26.2 in NYC Part One: the preamble

I am a major orienteering enthusiast, but orienteering is not my only “favourite” sport. The purity, simplicity and joy of running took hold of me from quite a young age. In fact I took part in my first organised distance running event aged 7, a Blue Peter fun run in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh. I started regularly running cross country races when I was about 10 years old. But I’ve never done many races on roads and even though I kind of assumed I would get around to it at some point I never had a burning desire to run a road marathon.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could go the distance. In my early twenties I had some success with mountain marathons and I have no trouble jogging easily for 5 hours or more in the forest or hills. I just never felt the need to dabble too much in the dark art of asphalt running. When I lived in Scotland there were plenty of cross country and hill races to keep me inspired.

Since moving to Norway I’ve become much more focused on orienteering than ever before and at times I’ve missed the off-road running scene I’d enjoyed in Scotland. Maybe it was to fill the void, maybe it was an early mid-life crisis, maybe I just recognized a weakness in my orienteering and wanted to strengthen it by doing something extreme but at some point the ridiculous idea of running a road marathon began to appeal.

Legend has it that the first person to run the marathon died. You have to respect the event, even for someone with good general running fitness and endurance a road marathon takes training, there’s the constant grinding pace and the pounding, the rigors of the road. The required training period for me to have a decent bash at an Autumn marathon would wipe out a significant portion of my orienteering season –which is already too short when you live somewhere with 7 months of Winter. It simply was not an option. The marathon is a race of truth. Your finish time is a matter of pride and says something about you as a runner. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to expose myself like that without having done the proper training.

But there was one race I might make an exception for. One race that would be worth running just for the sheer hell of it. A race with an iconic route spanning five unique boroughs with deep, exuberant crowds cheering the runners every step of the way. The New York City marathon.

Once the idea was born things fell into place quickly. I didn’t sacrifice much of my orienteering season, I just skipped Blødslitet and the rescheduled Norwegian Night Champs so I could do some last minute road training in the final few weeks. I knew I was still somewhat ill prepared to run 26.2 miles on asphalt. I hadn’t even realized there would be substantial sections of concrete! But I’d managed to train really well for physical and mental acceptance of my goal pace (4:30 per km / 7:15 per mile). So I knew I could at least enjoy the first 15-20 miles and feel pretty comfortable. After that I had no idea. My longest run between WOC and the marathon was 19 miles. As well as plenty of 40-50 min tempo efforts I’d done one hilly, easy paced 19 miler and three 16-17 mile runs with up to 14 miles at marathon tempo.

But details details.. there I was and it was time to find out what I was made of. I was eager and healthy and the conditions were perfect for running. So as I stood in the sunshine listening to the Star-Spangled Banner at 9:38 AM on 6. Nov 2011 I didn’t feel any nerves. I felt only excitement, happiness and the naïve confidence of a total novice. The song finished, I ripped off my gloves and the arm warmers I’d made out of an old pair of tights. The announcer shouts: “This one’s for the great Grete Waitz!” and the tears well up in my eyes as the gun sounds and thousands of us start to shuffle towards the startline on the Verrazano Narrows bridge. A little over 26.2 miles lie between us and that famous finish line in Central Park. I have no idea how the next 3 or 4 hours will unfold but I'm smiling as I cross the startline and start to run. To be continued….