The Charlotte Marathon
Are you sick of me yet? I would be. Three of these to read in five weeks is too much. Running three of these in five weeks, also too much. The good news is, this saga is over at the end of this excerpt. There will be no more marathons in 2024.
Charlotte had been on the calendar for longer than I had hoped. In October of 2023, after running a trail race at the Whitewater Center, I planned to take on the Charlotte Marathon about 4 weeks later. After poor recovery habits and failure to allow my body to rest, I had to reconsider the marathon. I decided to defer the race to the fall of 2024, and alas. Back then, I didn’t think I would be cramming this race onto the backend of two more races, but I’m so glad I did.
If runners get to call races home games, this was my home game. I grew up in Charlotte so I know every street on the course. This race was the first long-distance event I ever attempted back in 2016. I had no idea at that point what I was doing, but it was my first chance to experience what a road race was all about. My brother joined me in the half marathon that year and we both had amazing days. Flash forward to 2024, my approach to running looks much different than it did then. College-Neil ate and trained like you would expect an 18 year old kid to. Haphazardly. But that’s the old me and you don’t care about that. You care (or don’t) about this year’s attempt.
By this point, the combination of this being the third marathon attempted in five weeks and the start line being exactly three miles from my childhood home made this morning really feel like any old Saturday morning. This is not a discredit to this race by any means. If you do something enough, it becomes comfortable. On this day, I had a job to do. Over the past months, I had been coaching a good friend and mentor of mine, Emory, to break the 4-hour mark. All my energy was focused on making sure that goal became a reality. In hindsight, pacing someone is such an awesome experience. It’s a new way to care for someone, almost as if you’re protecting them from the dangers that lurk within a marathon. He asked how I felt as we packed into the corral. My response was ‘Amazing, let’s go to work’.
The gun went off and immediately my body kicked into motion. My brain fired a message to my legs of ‘We’re doing this again?’. I could tell I didn’t have the pop I might have had a month prior, but there was plenty to work with and the excitement of seeing my hometown show out for the marathon carried me through the initial miles.
My job through the first quarter of the race was to keep everything steady and quiet. Feel out the first portion of hills through uptown and make our way into Eastover. For those that don’t know Eastover, this is the neighborhood you send your kids to on Halloween to get full-sized candy bars. Rumor has it, even Ryan Reynolds and his picturesque family put roots down in Eastover, though no one has confirmed whether or not that’s true. The first cup of Gatorade in this neighborhood tasted like nectar. Not that watered-down crap we’d get in SouthEnd. These roads are so familiar to me as they were the spots I logged my first miles and there’s power to finding comfort in these miles when you know what you’re up against for the remainder of the day.
Weaving in and out of neighborhoods, we took on the first gradual climb of the day on Morehead. It was there that we saw our first victim to pedestrian beers. At just mile 8, a courageous sole snagged an ice cold Coors light from a cheering fan, hoping to revolutionize the way runners take in carbohydrates and fluid. We never saw him again. I’m hoping he had an awesome day. Emory at this point was showing me that he had an awesome day in mind. He was quiet through the first 10 miles of the race. We knew going in that we wouldn’t be chatty throughout the race. That energy would be reserved for the latter miles of the marathon. Instead, Emory was showing me that he had the patience to stay relaxed in the opening stages of the morning. Miles just kept flying by and before long, we came to the fork where half-marathoners took a left toward the Knights stadium to finish, and full-marathoners took a right toward the northern part of the city. The number of runners around us dwindled in the matter of a few hundred meters. We both knew that we’d be spending the second half of the race in quieter packs of runners surrounded by fewer spots for spectators. Spending over ninety percent of my runs in 2024 by myself and often in the dark, I felt a sense of comfort from the change of surroundings. Encouragement from the fans is so vital to a marathon, but a little peace and quiet gave us a break from the action.
This is the worst part of the marathon. Those mid-teen miles where you’ve beat the pavement for over 2 hours, but you can’t convince yourself you’re anywhere but in a state of limbo approaching the inevitable wall ahead. NoDa (North Davidson) is an eclectic neighborhood featuring music venues and artistic centers that show off the creativity of Charlotte. Regrettably, it's an area I never frequented as a kid. It rolled with hills and bridges. Construction zones seemed to appear on nearly every block. It’s an area that has exploded recently with new life and business and one of the better areas to suffer through no-man’s land in the marathon. The distance between Emory and I fluctuated during this part of the race. I always knew he was near me but we weren’t necessarily at the hip. What I admire about his day is that he never wavered physically. From the start to finish, he had the same gritty look on his face.
We navigated through Plaza Midwood where fans showed out in droves. Huge crowds lined Plaza Road and offered an assortment of goodies. This was a business trip so we politely declined the mimosas and tequila and pushed our way through the 20 mile gate. Both of us were feeling it at that point and for good reason. The hills we encountered entering these neighborhoods we had to climb in reverse to exit. We were then spit out onto a 2-mile stretch of the Sugar Creek greenway. Tightly bunched with other runners, we finally attached to the back of the 4-hour pace group. I knew our splits were banking us time in reference to a 4-hour marathon, but we wondered if we’d ever see the 4:00 flag. Tenth Street turned into McDowell and we were under 2 miles to the finish. I finally felt a sense of relief that the major climbs were behind us, and Emory could now weave through downtown Charlotte to the finish. The energy of the city wound back up. Up ahead was the Panther’s stadium signaling we were just a few hundred meters from the finish. I was done checking over my shoulder for Emory and left my focus for the finish line. I crossed the line at 3:56:45 and Emory followed at 3:57:24. I turned around to watch him cross and embraced him with a big hug. We’d done what we had set out to do.
I learned so much about myself over the last five weeks. I learned that my body is resilient, and that there is so much good in doing something difficult. I enjoy the process that a marathon requires. I enjoy the solitude it demands. The early hours, the soreness, the sense of accomplishment. Everything. I wouldn’t trade these past five weeks for anything. I knew I set a lofty goal but I also knew I had it within myself to achieve it. Though I don’t recommend racing so close in timing, I do recommend the marathon to anyone. Anyone can run a mile. If you think that you are unable to run a marathon, you are flat out wrong. You can, and if you want to, you will. If you’ve read to this point in the blog, I’m super thankful that you did. Almost as much fun as running is writing about it. I hope that 2025 gives me even more reasons to write about running. That’s it for now.
On to…..who knows? :)
