Marathon Survival for Shitty Situations

Last Sunday, I had to run the Go! St. Louis Half Marathon with my brother-in-law. I hate long distance running. My brother-in-law convinces me to do all sorts of stupid things. Have I learned my lesson after four marathons, six half marathons and 3,215 miles of training? Not yet.

This isn’t a motivational marathon blog post. I’m not espousing “1,001 life lessons learned from a marathon” or “Why everyone should run a marathon.” In 490 BC, I don’t think Pheidippides got a whole lot out of running 26.2 miles from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens, only to die as a result. What more can I add? If only somebody would have given him some Gatorade and GU chomps.

Marathons and half marathons are painful. This is especially true when your preparation consists of cramming a Hal Higdon 12 week training program into one week and saying a short prayer to Atalanta, the Greek Goddess of Running, 5 seconds before the starting gun sounds.

Last Sunday’s impromptu race was one of my more painful running experiences. At mile 11 when a 15 year old kid and a guy wearing a “Running for Krispy Kremes” t-shirt blew past me, a running revelation hit me. Perhaps the marathon survival tips I’ve relied on over the years may be of use in other shitty situations in which we are unprepared.

Over the years, I’ve developed a system for preparing for these races and my brother-in-law. It’s not really a training system. It’s more of a survival system when you are just in the middle of collapsing. Your legs feel like somebody shoved 1,000 needles into them. Your body tells you it’s one degree away from a heat stroke. And your mind starts hallucinating that a legged refrigerator full of chicken nuggets is running in front of you.

Are you in a situation where you are sweating bullets and still have miles to go before the finish line? We all occasionally hit “the wall” on the road of life. In those moments, extra stretching and a prayer don’t always help. Here’s some marathon survival tips that might.

Put your name on it.
Sometimes the best way to start is to own up to the situation you are in. For every marathon, I grab the athletic tape, write my name on it with a sharpie and paste it on the front of my shirt. Spectators generally root for underdogs. When you are limping along the NYC Marathon at mile 25 and hear a guy with a heavy New York accent shouting, “Jon, get moving”, you tend to get going. If you are stuck in a bad situation, don’t hide with the masses. Put your name on it and people will pull for you.

Trick your focus.
I usually take along Halls cough drops on long runs. When you can’t breath, your body tends to block out the problem and move on. Take a cough drop and you’ll start to focus on what you need to. Breathing. After 10 or 11 of them, the medication really kicks in and you’ll actually start trying to pump up the spectators by giving every one of them a high five, even the guy in the chicken costume at mile 23. Do you have a problem at work or at home? If you ignore it, you’ll quickly find yourself short of breath.

Find a buddy.
Hopefully, you have a competitive sister-in-law that has a similar running goal, or a mission to beat her brother-in-law. Buddies will keep you going. If you don’t have one, find a pretend buddy. Go run next to someone and pretend you two are synchronized running. Or just pretend there’s a rope hitching you to the guy in front of you. Just lean back and make believe he is pulling you through the race. Often times we can’t make it out of tough situations ourselves. Find someone that can pull you through.

Ditch the extra weight.
I’m not built to run marathons. My brother-in-law weighs 170 lbs. and looks like a direct descendent of a Kenyan. I weigh 210 lbs. According to Runner’s World Calorie Counter, compared to my brother-in-law, I burn an extra McDonald’s Angus Third Pound Cheeseburger (with bacon) worth of calories during a marathon. That’s 790 calories or the caloric equivalent to 4.97 additional miles. Ditch anything you can to get rid of the baggage. You’ll save energy in the long run.

Reduce friction.
Running a marathon will take around 30,000 to 40,000 individual steps. That’s also the number of times your legs will rub past each other. If you hope to make it, reduce friction. Grab some vasoline and get rid of anything that rubs you the wrong way. Is everyone rubbing you the wrong way about a bad decision? Ditch the negativity and keep running your pace.

Know your kryptonite.
There is always something out there that can hurt your chance at survival. Before you get too far into your shitty situation, you better inventory what that is. Mine is hills and heat. Put those two together and you might as well wheel me to the finish line. When you are in a tight spot, be prepared so you can dash through that water sprinkler in Chicago’s Chinatown.

I hope these survival tips help you the next time you run into a shitty situation. Or the next time you want to reenact Greek history and are crazy enough to run a marathon or half marathon. And remember, after it’s all over, don’t forget to celebrate with a post race beer and a deep dish pizza at Gino’s East or slice at Grimaldi’s.