Marathon

 

I’ve been planning my attack on the standing marathon record time of 26 ½ hours.  I should just do the whole thing at one time and cut my record in half.

 

A big part of the challenge is to find a route that would provide some interest for 10 to 12 hours straight.  Without something to look at, this could be a tedious day.  Wouldn’t want to count it off on a ¼ mile track either.  I love to walk, but I have to walk a different course every day.  It would be nice to find something of a straight-line route, but I can’t work that out without encountering more vehicle traffic than I want to walk with.

 

So I’ve been looking at this effort as a series of 5 mile segments.  I’ve got a straight line out-and-back bicycle trail of 5 miles that gets me to a nice state park where I can walk a 5 mile loop.  All I have to do is figure out two more interesting 5 mile segments and I’ve got it.  There is an out-and-back seldom-used road from the state park I could probably turn into a 5 mile segment.  Then the walk back the original 5 mile trail to where I parked the car.  That would be 20 miles.  By then, it’s liable to be dark on these short winter days, so maybe I drive back to the park and finish with 9 laps around our neighborhood inside our park.

 

That could work.  That has been my thought process.  ….until today.  Today I ventured out to test several things: the state park loop, the out and back walk on the seldom used road, the pre-dawn start, and the provision for food and water along the way for such a long walk.  At 10 miles, something happened.  The conditions were good.  I felt good.  I still had enough food and water.  All my careful planning was set aside and I didn’t stop.  No more pre-planned routes, I just kept walking.  I walked roads, canals, brushy trails, and looped around, around, and around again inside the state park.

 

First, I established a time of slightly under 4 ½ hours for a half-marathon.  Then I went on to walk the entire thing straight through.  I’ll have to say I wasn’t as cool the last 6 ½ miles as I was the first 20.  I thought only runners hit “the wall” at 20 miles.  I never saw that coming.

 

The wall kicked my ass, but I pressed on, not finishing in good form, but finishing nonetheless.  My legs are now screaming obscenities at me, but I’m very happy with the result of my effort.  9 hours 50 minutes.  I have a marathon time that can be described without reference to a calendar!

 

I suspect the only way to substantially improve my marathon time now would be to actually run some part of it…