Week One
"My nose is running, too"

A cousin in British Columbia recently produced a family tree. Seems I have no Greek heritage. Mind you, she only traced it back as far as the mid-1800’s so I can’t be sure my ancestors didn’t travel to eastern Europe from Greece. It’s just unlikely.

Phidippides probably had relatives. He was the Athenian who, shortly after two 140-mile runs between Sparta and Athens, ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens then collapsed and died of exhaustion. I figure his gene pool must have produced an array of wonderful slow-twitch athletes who spent millenia running across the continent. Perhaps a few strayed, had their names mangled by near illiterate city-state bureaucrats, then arrived at remote villages in other empires where the Bercusons originated

I want to believe it’s possible because, short of a genetic link, there’s no other logical reason for me to begin training for a marathon. Were it not for this little project, I’d be otherwise described as no more delusional than anyone else.

I’ve run 5 km and 10 km races for years with respectable times. I’ve finished races with heroic-looking last half km sprints that had me pounding toward the finish line in the bizarre belief I could shave more than five seconds off my time. But it looked good.

Every year, I’d wondered about the marathon. And each year, as the spring months slid into summer and then they into the cold oblivion of an Ottawa fall, I felt I’d wronged myself.

"Why not?" I finally asked myself in January.

"Indeed. Why not?" I answered.

I’d been running 7-9 km through the neighbourhood every second day throughout the fall and early winter. Between those runs and my calisthenic workouts, I was on the verge of perhaps eventually getting into possible shape. Maybe.

I had no epiphany. No Greek Gods came to me in my sleep. Phidippides was not calling from his much-deserved eternal rest.

So, with no motivation other than a nagging compunction, I registered for a marathon clinic at one of Ottawa’s Running Room locations. I sat in a basement with perhaps 60 other similarly reasonable-looking adults, most of whom shot their hands up when asked if this was to be their first marathon. My hand rose gingerly.

The instructor pointed to a map indicating that by the end of training, race day on May 30, we will have run 991 km, the distance between Windsor and Ottawa. I remembered driving to Windsor a couple of times. It was a boring drive. I didn’t figure the scenery becoming more interesting if I ran the route.

Still, I followed his and others’ advice to the letter by running the first week according to the prescribed schedule. Here’s what I learned:

I’ve never run with a group, but I liked it.
Everyone is terribly friendly. I worry it’s a ruse to keep me from quitting.
My running pants, with slashes of dried salt and muck, are the dirtiest in the group.
No one cares about my dirty running pants.
I somehow shed three pounds, which is pretty much all the desserts and corn chips I ate the weekend before Week One.
I begin Week Two refreshed and keen, but with one question so far left unanswered: how do you blow your nose while running?
 

Week Two:
"In pursuit of – the front"

Marathon training means mathematics.

Question: When does half a number equal twice the result?

The training event is called pursuit. I knew it from coaching hockey where we called it Chase. Players skated around the rink with pucks. The last player in line had to speed to the front and set a new pace, then the new last player did the same. It wasn’t popular, though a great conditioner. "It’s good for you," I’d shout.

This was a drill needing no coaxing to speed up. You had no choice. To reach the front required a sprint and there you felt compelled to torture your teammates by skating quicker than what anyone liked. It wasn’t long before everyone realized it sometimes took a full lap to reach the front, so players yelled at that skater to slow down. Five minutes of Chase and a hockey team was united against the drill, but united nonetheless.

Runner’s Pursuit was a case of less being more. I joined the 4:30 group for our six kilometre pursuit up and down the Rideau Canal. We began with perhaps a dozen at a slow trot. I tried mental math: 12 people running 6000 metres, with each sprint to the front and its pace-setting jog requiring about 75 m. This translated into about 80 such sprints or perhaps 6-7 per runner. Probably less when you subtract the bits over the bridges or along narrow, impassable paths. Entirely do-able, I concluded.

A few minutes after starting, our group leader vanished. I turned to see he’d lopped off runners from our line and tacked them onto another. Suddenly we were down to seven. Panicking, I began to re-calculate the number of sprints I’d have to do.

I was about to determine the remainder when you divide 5500 by 7 when it was my turn.

Cripes, here we go, and away I went.

A young lady behind me suggested we shout our names as we passed. Fine, except there were two Richards, the group leader and me. He wore an orange jacket. Mine was yellow. When my pursuit turn came after his, I hesitated at calling myself Richard the Yellow and settled for Richard II. Fortunately, no one called out there was another Dick coming.

We looked for other ways to stay amused. We slid from name-shouting to alternating right and left passes to the leader starting a wave once at the front. By the time we reached the stretch heading home, we’d resorted to bellowing words beginning with the first letter of our names.

I was starving and couldn’t resist. As I ran by the group, I added an entirely useless and silly commentary about my favourite restaurant in hometown Montreal that served the absolutely finest, "RIBS!"

And so it went. Food, beers, plants, common nouns, places and of course the wave which, as we neared the end, required reminding the leaders since our brain cells were drying out.

By the end, we’d each run probably twice the number of pursuit sprints of any other group, none of which we’d seen since the start.

When we finally reached the Running Room store, there wasn’t another group in sight.

"Will you look at that?" I said to myself, "Not only was it fun, we did twice the sprints with half the people, and still beat everyone else back!"
 

Week Three:
"Feed me, I’m thirsty."

And now a word about nutrition-packed, endurance-aiding gels. Yuck.

I’m officially "in training" and pay closer attention to my diet. This is not to say I’m without temptation, a vice which must have made the shortlist for the Seven Deadly Sins.

For instance, Week Three began with a 13 km run, the longest run of my life only because it was indeed the longest run of my life. I trundled along with my fellow 430’s, regularly sipping water to stay hydrated as well as to learn how to drink on the move. This was a skill I hadn’t used since the halcyon days when I’d slither across a disco floor holding a beer. At least on a run, it’s a straight line with no pulsating Donna Summer tune to strut to.

On the return route beside the Rideau Canal, we passed the rear of the french fries and beavertail huts. The smells wafted over me and I admit having the urge to hop the railing and head straight for the grease. This was not long after I’d learned of the various recipes marathoners use for race energy, namely Gatorade-water mixtures, gummy bear candies, and energy gels. None sounded especially appealing. Then again, I’m told that after three-plus hours of subjecting one’s body to inhuman treatment (see also, "Donna Summer disco sounds"), tasty is not necessarily a priority. Energy is.

I knew this much. Since beginning the program, I seem to have been eating and drinking non-stop, amazed at how many calories my body has consumed and craves. When I headed home after that longest run of my life – have I mentioned it was the longest run of my life? – I gulped two bottles of water and a banana then darted across the road to a bakery where I bought a dozen bagels, nearly swallowing one whole on the way out the door. At home, I downed a glass of juice, a mug of coffee, two fried eggs and another bagel. Before dinner that night, I felt like roaming the streets in search of carrion. Funny thing though. I’ve never felt better.

What I hadn’t yet tackled was how to consume energy during a long run. Everyone has valuable advice on the subject, but the best advice I heard was that you have to experiment and now, early in the process, was the time to start.

I bought three energy gels, each a different brand and flavour. The plan was to try one during my mid-week 10 km run and two others on the first run of Week Four, another 13 km jaunt.

Forty-eight minutes into Wednesday’s run, I whipped out the silver packet of banana-flavoured gel.

I clopped along awkwardly with both hands at my mouth and holding the package. I bit into it. The consistency was more papery than I’d figured. Then I spat out the tear-off portion and sucked instead. Within three minutes, I’d consumed the entire gel.

It had the grainy dampness of biodegradable wet sand and tasted like pureé banana, boosted by the chemicals du jour.

I’d hoped the magic goo would give my legs a sudden jolt of power. Instead, I arrived home not the least bit tired and only wanting to eat a half side of beef.

After Week Four’s long run and the two gel test, I’m going shopping for a gel which tastes like New York style cheesecake covered with Girardelli chocolate. By then I figure I’ll have owed myself that much.
 

Week Four:
"Doing It"

My excuse in past years for avoiding a marathon amounted to a flimsy admission. I told everyone within earshot I could not commit to an 18-week training regime.

So when I finally decided to try it, reactions from family and friends went something like this:

Wife: "You’re kidding, right?"

Son: "You’re kidding, right?"

Daughter: "You’re kidding, right?"

Dog: "Yawn. Sniff."

Mother: "Why?"

Father: "Isn’t it easier to drive 26 miles?"

Brother: "I’ll follow you. Are there any good pubs along the route?"

A friend: "Any idea how many men your age drop dead after one of those things?"

A colleague: "Good for you. Will you leave me your desk?"

Perhaps now, "trying it" is no longer an appropriate phrase. I thought about "trying it" for weeks before Week One. I was still contemplating the folly of my decision, and so was still "trying it", well into Week Two. Week Four is about to begin and I’ve graduated from "trying it" to "doing it". It’s one of those powdery psychological barriers that prevents people from making the transition from normal activities to aberrant ones.

With all the exuberance of a child planning a bristol board project on animals of the western Canadian veldt, I’ve attacked my training regime with typical RichardBercusonian anal retention.

I printed three versions of the Running Room training plan, one for each realistic survival time. One set is taped to the wall in my study, another is pinned to a bulletin board at school, a third lies scrunched in the bowels of my briefcase. Just to show you how absorbed I’ve become, I sat in standstill traffic one morning, yanked out the plan, and started calculating my distance for the afternoon’s run. I was interrupted by angry honks.

The training schedule is simple enough. Take the time range and multiply it by the number of kilometres to determine the finish time. It’s turned out that is the only simple part.

I’ve driven all over eastern Ottawa, resetting my trip odometer countless times to measure distances, then subtracting approximations for curves and intersections. I’ve tried to make a point of running to the faster end of the time range. Mostly, I’ve succeeded although snow and hidden ice have sometimes turned me from a runner to a skater. Once, I became a slider, which wasn’t so bad had it not been for a looming busstop bench. Fortunately, the sidewalk, as they say, broke my fall.

The training plan is only partly racking up the kilometres. The trickier problem is squeezing runs into the daily routine. Shortly after starting, I discovered I was scheduling appointments and meals…wait a moment…scheduling meals? Well yes, and for a short while it was a nuisance. I had to get to the Running Room Tuesday clinics and Sunday morning runs, which meant rearranging my stomach’s clock, which in turn meant eating different things at unusual times. On other days, I’ve made a point of running before meals. Stomach has so far been wonderfully cooperative and I’ve made a point to thank it when this is over. But how?

There have been occasions when life’s detritus piled up in the afternoon. I’d dash home from school, do my calculated warmup, run and cool-down, then tend to matters.

To my shock, neither my world nor anyone else’s has been turned topsy-turvy by the running plan. What’s more, I quite enjoy it. I look forward to the scheduled runs and the new routines, however cumbersome and long they may be at times.

I’m not sure that makes sense. Then again, this is for a marathon.