Jeffrey Kustusch's Marathon

by - Daniel Pan

Jeff "Sanchez" Kustusch thought he was prepared. In the 2-3 weeks before the Chicago Marathon, Kustusch had done training runs of 12, 16, and 20 miles, and though he was slow, he generally felt fine. While this hardly constitutes much training in anyone's book, this was quite a bit for him. Anyhow, so the week before the marathon, He was fully expecting to do fairly well, setting a goal to finish under 4 hours.

Big problem though: the Tuesday before the race, Kustusch got sick!

He tried the usual tricks, like lots of Vitamin C, soup, and liquids. He even read about "Pan Dynasty remedies" as ginger tea and other things he didn't know how to pronounce. (His Chinese friend Dan Pan couldn't pronounce them either, let alone, translate them, so Pan had to call Chris Schumer.) He even tried to get "The Fastest Man in the Midwest", Ernst Lamothe, to "choke" the cold out of him. Out of desperation Kustusch even stayed in Lamothe's 100 degree appartment.

Nevertheless, he decided that he would run the race, healthy or not. "Some people run a race to see who is fastest," once said legendary runner, Steve Prefontaine. "I run a race to see who has the most guts." Likewise, the race for Kustusch would be to prove, if only to himself, that he still had guts.

By race morning, Kustusch was still not 100%, but feeling better he had all week. He saw a bunch of Keyans and thought about running with them, but decided that would have been a bad idea.

Anyhow, at 7:05am... the race had begun! As Kustusch started pretty far back in the pack, his forward progress was really limited by the crowd he was engulfed in... and our first mile passed after a dismal 10.5 minutes. Despite the slow pace, for the first two miles or so, his shins were already feeling tight. Odd. Fortunately, such tightness went away after a few more miles, and our overall average speed had dropped to 9:15/mile pace, due to a few sub-9 minute miles.

By the half-marathon mark of 13.1 miles: 1:43:45 had elapsed. Kustusch felt pretty disappointed in this! He was already feeling much more tired than his training runs already. Not to mention, he lost sight of an extremely hot girl.

Pain, pain, and... pain by Mile 16.5. Kustusch was starting to lose sight of the girl. It was now a matter of running his own race, which, at this point, was reduced to the goal of finishing! But that was all Kustusch could muster in that inspired moment. Because then practically every muscle in his body started cramping, including his arms!!!

He was walking at Mile 18. Even this hurt. He'd make sporadic efforts to jog, but there was nothing in his legs. Kustusch continued this way for several more miles. However, at Mile 20 or so, he convinced myself that all he needed to do was commit himself to "mind over matter". He decided that he was going to trick my body by thinking only positive thoughts. So with this new motivation--along with being tired of walking--he ran and ran. Back to a 8:00 pace or so. Kustusch was actually passing people. And up ahead, he could see the banner for the Mile 26 mark, meaning that the finish--at Mile 26.2--was getting very very close!

And so he sped up. In fact, for the last 100 meters, Kustusch even managed to do a full-on sprint. His time: 3:57:38. A moral victory--sort of, breaking the 4 hour mark.