The Tale of Two Marathons by Gary Simpers
This past weekend, Amy Smythe and I ran the Delaware Marathon as part of the Delaware Running Festival.
As I know Berek is very well aware, I was against Amy attempting to do it, let alone myself attempt it AGAIN! Friends just don’t let friends run those kinds of distances, lol.
I highlight the word AGAIN because it was right after my 39th birthday, a little more than 5 years ago that I attempted my first marathon after several successful (in my mind anyway) half marathons.
From my negative talk you can tell the first didn’t go so well and I was very disappointed. Disappointed to the point that I really never wanted to run again. It was bad!
It was after that marathon I asked Denise (my wife) to help me find another way to stay active because running was no longer an option.
Fortunately for Denise and I, she had a cousin in South Carolina doing CrossFit and Denise looked around for a local gym and found Equity.
My CrossFit journey starts out like many in our gym. Not very capable and intimidated by the other athletes working out in class. I remember saying that there was no way I was going to able to work out like that, but yet here I am 😊.
Fast forward through the next five years, I find myself being more active, stronger, happier, and most likely in the best shape of my life. I was even able to let the bad running experience pass and have been enjoying the occasional weekend dog walk/runs with my gang.
At the beginning of 2022, Tara’s son Grant asked her to run a marathon with him where he was stationed in TN, so the call went out to all us “crazy old people” to train with her. I was against the idea of training for those distances so Paul and I agreed to split the mileage while keeping Amy and Tara company.
Up until a probably a month ago, my longest distance was 7 or so miles. I was feeling froggy one weekend and ran a 14 miler out of the blue when Amy ran her 20 mile training run. Things were really going great.
Fast forward to last weekend and we are out for Amy and Tara’s last training run. An easy 12 miles on a chilly Sunday morning and I was mentioning to Amy how I wish I could support her run like my friend Kevin did for me during my first marathon. Kevin was able to run the last 13 miles and keep me from jumping off a bridge when the wheels came off at mile 21 and we had to walk the last 5 miles. I was feeling guilty about just jumping in and not registering. I was feeling guilty about registering and only running the last half. I was trying to find every reason not to go. It was at that point that Amy came up with the third option of running the entire marathon with her. I immediately sighed and went into panic mode. I remembered the struggles I had during my first. I remembered the pain afterwards. Not to mention the complete lack of running training I had done up to this point. Running once a week is never on any marathon training plans I have read.
I went home that Sunday morning and I kept giving it more thought and decided to heck with it and registered. No going back now.
All week long leading up to the race, Amy and I strategized how we were going to go about it. We agreed we would walk every water stop. We agreed we would stay together. And that’s about where it ended. I begged for a nice and easy 9:30 pace, but Amy was having none of it. She really wanted a 4 hour marathon. Fears of my first marathon started to appear. That was the goal for my first. I was pretty sure my body was not going to even let me come close to that time given my limited training and running mileage leading up to the race.
Race Day.
Couldn’t haven’t asked for a prettier day. A little warm for running, but a beautiful day nonetheless. Our start time was 0700 and we lined up with other 400+ hopefuls for the marathon.
3-2-1 go and we were off. Amy immediate took off and was flying and my nerves went through the roof. I eventually caught up with her before the first mile and we settled in.
As the miles ticked off, we were well ahead of a 4 hour pace. It was almost scary how close our times were to my first. I kept telling Amy that we needed to slow down to save for the back half, but she assured me were banking time. I’m pretty sure she got tired of me saying “Amy, I think we should slow down.”
Fast forward about three hours and we are still going strong. Right around mile 21, I could feel my calves begin to tighten up and I was so fearful that my body was going to fail me in the same spot. Fortunately I was able to slow down a pinch and save the legs from completely going to failure.
This slow down let Amy pull ahead a good bit, but true to our word she waited for me at the second to the last water stop to make sure I was ok. From there we ran together until roughly the last mile when my hips and calves required me to do some walking and I told Amy to keep going and I would be fine. I was able to walk for 15 seconds or so and I was back to my jog. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I rounded the corner to see the gun clock turn 4 hours. It was the most amazing feeling I have had. I couldn’t believe I was finishing the marathon for starters, let alone the time I set out for myself almost 6 years ago!
Taking a second after the race to put into perspective of what just happened I was a bit emotional. It felt like my physical exercise life was able to come full circle all because a decision was made to give Equity a try 5 years.
Five years ago I thought I was runner strong. I put the miles in, I trained according to the plan, and went in thinking I could crush my first marathon. Boy was I wrong.
Yesterday I was fit and it made a world of difference. I could listen to my body, make corrective actions, and most importantly not take myself too seriously. Heck I didn’t even wear a running watch.
The long and short of what I am trying to say is Thank You. Thank you making me feel welcomed into the Equity community and to keep me striving to get a better every day.
Without a shadow of doubt, this drive to be better is what got me across the finish line with a 45 minute PR. Just truly incredible and I can’t thank you enough.
I appreciate all you do for us!
— Gary Simpers
Extra bonus if you made it to the end of this as a thank you. :)
