26.2 very good reasons to go for a run

I ran a race a week ago, and 893 people finished ahead of me. They gave me a medal anyway.

I believe I earned it. If that makes me a fan of participation trophies, I can live with that.

Over Memorial Day weekend in Vermont, I completed 26.2 miles for the first time. I’ve been a runner most of my life, completed a dozen or more halfmarathons and too many 5ks to count, but this one was a milestone for me.

It didn’t come without cost. It took a few days before I was walking right again. Going upstairs was slow, while heading downstairs became something I needed to plan out well in advance. Sitting down took a couple minutes. All of it was worthwhile.

How to describe something that you’re (a) proud to have accomplished while also (b) remembering to highlight how much pain you were in for about half of it, lest you decide you want to do it again? It’s a mixed bag. Rewarding, certainly, but hard enough to make you wonder why you not only volunteered for such an activity but in fact paid money to be a participant.

First, the good parts. Considerably less than 1 percent of the population of the United States has run a marathon, so this is select company. Most places with the wherewithal to put on a race of this size know what they’re doing, and Burlington, Vt., was no exception. The race was well-organized, small enough that it wasn’t hard to find your people and festive enough to keep you going throughout.

It was mostly flat — no small feat in the Green Mountain State — with much of the course running along Lake Champlain. Every time my family goes to Vermont, we love it, which inevitably leads us to wonder why we don’t live there, and right around then we remember that February exists. Still, Vermont in summertime is hard to beat.

My wife, Carrie, and I trained together, though there were some key differences, mainly that this was her 12th marathon and my first. So while she was able to maintain her pace throughout and get the finish she wanted, I had a great first half and then 13 miles of my quads screaming at me to do anything other than try to keep running. Still, a finish is a finish, or so I am trying to tell myself.

My time was on the lower end of what I had reasonably hoped for — a little slower than the current average marathon finishing time, from what I can find. I have tried to dull any disappointment by remembering that it was my first, that it was hot and sunny (though luckily the humidity held off ), and also that it was a really long way. It’s like running from New Haven to Middletown, or Stamford to Stratford. It’s far.

Burlington sets up the race as a double-loop course you do twice — you head south from a waterfront park through some neighborhoods and then back along the lakefront, then north through city streets and again back along Lake Champlain, and then you do all that again. It makes it easy for spectators, and it was very nice to see our kids and our friends multiple times throughout the race.

The highlight was crossing the finish line, but the takeaway may have come weeks earlier. It’s a long process to get in shape to complete 26 miles, even for experienced runners. I followed a first-timer’s training program, which lasted 18 weeks and required four runs a week of varying distances, topping out at a 20-miler a few weeks prior to race day with various distances sprinkled in throughout.

You’re always taking your chances with the weather, but training during the spring meant running on some perfect days — 50-ish degrees, no humidity, a light breeze. A few times, I was able to crank out 8, 12 or 14 miles on a day like that and hardly break a sweat. Running double-digit mileage felt as easy as walking down the driveway to pick up my newspaper.

That’s not something everyone is lucky enough to experience. My training allowed me that. It may not work out like that again.

It’s hard to talk about the benefits of running and not sound like I’m writing copy for a Gatorade commercial, but there were times, all by myself on familiar roads in my neighborhood, where the process felt very much worth it. Each mile, each step along the way, is something that you own, regardless of how the race ends up going.

I don’t know if I’ll do another. At the moment, I lean toward probably. I’m glad I did one. That seems good enough for today.