Baystate Race Report

Victory!!!

October 20th, 2019.  Perhaps not the single best day of my life, but one of the best.  Certainly life doesn’t get much better than this.  It was a year and a day since my cancer diagnosis, and I just ran close to a perfect half-marathon.

I feel extraordinarily blessed and lucky and all that because not all cancer patients are able to celebrate surviving their first year with cancer by running 13 miles.  I know of one man who celebrated by dying exactly one year after diagnosis, after the doctor estimated he maybe had a year to live.  You hear a lot about the cancer patients who beat the odds, and not so much about those who don't unless they're a celebrity.  Eddie Money comes to mind.  These things bother me while I'm running around having a great day.  Call it survivor's guilt.  It's a real thing.

One of the epiphanies I had in the past year was that "beat cancer" is a vague and poorly defined goal.  Some people define "beating cancer" as dying of something other than cancer, but I personally think that is a horrible goal.  By definition you can't achieve it and be around to have a victory celebration.  That's why I chose to define "beating cancer" as running a half marathon.  It puts the focus on how to live instead of how to die.  It also allows me to win a battle, declare victory, and bask in the glow for a moment before moving on to the next goal.

The Perfect Half-Marathon

Perfect doesn't mean fast, it simply means running the race according to plan and getting the best possible performance out of your body.  Like most runners, I tend to go out too fast and crash later in the race.  Or I hold myself back too much and finish with reserves on energy that could have been used to get a faster time.

I started off slow for the first mile or two in lieu of doing a separate warm-up run before the race.  I'm not in good enough shape to waste calories warming up for longer races.  Shortly after the start I had an equipment malfunction.  The chest strap that reads my heart rate was too loose and it kept sliding down my chest.  Eventually I gave up trying to fix it for the moment and let it go all the way down to my stomach and try to take the pulse of my belly button.  My belly button has no pulse, if you were wondering.

My strategy was to take walk breaks at the water stops, and so at the first water stop I walked and fixed my strap.  Then it was time to pick up the pace a little bit.  I was estimating effort based on my breathing as well as the heart rate and pace reported by my Garmin.  I was on goal pace and it felt like I could run it all day.  At water stops I'd find myself a bit ahead of plan, and would walk until my watch indicated I was back on plan.  It's really hard to not go faster than plan early in a race, particularly when it's ideal weather conditions.

Speaking of water stops, since it was cool I ended up taking the Gatorade option more in the interest of caloric intake rather than hydration.  Instead of spending the morning online debating the dangers of sugar intake in cancer patients, I'm out pounding down cup after cup of sugar sweetened beverage.  Somehow though, I don't think my blood sugar was spiking very high.  It's a very different context than having a soda with a 1,000 calorie sit-down dinner.

After about halfway I started pushing myself slightly instead of holding myself back.  The net effect was that my pace remained about the same.  In the end, I ran the second half of the half about a minute faster than the first half (should a half of a half-marathon be called a quarter marathon?).  Things started to hurt, but what surprised me more was the realization that things weren't hurting for the first number of miles.  I started to take really short walk breaks at water stops or skip them entirely.

I became a man on a mission, running with purpose and a bit of anger.  Then I realized that I was alive and running a half marathon and started to tear up a bit.  What a curious mix of emotions!  It was becoming more and more difficult to continue running, but I was on pace to meet my goal without a lot of time in the bank (by design).  Damn it Scotty, I need more power!

When the last mile arrived I went all out and my pace dropped below 10 minutes a mile.  That's the kind of blistering speed that keeps me in the back half of most races.  When the finish line was in sight I sprinted, pumped my fists in the air, shouted, and made loud noises.  Actually, I don't quite remember exactly what I did.  I just know it felt like taking back another piece of my life that cancer tried to take from me.  It was a beginning, not an end.  Perhaps next time I'll be a little less rabid about finishing.  I think I may have spooked some of the other runners and volunteers.

Me vs My 41 year old self

Here's what my Garmin watch had to say about my race:

10 years ago this same race was my first-ever half marathon.  I thought it would make a great story if I could beat my time from that race.  There are those who warn me about competing with my past self, and they have a point.  But, in this case, I knew from my regular runs that I was in the ballpark of being able to do just that.  Here's what my Garmin said 10 years ago:

These aren't the official times, but the story is still the same.  Three minutes faster with almost the exact same heart rate.  Being an experienced 51 year old runner with cancer beats being a neophyte 41 year old runner.  Weather and luck probably have also played a factor.

Now here is the very important point: I've embraced modern medicine and had very aggressive treatment.  The result is an undetectable PSA and I'm running around more or less exactly like I did 10 years ago.  If this is the result of having my veins filled with poison, I'll have some more please!

Footnote: While I did manage to beat my 41 year old self, I'm still behind my 42 and 43 year old self.  In those years I had a combination of experience, relative youth, and lack of terminal disease that's going to be harder to beat.

Technically, I Cheated

It turns out that two of my medications are on the WADA banned substances list.  Surprisingly Lupron, suppressor of testosterone, is considered a performance enhancing drug.  When used to treat prostate cancer it's about as far from a performance enhancement as you can get.  But used differently, it could also boost testosterone, and that would give an advantage.

The other banned substance is Prednisone.  This I find interesting, as it's a relatively common drug.  Prednisone gives you extra energy and acts as an anti-inflammatory which can suppress pain.  A related but stronger drug, Dexamethasone (also on the banned list), allowed me to go for runs during chemotherapy.  These drugs can make you feel super-human.  Perhaps Dexamethasone was the substance that turned me into my superhero alter ego, "Obstinate Man", during chemotherapy.

This gets very interesting when you think of all the runners in the full marathon trying to run a Boston qualifier.  Seconds matter, and any advantage can make a difference.  Luckily for Suzy, she accidentally fell into a patch of poison ivy on purpose thus making Prednisone medically necessary and legal.  She used the advantage to out-qualify a peer whose skin was unfortunately rash-free.  Gotta wonder if those sorts of scenarios happen.

Happily for me, I'm so far down the results sheet that nobody is likely to complain.  But if they did, I'm pretty sure I'd quality for a therapeutic use exemption.  Hold on a minute... phone is ringing... it's my 41 year old self calling through a wormhole in the space-time continuum.  He wants me to withdraw my result.  Sorry younger Tom, but old age and treachery does beat youth and enthusiasm.

The Aftermath

It's now a couple days after the race, and I'm doing fine.  The back/hip pain that had been bothering me leading up to the race was a nothing-burger.  It was noticeable but not problematic at the start of the race.  By the end, the entire lower half of my body was uniformly painful and any pre-existing pain was lost in the noise.

I did take this week off from work in the expectation of being out of commission for a day or two, and then wanting to enjoy the fall weather.  Many times I talk about the ability of exercise and running in particular to fight fatigue, but in this case it was too much of a good thing.  Monday was rough, I spent a fair amount of time laying on the couch and in bed.  My mood was low.  My big audacious goal was now behind me, and it's time to pick the next one.  I have a couple ideas in mind.

One final thought: I ran the whole race without having to stop at a porta-john.  That's over two hours I went without needing a pee break, and I didn't wet myself either.  As much as I'm happy and thankful for my ability to run, I'm generally more happy and thankful about my bladder control.  It's something men with prostate cancer will understand.