Date: Saturday December 2, 2023. 8 AM start.
Distance: 26.2 miles / 42.195 km
Surface: Road
Goal Time: 3:50:00
Pre-Race Notes:
This is my third straight year participating in the St Jude race. The half is what got me back into running in 2021. I fell in love with both the running and the fundraising for our world-class St Jude Children’s Hospital here in Memphis, and it always brings me back. I’m proud to say that I raised just over US$1000 this year, all of which goes to making sure that parents don’t have to pay a dime for their child’s cancer treatment, and for further open source research into treating and preventing childhood cancer. Okay, stump speech for St Jude is over. On to the running.
I ran a 56K trail race six weeks ago, and I wasn’t sure how that would affect my experience at St Jude. But I felt great in the weeks leading up to the marathon. For training, I used Pete Pfitzinger’s convenient “Multiple Marathoning Six Week Schedule”, in Advanced Marathoning, 3rd edition. I set a goal of 3:50:00, my PR being 3:58:59. I packed six Gu’s, planning on taking one every 40 minutes. I also packed a couple salt/electrolyte pills, which I planned on throwing back at Mile 17.
Race Report:
I uncharacteristically got a great seven hours of sleep. I woke at 5 AM, 30 minutes before my alarm. This being my fifth crack at the marathon distance in the past year calmed my nerves. We dodged the 20% chance of rain, and conditions wound up being perfect. Partly cloudy, and warming from 50°F/9°C to 60°F/15°C throughout the morning. A gentle, cold wind was blowing from the north. It was going to be a fast day, I thought while waiting at the starting line. I popped a caffeinated Gu 30 minutes before the race, and warmed up my legs.
My sister and I had run St Jude as our first marathon last year. She’d ran a 4:01, and was looking to go sub-4 today. We decided to start together, near the back of Corral 4. Beale Street was popping. I love the energy of this race. Everyone striving to better themselves, and in support of a great cause. Before I knew it, we were getting shuffled towards the starting line. It was time to put my year of training to the final test.
My strategy was to lock in on my goal pace, 8:47 per mile. That would get me a 3:50:00 finish. In all of my previous marathons, I’ve gone out too hard and crashed around Mile 20. This time I planned on keeping my pace conservative and not getting caught up in the race day atmosphere. My 10K time trial two weeks prior had shown me that I was capable of pacing a race correctly, and it feels so much better than lighting all my matches at once and dogging through the pain towards the end.
Starting near the back of our corral was a mistake. The first mile was absolutely choked with runners, which kept my pace in check but involved a lot of useless bobbing and weaving. It thinned out a bit in the second mile, but somehow I lost my sister in the mix. Which was okay: we both had our own race to run, and we knew it.
I stayed within a few seconds of my pace goal through the first four miles. On Mile 5 we ran down Memphis’s famous river bluff to run alongside the Mississippi River, and I took advantage of the downhill while I could. What goes down must come up, along the bluff. I was feeling good. Too good. I felt as relaxed as I’ve ever been during a race. I interacted with the crowd, high-fiving signs and generally being a goober. Even bellowing out a Hotty Toddy chant with some fellow Ole Miss alumni. I’m a sucker for crowds.
My sister caught up with me at Mile 8, shortly after the short but steep climb back up the bluff. This was my favorite part of the race. We live in different states, and spent the next few miles chatting about the race, life, the guy dressed as a giant chicken who was “just trying to cross the street”. Nervously talking pace strategies for the hard miles ahead. I was still religiously hitting 8:40 to 8:45 splits. My sister acknowledged that it was probably too fast for her sub-4 goal, but she’d cross that bridge when we got there.
Mile 10 took us through St Jude’s campus, which is always the most emotional part of the race. Patients, their families, and their caretakers lined the sidewalks, sometimes in wheelchairs. Some runners had tags on their backs, naming the people they were running for or in memory of. I get a little teary just thinking of it. This race turns me into a big softie every year. Seeing the actual people we’re doing this for never fails to give me goosebumps. It makes me so damn proud to be out there running and raising money every year. We turned left and returned to wider Memphis, a little more determined than when we went in.
We left downtown and made our way to Midtown Memphis. Here people set up fire pits and lawn chairs in their driveways to cheer us on. I was still dancing like a loon as I ran by sound systems blasting music. I will never let race goals get in the way of having a good time. At Mile 13, someone had set up a table with pickle juice shots. You may recall from a previous post that this nectar of the gods saved my race in October, and my sister and I both threw back a shot. After the pickle juice I decided I wouldn’t need the salt tabs stowed in my belt.
Conversation between my sister and I slowed around Mile 15, as we put in an 8:32. It was our fastest mile of the day thus far, and I could hear her breathing. We didn’t acknowledge it, but I could feel that I was going to drop her soon. She hung back a few steps for the next mile, then I couldn’t hear her anymore. We were fighting this battle alone from here on out.
Mile 17 is historically the point in most marathons where I started getting hints that I’d screwed up and had some hard miles ahead. Today I was still gliding. I figured it was time to pick up the pace a bit. As the course wound through Overton Park, my pace dropped from 8:30 to 8:09. My heart rate was pushing into the 170s now as I passed Mile 20. The final 10K lay ahead of me. It was time to drop the hammer.
The miles were coming hard now as I surged up North Parkway and up into the out-n-back on Stonewall Street. Stonewall is a legendary St Jude party neighborhood, and the block was packed with people offering beer, whiskey, donuts – basically every temptation a runner doesn’t need at this point in the race. I love them for it, but I didn’t partake. This was the spiritual nadir of last year’s race, and I remembered walking this same slight uphill in despair. Not this year.
I’m reading Scott Jurek’s Eat And Run right now, and an offhand phrase from it became entrenched in my head at this time. “Difficult is good.” My effort was hard, and I increasingly wanted nothing more than to be done now. But the thought to pull back and walk never entered my mind. “Difficult is good” became my mantra as I pushed back towards downtown.
A runner with a thick Irish accent asked me if the course was flat ahead. I had bad news for him. The final three miles of St Jude are cruel. It’s a largely flat course up until this point, when it becomes rolling hills. Dozens of runners had passed me here last year. Now I was the one doing the passing. It felt incredible, and I reveled in it. I wheezed a chuckle as I thought about David Goggins calling this “taking souls”. I was out here doing it.
For the last mile and change up Danny Thomas Boulevard, I decided that it was time to turn on my music. Unfortunately I had been running so long that pushing play on my headphones did nothing. Maybe the app crashed. No matter. I didn’t need it. The final climb up the entrance ramp to Union Avenue was brutal. I slowed down a lot, but grimly kept running. My mom was waiting at the top, cheering me on. I rounded the corner and saw the finish line, 400 meters ahead of me.
I always close strong. I charged downhill at a 6:00 mile pace, knowing that I’d beaten my goal time but not by how much. I could think of nothing more than just crossing that line so I could stop running. I was redlining, and my body was screaming. Then it was over. I’d done it. The 3:43:36 on my watch was unbelievable. All I could think was that my 2200 miles this year had paid off. I am a different runner than the guy who ran a 4:08:xx here last year. My sister crossed the line at 3:53:xx, elated that she’d claimed the sub-4 that had just eluded her the year before. Marathoning legend Bill Rodgers was hanging out in the baseball stadium next to the finish line, and taking pictures with Boston qualifiers. Although I’m nowhere near that fast, he shook my hand and said hi. I was walking on clouds. After we recovered on the grass of Autozone Park, my family marched off to the Ghost River Brewery taproom on Beale for some well-earned beers.
Reflections
I’m so happy that I finally solved the marathon pacing equation. It had seemed impossible to negative split a marathon. I wasn’t born with that kind of restraint. But maybe I have learned from my mistakes. Alongside doubling my yearly miles this year, the 56K also helped put the marathon in proper perspective. It is no longer some monster to be survived. It’s just another distance, that I can strategize for and conquer.
Looking at my massive negative split, I wonder if I could’ve ran a bit faster in the opening 16 miles. Maybe an even better marathon is inside these increasingly older bones. I’ll find out in 2024. In January I plan on training for a sub-20 5K. I ran a 20:49 in the back half of my 10K time trial two weeks ago, so I know I’m close. Then another 50K, or my first 50 Mile trail race. I find out next week if I’m running Berlin. It’s all up in the air at this point.
I’ve talked about skipping St Jude next year. But it’s so hard not to do at this point. It’s my favorite event of the year. And as much as I love travel, no race means more. I’ve given a lot to St Jude. And this year it gave back to me with a massive PR.
Shasta Runs 