BackgroundI learned about this challenge from my friend, Adam Czajkowski, because he posted about it on Facebook as he was doing it in early April 2020. I asked him about it and he told me it was also something that David Goggins came up with and that it was the second time he had done it. Here is the premise: You run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. Hence, the 4x4x48. So you end up running a total of 48 miles in 48 hours. When I heard about this, I of course said to myself that I would never do something so crazy. But the COVID-19 pandemic had cleared my schedule in a big way, so for some unknown reason, I decided I would give it a shot that coming weekend, April 17-19. I really didn't know what I was getting in to, but I knew I wanted to raise money to provide meals to frontline health care workers, so I went about seeking sponsors for each leg. I set the goal at $1,200 but my friends, family, as well as some complete strangers came through in a big way and we ended up raising substantially more than that. Leg 1: Friday, April 17th, 10am (4.2 miles; 40:56; 9:44 pace)I decided to have Leg 1 coincide with a virtual race series that I had set up called the: "Quarantine Quartet." For the first weekend of that challenge, you had to run a mile as fast as you could. I decided I would run my fast mile as the 4th mile of this very first leg of the 4x4x48. I chose the 215 beltway path and James Zygadlo ran the first 3 miles with me. Then I opened it up the last mile, clocking a 6:25, which was probably the fastest mile I had run in nearly 20 years. Leg 1 was in the books and I was feeling good. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 1: Erik Jimenez & Susie Lee. Thank you! Leg 2: Friday, April 17th, 2pm (4.01 miles; 41:03; 10:14 pace)Leg 2 had me back out on the 215 beltway path and James ran this one with me too. We started a little further north of leg 1 so that we would avoid some of the uphill. It wasn't bad. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 2: Mike Morton, Devon Reese & Andrew Patterson. Thank you! Leg 3: Friday, April 17th, 6pm (4.58 miles; 41:59; 9:10 pace)Leg 3 was a solo leg and I just ran it out of my front door to save time. It was overcast and it actually rained a bit, which made the run very enjoyable. Because of that, I decided to add a bit of mileage, ending up at 4.58. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 3: Matthew Kneeland, Nadia Krall & Eddie Ableser. Thank you! After leg 3, I recorded a "fireside chat" about the challenge for social media. You can watch it here: Leg 4: Friday, April 17th, 10pm (4.23 miles; 42:41; 10:05 pace)My first night segment brought darkness and cooler temperatures. I again decided to run a route that started and ended at my front door so I could get home as quickly as possible and try to get some sleep. I also took a screenshot of my Fitbit since it was a decent day for steps and miles. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 4: Sandra Jauregui, Damien Sheets & Doug Brooks. Thank you! Leg 5: Saturday, April 18th, 2am (5.61 miles; 54:10; 9:39 pace)I wasn't able to sleep much after the last leg, really just tossing and turning for a couple hours until it was time to get up and go again, which I did at 2am. I again chose a course that started and ended at my front door. I added some mileage on this leg just because. The highlight of the run was hurdling a duck that was sleeping on the sidewalk! Shoutout to our donors for Leg 5: Maier Guitierrez & Associates, Eva Segerblom & Lisa Rasmussen. Thank you! Leg 6: Saturday, April 18th, 6am (6.0 miles; 1:03:49; 10:38 pace)Again, I got very little sleep after getting home from leg 5. Maybe an hour or so. So I was tired when the time for leg 6 arrived. Crystal volunteered to run leg 6 with me, so we headed back to the 215 beltway path. When I arrived, I told her I thought we should run 6 miles rather than 4. I thought she might say no, but she said okay, and off we went. At the request of one of my donors for this segment, Lucy Flores, I brought a donut to eat at the end of the leg. You have to give the crowd what they want! This meant, of course, that I had to wear my donut shoes as well. This segment marked the halfway point and that felt like a real accomplishment. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 6: Adam Ganz, Lucy Flores & Tick Segerblom. Thank you! (I sample a pretty great donut in this video.) Leg 7: Saturday, April 18th, 10am (5.0 miles; 50:35; 10:06 pace)Back to the beltway path for leg 6. James ran this one with me. It was cloudy out and the humidity told me that perhaps some rain was on the way. We decided to go 5 miles instead of 4. I don't know why. Sometimes you just do things because you can. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 7: Maggie McLetchie, Alex Espinoza, Lisa Levine & Andrew Woods. Thank you! Leg 8: Saturday, April 18th, 2pm (4.56 miles; 42:27; 9:19 pace)It didn't rain, but the humidity persisted. This leg was really tough. I ran a route starting and ending at my front door. I was exposed to the sun and felt like I was overheating most of the run. My pace was solid but more because I just wanted to be done with this leg and get inside to some air conditioning. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 8: Marco Henry, Alex Goff, Brittany Shipp Walker, Jeff/Marissa Temple & Marty Urbanowicz. Thank you! Leg 9: Saturday, April 18th, 6pm (5.28 miles; 50:12; 9:31 pace)I stuck with running a route right outside my front door for leg 9. It wasn't as humid as before and the sun had gone down, which provided some additional relief. I added some more mileage because why not at this point. I wanted to see how many miles I might be able to end up with when all was said and done. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 9: Alfredo Alonso, Jason Frierson, Rochelle Nguyen, Nancy Saitta, Lisa Kirkeby & Alex Ortiz. Thank you! Leg 10: Saturday, April 18th, 10pm (4.45 miles; 44:04; 9:55 pace)Leg 10 was another night time segment and I again ran a route from my house. The fatigue was really starting to set in, but the end was tantalizingly near. Huge day for the Fitbit, so I had to get a screenshot of that as well. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 10: Maggie O'Flaherty, Cynthia Cruz, Justin Jones, Joe Hardy, Jr. & Shannon Bilbray-Alexrod. Thank you! Leg 11: Sunday, April 19th, 2am (4.14 miles; 40:49; 9:52 pace)Little sleep, if any, before leg 11, but there was no stopping now. This was the second to last leg. I would be lying if I said this one was easy. It was not. I was exhausted and everything hurt. I just wanted to sleep, but there was still work to be done to finish strong. Shoutout to our donors for Leg 11: Steve DiMasi, Mari Nakashima, Garrett Gordon, Dale Lay, Gabby McGregor & John Chinnock. Thank you! Leg 12: Sunday, April 18th, 6am (4.01 miles; 39:25; 9:50 pace)And the final leg was upon us! Crystal met me at the 215 beltway path to run it with me. She sensed that I wanted to open things up when we had one mile to go, so she gave me permission to take off. I finished strong with a 7:28 mile. Man did it hurt. Adam Ganz was waiting to cheer me on at the finish and James had also showed up with celebratory donuts. That was really cool, especially because it was pretty darn early on a Sunday morning and they could have just slept it rather than come out to cheer me on. The photos from the finish: Adam captured the end of my final leg. Here it is: Shoutout to our donors for Leg 12: Sally Yeager, Richard Metzler, Cherie Clark, Bita Yeager, Mike Guss, Christy Craig, Lone Malkiewich, Mark Stuffelbeam, Sunny Bailey & Henry/Enrique Sotelo. Thank you! Final ThoughtsThe final tally for me was 56.07 miles at an average pace of 9:51 per mile. Why did I run more than the required 48? I’m not sure, other than I wanted to do more than the minimum. I figured the last few legs would hurt no matter what, so better to get some extra miles in early. I intended to run between 11 and 12 minute miles, but once it became apparent I had a shot to be under 10 minute mile pace for the whole thing, that motivated me. But it came at a price because the last 4 legs were a real struggle, both physically and mentally. Here is a breakdown of all of the legs: My fastest mile was mile 4 of the first leg, which came in at 6:25. That was the mile I used for my virtual Qurantine Quartet entry. My second fastest mile was my very last mile, mile 56, which came it at 7:27. It really hurt, but I wanted to empty the tank. Nice bookends for the event. I was most proud that I didn’t walk during any of the legs. In fact, I never even stopped once because I luckily never had to stop for a traffic light or traffic when crossing a street. I didn’t listen to music during any of the runs. Just me and my thoughts. Not sure that was the best plan. Distraction would have been nice for sure. I ran 5 of the legs with other people, 7 by myself. Leg 8 was the worst one by far. It was over 70 degrees with 50% humidity, which is a lot for Las Vegas. That leg almost broke me. It made me want to give up. I think the 10pm/2am legs were my favorites. No sun. No people. Quiet. Calm. Cool. But probably the most dangerous due to the darkness. I lost 8 pounds from the time that I started the challenge, despite drinking as much water as I could and eating as much as I could stomach. I did not have any caffeine for the duration of the challenge because I was worried that it would affect my stomach negatively or make sleeping more difficult. That is probably the longest I have gone in my adult life without caffeine. Sleeping was very difficult. The first night, I feel asleep once for 1 hour and 5 minutes. The second night, I slept a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes over two naps. It is really hard to sleep when you get back from running due to your elevated heart rate. For me, after doing social media updates, stretching, icing, showering, eating and drinking, the window for sleeping was only about 90 minutes to 2 hours. Even the times that I did fall asleep, I always woke up before my alarm. My body just knew it was time to go. Exhaustion really set in towards the end. The exhaustion, emotion, and anxiety nearly overwhelmed me at some point. The last two legs, I just started crying when I woke up right before I headed out. Not sure why other than the exhaustion just overwhelming me. As a kid who grew up with severe asthma, I never fathomed that something like this would be possible for me in life. I am grateful that Adam Czajkowski turned me on to this crazy idea. And I am thankful for all the encouragement along the way, especially from my wife, Bita, who not only tolerated this shenanigan, but encouraged and supported me in a huge way, especially by making sure I was well fed. Here are a few things she made along the way: I am also incredibly grateful to James Zygaldo and Crystal Martinez. They ran some of the legs with me and provided a ton of encouragement along the way. I am most proud that we raised nearly $5,000 from 51 donors, blowing the original goal of $1,200 out of the water. Those funds bought 500 meals for our frontline workers during a very difficult time, making this effort well worth it in the end, despite the pain and discomfort. Here were the various shoes and hats I wore throughout this effort because you have to look good out there: And here were the tricks of the trade I used to keep me going: This accomplishment taught me that sometimes our limits are self-imposed and not real in any meaningful way. So I will continue trying to achieve the impossible. Thanks to each of you for being part of this journey. And thanks for reading.
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Attempt 1 (January 25, 2015)When I purchased my first Fitbit fitness tracker back in January 2014, I almost immediately became obsessed with my daily and weekly step counts. Whenever I was invited to daily or weekly challenges, I would go above and beyond to make sure that I won. I would do whatever it took, including running or walking multiple times a day and even doing laps around my kitchen and living room as challenges wound down. I even remember pacing around in my hotel room while on vacation just to win a challenge. In retrospect, it probably wasn't very healthy, as it emphasized quantity over quality. In any case, I (unfortunately) learned that the highest step total in a single day that would earn you a daily "badge" was 100,000 steps. That seemed unfathomable to me, as my daily goal was 15,000 steps, but I began to think about whether it would be possible and, of course, began planning an attempt to do it. My first attempt took place on January 25, 2015. It was a spectacular failure. Although I ended up with a tad over 91,000 steps, earning myself the Rocket Boot badge, I didn't give myself a good chance to get to 100,000 due to lack of preparation and poor planning. I made a few decisions that really came back to bite me. First, I decided that I would only walk, which would require me to walk about 50 miles. That was a mistake because the monotony of walking brutalized my feet. I should have mixed in some running or jogging just to change things up. Second, I decided that I would walk the 100,000 steps at a gym and mostly on a treadmill. I chose to do that because it would prevent me from having to worry about the weather and other obstacles (stoplights, uneven terrain, cars) that I would surely encounter in an outdoor attempt. In addition, I would be able to watch TV at the gym, which would presumably distract me from the torture. I would also have convenient access to bathrooms and a locker room, where I could store supplies needed for the effort. I chose January 25 because that was the day of the NFL's Pro Bowl and I thought it would offer a good distraction for at least a few hours. I should have known better because the Pro Bowl always sucks. The treadmill sucked too - it killed my feet and lower back. Although I did end up walking some on the indoor track at the gym, the damage, physical and psychological, had already been done by that point. Third, I severely underestimated the amount of calories I would need to consume to continuously walk for that long. I figured I could average 3 miles per hour but, at that pace, it would take me nearly 17 hours to cover 100,000 steps. This was all I brought with me for the entire day: If you are counting at home, between the "food" and Gatorade, I only brought about 2,100 calories. That was not nearly enough. My good friend and frequent partner in crime, James Zygadlo, stopped by a couple times throughout the day and on one visit brought me some Starburst candies, which added another couple hundred calories at most. I started the day off early, arriving at the gym around 6am. Things were going okay for awhile, but it was really boring and my feet and lower back started to hurt pretty badly around the 50,000 step mark, which I hit around 1:30pm. As I noted, James stopped by and put in some miles with me at two points in the day. He was there when I ultimately pulled the plug on the attempt around 9pm. I distinctly remember that my wife stopped by at one point in the day and just stood in front of the treadmill and shook her head at me, not at all happy with what I was putting my body through. She wasn't wrong! I finally chose to quit because I was experiencing severe physical exhaustion and began to experience heat exhaustion, which was making me dizzy and nauseous. In addition, my feet hurt so badly I could hardly stand on them. I thought that if I continued, I would definitely end up in the hospital. That was not something I was willing to do, so I called it a day, even though I was more than 90% of the way there. It was disappointing because I had been providing live updates on my progress on social media and I hated to pull the plug so close to the finish line. Here is what one of my feet looked like when I got home that evening (one giant blister and blood pooling): Here were the final stats, per my Fitbit (obviously, the active minutes feature wasn't working correctly and the mileage was definitely off too): I did at least earn the Rocket Boot badge, though that wasn't the one I was aiming for: And, like all good friends, James ribbed me a bit by making this graphic to represent my effort - so close, but yet so far away... As my wife will confirm, when I got home after attempting this, I said to her: "Don't ever let me do anything that stupid ever again in my life." And I thought that was the end of it. Yet it wasn't. But you already knew that, even if I didn't. Preparing for Attempt 2Over the years, my failure ate at me every time I thought about it. It felt like unfinished business that needed to be finished. I knew that if made some changes based on what I had learned in the failed first attempt, I could do it. I also knew that I needed to be in better shape and that I needed to train for it. Finally, I decided that I would make another attempt some 5 years later, on February 1, 2020, the day before the Super Bowl. I chose that day because I figured I would be incapacitated the day after the attempt and there was no better day to be incapacitated than Super Bowl Sunday, when I would be vegging on the couch watching football all day anyhow. James and I came up with a plan that we thought would get us across the finish line. The second attempt would be outside and we would mix in some running/jogging and make sure we consumed way more calories. To prepare ourselves, we decided that we would first pick a day to walk most of the 215 beltway path to potentially scope that out as part of the 100,000 step course. We settled on November 2, 2019 for this attempt. We stocked up on provisions, including stopping at Subway in the morning to buy our lunch for later. We threw the sandwiches into our camelbacks to eat later. We kicked things off around 8:45am at the corner of Flamingo and the 215, not quite the start of the path, but close enough: We turned around at Ann Road and the 215 around 1pm and we were in pretty good spirits, though we still had roughly 12.5 miles to walk back to Parkway Tavern, where we had parked: A couple photos of the Las Vegas Strip from along the way: When all was said and done, we arrived back where we had started a little after 5:30pm. So our journey took around 8 hours and 45 minutes and we ended up covering over 25 miles, for a total of over 56,000 steps for me (and even more for James). We tried jogging a bit towards the end, but our feet were hurting so much that we quickly switched back to walking. We were tired and couldn't feel our feet, but that seemed like a great reason to enjoy a celebratory beverage or two at Parkway Tavern. More importantly, we learned some things that would help in our official attempt. We could make the 215 path part of the course, but not the entire course because we needed to be closer to our supplies, like food, restrooms, a change of clothes and shoes. We learned we would need to eat a lot to sustain our efforts. And we also learned it was going to hurt...a lot. We had three months to prepare ourselves mentally and physically. Game on! Attempt 2 (2/1/2020)We chose to make this effort a fundraiser for a State of Nevada grant program that helps to get kids outside. Donors could either pledge a flat amount or pledge per 1,000 steps completed. Our goal, of course, was 100,000 steps. We chose this beneficiary because I had actually sponsored the bill establishing the program at the 2019 Session of the Nevada Legislature. Getting kids outdoors has always been important to me, inspiring my "Kids in Parks" legislation in 2017, that provided a free state parks pass to every 5th grader in Nevada. It is still my favorite bill signing, as then Governor Brian Sandoval signed the bill at a state park in Northern Nevada: We had a plan and we mostly executed it. And, like the first effort five years prior, we made sure to document our progress with hourly social media updates. We headed out to run some miles at 5:30am. I was already at about 1,700 steps just from getting ready in the morning, so that was a nice start to what was going to be a long day. We put in a few miles of running around the neighborhood and checked in with just over 10,000 steps at 6:30am. It was nice to have 10% of the steps done just an hour in. And we definitely saved a small dog from an approaching hungry coyote while the dog's oblivious owner just stared at her phone the whole time. I was hoping this would be stored good karma for us later on in the day. We headed to the 215 path and ended the next hour at just over 16,000 steps at 7:30am. We continued northbound on the 215 path and ended the next hour at just over 22,500 steps at 8:30am. We continued northbound on the 215 path and ended the next hour at nearly 29,000 steps at 9:30am. We also got a nice view of the Las Vegas Strip. Stayed on the 215 path and ended the next hour at over 37,000 steps at 10:30am. We were 5 hours in and more than 33% of the way there but we had so much further to go. We finally ditched the 215 path and headed to James' place to feed his dogs and change up our scenery. We ended the next hour at 45,000 steps at 11:30am. Next up was lunch, a real lunch. We decided we would eat a real sit down lunch and dinner because we knew we needed the calories and it would be a psychological boost to sit down for a minute. We wouldn't give ourselves much time to eat, but sitting for even a few minutes would feel great. For lunch, we chose Jimmy John's plus Pinkbox Doughnuts for dessert. We had to take a detour to get there due to the road we intended to walk on being entirely closed from an earlier fatal accident. We ended the hour at just over 50,000 steps at 12:30pm. We had reached the halfway point. We were in good spirits, but our feet were definitely feeling fatigued from a long morning. We hit the streets with an extra boost of energy from lunch. We ended the next hour at 55,600 steps at 1:30pm. The next hour saw us eclipse the 60,000 step plateau by 2:30pm. We were still in high spirits. We had stopped at my house for much needed showers and a change of clothes, as we had been going for 8 hours already. It was a nice way to regroup and get ready for what was still ahead of us. We headed out to a local park to continue to put one step in front of another. We ended the hour over 66,000 steps at 3:30pm. We were now 10 hours in and 2/3 of the way there. For that, we were grateful. We were not grateful, however, that we still had at least 5 hours to go and more than 30,000 steps left to walk. We passed 72,000 steps at 4:30pm. We were still smiling, at least for the camera. As the weather cooled, we put on more layers, I put on my lucky dunkin' donut shoes, and we crested the 77,000 step mark at 5:30pm. We had now been at it for 12 hours. But we were only 75% of the way there. This was when I started to really question why we were doing this and if anybody would really care if we just quit and called it a day. We had dinner at 5 Guys and, man, that burger and fries were the pickup that we needed at that moment. We were dragging, but the food gave us some much needed energy and we wrapped up hour 13 with 81,500 steps at 6:30pm. The high from the food quickly gave way to a crash and the weight of the exhaustion that we were both experiencing after being at it for so many hours. We began to think about how good the celebratory beers would be when we finished the 100,000. A few of my friends offered to Venmo money to help us celebrate. In the end, some generous donors sent enough money our way to cover a very nice celebration (thank you Bob Yosaitis, Carmen Facciolo, Wendy Stolyarov, and Bonnie Hoffecker)! Also, we were treated to an amazing view of the Las Vegas Strip. And we continued to put one foot in front of another. 87,700 steps at 7:30pm. I think our faces say it all. Legs numb. Feet numb. Severe lower back pain. We just wanted to be done, but we still had two more hours to get there. Things were getting difficult. Hello darkness, my old friend. Every. Step. Hurt. Bad. We had stopped really saying much to each other a couple of hours ago because it was at that point where the physical and psychological pain made it difficult to talk or listen. The silence was welcome and necessary. To be honest, I was very surprised (and proud) that James was still in this one. I had not anticipated that he would try to walk the entirely of the 100,000 steps with me. I knew how much I was hurting and I knew he must be hurting at least as bad, if not worse. Each of us had to find our own way through the pain cave that we had entered a few hours earlier. We reached the 8:30pm mark at more than 94,000 steps. This was a new daily record for me. And it meant that we only had one more hour to go. But it would be the toughest hour of the day for sure. So James hit 100,000 steps before me, which was likely due to differences in our stride length throughout a very long day. While I was happy for him, it meant that as he finally had a chance to rest, I had to take one more walk around the block to get those last few steps. I did. And we did it! 100,000 steps for both of us just before 9:30pm. Sweet, sweet victory! More than 5 years later, I had finally earned the Olympian Sandal badge from Fitbit! And, after cleaning up, it was time for celebratory beers at Parkway Tavern. Although the beer was wonderful, walking to and from the car was absolutely brutal. I don't know if anybody saw us, but we had to look like two very old men, hobbling back to our car at a snail's pace. The stairs at my house tormented me for the better part of the next week. When all was said and done, we raised $2,250 to help get kids outside. A very special thank you to those who donated to this effort: Sally Yeager, Colin Robertson, Tom Clark, Alfredo Alonso, Julia Lazareck, Michael Chang, Justin Jones, Brian Reeder, Bita Yeager, Wendy Stolyarov, John Chinnock, Brittany Walker, James Zygadlo, Yvanna Cancela, John Sande, Adrienne Michelson, Brian Yeager, Scott Scherer, Mick Strongin, Alina Shell, Robert Lemus, Kyle Davis, Homa Woodrum, Teri Ligon, Andrew Weil, Felicia Ortiz, Daniel Solow, Melissa Johanning, Cherie Clark, Lesley Cohen, Michael Guss, John Bemis, Zach Conine, and Bonnie Hoffecker. You all inspired me when I desperately wanted to stop. PS: Just in case you wanted to see what my feet looked like after this one...not pretty. No blisters, but lots of redness. And they were sore for days. Now you know.
Pittsburgh (May 5, 2002)I can't remember when I first decided that my bucket list included a marathon. I ran cross country and track in high school, but I don't think our mid 1990's training plan ever called for us to run more than 8-10 miles at a time. The thought of running 26.2 miles seemed unfathomable and never really crossed my mind back then. I was more focused on the classic 5k cross county distance. I continued to run every now and again as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, but not nearly as much as I did in high school. Without weekly races my motivation waned. I began law school at Cornell University in the fall of 2001. The events of September 11 happened my first month there, while I sat in my torts class. A difficult breakup with my girlfriend of nearly two years happened shortly thereafter. Those two events were definitely related, but that's another story for another day. It seems that difficult breakups usually spur people to either stop taking good care of themselves or start taking good care of themselves. For me, it was the latter. Whenever one chapter closed, I always took the opportunity to better myself for the next chapter. I don't want to give the impression that I had let myself go because I hadn't. I probably weighed somewhere in the mid 160s, but I wasn't setting the world on fire with my physical activities. I was managing the rigors of my first year of law school as best as I could, which involved plenty of reading and studying, but also plenty of socializing at Ithaca bars and late night fast food. I wasn't overweight, but I certainly wasn't healthy either. When my second semester began in February 2002, I found myself living alone for the first time in a long time and I became determined to clean up my diet and to start running again. I knew I would need a goal to follow this through so I searched for any marathons in the vicinity in the near future. Turns out finding a sanctioned marathon anywhere close to central New York in the wintertime isn't an easy feat due to the weather: snow and ice, and lots of it. The only one I could find that was remotely close was more than 300 miles away. It was the Pittsburgh Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, May 5, 2002. I signed up and begun my training. I can't recall with great clarity the precise contours of my training schedule or even if I had something all that structured, but I do remember that I stuck to it religiously. I regained the discipline I had in high school. I cut out all alcohol and sweets. I meticulously counted my calories to limit myself to no more than 1600 to 2000 calories a day, even when I was putting in a lot of miles. When all was said and done, I lost nearly 20 pounds that semester. I was often hungry. I underestimated how difficult training through the Ithaca winter would be. There were a couple of treadmills in the tiny gym in the basement of my apartment building, but they were often occupied, making it difficult to count on them as a consistent part of my training. It turned out that nobody else really relished training outside in the wintery conditions, meaning the treadmills were often occupied. I ran outside as much as I could, but this often involved snow and ice. Slipping and falling became fairly routine. On the worst days, I had to resort to the treadmill at whatever time it was open, sometimes very early in the morning and sometimes very late at night. I distinctly remember having to do a few long runs on the treadmill, 10 miles or more. I would feel bad when others came down to the gym wanting to use the treadmill that I had occupied for 2 hours or more. In the early 2000s, of course, there were no wearable fitness devices, no apps where friends and strangers alike could give you kudos. I told my closest friends about what I was going to do and they were encouraging, but this was mostly something I just had to accomplish on my own. Nobody was volunteering to run with me in the Ithaca winter. There were a lot of things I missed out on due to my training, but that was the price to pay for achieving my goal, which I had set as running the marathon in under 4 hours, which equates to about a 9 minute per mile pace. My training went well and I definitely felt like I was in good enough shape to run a sub 4 hour marathon as the big day approached. I don't know if I realized it when I signed up, but the marathon itself fell on the weekend between the two weeks of final exams. Not ideal, but it was the only option I had. Thankfully, I would be tapering in my training the week before the marathon, so I could just focus on studying and taking exams but, as my classmates were studying and preparing for the second week of exams over the weekend, I was making the 5+ hour drive to Pittsburgh on Saturday, the day before the marathon. I had never been to Pittsburgh before. I booked a hotel that wasn't too far from the starting line so I could just walk over there in the morning. I can't remember what time I arrived on Saturday and what I did. But I remember being really pumped up on Sunday morning. I had trained for months in cold and snow, but the time for racing had finally arrived. It was shaping up to be a nice day and there was electricity in the air at the start line! This was my first real race other than high school cross country and track meets. I wasn't ready for all the pomp and circumstance that often accompanies a big city marathon. So much energy. So much entertainment. So many people. As the gun went off, I told myself to follow my plan but the energy got the best of me and I took off like I was shot out of a cannon. The spectator cheers and the multiple musical acts along the way buoyed my spirit. I distinctly remember running alongside another racer some miles into the race. He started a conversation with me and I revealed this was my first marathon. He asked me what my target time was and, upon hearing it was just under four hours, he told me I was running too fast and I should slow down. But what did he know? I felt good and kept the pedal to the medal. I crossed the 10 mile mark in about 70 minutes. I knew it was way faster than I had intended to run, but I still felt good and I told myself that I was feeling strong enough that I could just keep up this pace for the whole 26.2 miles. I hadn't done any research on the course whatsoever, which meant I had no idea that there was a pretty significant hill around the 12 mile mark. I don't recall training on any hills in Ithaca. There are of course hills there, but I don't think I ever ran them. In fact, I avoided them. The hill nearly broke me. It sapped my strength and my resolve. After finally scaling it, I had nothing left in the tank. I had to start walking and even that wasn't easy. How could I have been so foolish to train all these months and then run like an idiot for the first 10 or so miles? There was no way I was going to be able to even finish this race. I was devastated. I thought about having to go back to Cornell and tell my friends that I wasn't even able to finish the race. How embarrassing. I was mad at myself. I was at a crossroads. Either quit or slog it out. I vacillated between those two choices for a couple of miles before I finally decided the embarrassment of not finishing was worse than the agony of continuing. So onward I went. Mostly walking with some jogging when I could manage. I didn't think the finish line would ever arrive, but it did. I had gone so slow the last half of the race that, despite my early speed, I did not achieve my goal time of under 4 hours. Instead, I came in at 4 hours and 25 minutes. I was very disappointed in myself, but also happy that I had toughed it out and managed to finish rather than quit. The last part of the course concluded with a lap inside the stadium where the Pittsburgh Steelers play, so that was pretty cool. Here is my official finisher photo: And here is the finisher medal that I earned for my troubles: I had already checked out of the hotel that morning so right after the race I simply got in my car and drove straight back to Ithaca. That, my friends, was a very bad idea. My legs were in agony the whole time and they felt horrible when I arrived. I could hardly get out of the car and walking was almost impossible. I looked and felt like a very old man hobbling from the parking garage to my apartment. The intense pain persisted for at least a week. The good news is that I was mostly just sitting around studying and taking final exams. The bad news is that it was torture to even stand up to walk to class or to the bathroom. And it was nearly impossible to walk down stairs. When I studied at the library that week, I would walk up the stairs and take the elevator down! One thing was very clear in my mind. I would NEVER, EVER run another marathon again. The pain I experienced afterward simply was not worth it. I had checked this off my bucket list and that was enough for me. Sure, I hadn't broken the 4 hour barrier, but that was okay. The important thing is that I finished the 26.2 and nobody could take that accomplish from me, no matter how dicey it was during the effort. Well, over the next 17+ years, I raced many half-marathons, a much more manageable distance that was, for the most part, enjoyable. But my Pittsburg Marathon experience never really left me and, like bad fashion, the idea of running another one suddenly started to seem like a good idea nearly two decades later. Red Rock (February 22, 2020)By the time 2020 rolled around, I had been living in Las Vegas for more than 10 years and I often ventured to Red Rock National Conservation Area, a mere 20 minute drive from my house. There is great hiking out there and I had even run a half-marathon on the scenic loop that winds through the property. On Saturday, February 15, 2020, I raced the Sinners & Saints half-marathon in Boulder City. It was an entirely downhill course and, because of that, I had set a personal record of 1 hour, 50 minutes, 27 seconds. What I had not realized at the time was how sore I would be from running a downhill half-marathon. The pounding on your legs makes for a longer recovery than I had expected and definitely longer than I was used to after a half-marathon. Nonetheless, for reasons unknown, I was contemplating running the Red Rock Marathon on Saturday, February 22, 2020, just one week later. This was, of course, pre-pandemic, so everything was business as usual. None of us knew that our entire world would change a few short weeks later. In any case, I wanted to take another shot at a marathon. It was simply time. I was under no illusion that I could break 4 hours on the rolling hills of the Red Rock course, essentially consisting of an out and back on the scenic loop, but there is something magical about running out there and I wanted to do it. I kept waiting for my legs to recover before I officially signed up. They weren't any better on Wednesday or Thursday, but I was running out of time, as the cutoff for signing up was approaching. By the time we reached Friday, I was still sore but just decided to bite the bullet anyhow. I signed up. Why? Because I am crazy. I picked up my race packet at a local casino on Friday afternoon and set out my gear for an early morning start. There is no parking at the start or finish, so my wife graciously agreed to drop me off before the sun even rose. It was cold out but I didn't want to overheat, so I showed up in shorts and a t-shirt and basically froze until the start of the race. My legs were definitely still tired from my half-marathon effort the week before, but the major soreness had mostly dissipated. It was game on! The scenery at Red Rock is phenomenal, but the weather wasn't great, as it started to rain pretty heavily halfway through my race, which ultimately disabled my phone for awhile because I hadn't brought a ziplock bag big enough for it. Before that happened, I remembered Face Timing with my mother about 8 miles into the race. My, how technology had changed since my last marathon! I didn't take many photos during the race due to the rain, but here are a couple of them, plus a couple official race photographer photos: Towards the end of the race, the rain let up, producing some pretty amazing scenery. Some photos I took after I finished: I'm not going to say the marathon was easy because it wasn't, but I was much more disciplined than back in Pittsburgh, so I was able to run most of it, with some power walking over some of the bigger hills. Around mile 18 or so, I hit a wall that lasted 3-4 miles, but then I was able to find a second wind that brought me to the finish line. The finisher medal was pretty great too, way better than the one I earned in Pittsburgh: My official finish time was a few minutes under 5 hours. I was very happy with that considering I thought I would finish closer to 5 and 1/2 to 6 hours. On that course, averaging 11:20 miles is quite an accomplishment, especially coming off a bruising half-marthon. Here are the relevant details, including a map of the course and my mile splits. Again, none of this technology existed back when I ran Pittsburgh, when I think I just rolled with the then industry leading Timex Ironman watch. I finished 50th overall out of 97 participants. So, the question remains, will I crack the 4 hour mark in the marathon and, if so, when? All I can say about that is stay tuned...
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AuthorSteve Yeager is an ultra runner who rarely turns down a challenge. When he is not out putting miles on his shoes, he practices law and serves as the Speaker in the Nevada State Legislature. Steve lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his very understanding and patient wife, Bita. Archives
August 2022
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