Author: Langdon

Some people ask about my marathon times.  Look, I couldn’t walk up two flights of stairs two years ago without breathing hard.  I will take a finish of a 26.2 mile race in ANY time.  For the record though, I average around 4:20 for a marathon.  My favorite marathon, however, was my slowest.  My cousin Tericia, who I hadn’t seen in 18 years is a friend on Facebook.  She started running last year and on my way home from my Maryland Marathon, while she was visiting my parents I said to her, “run a marathon with me.”  She wasn’t sure, but agreed.

So for the first time in 18 years, we met at the start of the first ever Walkway Over the Hudson Marathon.  She told me  her time would be somewhat north of 6 hours.  Who cares.  The Walkway Marathon was my favorite for lots of reasons:  1.  It’s in my Hudson Valley – how lucky am I.  2.  It crosses the Hudson River – awesome.  3.  It’s on a paved rail trail, which is just awesome. 4.  It was crowded with lots of excitement and great support.  5.  Most importantly, I got to catch up with 18 years worth of family history over a nice long run/jog and sometimes bit of a walk and skip.  What great fun.

I don’t care what your actual time is.  For recreational runners – particularly those who have overcome obesity, I’m going to suggest to you the goal should be simple:  finish with your heart beating.  We both did.

On June 7, 2015 I ran my first 10k.  For those used to American distance calculations, that’s 6.2 miles.  The Orange County Classic10K is the historic running route of Frank Shorter – the 1972 Olympic Gold medalist in the Marathon.  Mr. Shorter grew up in Middletown, NY.  Since I was there on behalf of the County Executive, I was invited to share a few words with the crowd.  Given that I’m the County Attorney, responsible for defending the County in all litigation, my advice was simple:  have fun and run safe.   In my head though, I was planning on pushing for a finish line of under 50 minutes, which is a pace of about 8 MPH over those 6.2 miles.  My previous best 10K on a treadmill was 53 minutes, but this was a road race, and you do run faster outside I think.  I was very pleased to sneak in under 50 minutes by a whopping 19 seconds.  Even a greater thrill, Mr. Shorter ran the 10k himself.  To run briefly with an Olympic gold medal marathoner is a rare privilege.  Mr. Shorter, somewhere over age 65 made one request, when and if we passed him we were to tell him he was looking good.  No question, 43 years after winning the Olympic Gold medal he was looking good.

Marathon running in the Northeast is pretty limited in January and February, but I found my share of them in the spring.  On March 21, 2015 I rant the Shoreline Sharks Marathon in Connecticut.  I was lucky enough to be able to go to Hawaii in late March/early April and when I got back knocked out the  Kingston Classic Marathon in April, the Kingston and Rhinebeck Marathons in May.  Now the concept of running a marathon a year ago was something I couldn’t fathom much less have confidence I could complete, but I was thrilled to run Providence, Kingston, and Rhinebeck over a 4 week period.  Completely different marathons.  Kingston, the first, was predominately a trail-based marathon.  Nice size crowd – perhaps 75 – 100.  Providence was much larger – perhaps several hundred.  Rhinebeck – the Travel by F.E.A.T. marathon had 33 hearty souls start and 29 finish.  Great rolling back roads and massive support amongst runners as we cheered each other on.

On December 27, 2014 Allison and I left the kids with my brother-sister-in-law and sister-in-law in Hilton Head where we were all vacationing and she and I drove to Jacksonville, Florida for the Jacksonville Bank Marathon.  We arrived after 1 AM with the need to be at the starting line by 6:30 AM.  Suffice to say we didn’t sleep much.  Allison was also running the 5k so it would be a nice day for both of us.  Jacksonville was a flat, nice course through nice neighborhoods.  We had a nice time.  I would love to run it in 2015.

When I finished my first marathon, I could barely walk.  People had to hold me up.  I was cold and shaking and wanted to put long pants on but could not even do that without help.  NEVER EVER AGAIN I thought.  For about 10 hours.  After a dinner at Olive Garden (I earned it darn it!), I went to bed.  Woke up around 2 AM and started looking for my next marathon.  It would be in the NCR Trail Marathon in Maryland – Sparks-Glencoe MD, on November 29.

I was barely a runner at this point, having only run for 6 months, and certainly not a runner on an unpaved trail, but it was a reasonably close race, a slightly warmer temperature, so we went at it.  Allison, the kids and I drove to Maryland, stopping at a Cracker Barrel on the way down.  We stayed at the hotel and the next morning went off to the race.  Parking was a challenge but Allison and the kids saw me start; then it was basically down a hill, around the bend, and out 11 or 12 miles (and back those same 11 or 12 miles) up that hill I started out going down and across the finish line.  2 marathons in 2 months.  Was a pattern developing?

Given that i was morbidly obese 16 months ago, the prospect of running a marathon sounded absurd this morning.  But why not try.  I drove the 7.5 miles from my house to the start of the Hambletonian Marathon (www.HambletonianMarathon.com) and met my running partner, Michele.  Now, I had multiple advantages here.  First, the marathon started 7.5 miles from my house – no crazy drive in the AM.  Second, it ran the last several miles – the hardest mentally – on the heritage trail, which is my regular running trail – so it really felt at home.  Third, I had an honest to goodness real doctor, Michele, who my wife and I went to college with (along with her husband) and had been a good friend for over 20 years.  Hey, if you are going to run a marathon, you might as well do it with a doctor by your side!

I was blessed to have my wife, parents, in-laws, heck, even the County Executive, who happens to be my client and a good friend, showed up to cheer me on, along with other running friends.  How lucky I was.  Here are a few pictures from that day.  I figured it would take me about 6 hours (the course time limit) to finish.  In the end it was 4:39.  I was thrilled.  To have gone from morbidly obese to marathon runner in 16 months – just through diet and exercise – no surgery, was an amazing feeling.

In July, 2013 I remember this guy FLYING on the treadmill next to me in Disneyland California.  I was around 260 LBS. I thought, dreamed . . . maybe next summer when I step into the same exercise room I can be 175 LBS.  Maybe.  I doubt it.  Maybe.  Well, I was back at the Grand Californian, but I wasn’t 175.  Wasn’t even close.  It was 154!  What a difference a year makes.  So that year, that hotel, a year later, I stepped on the treadmill and RAN.  It wasn’t quite 7.5 MPH, but it was running, and it felt great!

On June 23, 2014 I stepped on the doctor’s evil scale.  The same scale that scared the heck out of me a year earlier.  The same one that foretold the warnings I had received moments later of being a pre-diabetic, of being morbidly obese.  Now, a year later it told a completely different story – it was the story of “normal”.  Weight is measured in pounds in the USA, but healthy weight is measured in part by BMI – body mass index.  Mine a year ago was “morbidly obese”, then it climbed (down) to “obese”, then to “overweight”.  Now, on this day, one year from when I started, I was in the “normal” category for my height for the first time since probably 7th grade.  Few people I know would call me “normal”.  For once though, I was happy to be “normal”.

Orange County is blessed with many recreational opportunities, chief among them is the County Heritage Trail.http://www.orangecountynyparks.com/heritage-trail/  Returning from Hawaii I found myself on that trail jogging on a regular basis, which by June had become full scale “running.”  I decided in June of 2014 to “go big or go home”.  That meant one thing:  I was going to run a marathon.  Where better to try one:  Goshen, NY of course.  So I set my goal – don’t run a 5k (which is 3.1 miles I now knew), not a 10k, or a half marathon.  Nope – it was GO BIG OR GO HOME.  I was going to run the Hambletonian Marathon in Goshen that October.

Where else to start running than paradise.  I had been walking since June and occasionally would take a few steps at a harder pace but in April of 2014 we went to Hawaii. 5,000 miles away from home I decided nobody could laugh too hard as I started to jog along the Ko Olina waterfront about 25 miles outside of Honolulu.  There is a 4 mile or so waterfront part so I sent out of my hotel, put one foot in front of the other, and started running.