Marathon

My first

I finished a marathon, my first a few Sundays ago. Everyone asks - “What was your time?” “Eighteen weeks,” I reply. Just before the end of the year, I decided that I was going to run and finish my first marathon. I started looking at the race calendar and saw that the OC Marathon was in early May. My friend Casey ran this about thirty years ago and it goes right by my Mom’s front door so I decided it was the one. I asked Chat GPT to come up with a training plan for a Marathon on May 3, 2026 assuming (falsely) that I am currently running 3-5 miles a week. When I told my son Henry, the cross-country runner, my plan he asked “did you tell it you’re 57 years old!” The plan came out of the ether and as I read through it, I thought that it was workable. I would start with a couple of one mile runs and work my way up from there, running Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays during the week with a long run on Saturdays. The longest run would be 20 miles a couple of weeks prior to the race and then taper. I’d like to say that I followed it exactly, and I probably would have felt better during the race, but I maxed out at a little over 13 miles and hardly ran at all the three weeks leading up to May 3rd. I had run consistently for the first few months getting up as early as 3:30 AM, I ran while I travelled more for work than ever. I ran in Seattle, Charleston, Phoenix, Ogden, Dayton, Ft. Worth, Orlando. I ran in the rain, 100 degree sunshine, at night, and on dark, cold mornings. I ran solo and I ran with my dog. I ran outside except for a couple of sessions on a hotel treadmills. None of it prepared me for the highs and lows I experienced on race day.

I went to bed around 8:30 the night before the race, my alarm set for 2:30AM so I could eat something and drive an hour to the finish line, catch a shuttle bus to the start line and be ready for the 5:30AM start. I got to the starting area at Fashion Island around 4:30 and waited. The people watching was great. There were runners in costume, clubs, groups of friends, some bundled up in parkas, and some wearing next to nothing. I was lonely in a sea of people. Lining up in the starting chute, I was amazed by the mass of people pushing towards the front - “Do all these folks think they are going to have a shot at winning? All I want to do is finish.” When the starting horn went off, it seemed like ten minutes passed before we started to move, walking at first and then picking up speed. “Don’t fall” I told myself as I dodged around others and tried to get out of the way of those coming from behind.

The hills near my home in Riverside had made me strong and the course mostly fell in elevation for the first five miles followed by a short climb and then around mile 7 or 8 I stopped at my Mom’s house where she was waiting out front to say hi and get a few words of motherly encouragement - she’s run a few marathons herself! Not long after, the leaders of the half-marathon started to come through even though we had an hour’s head start! These guys were moving! Around mile 12, I was feeling good, in my groove when I saw the half marathoners peeling off towards their finish. I hadn’t studied the course much further than this and now I was getting a little discouraged. “If I was running the half, I’d only be a mile from the finish, but now I’m not even halfway!” Every mile seemed to stretch longer and longer. Every turn took me further and further from the finish line. “At some point, we’ve got to turn back towards the line.” Honestly, without the spectators cheering and waving signs, I don’t think I would have made it. I thanked them as I ran by - I knew they weren’t out there for me, they had signs with someone else’s name, but they cheered anyway and it helped.

Finally, the course reached the Santa Ana River trail and turned back towards the coast. Around mile 20 I passed a sign that read 5 miles to the beach. “You mean, I could get to the beach quicker than I can get to the finish?” We wound through neighborhoods I didn’t even know existed and then all of a sudden, I was crossing Harbor Boulevard by the Cadillac dealership - now I know where I am. I had been running and walking for a while, but now I seemed to be walking and running. When I reached the entrance to the Fairgrounds, I reverted back to more running, past throngs of people wearing their finisher’s medals, cheering me on - some of them even calling out “You can do this Eric!” “How do they know who I am?” Almost to the final curve, I saw the lady with the blue-dyed hair I had been swapping spots with and the girl with the yellow skirt and ponytail ahead of me - good for them. I just wanted it to be over. I was shuffling along, barely lifting my feet off the ground, but I kept repeating “Keep moving forward.” Now I’m on the final stretch, collecting high-fives from the crowd lining the way, looking out for my wife and son and overcome with joy when I spot them. I jogged through the line and finished. Five hours and sixteen minutes on the course, but Eighteen weeks from the start.