Your Body On The Boston Marathon
From start to finish, here’s how hitting the pavement affects you mentally and physically. (Photo: Getty Images)
When it comes to running advice, Gina Kolata listens to her son, a seasoned marathoner who inspired her to take up the sport in the first place.
So when Kolata, a 67-year-old medical reporter at The New York Times, was preparing for her first Boston Marathon last year, she took note. “Now mom,” Kolata remembers her son telling her, “you’re going to feel like you’re just going to fly in the beginning — it’s all downhill.” But, he continued, “it’s a huge mistake to let yourself go because your quads are going to be killing you [later].“
Per usual, he was right. Despite holding back early on, pain struck when Kolata reached hills around mile 18. “My quads were killing me,” she recalls. “I said, ‘What did I do to myself? This is ridiculous!’” Kolata finished the race, but clocked her personal worst time.
Welcome to Boston.
“It’s not the kind of course where you can just start running a consistent pace and put yourself on autopilot for 26.2 miles,” says Brian Young, a 36-year-old lawyer in the District of Columbia who finished the Boston Marathon in 2009 and attempted it again in 2012, but dropped out after the first 10 miles due to the heat. He’s running the marathon again today. “You have to be aware of where the hills are, and you have to have a plan of when you’re going to hold back and when you’re going to run hard.”
In other words, Young says, “to run that course well, it’s really a cerebral challenge.” Of course, it’s a mighty physical one, too. Here’s why.
The Start Line
Before even stepping there – or any marathon’s start line – runners need to fuel appropriately. That means eating anywhere from 400 to 800 calories of carbs about three hours before the race, drinking about 13 to 20 ounces of water or a sport drink about two hours ahead of time and another 7 to 10 ounces of fluid 10 to 20 minutes before the gun goes off, says Michelle Walters-Edwards, chair of the Department of Health and Human Performance at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, who works with professional and Olympic athletes. “Pre-event fueling will ensure that the body’s limited stores of carbs are optimized, and this is the first critical step to success,” she says.
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For Young, who’s run more than 10 marathons, eating a bowl of granola and a banana when he wakes up and then a half of a bagel closer to start time does the trick. “A lot of this is through trial and error,” he says.
This year, Young is staying with his wife’s family close to the start line, so he doesn’t have to leave the house until about an hour before the gun goes off. Most runners aren’t so lucky. “Folks at the start line – especially this one – are … waiting for a long time and there’s music and there’s a race director yelling at everyone to get to the line and it’s just kind of chaotic,” says Joseph McConkey, head coach at the Boston Running Center who has coached hundreds of Boston Marathoners each year over the past 12 years.
That chaos can take its toll if you get overwhelmed by it, McConkey says. “Your hormones shift, and that can impede normal cellular function,” he says. Newbies in particular are prone to start-line anxiety, which can make them fidgety – using energy better expended on the road, McConkey says. “Excitation and excitement is good, [but] we don’t want to let it impede our race plan.”
Miles 0 to 4
And they’re off! The first several miles of the Boston Marathon are, on a whole, downhill. Sounds nice, huh? Not so fast – literally. “The eccentric contractions are the most taxing to the body, and that’s what downhill running emphasizes,” McConkey says. “You’re actually having to contract and stretch a muscle at the same time.”
So while the decline may feel breezy, it’s really just a farce. As Kolata experienced, your muscles will speak up – or cry out – later on. “I was shocked how much my quads hurt,” she says.
McConkey’s advice? Don’t worry too much about running precisely at your planned pace so long as you keep a consistent “stride rate” – or number of steps per minute – that’s neither too fast nor too slow. “If you do that … you’ll feel it when you start turning around, and you start going uphill later in the race.”
Miles 5 to 14
This stretch of the race is the most unremarkable. “[Runners] need to get into their zone or get into their rhythm so they’re even-keeled and staying mentally-relaxed,” McConkey says.
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It’s also where runners need to refuel. By about mile 10, Walters-Edwards recommends athletes start consuming 100 to 200 calories per hour in gel or liquid form. “This is the point where carb stores will be diminishing in the body, so topping up the blood stream with sugar can help prevent the muscle stores of glucose from being diminished,” she says.
Young’s routine? Eating an athletic gel like Gu at miles 6, 12 and 20 – digestion permitting – and slugging water and Gatorade alternately every 3 or 4 miles.
Miles 15 to 22
At mile 15.5 of the Boston Marathon, runners face a sharp decline of about 100 feet in less than a half mile. But again, that’s no reason to cheer since their muscles face the same stress of the earlier hills – and this time, with more physical and mental fatigue. "Our brain is using the same fuel that our legs are,” McConkey says. “So when our legs are tired our brain is tired – we can’t think as clearly."
And in this case, what goes down, must come up. “This is the decline that turns around right away into the uphills,” McConkey says. “For me and the runners, it’s a pretty big moment in the race.”
Miles 15 to 20 of any race are also “the physiological danger zone,” since it’s when runners are prone to “hitting a wall,” or running out of energy from carbohydrates, Walters-Edwards says. “Once a body is depleted of carbohydrate, the sensation of effort becomes much greater and fatigue will set in – the enemy to performance,” she says. The solution? “Carbs, carbs, carbs.”
If runners are feeling tired or sore at this point, McConkey suggests taking a moment to stretch or massage their muscles. “It’s kind of a good mental, physical reset period,” he says, before the series of hills culminating in the notorious “Heartbreak Hill” that peaks about halfway through mile 21. While some runners may want to “attack the hills,” McConkey suggests leaving that to the elite athletes only. “I recommend folks not to beat the terrain, not be beat the elements,” he says. “Respect them and adjust.”
Miles 23 to Finish
Any marathon’s final miles can be physically taxing, particularly because the body’s low on glucose. "It starts to lose that source of energy and starts to search around for what’s left,” McConkey says. But the body is smart and has learned throughout the race how to tap into other energy stores. It just may take a little time to find the right balance. “Psychologically, that’s good for people to know,” McConkey says. “If you’re feeling bad at mile 22 or 23, it doesn’t mean you’re going to feel bad at 24.”
That was the case for Young, who felt particularly sluggish around mile 24, but then perked up when he saw the cheering crowds. “You’re going through downtown Boston, and it’s a big holiday,” Young says. “So even if you’re struggling for those last 6 miles, you can feed off the excitement of running down Boylston Street.”
Marathoners will also feed off adrenaline, a hormone they probably haven’t felt since the start line, McConkey says. “Adrenaline is what keeps us able to survive outstanding circumstances,” he says. “Adrenaline trumps all other energy systems.”
For Kolata, who walked most of the last 10 miles, the adrenaline never quite overpowered the pain in her legs. Still, she believes in crossing the finish line with a smile. “I ran through the finish line with a smile on my face and I said, ‘I’m going to redeem myself next year.’” While she had to pull out of today’s race due to two injuries, Kolata is preparing to race in the New York City Marathon this fall. “I signed up for New York as a consolation,” she says.
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