Sunday September 26th, 2021
Start Location: Gilsum, N.H.
The forest was dark outside the narrow beam of headlights that lit up the road like a lonely voice in the wilderness. I had been following behind the same car for the past thirty minutes and was beginning to wonder who else would be on the road at this hour. It was 4 in the morning.
But the explanation came into focus when my phone’s GPS had me veer into the town of Keene. Every subsequent instruction to turn here or turn there was precognated by the car in front of me as its blinker would turn on mere milliseconds ahead of the Google Lady’s voice. It was clear then that this wayward traveler and I were heading to the same place— Spaulding Gym on the campus of Keene State College. A small 4-year school on the edge of town that would serve as the preliminary staging area for today’s race.
The Clarence DeMar Marathon has been a mainstay for New Hampshire marathons since its inception in 1978. The race was founded to honor the legendary Keene resident and U.S. marathoner Clarence Harrison DeMar (1888-1958). Winner of seven Boston Marathons and a finisher in the U.S. Olympic team, DeMar would be an inspiration that became synonymous with New Hampshire running. Today, the stewards of this tight-knit race keep the spirit of Clarence DeMar very much alive.
This small-town but highly acclaimed event is ultimately what I would choose to be my first attempt at running a marathon. A monumental feat I had been considering since I had started running seven years earlier. Now, as I drove through the early morning darkness, I was surprised to find myself actually down here doing it.
The truth is, running a marathon had always been a bit of a pipe dream. Right up there with climbing Machu Pichu and seeing the Great Pyramids. Everyone has a bucket list. But making lists is easy. It’s crossing them off that hard. Doing so requires free time, energy, and disposable income. For me, running a marathon was always one of those nice ideas. But never so important that I would judge the time and commitment to training to be a worthwhile venture. And yet here I was.
Before I embarked on this journey, I had never come close to running the 26.2-mile marathon distance. Up until six months prior, the longest I had ever run was 13.6 miles. Just over a half-marathon. And that distance was rare for me. I had done it maybe twice. And as much as I love running, it also takes a lot of time. So, I’ve always kept it light. Rarely would I run more than 8 miles at a time. Certainly, never more than 10. While the idea of running a marathon someday was intriguing, it seemed destined to be one of those things that would live forever in my mind as a fun idea. Living among a long list of fun ideas that would never see the light of day.
That all changed when, in September of the previous year, I suffered a major heart attack. The condition would render my right coronary artery 100% blocked. The procedure that saved my life took less than an hour to perform— an angioplasty that freed the blood clots at the site of the blockage and two metal stents that were used to widen the blood vessels.
That night in the hospital, as I lay awake in bed, it remained to be seen whether I’d ever be the same. The heart muscle, unlike skeletal muscle, is completely unable to repair itself. And when the heart gets cut off from oxygen, the cell death that occurs can never be undone. Even the slightest bit of damage can lead to impaired heart functioning and life-long debilitation.
It had taken me a long time to get to the hospital. A full 8 hours had passed between receiving the procedure and experiencing my first excruciating symptoms. Despite this, the days that followed would see me recovering quickly. One nurse on the cardiac unit, a young man in his mid-twenties, was surprised to see the result of my angiogram— a sonar test used to measure heart functioning. He sheepishly admitted that the score I achieved just one day after a heart attack was better than his own score, despite his being young and having no history of heart disease. The doctor would later confirm that despite the severity of the attack, my damage had been minimal. I attributed this to my level of fitness at the time. I was a runner, after all.
Still, it would take another six months of recovery to feel like I had returned to my full strength. It was then that I decided that to honor my good fortune in surviving my heart attack unscathed, I would begin training for my first-ever marathon. I decreed that I would run this race in the coming September, 1 year after suffering the heart attack that would nearly claim my life.
Keene:
It was 5:30 a.m. when we pulled into the parking lot of Spalding Gym. This was the athletic center of Keene State College, a long-time host of the Clarence DeMar Marathon. We were the first ones to arrive, me and this unidentified travel companion in the car in front of me.
After pulling into a space and putting my truck in park, I reached into my cooler and pulled out the breakfast I had prepared the night before. A salad with lots of mixed vegetables, spinach, beets, etc. Oatmeal with some flaxseed, chopped apples, and raisins. I ate dutifully, though I was not really hungry. As I slowly chewed, I eyed the taillights of my travel companion’s car. Eventually, they shut off, and a man wearing a red baseball hat and running shorts emerged. He hovered over his vehicle for a moment in the inky black darkness of the parking lot. Then he walked off in the direction of Spaulding Gym, toward the bright lights of campus.
After a while, more cars began pouring in, one after the other. With increasing rapidity, people were now hopping out of their vehicles, getting changed, and collecting their things. Having never run a marathon before, I was interested to see what other people were up to. I had made the drive already outfitted in my running clothes, and this was indeed what others appeared to have done. Now, people were scurrying this way and that and off toward Spaulding Gym. Somewhere in that direction was where I was supposed to pick up my race packet— bib, swag, and whatever various goodies were included in the registration fee. Everything but the finisher’s medal, which you only get at the end. Assuming you finish.
I was nervous as I climbed out of my truck and ventured off in search of the packet pickup. Still dark outside, I found my way to a walkway outside the gym, where a number of tables were manned by volunteers. Above the tables was a large event tent, and behind this was a box truck. Fortunately, there were no lines, and before long, I was handed a clipboard with some forms to sign.
It was quiet as I stood at one of the tables, hunched over the paperwork. The meek yellow glow of street lights made the papers hard to read. As I scanned the documents, I saw out of the corner of my eye that someone had appeared on my right. Another race-day participant was here for his race-day packet. He spoke to the volunteer quietly. His voice was deep and calm and betrayed the annals of age. A voice that conjured inherent wisdom, forever resolute before the coming of a storm.
Then the volunteer disappeared around the corner of the box truck, and now it was it was just me and him.
“First race?” he asked, not looking up from his stack of papers on the table.
I glanced up at him. He was impeccably lean. His sinewy muscles were chiseled by the sport of running. His body was of average build, and atop his head, he wore a bright red baseball cap. This was the wayward traveler. The man whose taillights I had followed behind for miles.
“Yes. First race,” I said.
“You’ll do fine,” He said. He continued to scribble with his pen. The volunteer returned and gave the man his race materials. The two of them proceeded to have a brief conversation as I continued to make my way through the papers, signing and dating on the line.
The volunteer again disappeared, and the man returned to filling out his paperwork.
After signing my last form, I turned to leave.
“Good luck out there today.” The man said, still not looking up from his scribblings.
“Yeah, same to you,” I replied.
As I hurried back to my vehicle, I saw that the buses had arrived and were now parked in a line along the sidewalk in front of Spaulding Gym. A crowd of racegoers was beginning to form near the bus in the front of the line. Its doors opened with a hiss of hydraulics. It was time.
I quickly returned to my truck and retrieved my backpack full of supplies. Everything I would need with me at the final staging area. The race course for the Clarence DeMar Marathon utilizes a one-way format, beginning in the small town of Gilsum, NH, to the north and ending back at Keene State College. It was a convenient setup since the parking area was located near the finish line at the center of campus. The buses were there to shuttle racers to the starting line.
I found my way onto one of the buses and situated myself into one of the seats. It was still dark when the bus lumbered out of the parking lot and through the streets of Keene. I took out my thermos and opened the top. The smell of hot coffee filled my nostrils. I had been waiting a long time for it. Getting to Keene had been a ninety-minute drive from my home in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. For me, that’s a long time to wait for my morning coffee. But the timing was crucial. I knew if I drank it too early in the morning, then I would risk feeling a caffeine crash around the same time the race would begin.
It was only moments after lifting the lid of my thermos that I heard a girl several rows ahead of me say, “I smell coffee.”
The way she said it suggested that she was a coffee lover herself. But there was also some envy in her voice. Had she skipped her morning brew? And was that a strategic race-day decision? Now, I found myself wondering if this was common. Perhaps I would be shooting myself in the foot with such an indulgence.
Thinking back to my past 18 weeks of running, it was hard to predict the effect that coffee would have on my race. I realized I hadn’t trained for this. The reason is that I am predominantly an afternoon runner, and the bulk of my training was completed many hours after my morning coffee had left my system. Now as I pondered this, it occurred to me that drinking this coffee could lead to excessive bathroom use.
Despite the risk, I still drank it down. This was a morning of firsts, to be sure, but forgoing my beloved morning coffee would not be among them.
The bus moved out of town into the forest. Fellow racers whispered quietly to each other as they prepared themselves mentally for the long race to come. In a way, it was strange to feel the passage of time as we traveled by bus, knowing full well that we would soon be running this entire distance. It felt like a long ride. The return would be longer.
As the mile markers passed, I reflected on all the choices that had led me here. I had spent the last 6 months preparing for this day. But the reality was I almost didn’t make it down here at all. My training regimen had been plagued by injury— the hallmark of a beginner who didn’t know what he was doing.
It was in the heat of summer that I made many of my most crucial mistakes. Pushing myself too hard. Stubbornly trying to make my mileage at all costs. Persistence is an important attribute for any marathoner, but my dogged determination blinded me to the warning signs of emerging injuries. There had been many issues that would ensue. Many of these were exacerbated by excessive dehydration.
I had a lot of trouble with my tendons, with my Achilles especially, being a recurring source of trouble. The IT band on my left leg was a problem at one point. That took a few weeks to heal. There was also a mysterious calf injury, which, to this day, I have not been able to identify an obvious diagnosis.
To make matters worse, sometime in August, I ended up breaking my hand. Of course, a broken hand won’t prevent me from running, but it is nonetheless awkward to be running with a bunch of plaster caked over the arm. It throws off the balance. Yet here I was, on race day, with a bulky blue cast that went up to my mid forearm on my right side.
But perhaps one of the most crippling injuries had come only three weeks earlier, on my last scheduled long run— the 20-mile hump that marks the milestone before the tapering begins. I didn’t notice the injury until a couple of days afterward when I was out on a short recovery run. It was then that I realized I had some pain shooting down my leg. At first, I was unconcerned. I made a mental note of it and would be sure to incorporate more time for stretching that week. But when I went to do another run a couple of days later, I found that the symptoms had become severe.
The injury, which I would later self-diagnose as sciatica, was a nerve-based pain that was so fierce that it was impossible to push through it. Nerve pain is pretty debilitating, I would come to learn. Each step felt like lightning up the side of my leg.
It was a demoralizing turn. One that I had no choice but to accept. Despite all the ups and downs along the way. Despite having healed from all the previous injuries. This final snafu threatened to be the last nail in the coffin of my hopes of running a marathon. I had no choice but to discontinue my training to allow time to heal. The race was 2.5 weeks away. Would I have enough time?
I rested for ten days, and with one week to go before the race, feeling desperate but hopeful, I took to the streets to test out my legs. Picking up what would have been my scheduled mileage for that day, I managed to run 8 miles. No sciatica.
Sadly, this was short-lived. On my recovery run the following afternoon, the sciatica quickly re-emerged. I realized I was dealing with a highly finicky injury. It was hard to imagine that I was going to be able to complete a marathon if the sciatica showed up on race day. To make matters worse, I would be going into the race having had virtually no training in the days leading up to it. This was not a good place for a beginner to be. I didn’t even know if it would be possible to perform in a marathon, having skipped so much training. And with the sciatica showing up at random like a landmine, it appeared my chances of success were slim to none.
I was unsure what to do. I felt I had failed to do everything I needed to do in my training and that my ability to run effectively and finish the full marathon distance was in question. But I eventually decided that there was no harm in trying. After all, the marathon was not very far away. The way I saw it, I could drive down there and attempt to defy the odds, or I could stay home and never know what would have happened.
It was Saturday morning, a day before the race when I would make the final call. I would go to Keene. Go down and attempt to defy the odds.
That night, with careful planning and mindful, deliberate action, I began packing. I readied my coffee pot, prepared my breakfast, and assembled my race gear. My schedule would be impeccably timed. Every move, every minute thought out. Then, while the sun was still above the horizon, I willed myself into an early sleep.
I took solace in the morning when I awoke. My leg muscles felt rested and strong. As for the sciatica, I would have to wait and see.
This was front and center on my mind as the bus hummed and groaned, pulling into the small, sleepy village of Gilsum. 26 miles north of Keene. 26 miles through the rolling green forests of New Hampshire. I could not help but think about all the challenges that I had met leading up to this day. And yet here I was.
There was a harsh reality to my situation that was tough to bear. The sciatica was severe enough that if it popped up, I would have to stop. It could come at any time, and I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t even make it as far as a mile.
But I sure as shit was going to try.
Gilsum:
At Gilsum High School, we filed off the bus. The school would serve as our final staging area. The starting line was supposed to be somewhere down the street, but I was too enamored with my building anticipation to think about it now. My first marathon. So many what-ifs were running through my head.
But there was nothing to do other than prepare. So, I found a little alcove outside the high school where there were picnic tables, and I went about doing my stretches. Afterward, I ate some more food, though I noticed that no one else was. This led me to wonder if they knew something I didn’t. Maybe I was eating too close to the race?
Either way, I wanted to load up on nutrients as much as possible. I had read somewhere that this marathon didn’t offer any solid food along the course. Just Gatorade. I would be on my own in terms of food, and never having run this distance before, I was in unchartered waters.
I scarfed down some more oatmeal while being careful to keep it light. For a mid-race snack, I was bringing a bean burrito, which I now had to figure out how to carry with me. The zipper on my running belt had been broken for years, and so I had brought along rubber bands to help keep the burrito from falling out. I had to chuckle at myself. I certainly didn’t look like my fellow racers, who were decked out in all the latest gear. Instead, I was patched together with Band-Aids and bubble gum, wearing beat-up old shoes. In addition, I had a big blue plaster cast on my arm and a burrito secured to my waist with rubber bands.
Rock and Roll.
It was now 6:30 a.m., and I found myself needing to use the restroom. There were many porta potties over in the parking lot where a series of lines had formed. Some time went by, and as I approached the front of the line, I heard announcements coming from over the loudspeaker somewhere in the distance. It was time to head to the starting line. When a porta-potty opened up, I quickly shot into it. My heart was racing as I rushed to release my bladder.
“5 minutes till starting time. If you haven’t already, start making your way to the starting line,”
came the voice over the loudspeaker.
Exiting the porta potty, I saw the crowd moving en masse out of the school parking lot. I followed them around the corner as we made our way down the main street. The banners of the starting line came into view, and the crowd of racers assembled in front of it. Walking up to the starting line, I saw what looked like some very fast runners poised in the front. I could see that these runners were the serious sort. They stood right on the line, ready to take off like cheetahs the moment the gun fired.
I thought about my sciatica, and I thought about my typical running pace in general. I certainly didn’t belong near the front. Instead, I humbly made my way to the back of the crowd, where the road had stretched up a small hill that overlooked the town.
The sun was rising, and the morning fog hung in the trees. The crowd was silent. Eagerly awaiting the start of the race. As the beauty of the scene unfolded before me, I took a moment to appreciate this journey I was on. Despite my concerns about injury and other issues I was facing, I was thrilled to be here. Everything leading up to this point had been a profound journey, from my dogged determination during training to all my many setbacks. From my careful planning the night before. The drive down this morning in the darkness. From the crowds of eager runners to the bus ride to the starting line. I felt caught up in the energy of it all.
As I stood upon the hill overlooking an expanse of trees, I was overtaken by a curious sense of joy. The pursuit of running a marathon is just as important as the finish, it seemed. It helped that I had come down here understanding my limitations. Having low expectations actually helped me take away the fear of failure and concentrate on letting the experience wash over me from moment to moment. After all, it’s about the journey, not the destination. Isn’t that what everyone says?
I knew then that even if I only made it two miles before my sciatica put me out of the game, it would still have been worth coming down here. That aside, finishing a marathon today would be a pretty big bonus. And with that, the gun at the starting line cracked. The crowd ahead began to roll forward. We were off.
The Course:
We ran in droves like a silent flock of geese, cutting curtly through the open road as the golden sun peeked through the trees. It was late September, the leaves were still green, and the hold-out strength of summer still held these lands in its grip.
I had chosen a proper race for my first attempt. Not too easy. Not too difficult. There would be some hills here and there. But the Clarence DeMar Marathon has a net-elevation-loss, meaning it would be more downhill overall. And that’s a beautiful thing.
The course follows the Ashuelot River, which eventually finds its way to Keene. The first five miles head west away from Gilsum before turning south for another four. At that point, the river flows into Surry Mountain Lake— a man-made reservoir made possible by a dam at its south end.
At the ten-mile point, the course would pass over this dam before doubling back in a hair pin loop that puts racers in a position to high-five one another. The course then resumes south along the Ashuelot River until around mile fourteen, when it starts to wrap back and forth in various directions, leaving behind the country roads and exchanging them for commercial areas outside the town of Keene.
Finally, at mile twenty, the course will cross the Ashuelot River for a final time and enter into Keene itself. The last six miles take runners on a tour through town. Residential neighborhoods, some commercial zones, and then finally, the town cemetery. All this ends upon the return to the campus of Keene State College, where our journey had begun near the parking lot at Spaulding Gym.
I found myself completely relaxed and at ease as I joined this crowd of runners through the forests of New Hampshire. The road had been closed off to traffic, and we were allowed to take up the entirety of it. The fresh black pavement, with sharp yellow lines twisted and wound its way through overarching trees. The greenery felt so serene, I couldn’t have wished to be anywhere else, and through the tree line, I could see the open scorch of earth where laid the babbling Ashuelot River.
When I hit mile two, my breath had become consistent, and I was beginning to feel like my body was warming up. With no sign of any sciatica issues, I picked up the pace. What followed was five miles of pure, joyful running. My legs were strong, and I was feeling good. A little too good, perhaps.
Having not yet mastered the art of running slow, I allowed myself to go into a pace that felt comfortable in the moment. There were many slightly downhill stretches in these early miles, and I wanted to make the most of the downhill momentum.
Still, I noticed that I was running quite a bit faster than the other runners, and it occurred to me that I was probably doing this wrong. Though my pace felt natural, I knew I was probably pushing a little too hard and that this could come back to bite me. Still, I didn’t want to overthink things too much, and because I felt good in my pace, I decided to keep going. If it came back to bite me, then I will have learned the hard way. But I felt it was necessary to allow myself some room to make these mistakes and find out for myself.
But as I continued to pass people, I started to feel a little self-conscious about it. It dawned on me that many of these runners, who were pacing themselves better, would likely end up passing me later on. But I shrugged this off and continued on. I was content to run my own race and not worry about how I was coming across to others. Either way, I got quite a few looks. I could sense what they were thinking. That I was making a rookie mistake.
But for me, in that moment, I didn’t care about any of it. I was on top of the world.
I got more sideways glances from people because of my broken hand. The cast that extended up to my forearm was pretty hard to miss. It certainly was strange to run in since it affected my balance somewhat. Getting water was more difficult, too. But these issues were benign. It was my legs that were of chief concern in the scheme of things.
It was some time around mile six that I felt a need to use the restroom again. But when I finally spotted a porta potty, I saw that there was a line, and I decided to just keep going. I would regret this decision pretty quickly. As the miles passed and my discomfort grew, there didn’t seem to be any good places to go, despite the course being out in the country.
I was now regretting my morning coffee decision. Several more miles would go by before another cluster of porta potties emerged. This time, I stopped and begrudgingly waited in line. It’s not that I was concerned about my marathon time. I knew I wouldn’t be breaking any records. Instead, I was reluctant to stop because I did not want to lose my wind.
At mile 10, the course crossed over the dam, and I was treated to a view of the open river trickling south and carving itself through the New Hampshire mountains. To the north lay the pristine Surry Mountain Lake.
The dam was built to protect Keene and other downstream townships from flooding. I smiled to myself as I imagined that soon enough, the town of Keene would be rushed by another kind of flood. An incoming stream of runners, pouring down from the mountains and rip-sawing their way like pinballs between the mountain’s ridges.
Across the dam, we were routed into a U-turn and sent back the way we’d come. The stream of runners filed over the narrow dam like a line of ants. I had noted from the course map that this was a significant way point in the course, and I was elated to have come this far. When we returned back over the river, we were routed onto East Surry Road, which then took us over a bridge, and we passed across the river once more, to the east side. I passed a sign that read MILE 12, and immediately, the course began to climb a significant hill.
This is when I started getting tired.
Based on my training, such fatigue normally didn’t happen until around mile fourteen. But here I was at mile 12, already falling apart. I chalked it up to my lack of training in the weeks leading up to the race. Or maybe it was from pushing too hard in the beginning. Either way, I was in for it now. But I didn’t mind. My sciatica hadn’t stopped me. And I had calculated in my head that if I could make it to around mile 15, before the sciatica came, then it would be technically possible to finish the race by walking.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
The sun was getting intense, and I had broken into a heavy sweat. As I labored my way up the hill, I was passed by a young couple who were running together. A man and woman in their early twenties. I recognized them from earlier in the race. I had passed them somewhere around mile five.
The girl said, “Hi. Nice to see you again.”
The edge in her tone betrayed her true feelings. It was a finely controlled and false cordiality. A hidden bitterness. You passed us like you were a hot-shot and now look at you.
Then she said, “What are you hoping for?” referring to my overall marathon time.
Trying my best to ignore the micro-aggression, I responded, “Just hoping to finish.”
This was true. I didn’t have any particular finish time I was shooting for. Due to my multiple injuries, my expectations had been low. All I wanted was to finish this race. To accomplish what I had set out to do.
Many more people would pass me in the miles ahead, but fortunately, they were more polite.
Clarence Demar:
It’s not a competitive sport for most participants. For some, the fabled marathon distance is more like the holy grail of self-determination. That near-but-not-impossible feat that one can use to challenge themselves to the core of their being.
For others, it is an act of defiance. Learning how to push back against the tide. A mostly losing battle in which forces much greater than our own seem plotted to squash us. There is a point in every marathon when the body cries out for the runner to stop. And as the miles climb higher, these impulses become more frequent and difficult to ignore. But the marathoner must continue in spite of them if they are to realize their goals.
When Clarence DeMar got his start, he was told by his doctor that he couldn’t run marathons. He had a heart murmur, which back then was considered a major concern. But this did not stop DeMar from running. Instead, he promptly ignored this advice and went on to win 7 Boston Marathons. A record that holds to this day.
Clarence Demar was a pioneer in endurance exercise. He trained harder than anyone thought was possible at the time. In the end, the heart murmur would never cause him any problems. It was stomach cancer that would eventually claim his life. He was 70 years old when that time finally came. Having run a 15k race only 2 weeks earlier, DeMar never stopped running. And it was said that in his final days, he climbed from his bed and went out to his backyard to plant a garden. He just refused to let sickness keep him down. The actions of a man who simply refused to give up.
The Hump:
When I hit mile 14, I was in a bad way. It was getting warm out, and despite stopping and drinking multiple cups at every water station, I was becoming steadily dehydrated. My knees were beginning to hurt, and my Achilles tendon, which had been injured multiple times throughout training, was starting to give me some pain.
As a result of the fatigue and dehydration, my form was beginning to suffer dramatically, and I now found myself struggling to put each foot forward. I don’t wear a running watch, but my pace felt like it had hit about 10 miles/min. Normally, I wouldn’t fall to that speed until later on in my run, around mile 18.
The course turned onto a long stretch of highway that was sandy and exposed to the sun. A light breeze had picked up, and as I trudged along, I had a sudden sense that I was alone. A quick glance around confirmed that all the race participants had indeed stretched out. I could see some runners far up ahead, and looking back, another runner could be seen turning the corner about a quarter mile behind. There were no volunteers anywhere. No police barricades or other race personnel. Just me and this stretch of road.
The breeze blew at my hair as I hobbled off the road into an opening in the trees that overlooked a large patch of undeveloped land. I found a bush and relieved my bladder. That damn coffee.
Walking back up onto the road, I pulled the burrito from my running belt and quickly scarfed it down. A few people quietly passed me. I barely noticed them. Then I was alone again, and I returned to a light run.
As I continued down this long, desolate highway in a daze, my mind began to wander like a vagabond.
I thought about my life and all the events that had brought me here. Nothing had turned out quite how I intended these past few years. My heart attack had done much to upend how I imagined the next several decades of my life would play out.
It was only a few years earlier that Kerri and I got the news that we would soon be joined by a little baby girl. We were living in California then.
We had taken our time growing up, her and I. We’d spent our 20s passing the seasons listlessly in what felt like an almost timeless realm. Our lives were simple and relatively free of stress. The northern redwoods of coastal California were a land where it never snowed, and the evergreen sequoias that filled the forests could live for a thousand years. They were forever young.
But life catches up with you sometimes. At 36 years old, I knew I was starting a family a little late. That aside, I was full of optimism about the life that lay ahead for us. But as much as we loved the West Coast, somehow, it never quite felt like home. We needed a new start. A clean slate.
And so it was that the following summer, no more than 3 months after our daughter had been born, we said goodbye to the West Coast. Kerri and I would return to our roots. Moving back east would usher in a new chapter, and in a lot of ways, I felt like my real life was just beginning.
But now the time had come to take life seriously. I need to build a life and find a home for my family. I couldn’t wait to get started. And though the chill of winter and the ever-changing seasons of the East Coast did much to return my sense of time, I still resolved to think that I had much of my life left to live.
I was still holding on to that sense of eternity. That naïve perception by those still in their youth that this will all go on forever. Those who’ve yet to see any real evidence that their death will one day come. Who’ve yet to feel the realities of age and all the challenges it brings. The inevitability of decay. A force so powerful it washes over us with the strength of the tide and pulls away, leaving only the blank slate of earth.
My perspective changed somewhat the day an inflamed plaque in the arterial wall of my heart would rupture. The subsequent blood clot would quickly block my main artery and effectively starve my heart of oxygen for a period of roughly eight hours.
That night, in the catheter lab at Concord Hospital, after the doctor cleared the blockage, he took the opportunity to poke around and look at my other arteries, which he reported were all about 20% blocked. At 37 years old, this seemed like a pretty advanced stage of the disease.
“Do you have heart disease or high cholesterol in your family?” he asked.
In fact, I did, on my father’s side. My father had struggled with cholesterol his whole life and even had a heart attack of his own at roughly the same age.
“Well. It’s not your fault. It’s your genetics.” The doctor had said.
The same phrase would be repeated by many other medical staff over the coming days. Nurses, medical techs, and physical therapists— all very familiar with cardiovascular patients— they all took the opportunity to mention it. You’re young, you’re in shape. Must be genetic. Not your fault.
The constant reminders that I was a blameless victim in my current situation were pleasant to hear. Not because they were true, but rather, that it made the medical staff more friendly and less judgmental toward me. This just made my stay more pleasant, really. No one wants to be scolded on top of everything else that’s going on.
But secretly, I knew they were missing the full picture. Yes, I had a genetic predisposition for heart disease. But I had known this all along. And despite that knowledge, my chosen diet all these years had been terrible. Unapologetically loaded with an abundance of sugar and fat. Eating for me had not been seen as a source of energy but rather a source of pleasure and comfort. I knew that the foods I was eating were not healthy.
I didn’t go out of my way to tell the doctors this. But what I really felt was an intense sense of accountability for my situation.
The hospital is a lonely place at night. Especially in the time of COVID-19, when guests are not allowed. On the evening of my heart attack, after my angioplasty had been successfully performed, I lay in bed thinking about all the choices that had led me here. But mostly, I thought about my baby daughter, at home in bed, unaware that her father had almost died today. I thought about my arteries, riddled with plaque and getting worse by the day.
There, in the darkness of my room, I pondered my family’s future. It was clear— there was a choice to be made.
Keene:
With sweat on my brow and sun in my eyes, I hobbled forward into the fray, a stiff mass of legs and grit, with pain searing up the ankles. The base of my spine ached, my hamstrings reeled, and sweat beaded down my back as the sun cooked my black polyester tee.
At mile 16, the course entered into more developed territory, and onlookers were out in mass. I was met with cheers. Supporters shouting words of motivation and encouragement. One lady who caught sight of my broken hand quickly shouted, “Look at this badass running with a cast on.” Then, calling out my bib number, she yelled. “Let’s go 3-9-1. Let’s bring it home.”
I knew I had a long way to go. A full ten miles remained. On a good day, this would seem manageable, but given the condition of my legs, I knew I was in for a rough ride. However, the cheers of the crowd were a welcome source of inspiration, and with the sciatica yet to make an appearance, I had a strong sense that the day was mine. I would finish this race.
Turning onto Arch Street around mile 18, I passed by Keene High School. Side streets gave way to more residences. The main drag gave way to churches and various commercial areas, an elementary school, and the Keene Dog Park.
The city thickened after the course ducked beneath an overpass and over the Ashuelot river for the final time. Heading south through Keene, there were many onlookers, but I was mostly alone in my run. At this point in the race, the faster runners had left me far behind in their dust, while the runners slower than myself stretched for miles behind.
I don’t remember much about those miles. They seemed to stretch on for an eternity, and somewhere in that long-lost realm, my thoughts had receded into a murky abyss. I hardly felt aware of my surroundings as I braved the heat and scampered through the streets. I was aware only of the singular impact of every step. Of the hard pavement beneath my feet. The dull undercurrent of pain.
The kind of pain that makes you question what you’re doing here.
When I had my heart attack, I remember thinking very clearly what must be done. That the layer of plaque in my arteries must not be allowed to advance. This meant finding a diet that was conducive to good metabolic health and virtually incompatible with the biochemical processes involved in atherosclerosis.
As I researched the nature of the disease from my hospital bed, my new way of eating was quickly worked out. There would be no more inflammatory meats. No more fatty cheese or animal products of any kind. Saturated fat would be eliminated entirely since it raises cholesterol the most. This meant even nuts and avocados had to go. No more processed food. Whole foods around the board. Tons of vegetables. Fiber helps even out glucose spikes and reduce insulin resistance. No processed or added sugars. My sweetest meals would come from fruit, and even this would need to be in moderation. Protein would come from legumes and whole grains. This was the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Diet.
This way of eating might be one of the most restrictive diets ever proposed. And to this day, I raise a lot of eyebrows wherever I go, while I turn away foods that even the most flagrant health nuts would consider part of the widely accepted gamut of a healthy diet. And despite having to constantly be on the defense, with people trying to argue my diet’s merits, it is hard to argue the results. Within a couple of months, my LDL cholesterol had fallen by half and was well within the range that is considered healthy.
As for the atherosclerosis. Well, it’s hard to form plaques when you take away the raw materials used to build them.
Six months after my heart attack, I was on track for reversing the destructive eating habits that had gotten me into this mess. I was righting some of my wrongs. I could not change the past. But I could control my future. And I guess I felt as though I had made short work of this little setback.
Still, there was one last thing I needed to do.
Because at the end of the day, life is all about the game. And though death will eventually win in the end, we go through life experiencing a series of struggles. Little uphill battles that prop us up along the way and make us wish life could be easier. But at the end of the day, that hill isn’t going anywhere, and if we wish to continue forward, we must hunker down and bear the weight of gravity pulling us backward into the abyss.
It is the biological mandate of every living being that we must rise above these little challenges and live to fight another day.
My reason for running a marathon is not that I so badly needed to up my running game. I was quite happy with where I was at. For me, the reasons were robust. I had a strong sense that running had saved my life.
I’ll never know for sure, but likely what kept my heart from sustaining irreparable damage was a process known as “collateral”, in which blocked arteries are bypassed by newly grown blood vessels. The popular analogy likens the process to an obstruction in a babbling stream. The water makes its way around, forming new tributaries that make their way around the blockage.
When our arteries narrow over time, the process of collateral helps keep blood getting where it needs to go. The greater the body’s need for oxygen, the more rapidly these processes are invoked. Being a runner put high demands on my heart, and despite the blockages that had accumulated, my blood was going to find its way around through the miracles of these processes. I strongly suspect that my regular running routine did much to grow these secondary capillaries and that having these well-laid tributaries in place is what allowed for enough blood to flow around the blockage on that fateful day.
Now, in the advent of my heart attack, I was running not simply for pleasure and for glory. I was running for my life.
But not only was running a life-affirming lifestyle. The marathon was a challenge like no other. For me, the marathon was a way of firmly minting my willingness to undertake things that are truly hard. But it was also out of a sense of spite. In the end, that is what life is really about. We should endure all these hardships and yet so bitterly push forward, following that most primal instinct that is survival.
For me, the marathon was a symbol of my commitment to carrying on that fight. I had repaired my diet. I had repaired my habits. Now, I was going to run a marathon and send a message to death. A big fat Fuck You.
Through the Valley:
As I made my way past the shadow of onlookers, I had become less aware of them. Some kids were giving out water on a street corner, which I happily took. The course wound this way and that, turning left, turning right, through the valley. It was beginning to all look the same. Despite being in the center of Keene and surrounded by race personnel and onlookers, my surroundings seemed to fade away. I felt as though I was traveling across a barren desert, alone for miles and lost in my own thoughts. And though the sun was bright and my eyes were squinted, my world had somehow turned to gray.
It was somewhere around mile 23 when, slowly, I heard the clunky footsteps of another runner. Another racer had joined me in this barren landscape at the edge of the world. I looked at her as if I had not seen another person for a thousand years. As if she was altogether out of place in these sandy, wind-swept lands.
Her pace was only slightly quicker than my own, and for a while, we were step in step. I could hear the sound of her breath. The struggle of her labors, as she braved the heat and sun in these last few miles.
She said, “You’re making us look bad.”
Her voice sounded like it was carried through water. Had I heard that right? What was she talking about?
“Pardon?” I said
“You’re making us all look bad.” She said again. “Running with a cast on. You make us all look like wimps.” Her feet trotted across the ground, and her voice betrayed the labor of uttering these words while simultaneously gasping for breath. She was older than me. Maybe ten years my senior.
I didn’t quite know how to respond to this. Certainly, I couldn’t I forgo my marathon for fear of making everyone look bad. And given that this woman was now passing me, it seemed it was arguably her that was making me look bad. But before I could think of an appropriate response, it seemed she was gone. Disappeared into the shimmering heat of the streets ahead.
And again, I was alone. Alone in the desert of my own bleak awareness, with only the mile markers to remind me of where I was or what I was doing.
I knew I was on the home stretch when the course opened into a large cemetery, sunny and hot on the hillside. I made my way through the rows of gravestones, where rested the bodies of those who’d come before. Those who had had their day in the sun. Those who had struggled endlessly through life’s ups and downs. Just as I have.
We go through life fighting these little battles. Some are big, and some are small. Each time, we come away beaten, scarred, and battered. But also stronger and wiser. Fit to fight another day.
Until the last fight. The one from which we cannot return.
The cemetery was empty until I rounded a corner and was met with a couple of onlookers who held signs that said, “Look Alive.” These two young men stood frozen like gargoyle statues, staring off into space. When they finally spotted me, they had sprung to life as abruptly as a coo-coo clock at Grandma’s house. From utter silence to bursts of shouting.
“Come on, pick it up. You can do it. You can do it. You’re almost there.”
I gave them a thumbs up symbol, then, once I’d passed them, they returned to eerie silence. The cemetery became a solitary and morose place once again. As the path approached a steep hill, my pace slowed to a walk. I wiped the salty sweat from my brow and squinted into the sun. Up on the hill, I thought I saw movement. A man running. Another racer. He was far away. I might not have noticed him had he not been wearing a red baseball cap.
Mr. DeMarathon:
Upon Clarence Demar’s death in 1958, some curious cardiologists were granted permission to perform an autopsy. Much as scientists wished to examine the preserved brain of Albert Einstein, it only made sense that they’d want to look closely at the body of Clarence Harrison DeMar, the “Grandfather of Marathons.” It was to be in the service of science that they would examine the effects of endurance sports on cardiovascular health. What they quickly discovered was that Demar’s arteries were nearly twice the diameter of the average human being. A phenomenon that is now known as “athletes’ heart.”
Clarence Demar left his legacy on the town of Keene. He was a man who embodied the spirit that one must never give up. Indeed, despite the doctor’s warning of his irregular heartbeat, in the end, it was cancer, not heart disease, that would eventually claim his life.
The body has a miraculous way of adapting to the struggles imposed upon it. In an age where the number 2 killer of Americans is a disease characterized by a narrowing of the arteries, here, hiding in plain site is a method for widening them. No drugs. No invasive procedures. One needs only to get up and go for a run. That, and get real about the types of food one eats.
Yet, despite this, most people take the drugs. It is easier, after all, to pop a pill than to get up off the couch and do something hard. It certainly is much easier to eat decadent food than it is to eat healthy. There’d been nothing easy about giving up all the foods I loved.
But I had a unique perspective in all of this. Having watched my father struggle with the disease. He had chosen the drugs. And why wouldn’t he? It was his doctor’s advice after all.
In the years that followed his heart attack, I watched as his health quickly disintegrated. The size of his waist quickly ballooned, and as his weight increased, it made it harder for him to exercise and move around. He started having back pain, and soon, the exercise would stop altogether.
In the early days after his heart attack, he made attempts to eat a better diet. But he lost those battles. If you’re overweight and not getting exercise, where does your sense of well-being come from? How do you derive any pleasure or satisfaction over the course of your day?
At least his cholesterol was lower, thanks to Lipitor. But soon came the add-ons. Drugs to manage the symptoms of the side effects. He took meds for type II diabetes, which had been helped along by increased insulin levels— a side effect of Lipitor.
But if the drug class known as “statins” are as well performing as they claim, my father would not be a good case study for such. At age 60, his atherosclerosis had progressed to the point where he suffered a stroke. They discovered the two main arteries going to the brain were both 85% blocked. A startling progression of the disease for someone who’d spent his life on a drug meant to combat it.
There was other medication, too. He was treated for high blood pressure, of course. Since he was overweight and not exercising, there were no forces to relieve his shrinking blood vessels. Medications for anxiety and irritability are another side effect of statins. There were medications for back pain, worsened by his ballooning weight.
He drank too much, too. But could I really blame him? Imagine waking up feeling lousy every day.
Perhaps it was a failure of will. But that would be unfair. I must also consider that it was a failure to identify cause and effect. After all, those medications didn’t come all at once. I highly doubt that he or his doctor ever made the connection that his downward spiral could be attributed to a single choice. Frankly, it would be just as easy to blame general aging.
It was only from my vantage point in the future, contrasted with a sudden parallel predicament, that it took me to see the precise way in which he had erred.
When I lay in my hospital bed the day after my heart attack, the doctor spoke of a treatment plan. I would be put on Lipitor and aspirin. I would take these drugs for life.
I told him that I wanted to try to improve my diet first and see what difference that could make.
“Changing your diet is not enough,” he had said. “Your situation is genetic. We must do everything we can to lower your cholesterol.”
But to me, this seemed like a tremendous assumption. One that was typical of the health care industry in its reliance on drugs to do its heavy lifting. But I had taken enough prescription drugs in my life to know that miracle drugs do not exist. For every problem a drug may solve, it opens up at least a half-a-dozen new ones along the way.
This doctor’s approach was incompatible with my deepest intuitions and past observations. In the end, I could not take his advice. I could not allow myself to get sucked in to modern medicine’s “sick care” model.
That way lay the path of sickness, death, and madness. Such was the way of my Father. This path I could not follow.
I finished climbing the hill on the other side of the cemetery, which was a noted hallmark of the course. One last hill. One last hurdle to overcome. Here at the crest, beneath the trees. I could hear the far-off roaring of the crowd down in the little town of Keene, bellowing and beconing me home. I turned and looked back at the cemetery through which I’d come. Out over the horizon, the rows of crowded gravestones, in their stillness, stretched for what seemed an eternity. Here, at the peak of this hill, where I now could see so clearly.
Ahead lay the cheering crowds of Keene. Vibrant, alive; their spirits the embodiment of life. To my right lay the cemetery down amidst the valley. A cloud blocked out the sun, and the rows of graves went dark. There, down amidst the valley of the shadow of death.
Keene State College:
Down the other side of the hill with increasing speed, I plunged out into the streets of Keene like a warrior returned. It was mile 25. The crowds were lining the streets and shouting at the tops of their lungs. I picked up my speed and ran like a demon. Ran through the crowds and the cheers. Finally, the course turned left, and I could see, not more than 100 feet ahead, the beautiful banners of the finish line. I went in to a full sprint.
Across the finish line, a medal was placed around my neck. It is hard to describe the feeling. For all the suffering came: The sense of completion. The sense of closure. The sense that everything was absolutely right with the world. Regardless of all that had come before. Regardless of all that may follow. What mattered now was this moment and nothing else.
The minutes that followed are hard to recount. I felt as though I was in a dream. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I just sat in the grass, soaking it all in.
On my way home, I reflected on my journey and all that I had been through. I had done it. I had accomplished what I set out to do. The marathon is not just about running. It is about training oneself to delay gratification and commit to something over the long term.
Our lives are full of opportunities for short-term rewards. I had been eating junk food for twenty years simply because it made me happy. But these little boosts of pleasure came at the detriment of my long-term health. When you realize that something isn’t working, you all have the option to change that thing. The question is, will we have the strength of will to put aside those short-term impulses in service of the long-term cause?
That’s what it takes to run a marathon, and that’s why I think running marathons is so appealing to people. They want to feel like it’s possible to gain some control over their lives. To push forward and achieve something in spite of whatever challenges may stand in their way.
As I drove home with my window down, enjoying the fresh, warm air, I had a sense that there would be more marathons in my future.
When I got home, I was met with hugs. I found my little girl, now two years old. I patted her head, and I placed the medal around her neck. I found my way down the hall, collapsed into bed, and fell fast asleep.
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