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by Jonathan Beverly If the marathon is a 20-mile training run followed by a 10K race, we need not waste time on a separate section for the middle miles. We can view them simply as an extension of the first 7 miles, with the marathoner's only task to endure the accumulating time and distance. Accepting this model, one of my friends calls them "the stupid middle miles." Repeatedly, however, I have been surprised at the crises of body and mind that occurred during these "stupid miles." I found myself shocked and unprepared when the ragged edges of fatigue surfaced through my veneer of cool composure. More than once I wanted to call "Time Out!" somewhere around mile 12. Like life, however, the marathon allows no time outs, so I have always pressed on, trying to manage these crises literally on the run. The difficulty of the middle miles is this: They are neither the beginning miles, where control is the clear priority, nor the final miles, where the mandate of survival lends crystal clarity to the task at hand. The middle miles are a transition, where elements of both the beginning and the end exist concurrently, where ideals meet harsh reality, and where the runner must make critical decisions and commitments. If, as Fred Lebow used to say, the marathon is a metaphor for life, then the marathon's middle miles can be compared to the middle years of life. Like the middle miles, these years may seem benign and unimportant compared to the formidable demands of childhood or the struggles of old age; research and literature on the life's span devote the majority of their attention to these bookends. Yet the middle years fill the bulk of one's life, and the skill with which they are managed determines the satisfaction of the final years indeed, the success of a life itself. The crises of the middle years start when we begin to doubt our life's direction. This internal ambiguity is unavoidable as we age. While in our youth we drove forward with clear goals, we now find ourselves divided and uncertain. Part of us wants to continue to explore and expand the limits of our world, while another wants to settle and establish continuity and community. We enjoy the authority and confidence of age yet fight to maintain the energy and recklessness of youth.
Our natural reaction is either to ignore these problems or to try to solve them by fully embracing one side and disregarding the other. "The serious problems in life, however, are never fully solved," Jung wrote. "If ever they should appear to be so it is a sure sign that something has been lost." We must learn the trick of balancing seemingly contradictory concerns and priorities. Similarly, we find ambiguity and conflicting priorities in the marathon. Like the life challenges they mirror, they cannot be solved, but must be balanced against each other. The first of three challenges stems from the marathon's demanding length. 1. Establish a Rhythm While Avoiding Stagnation By the middle miles of the marathon, we begin to fully understand how long it is. We barely remember the start and cannot yet imagine the end. To survive and succeed, we must develop strategies to pace ourselves physically and emotionally. But we face a danger of falling into a rut and losing contact with the markers that guide us toward our goal. By our middle years, life also feels interminably long: days blur into months, tempting us to stagnate in a well-worn routine. When the big picture eludes us, we must establish disciplines that enable us to endure less inspiring days, to pay attention to details, and to care about excellence in our work and relationships. The marathon also demands a few clear disciplines. We need an efficient stride that consumes miles with minimal effort. Maintaining regular fluid intake should be second nature; the ability to sustain a steady pace must be as sure as a musician's scales. We can only develop these disciplines during the hundreds of miles leading up to raceday. On raceday, ideally we want our legs to maintain the same rhythm over the entire course. But the distance betrays us: the same muscles repeating the same motion will fatigue before the day is through, requiring us occasionally to vary our efficient stride. On a hilly course, practice altering your stride going up or down. When running the Jersey Shore McMarathon, a very flat course, I switched to a higher knee lift for a few hundred yards when I felt muscle fatigue, then settled back to my low, marathoner's stride.
Success in the marathon, however, requires that we conserve more than physical energy. As in life, the mental and emotional demands of our days drain us deeper than any physical tasks. We must also learn the discipline of running on cruise control, relying on our practiced form to carry us forward while we reserve our emotional energies for the demanding miles to come. This "autopilot" mode gives us the freedom to dissociate and enjoy the event while it monitors the level of effort and ensures all needs are being met. Personally I have little difficulty going on autopilot, sometimes achieving this state even during the middle of a workday. During more than one marathon, however, I let the autopilot run too freely and found that I had gradually lost pace throughout the middle miles, arriving at the end too late to push for my goal. On a few occasions the autopilot has pushed too hard, like an absent-minded driver with a lead foot. Since the autopilot can sabotage our goals as well as preserve them, we can't fully "check out." We have to balance the need to tune out with the ability to monitor our progress. I like to imagine this as a program running in the background that flags me with any problems while I run in energy-saving "suspend" mode. Many race factors can serve as flags for our mental program: Play mental games with splits, updating the formulas and recalculating each mile. Pick landmarks on the course map and use them as checkpoints. If you ran the first miles correctly, you should be catching other runners when you find yourself behind the same group for several miles it often means you are slowing down, and that fact should wake you up. Thank a volunteer: it will break your trance and make someone's day. These mental breaks provide an opportunity to evaluate and adjust our strategy during the middle miles, which is the second challenge. 2. Adjust to Realities While Overcoming Obstacles
The strategies of the middle miles are dependent on several factors: raceday conditions, the results of the first miles, and your physical and mental toughness. Since none of these can be completely known in advance, evaluation must be conducted and decisions made in mid-stride, requiring you to balance honest appraisal with courageous resolve. The middle years also inspire a time of evaluation and reckoning. We realize that we cannot be everything we thought we could be at 21 that the choices and circumstances of our lives have set a course, and we must either adjust to these realities or consider starting over, perhaps at a disadvantage. Some say this process begins the day we recognize our mortality. In the marathon it begins the moment we realize, "This is going to be work!" If this happens earlier than expected (and it always seems earlier than expected), it may cause a crisis of confidence. Whatever goals we carried to this point are threatened. We naively dreamed that we could cruise through this without difficulty. "We wish to hear only unequivocal results," Jung wrote, "and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged from the darkness." The darkness begins with the doubts of the middle miles, which must be confronted before the deep darkness of fatigue sets in. Often the first hints of darkness are not an indication of impending doom. Many marathoners report having bad patches when an easy pace suddenly becomes ragged and strained, when something hurts, or when we lose focus and motivation. Learning to ride out these bad patches is a mark of a successful marathoner.
Compared to a 10K, where one bad mile is a significant portion of the race, the length of the marathon weighs to the runner's advantage during tough miles. If we don't panic at the first sign of difficulty, we can back off a notch and ride through it. A mile or two reveals whether it is serious, and when the rough spot passes, we will have lost little. Sometimes all that is necessary is an internal adjustment to the increasing difficulty as the miles add up. The marathon does, however, require a blunt and thorough evaluation: "Have I overextended myself in the first miles?" we must ask. "Do the conditions (heat, humidity, wind, crowds) necessitate altering my goal? Am I injured? Sick?" The marathon does not permit delusions past the middle miles. We may ignore the signs that we should adjust our goals and strategies, but we will pay for it later. Some indicators are concrete and non-negotiable. The temperature in the 1993 New York City Marathon climbed to the mid-70s before I reached halfway. A year earlier I had run in similar conditions in Pueblo, Colorado, ignored the early signs of dehydration, and suffered debilitating cramps as my reward. Having learned my lesson, in New York I cut the pace enough to allow me to finish strong: not a record, but far ahead of my stumbling Pueblo debacle. Any pre-existing condition will resurface by the middle miles, often forcing the most difficult choice: to drop out. I spent the night before the 1982 Maine Coast Marathon drenched in a fever sweat. Even though on a PR pace at mile 18, I stepped off the course rather than face the last 8. A friend went into the 1997 Boston ignoring a knee pain that had plagued him for six weeks. He reported afterwards that he "came through 10 miles in 60:08 [his goal pace] and then had a nice walk along the marathon course from mile 12 to 17." Both of us decided that the cost of ignoring these conditions was greater than the reward of finishing this race. The evaluation that continues throughout the middle miles balancing the necessity of adjustment with the courage to overcome difficulties requires both emotional control and competitive will. Learning to balance these emotions is the third challenge. 3. Stay Calm While Gearing Up
A marathoner enters the middle miles tightly controlled and emotionally detached casually observing and monitoring the body to keep it from pushing and wasting energy. At mile 18, the same marathoner emerges an aggressive competitor poised to attack the last 8 totally committed to the task, pushing farther and reaching deeper than at any point in life. The middle miles are a grey continuum of both. Again the marathon parallels life: we find in the middle years the imperative to plan and save for our final years but do not want to arrive at the end with reserves that should have been enjoyed when we had youth and energy. We want to burn brightly but are afraid of burning out too soon. In the marathon, we need to balance control and competitiveness. Erring on either side leads to disaster or disappointment. At Boston's "100th" celebration, the cumulative adrenaline was overpowering. After 7 miles of holding back, I surrendered to the energy within and around me. I'd rather not talk about the final miles. In contrast, at the 1995 Vermont City Marathon, I found myself running a careful, controlled pace at halfway, but over two minutes behind my goal. I made an instant transition to competitor, running a negative split PR, but was left with tantalizing questions of what might have been. Ideally, we want to maintain an even pace and gradually transition our mental state to meet the changing demands of the task. One of the keys is to break away from friends or other runners that we have socialized with during the first miles. While companions can help in the early priority of keeping the tone calm and easy, they can distract you from the task of preparing for the final miles miles that everyone must face alone.
Accomplishing this transition requires changing how we talk to ourselves. Over the course of the middle miles, our words of calm ("Relax. Have fun. I am in control. This is just a long run.") transform to statements of affirmation and determination ("I am fast. I am tough. I am smooth. I am prepared for whatever it takes.") If we are going to succeed in this challenge, we must know and believe in our goals. The mind requires a persuasive reason to depart from its natural tendency to avoid pain. If we wait until the moment, we will have trouble convincing ourselves that the cost is worth it. Well before the marathon days and even weeks earlier we must mentally work through the full race, deciding why we are running, what we wish to accomplish, and what accomplishing this will require, that is, the "cost." Once we have settled the cost and prepared ourselves to go the distance, we wrap this raw desire with a smooth shell of emotional calm to preserve it for when it is needed. Thus prepared, the strategy in the middle miles becomes the task of gradually removing layers of calm control to reveal the solid core of resolve with which to face the final miles.
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