The Groton Marathon – 2018

It always seems like a great idea in the fall when it is a couple months away.  Then as the last Sunday in December approaches I wonder what the hell I have gotten myself into?  Despite my reservations and the usual line of calamities, the Groton Marathon went off without a hitch.  We actually had a record year.

Backstory

How did I get myself into this predicament of having to organize an entirely made up marathon on the last Sunday in December for the sixth year in row?  Well, you know me…

Sherman, set the way back machine for 2013.

Oh crap.  Now I have to explain another old-guy popular cultural reference that no one gets anymore.

Ok, there was a cartoon show called the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle in the 1960’s which was very much in repeat syndication when I was growing up in the 1970’s.  Rocky was an anthropomorphic flying squirrel and Bullwinkle was a moose. They had adventures.  They also had other cartoon shorts as part of the show format, a cartoon within a cartoon sort of thing.

One of the cartoon short segments in the show was called Peabody’s Improbable History where Mr. Peabody, who is a smart, professor type dog, invents a time machine to teach history to his dense ward, who is a boy, named Sherman.

Interestingly WABAC is spelled, in all capital letters, W-A-B-A-C, as a riff on the super smart computers of the time like ENIAC and UNIVAC, but obviously a double entendre on “Way Back” like a time machine.

Before they would head back in time Mr. Peabody would say, “Sherman, set the WABAC”.

Now that I have wasted a perfectly good 3 minutes of your life let’s get back to the origin story of the Groton Marathon.

In 2013 we had some negative events at the Boston Marathon that deeply and personally impacted me.  I don’t know why, but like Forest Gump I just had to run.  I started running a marathon a month.  BeforeI knew it I was 6 months in.  I had a December marathon scheduled somewhere in Indiana.  They got a snow storm and canceled the race.

Midwinter is a wasteland for official marathons.  There just aren’t any around.

As Dave McGilvray says; “My game, my rules.”

I made up my own marathon.  Perhaps a ½ dozen people started out with us that day and two of us finished.  It seemed be a dumb enough idea to have some momentum, so I spun up a website to make it official.  It became a renegade event sponsored by my running club.

The rules were based on the Mojo Loco rules.  Run as fast as you want, run as slow as you want, run as far as you want, run as little as you like and have fun.  I’m running a marathon and if you want to join me, great.

The entry fee is zero.  There are homemade medals which are cheap Christmas ornaments with “Groton Marathon” written on them with a sharpie.   There are simple aid stations and we have a couple volunteers to pick you up if things get grim. But you are basically running the open roads with me and any of my buddies who choose to show up.

It’s not a race.  It’s run.

Now as pointless as this sounds there is a certain element in our community and among my running friends to whom this appeals.  Who would rather spend 4 hours swapping stories with me than fly off to some over-priced big city race.

2018 was a good year

This year we had a good year.  We got the most people starting and finishing than any other year.  We had 10 start.  Brian peeled off at 16.  One runner jumped in the car at mile 23.  8 finished.

We had a smattering of people run the half marathon and the 10k as well.  Usually this is just other members of my club but this year I had some out of towners come in to join.  I’m going to have to get a race director for the ½ marathon so people don’t get lost on the unmarked course.

I have talked to the people at Marathon Maniacs and 50 States.  They were highly suspicious of my intentions.  I wanted to offer it up as an alternative for people looking for a midwinter race in New England like I was originally.  Their requirements seem to be minimal.  An official website.  Check.  An official record of finish times.  Check.

They were not enthusiastic but told me that if I could get more than 10 starters they might allow it in their records.  Based on 2018, I’m getting close.

It will never be a Boston Qualifier.  That would mean course certification.  This is a map eye-balled and GPS measured course.  It might be a little short and it might be a little long.  I go by my Garmin.  My Garmin says I ran a marathon.  No one has complained.  If your Garmin says something different go run some more.

This year was extra special because we had two firsts!  We had our first visually impaired runner, Erich Manser, who is an old friend of mine and I was glad to see him and run with him. Second, we had our first female finisher, Julia joined from our club.  Hooray!

It was in the mid 20’s, sunny and wind free when we started Sunday morning at 9:00.  That is fantastic weather for this time of year.  Last year it was zero degrees with a stiff headwind.  It was brutal.  Mid-20’s and sunny is good.  It’s cold but not so cold as to be uncomfortable or to have all your stuff freeze solid.

I’m a fairly lazy race director.  I make sure the website is updated.  I swing by the store and pick up a couple gallons of water, some Gatorade and maybe some gummy bears for the aid stations.

In the weeks leading up to the race I find out where the club race clock is and secure it.  I wheedle a couple adult volunteers to move the aid stations around and sweep the stragglers.

I don’t mark the course.  I don’t even drive the course.  I just make sure the maps are right and print up a couple copies to hand out.  And I steal some ornaments from my wife and have Teresa write on them.

I almost wasn’t going to run this year.  I have this stress attack every year where, hey, no one really wants to get up on a cold morning and run a made up marathon, but if I don’t show up there is no event.

I was sick over the whole week of Christmas and it was still pretty bad on the Friday before.  I dropped into the medi-clinic to make sure I didn’t have pneumonia.  The doctor there assured me it was just a bad cold and gave me $100 worth of over-the-counter meds and a ibuterol inhaler to keep me going.

Now, did I tell her I was going to go out in the cold and run a marathon the following morning?  Well, as I was leaving I asked if it was ok for me to still exercise… So, in my book that’s a yes.

My lungs were not happy with me pumping all that cold, dry air through.  Every time we stopped for a aid station I’d start coughing.  At the ½ way point I mumbled that I wished I had brought the inhaler.  Mark, a local ultra-runner who shows up with his son Ethan to run with us, magician like, produced an inhaler with out missing a beat and said, “Here, use mine.”  So I did, and we made a few jokes about performance enhancing and performance enabling substances.

I got a bit tired in the last few miles, but, hey it’s a marathon.  It’s along way to run.  We took nice long breaks at the aid stations.  We told stories, jokes and had deep discussions about esoteric topics.  I trundled in around 4:26 minutes with the leaders a few seconds ahead and some stragglers behind.

Somehow hot chocolate with a Baileys Irish Cream option has been showing up at the finish line for a couple years now, and the cold runners appreciate that.  We took some pictures shook hands and packed up another Groton Marathon.

Lessons and take aways

I like to tell people that if you come up with a truly stupid idea, for instance running and entirely made up marathon on a December morning, other people will join you.  And that is my experience.  If you look around the world at all these classic events, they started with someone’s stupid idea.

The other thing I am very appreciative of is that my running club puts up with me.  No one bitches about liabilities and all the things that can go wrong.  They lean in and have fun with it.  We sponsor 3 official races through the year.  We participate in a couple relays and race series.  We sponsor summer track for the local kids and parents.  A running club is a marvelous thing.

Because this is not an official race I can avoid all the overhead of a race.  It is instead, a club run.  And, therefore covered by our club insurance policy.  The entry fee is zero, but we have people fill out a membership form, so they are covered.

That’s my message to you.  Make up something fun and stupid and invite all your friends. Form a running club and leverage the power of organization to make it all safe and workable.

Here’s the point.  I told the participants in this years Groton Marathon in my starting announcement.

“I want to live in a world where a bunch of people think it’s a great idea to wake up on a cold December morning and run a made up marathon.”