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Race Reports - 2007 - Nestor's Philadelphia Marathon

Lu, Mary, Albert, Bill, Thomas showed up at my house at 05:45 Friday morning. We all went over to the Java U (Yippee!) and picked up Gary. The drive down was good and we took our time. The border took a while as the terrorist Thomas went in to get his visa. We made a number of stops and had a nice lunch at a Greek restaurant in Kingston, New York.

As we approached Philadelphia with Gary graciously at the helm, an exit was closed and Isabelle, our flight director, became flustered and took us through beautiful Camden before bringing us across the river. Camden must be seen to be believed. Every country in the world where the US is trying to promote its style of free-market capitalism should visit Camden first to see what they are buying into. I'm not a hot house flower, and I've seen my fair share of things around the world, but I had not seen something like this in the US since the early 70's. Anyway, we made it through the gauntlet ok and the crew scattered to their respective hotels while Thomas and I checked into our Marriott Courtyard Hotel. My own booking snafu had us in a mini suite the first night (sweet!) and a regular room the second night, albeit in the same hotel.

The next morning, we had made arrangements that Lu and Mary would pick up Thomas and I at our hotel and we would run to meet Bill, Gary and Albert at the Rocky steps. We steered a little bit crooked and took one and a half times the distance to get there but get there we did and the loyal crew members were patiently waiting for us (thanks for waiting, guys).

We took the perfunctory pictures at the top of the stairs and at the Rocky statue and did a nice, easy, short run down the river and back. It was a nice way to move the legs around.

Registration at the Expo was quick and efficient and there were some good deals to be had. I bought a pair of glasses with Thomas, glasses I was not to use.

Dinner on Saturday night was PERFECT. Albert thank you VERY much for setting that up. All 25 or so of us were seated not long after 16:00 and we had a 4 hour Italian Pasta dinner. With only minor disagreements on the preferred choices of entrees and with an agreeable accommodation of the server, Lu guided us to excellent selections. The food was fantastic, but true to what I know of Italian culinary hospitality, there was simply too much food. We ate family style with large bowls of the various dishes for our taking. We probably did not eat half of the food. Paul and his relatives asked for the left overs to be packed up and they delivered them to a nearby park, where they had observed earlier in the day, this delectable bounty would be appreciated. It was a good feeling knowing that there were a few more people having such a tasty meal that night. Good on ya Paul!

After a visit to the local Wawa store for some required sundries, Thomas and I turned in for the night, into our not as fantastic, but still much more than adequate, room.

Race time was at 07:00 so I woke up at 04:00 to eat my banana and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches then off to bed for another 45 minutes.

Thomas and I made our way to the starting area with Lu and Mary to drop off our bags. It was then that I realized that I had forgotten my fuel belt in the hotel room. Sh**, I thought. No need to worry. Nothing to be done now. I would have to rely on the gels at the water stops. As I was getting over this frustration, I realised I had some unfinished business (I can have a nervous stomach) so I queued up for the toilets. What a wait! I was in line for 30 minutes but this was a critical need. I waited and waited wondering what else would go wrong. Would I even make the start of the race? All hope of meeting up with Thomas and Albert disappeared. I was getting seriously bummed out and worked up. I ran out of there at about 07:05 but it appeared that the race was being delayed a few minutes anyway. The bummer was that I could only make my way partially into the crowd, somewhere near the 04:30 bunny. This was not going to be a good start, I thought to myself. The first few k's were tough. I scrambled through the crowd, often running on the side walk trying to work my way through the crowd. It required a lot of concentration and sheer dogged will. It was accelerate into a spot, slow down to change lanes, dive ahead again, search for room, etc. I wasn't paying much attention to how my body was doing, I was concentrating too much on the task at hand. The running was still tight at the 10k mark! But I was able to keep my pace to just below 4:20 according to my Garmin, as I continued to work my way up. I passed hundreds and hundreds of runners. I had crossed the line over 4 minutes after the start of the race, so there were just a ton of people ahead of me, maybe 5,000 or so.

By the half things had opened up enough that running was free and clear. I was looking around much more, enjoying the scenery, chatting with people, cracking jokes, all running etiquette I have learned from Thomas and DB. Once the work of scrambling was over I started my customary self diagnostics. How was my back (it often tightens up in races), how were my shins doing (ditto), was anything suffering? I caught Lu at some point before the half and she was running very well so I stayed for only a few moments and pressed on. I hit the half at under 1:32 chip time and I realized that all systems were green. I was running strong, nothing hurt, and the only answer that I was getting back from all systems was "how fast do you want to go?". I caught up to Thomas and Albert shortly after the half, hollering to them as I approached, my longest-ever chase finally over. As planned, they were running with the 3:10 bunny and doing very well, Thomas right in the middle of the pack so close behind the bunny that even Lu later remarked it brought into question Thomas' preferences....

Anyway, Thomas was too busy admiring the bunny to hear my hollers of "......you bastard.....!" as I approached. I saddled up next to him and panted out in as steady a voice as possible "is that all you've got?". After running there for a minute or so I realized that my pony had revved up so much that this was a speed I probably did not want to run at. I asked Thomas if he might have a go at breaking out and he begged off so I scampered off.

The rest of the race until about the 25 mile marker was a series of raising the speed in increments. I mean, I was in completely uncharted territory. I had never run like this before and I was afraid of bonking. With the Boston blow out early last year with my fracture, and the hitting the wall in Montreal during my first Marathon, very much front and center in my mind, I simply (and honestly) did not know how fast to run. How fast should I run? How fast could I run? How hard dare I push? My average race pace had dropped to under 04:17 by this time, when I started my series of probing speed increases. My average race pace slowly fell to 04:15 as I continued on. But I kept feeling great. Nothing hurt, my breathing was under control, my stomach and back were fine. I felt like I was flying! I just kept passing people, now strung out as a thin scattered line of tiring runners, each fighting their own demons. Mine never showed up. Somewhere around the 20 mile mark, I decided that this was simply the day. I poured it on as much as I dared, as my average race pace fell to 04:14. I pushed the uphills and I just charged the downhills. After the turn around, I was interested in seeing when I would see who. I saw the 03:10 pack with Thomas and Albert in tow. I saw Bill and the Twins and Gary and Paul. The rest are a blur.

I remember at this point, well into the 30's feeling absolutely elated. I was positively ecstatic. Runners High? Was THIS what it was allabout? I could simply not believe what was happening. It simply could not be. The road from Boston had been too long and too full of pit falls for today to go this well. Truth be told, I had a hard time believing it. 6 weeks earlier I was still uncertain if I was going to be able to run the marathon at all because of continuing pain in my right shin and calf, and here I was, where I never expected to be. At the Expo, I had picked up 2 pace bands, the 3:15 and the 3:00 but the latter was just an out-of-sight fancy, a dream not to be realized. Yet here I was. My mental math (never reliable during a race) was telling me the 3:00 mark was within my grasp if I could only maintain the pace, bear down, and push the last couple of k's. I was getting warmed up by now, and breathing hard, as my average race pace dropped to 04:13.

Somewhere along this time I remember hearing Jim in the crowd, urging me on.

At the 25 mile mark, Lu was waiting to bring Paul in and I heard her yell "Nestor, you are amazing!!". Well, I don't think that I have to tell you that there is nothing more that a man needs to hear from a woman like Lu other than those words, to do what he has to do. So, I kicked the pony into overdrive and ran up the hill, my mouth flailing open trying to scoop up air like a giant baleen whale taking in thousands gallons of seawater to squeeze out the food. For the last mile I was a machine.

When I saw the clock, I knew that I had about a minute of buffer, not an awful lot, but more than enough. I had done it!! And yet.........

In all of my past races (less than a dozen), including my blow out in Boston, the race finish, and sometimes even the last few kilometres, were always emotional affairs where I would fight the tears and sobs coming up, sometimes crying openly. Nothing like that happened in Philly. The reason for the emotional flatline was simply that the race was not hard enough, as hard as that is for me to understand. I definitely left something on the table. As hard as it is for me to understand, I did not push as hard as I did in past races (I did not have to). I left time on the table.

Without being flippant, I fully understand that by all objective measures, for my age, I did very well and I will treasure the day forever as something very special, and being able to do it with you guys makes it that much more memorable. I know that it may never happen again. I have always said that my goal was to break 03:00 before creeping age dragged my performance down but I did not think it would happen so soon, if ever at all. I thought that if I had a chance, it would come after a few more marathons.

I don't know how the run happened the way it did, why it just fell into place. My training wasn't ideal. I fought injuries to within 3 weeks of race day. It was only my 4th marathon. Maybe it was the cool weather. That certainly helped. Maybe it was the anxiousness of the screwed up beginning of the race that raised my adrenaline. Maybe it was the early scampering that got my tempo going. Or.... One of our crew mentioned before the race that they would say a prayer for me to help me along. Who knows? Back in my hotel room, my mother called to congratulate me on my finish, admitting that she lit a candle for me in church that morning. Who knows indeed.

And Kathy, who woke up for just long enough last night to congratulate me and to give me a wonderful bottle of Johnny Walker Green Label (of which I had a couple of ounces before turning in), asked me incredulously "So WHAT are you going to do, now that your goal is reached?". "Run, of course", I replied, without batting an eye.

Nestor Lewyckyj