped into the already heavy, heavy legs.

All the time I'm waiting for the "real wall" to hit us, or at least me – that point where you bonk so thoroughly that you have to shuffle the rest. It's not coming, but some slow attrition is definitely happening. I shudder at the thought of how I would feel right now had I run just a little faster in the beginning. I have no idea how we're doing time wise, but it feels decent.

Mile marker # 25! Wow! This is basically it! Everyone can run one more mile. Har har.

I actually had high hopes for mile 26. Niels told me it's downhill on Delaware, which is true, however, he also mentioned a breeze, which is absent. Also, we are running towards a fountain with an obelisk in the middle, and the fountain has the astounding ability to retreat from us the faster we run. It's true!

A glimpse at the Garmin, and then total failure at mental arithmetic. Can we break four hours? Maybe. I speed up a bit. Niels, ever faithful, picks up the signal and cheerfully shifts gears, setting a brisk pace. Meanwhile, I quickly discarded my "sub 4 hypothesis," because going faster feels wrong. I try to slow down, but of course Niels can't see that. In his perception, he's gallantly pacing me to a strong finish. In my own perception, he's running away from me, and I incompetently try to keep up with him. I'm now convinced that my legs will give out, and that I'll throw up and fall flat on my face into a puddle of my own vomit.

As we are poised to breach the four-hour barrier of the marathon (or not), my thoughts obviously shift to my current favorite book, "The Perfect Mile," which details how Roger Bannister first broke four minutes for the distance. Among other things (such as, oh, actual speed), he had, apparently, the courage to "run into extinction." Surely I could exhibit the same courage as we approach our own sort-of-similar barrier (well, it has the number four in it, right)?

Nah. Not today. I so wish I could tell Niels to slow down, but I lost my voice. So he keeps doing the heroic strong finish, and I hobble after him. Mercifully, he eventually notices my lack of a finishing sprint and slows down so we can finish together. Now the obelisk is ahead of us. His mood is splendid. "Now we only have to take the roundabout, and then the last stretch..."

I hiss back: "Shut up." Of course, he knows what it's like and takes it in good cheer.

Someone at the roundabout (mile marker # 26) says: You did the 26 miles. Now it's only the final .2!" Somehow, this cheers me up. Whatever happens now, it won’t take long.

The finishing straight. Loud music: "You ain't seen nothing yet." True! And there's again the horrifying perspective of falling flat on my face in front of all these people. The finish, as always, is further away than it should be! But when we do cross the finish line, it feels great! And there are more oranges!

Final time: 4 hours and 3 seconds – sweet! First half 9:04 min/ mile average pace, second half 9:01 minute/ mile average pace, and mile 26 was the fastest, despite my unwillingness to run into extinction!

How to spend your fifth anniversary...

On the day that Steffi and I were married five years, I found myself running another marathon. Is my marriage in jeopardy? You can see the standard story: "What, you are running another race at our anniversary? What is more important to you, running or me?". But this is not the standard story.
As you can read in this report, Steffi and I ran the Pittsburgh marathon three weeks earlier. It was her first marathon, she had trained very hard for it, and although she finished, she was not happy about it. During the week after the race we tried to come up with reasons why (including me darting around her with a camera a snapping pictures of her, thereby breaking her concentration), but the reason that made most sense to me was that she was recovering from a cold, and that the cough she still had prevented proper oxygen uptake. If she would have been experienced with the distance, she would have slowed down right at the beginning, but instead she stuck to a pace that normally would have worked for her, but not on this day. The days after the race she recovered so quickly that I was convinced that the cold had held her back, and not lack of training or stamina.
So, Steffi came up with the idea to pull a "Kara Goucher", and run another marathon within a couple of weeks. Kara Goucher wanted to run the London marathon a week after her third place finish in Boston (with which she was unhappy), which she called "a 20 mile training run followed by a 10k race". That idea floated around for a couple of days before it was vetoed by Salazar, her coach.
To make a long story short, and not having Salazar around, this is how I found myself at the starting line of the Buffalo marathon at our fifth anniversary, a race that I had run last year thinking it would definitely the last time I would find myself in Buffalo.

Now, running Buffalo with Steffi would be a gamble. If she would avenge herself for her performance in Pittsburgh, and run a good race, all would be well, and the spring season would have a satisfactory conclusion. But consider the alternative: another race where the majority of the distance is pain and wishing it would be over might crush Steffi's marathon aspirations, and by extension her joy in running in general and motivation to work on the book about running she is writing. Picture the situation in half a year where running is associated with pain, displeasure and failure, and I have to defend myself for going out for a lengthy long run... Yes, maybe the results of this day were a crucial test.

The Start and first Half

Strategy for the first half: go slow. Run easy. Don't look at the time. Fortunately the race cooperated with that in two ways. First, we lined up in the middle of the pack, which turned out the be very slow. That ensured that there was no way we could run too fast in the first five miles or so. Second, the high-rise buildings in downtown Buffalo messed up everyone's Garmins (one could hear the cursing all around us), making an accurate assessment of speed impossible. The course of the first half of the race was changed compared to last year because some bridge was blocked. One advantage was that there were fewer out-and-back-again stretches in the first half, but one section of "industrial tristesse" as Steffi calls it was just replaced by a different section of industrial tristesse. In one sense Buffalo is similar to Pittsburgh: the first half goes through industrial wasteland while the second goes through nice neighborhoods. Poor half-marathoners!

Despite the uninspiring landscape (with the exception of the stretch along the water and the rounding of the ugliest lighthouse in the world), the first half went pretty smoothly, the weather was still nice and cool, and Steffi still felt pretty good approaching the half-way point. At least the first half was going better than Pittsburgh. Around us the half-marathoners were preparing themselves for their final stretch, either by picking up speed or collapsing all together, but just before their finish we had to take a right turn, and suddenly we found ourselves with just a hand-full of others around us (there were about 900 marathoners, but 2300 half-marathoners).

The second half

I don't think they even had a 13.1 mile marker, but if they had, I must have missed it. I did notice that it was around 2 hours into the race that we passed the approximate half-way point, so we were doing quite well. Of course, this meant nothing, because we also came through in 2 hours in Pittsburgh. What was more important was that Steffi was still feeling good at this point. After the half-way point the dark downtown street opened up into a very nice residential street with bright houses. Although there was not much crowd support, the people that were there gave us orange slices (very nice), and later on sprayed us with garden hoses (even nicer!).

Although earlier on it has been cool, clouded, and rainy, now the sun came out to challenge us. We now had to drink at every aid station (sometimes two cups), and were looking for any shadow on the course we could get. Nevertheless, we made steady progress, and when we reached mile 17, Steffi visibly brightened up and said that she was now ready for the rest (Mile 17 in Pittsburgh was where we could have taken a right turn into our street). Because we were running a pretty even pace we overtook many people, which is always mildly motivating to keep going at that pace. Still, the going was tough with the sun beating down on us, and the occasional hill looked steeper than it was (I recognized the one where the Pink Tutu man had struck a fatal blow to me last year). Between mile 22 and 23 I started to feel pretty beaten myself, and Steffi declared that she was hitting the wall. Fortunately, it must have been a cotton-ball wall, because she didn't slow down, but kept going at the same pace. Finally, the course turned onto Delaware street, and the obelisk that marked the 26th mile was visible in the distance. Although we were picking up the pace now (Delaware has a gently downwards slope), the obelisk didn't want to become bigger! Eventually it did, though, so we rounded it, ran the last couple of corners, and there was the finish!

We came in with a finishing time of 4:00:03, a considerable improvement of two weeks ago, and more importantly, we had run the whole distance without walking. I think our marriage is safe for at least another five years.