Little Rock Marathon

Run March 3, 2019

Somewhat related to the Trappings of the Rich is the Call of the Elite. When you turn in a big result, like a top-10 Age Group at a World Major, there’s a very real impulse to leverage the resulting street cred into something tangible. It’s not that I actually need any type of assistance – I have a perfectly good job – it’s just a silly urge borne out of a society that equates material with validation. No matter how many times you tell yourself you don’t care, the honest fact is: you do.

As crossing the line ahead of everybody else makes a much better photo op than accepting an age group award, equipment companies lost interest in me quite some time ago. Race directors, on the other hand, do like to have some fast folks in their age groups. So, after scoring the above-mentioned top-10 at Chicago, I start looking around for an elite invite. I don’t have to look very hard. I’ve been wanting to run Little Rock for quite some time, and it looks like I’d have a legit shot at winning Masters (40+). When they come back with an invite, the search is over.

Bridge over the Arkansas River

This is where the trappings come in. While an elite invite doesn’t carry any contractual obligation to run well, it seems a bit lame to accept one and show up with anything less than your A-game. With only 21 weeks between Chicago and Little Rock, there isn’t time to recover and then put in a full marathon prep cycle. I give myself 8 weeks of unstructured training and then do my best to boil my normal 18-week cycle down to 12, leaving a final week of rest. Two hard cycles so close together carries more than a little risk of overuse problems but, with the exception of a really nasty cold two weeks before the race, the training goes basically according to plan.

Saturday is pleasant enough that I walk the mile from my hotel to packet pickup and also wander around downtown a bit. This is my third visit to Little Rock. I really like the town and not just as a destination. I could see myself happily living here. I’m not suggesting that’s likely – I like St. Louis quite a lot as well – it just has a vibe that feels right to me.

Sunday, however, brings cold rain, a stiff breeze, and some sleet thrown in for good measure. The forecast calls for the precipitation to clear so, after a fair bit of consternation, I decide to go with shorts. I warm up wearing a plastic garbage bag as an outer layer. I keep it on even as the elite field is led out to the start. Once at the line, I run a final couple of striders and then ditch the bag just a minute before the gun.

Considerably less pleasant race morning

The half marathon course is basically the first half of the marathon. Both fields start together on the riverfront, so there’s no easy way to know how many of the thirty or so runners that blow by me in the first half mile are in my race. I don’t generally pay attention to where I’m positioned until midway, so I’m not worried about it. By the time we hit the first mile (in 6:44) on the bridge across the Arkansas River, the early sorting is done and I’m running even with the people around me. After a short loop around the Argenta district (named for local silver mines), we cross back over the bridge. Both passages are exposed to the full force of the wind and I’m glad to have them behind me early in the race. We then head east past the Clinton Presidential Library for an out and back during which the rain and sleet stop.

Nearing the turnaround, I get to see the leaders from the front and can tell from their bib color which are in my race. By my count, I’m in tenth place which is in line with expectations. I’m right on 6:45/mile and this race usually has around a dozen folks under 3 hours. While the pace seems right, I’m getting signals from my body that it is not sustainable. I ease up a bit and hit 9 miles in 61:30, which is about 30 seconds slower than I’d like for a sub-3 and can already feel things tightening up from the cold. Knowing that all the major obstacles come in the second hour, I don’t fight it: I let my pace slip again to around 7:00/mile figuring I’ll just get on it as best I can once the hills are behind me.

Volunteer support is more than adequate and none of them seem particularly put out by having to stand around in the cold waiting for us to show up. In addition to the official aid stations, there are numerous home grown efforts offering everything from donuts to fried chicken. Given the conditions, there are a surprising number of spectators along the route. I still haven’t adjusted to the relatively recent practice of printing names as well as numbers on race bibs. Every time I hear someone yell “Go Eric!” I wonder who I know in Little Rock that would be out cheering today.

As we weave a serpentine route through some urban residential areas, I’m running with Aaron King, who I find out later lives in Ithaca. Had I known that at the time, we might have had more to talk about. As it is, we’re both just happy to trade sheltering each other from the wind, now that the half marathoners have peeled off. We go through the half in 90:37 and I comment that the sub-3 is definitely not happening today. He says that he had held out some hope, but with the big climb still to come, he agrees that it’s slipped away.

The course passes the Capitol and then gets down to the real obstacle of the day. Starting with a stern half-mile grade at 15, we get a brief respite before getting hit with another solid mile of climbing to the high point of the city, more than 300 feet above the river. It’s a very pretty section of town and the road winds gently, a small mercy that shields us from having to view the whole climb at once. Mile 16 takes nearly 8 minutes and 17 isn’t a whole lot faster as we try to recompose ourselves on the smaller rolls atop the ridge. Then we plummet down the other side towards the river, giving all the elevation back in less than a mile. My quads shriek in protest despite my best efforts to land each stride gently on the steep downhill.

Aaron pulls a few yards ahead as we get back onto flat ground. More precisely, I fall back a few yards. My legs are shot. I push a bit to catch back up, but then drop back again as a steep overpass takes us over some train tracks to the river’s edge. There are still seven miles to go but we don’t get any more hills until right at the end, so I try to find some sort of pace. Nothing really hurts; there’s just no power left. The cold has taken all the snap out of my legs. And now it’s sleeting again.

Aaron catches the next runner ahead of us who is faltering rather badly. Aaron slows down a bit as he passes him and I manage to catch up once again. I remind myself of a maxim that has served me so well in races that threaten to go bad: “Before you try a slower pace, see if a faster one works.” It does. It’s not much of a lift, but by maintaining the pace that allowed me to catch the other two, I suddenly find myself pulling away from them. Mile 20 is 6:55. It will be my last under seven minutes today, but it’s done the trick. The last 10K will be slow, but it won’t be a disaster; I’m sure I can run this in.

What I don’t know is how well everybody else is going. We’re heading out to a turnaround just past mile 21. I don’t have to check bib colors this time, I can just count runners. Everybody looks a bit haggard, though it’s clear the top five are out of reach. Sixth place also looks like a stretch, but seventh is only about 30 seconds ahead and appears to be coming back. After making the turn, I can see that Aaron and maybe as many as four others are within striking distance from behind, but none of them are charging. I resolve to focus only on catching the runners ahead. It’s hard to believe that I’m actually improving my position while running 30 seconds per mile off pace. The conditions have definitely sapped the kick out of the field.

At 22, I make the pass for seventh. There’s nobody ahead in sight; the motivation for the remaining miles will need to come from within. Mile 23 is on a bike path while the runners heading out to the turn are on the road. Only a few dozen runners have passed so this is still basically the front of the field coming through and an awful lot of them look shell shocked. Mile 24 is back on the road and I get lots of “looking good” comments from the thickening crowd of oncoming runners (I’m sure I don’t look good). After a short stretch back on the bike path I pass through a very enthusiastic water stop. I’m still focused ahead, but I do check my watch when I hear another big cheer behind me; it seems I have about 45 seconds on my next pursuer. Back on the road again, there’s a substantial hill up to 25. The change in stride actually helps quite a bit. The downhill sends my quads into fits again and it’s immediately followed by another stout climb. The half-marathoners join from the right with half a mile to go. There are a fair number of them, but they generally stay on the right side of the road, so it’s easy to get by staying left. I finally catch sight of sixth place, but he’s still twenty seconds up the road. Maybe I could catch him in another mile, but I’m fine with the fact that the race ends before that.

I cross the line at 3:07:23. Not a time I’d normally be proud of but, on this day, on this course, I regard it as a pretty fine effort. It’s good enough for the Master’s win but not by much. The next 40+ runner finishes with Aaron, less than a minute back, so tying the go faster thing at 19 was the decision that carried the day. And it reinforces something I’ve held for a long time: there comes a point in nearly every race where the safe decision will cost you the win. Victory means staring into the chasm of defeat and realizing you may not escape, but there is no other way across.

But, perhaps that’s just a tad melodramatic. This is, after all, just a thing we do. And, to drive that point home, the happy finish line volunteers hang the world’s most ridiculous finisher medal around my neck and the weight of it nearly sends me to the floor. It’s a trapping of the rich: too much bling.