Goals are insidious. Once entrenched they are hard to dislodge even when supporting assumptions are changed drastically. Like when the Black Knight continues to refuse Arthur’s passage despite losing all of his limbs to the good king. Yes, it is lunacy to insist that the battle is not already lost but, see, there was this goal.
Obstinance can be a good thing. Ambitious objectives pursued relentlessly may bestow the smug glow of success whereas capitulation to shabby, unforeseen circumstances feels like failure accepted all too readily.
Whoa now. Easy. Take a breath.
OK, I admit to being obsessed with my goal. This is not uncommon among people who have Parkinson’s Disease. We’ll often challenge ourselves with athletic endeavors better suited to the young. Time is not on our side; we can’t be certain when it will be our last opportunity to say, “Take that, Parkinson’s, and shove it!”.
Besides, one shouldn’t casually dismiss the “smug glow of success” thing. Experiences that make you feel good cause some unimpaired parts of the brain to release dopamine, the very chemical that Parkies are in short supply of.
Works for me. I feel better when I run and more so when I succeed at a challenge. If that means I’ve stumbled upon a way to supplement my eroded dopamine supply then so be it. Thus, this delicious clarification with its heady circularity: The reason I can run like I do despite having Parkinson’s is because I run like I do.
Since 2019 I’ve had a goal of running all six of the World Marathon Majors (Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York) in 2021. But this goal was set before ubiquitous face masks, social distancing, and Zoom calls.
Before 2020 one could count on the Tokyo Marathon being held in late February or early March, Boston and London in April, Berlin in September, Chicago in October, and New York in November. For a runner hoping to bag all six in a calendar year, the biggest challenge was usually running London six days after Boston.
COVID-19 derailed that. In 2020, all of the Majors made the adjustments necessary for pandemic safety. Gone were the enormous spectacles for tens of thousands of runners and millions of spectators. Tokyo and London allowed only a small number of elite runners; spectators were either discouraged or prohibited. All of the other races were cancelled.
Consequently, for most of 2020 the fate of the 2021 WMM was uncertain. Newly developed vaccines brought hope although too late for the traditional spring majors. They would be rescheduled to the fall.
Berlin, Chicago, and New York had secured dates already (September 26, October 10, and November 7 respectively) so London and Tokyo chose to work around them and hold theirs on October 3 (London) and 17 (Tokyo).
Ouch.
Five marathons in six weeks. This would be tough. And what about Boston? Well, on January 26, 2021, the Boston Athletic Club announced that their marathon would be held on Monday, October 11, the day after Chicago’s.
Shit. That’s a problem.
Conventional running lore holds that a marathon so wrecks your body that weeks and sometimes months of recovery are necessary. Indeed after running my first in early December 2019 I had to take a break that lasted deep into January.
And now these five races were compressed into a span of six weeks across three continents. There’d be very little time for recovery. Now what?
Well, I’ve thought quite a lot about this challenge and I have the kernel of a strategy.
Consider the training. I’d argue that marathon training is just as hard if not harder than the race itself. Even for beginners with modest hopes, a training schedule may last 12–16 weeks with weekly run totals ranging from 30 to 40 miles.
A fixture of most training plans is the weekly long run which may begin at 10 or so miles and eventually ramp up to 20 miles. Long runs are done at a pace one to two minutes slower than the target race pace. The idea is to train one’s body to be on the move for three to four hours as a way to build the endurance required while the slower pace minimizes the chance of injury.
Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, it is the attempt at a personal record (PR) that devastates the body. And elites who are out to win their marathons don’t race again the next week because at that level of performance a runner needs a lot of recuperation time.
But casting aside aspirations of a podium finish (as if) or even a PR, why not just train for the last marathon in New York and then take on the rest of them as weekly long runs that just happen to be 26.2 miles? Run slowly if that is what it takes to recover in time for the next race.
As viewed through this lens the compressed schedule of these races is actually an advantage. There’d be only one training cycle rather than six. No doubt others have figured this out and I will have company.
I can work with this. But then there’s still that pesky Boston the day after Chicago giving me less than 24 hours to recover. Any more great ideas?
Screw your courage to the sticking place.
Well it turns out that running marathons on consecutive days is a thing and it has gotten more popular recently perhaps because the pandemic cancelled all of our preferred competitive outlets. One extreme example: last year Alyssa Clark ran 95 consecutive daily marathons. (Ironically, it was a non-fatal bout with COVID-19 that ended her streak.)
Diehards running back to back marathons are not so rare anymore. Understandably, the folks who do such things have no qualms about posting in detail about their strategies on social media. I know the feeling.
So it can be done, there’s a body of internet literature about it, and I have three months to apply it to my situation.
Now, how do I get into all these races? One does not simply walk into the Boston Marathon.
There are several ways to get into each of the WMM: win a place via a lottery held by the race, qualify on the basis of meeting the race’s time standard, obtain entry as part of an international tour package, or enter as a charity runner.
The lottery system was a bust for me. I missed the lotteries for the international races, New York chose not to hold one this year, and Boston never has one.
At registration time my only certified marathon finish was 3:49:25. This meets the qualifying standard for 60 year-old men both in Chicago (4:00) and Boston (3:50) but not New York (3:34). And because of the field size limitation Boston imposed a 7 min 47 sec cutoff time making the effective standard 3:42:13. Too speedy for me.
The qualification times for US citizens in the international races are more aggressive than for the domestic ones so no help there. Thus my certified finish time only gets me into Chicago. That’s fine, I’ll take that.
Interestingly as it turns out, one can simply walk into the international marathons if you are a non-citizen.
You can book a ticket with a company specializing in marathon tours. You get a few nights stay in the marathon city, a race bib, and some hand-holding to get you to and from the race. I’m going with this approach for both Berlin and Tokyo.
Oh yes, Tokyo. On June 17, five months after I secured a bib, race authorities in Tokyo announced that they were restricting the marathon to allow only Japan residents. I’m still in denial; there may yet be hope of getting into the race this year. Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.
(Oh, by the way, if anyone reading this has some influence and knows how I might still be able to get into Tokyo 2021 I’m all ears.)
No doubt I’ll have to defer Tokyo to 2022 or 2023. With heavy heart I’ve resigned myself to at best achieving only five-sixths of my goal. So sorry to disappoint.
For London, Boston, and New York I am taking the charity approach.
Non-profits and other organizations partner with each of the races to secure spots allocated by the race directors for charitable causes. In exchange for your bib you are obligated to raise money for the charity to the tune of a few thousand to more than ten thousand dollars depending on the race and the charity.
Choosing a charitable organization to support was easy. For me, the most logical choice was The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and I’ll write more about this organization in next week’s post.
