Running coach Bill Wenmark often tells first-time marathoners that 'running 26 miles, 385 yards is a piece of cake. It's the training that will kill you.'
Today, as 7,058 runners begin the 15th annual Twin Cities Marathon's often torturous journey from downtown Minneapolis to the Capitol in St. Paul, an estimated 200,000 spectators will focus on top seeds like Raphael Zepeda, last year's TCM men's open winner, or Olga Appell, a member of the Olympic 10,000-meter team.
What those spectators won't see - or feel - are the hundreds of hours and miles, spread over several months, that got these runners to the starting line.
'Committing yourself to a project of this magnitude - one that involves vision, focus, sacrifice, diligence and a commitment to a schedule - is something that requires dealing with lots of ups and downs,' said Wenmark, director of the American Lung Association Runners Club in Minneapolis.
'This is not a 10 [kilometer] or 5K we're talking about,' said Wenmark, named the country's top running coach by Runners World magazine. 'This is not a half-marathon. A marathon is a significant life-changing event, something that cannot be approached casually.'
Appell has spent the last several weeks preparing for today's race by running in the mountains near her New Mexico home. Mary Alico, seeded fourth in the women's open division, lives near Orlando but does not allow Florida's heat and humidity to keep her from running up to 140 miles per week. Dick Beardsley, possibly the most celebrated distance runner ever from Minnesota, said that when he competed in marathons, he ran as many as 140 training miles a week.
'The 70 miles a week I've been running have been well worth it,' said John Keston, 71, a former Bemidji State professor who beat the 3-hour marathon mark two years ago and hopes today to break the world record of 3 hours, 1 minute, 15 seconds for 70-year-olds.
'The Twin Cities Marathon is the best course I've ever run and I've completed 26 marathons,' Keston said. 'It's absolutely beautiful and reasonably flat. My hopes for a world record aside, what better reason to train?'
Certainly, there's another incentive for the elite runners: Included in the $154,700 in prize money are first-place purses of $20,000 for both the men's and women's open-division winners and $5,000 apiece for the men's and women's masters winners. The men's and women's wheelchair winners will receive $1,000 each.
But what of the thousands of runners who still will be running for 1 or 2 hours - or more - after the elite runners have completed their races?
Some will be driven by fear and have trained diligently with the hope of preventing cramps, dehydration, nausea, hitting the dreaded wall or simply spacing out from the emotional and mental exhaustion that often accompany the physical beating a marathon runner takes.
Then there is the TCM course itself, described as the most beautiful urban marathon in America. This race and Grandma's Marathon in Duluth are considered among the 10 best marathons in the United States, according to Ryan Lamppa, a Benson, Minn., native who serves as statistician for the National Runners Association in Santa Barbara, Calif.
'Athletes don't have to finish first to win races,' Wenmark has been telling his students for 15 years. 'You're out there to test one's fiber, test one's soul, test one's commitment.
'This is not a team sport. Nobody picks those legs up and puts them down for you. You, individually, have to do that. This is a chance for you to say to yourself, `I'm going to prove who I really am.' '
Few runners want to prove that they are one-dimensional bores whose entire lives revolve around their running schedules. But, when training for a marathon, that can be unavoidable.
'Some days, it seems all I do is train,' Alico said.
Added Doug Kurtis, a two-time winner at Grandma's Marathon: 'There's got to be more to life than just training. Of course, when I got married a couple years ago, running took a back seat to everything. And then I discovered that when I train hard, I not only run better, but feel better.'
All of which supports Wenmark's theory: People don't fail in the marathon, they fail in the training.
'The best days you'll have are often the most difficult,' Wenmark said. 'But when you're done, you can say, `Yes, I did it!' '
