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Why I Ran a 105.5 Lap Marathon Around the Track

2h ago 16 min read

Most runners hate running in loops and circles over and over again — it’s boring, monotonous, and can drive you crazy. When running with other people, I often suggest running three or four loops around half mile or mile long circles, only for others to ask if we could please go somewhere else to have more variety.

In the past couple of years or so, while training for marathons, I have run 20 milers and even marathons around only loops. I’ll run whole marathons around just one circle, seeing the same sights and passing the same landmarks 20, 30, or even a hundred times.

My friends say that sounds like torture. Some say they wouldn’t wish that type of monotony on their worst enemy, and whenever I ask people to join me on these efforts, most people say no.

But I like the rhythm. I like the predictability. I like the familiarity. I like not worrying about knowing where I need to be going and not exploring unfamiliar terrain. In a way, that predictability is more comforting, especially if I have a goal to run a certain pace. On places like the track or the beach, I don’t have to deal with hills. If there’s shade (there’s usually not), I don’t have to deal with getting blasted by the sun.

The challenging part of a marathon around a loop like that is that I can stop any time. Around a mile loop, I can stop every mile. Around a quarter-mile loop, I can stop every quarter mile.

It means a lot to me that I don’t, despite all the temptation in the world to stop. I think efforts like these build some kind of mental discipline and toughness — the ability to stay focused for three hours and grind out a grueling mental effort.

To run a marathon hopefully in 2:25 this fall, I have been running an average of 100 miles a week. Some weeks I run 85 miles (my down weeks), and other weeks I run 110 on spike weeks. I run 22–24-mile long runs in training all the time, usually once a week, often with several miles of those runs under 6 minutes. There are many runs where I explore, but there are only so many places to go near my house.

This summer, I ran three random marathons in training around very repetitive loops. More than ever, I embraced monotony and repetition.

The marathon on the track

Screenshot from the author on Strava

Some time in June, I ran a marathon around a track. For those that don’t know, every lap on the track is a little less than a quarter mile. It was 105 and a half laps, and when I thought about it, I got mad that I had to run an extra half lap since four laps around the track is 9 meters less than a full mile. It was hot and humid that day, like it is during many mid-Atlantic summer days. So I got there at 6 a.m. to start my run.

I ran the first four miles in the usual direction you go on the track (counterclockwise), but then I changed directions at around 20 laps. I listened to podcasts during that early part of the marathon to pass the time.

It was very early and there was no one there, so I could occasionally also change directions on the track to run clockwise instead of counterclockwise. However, at around 6:30, a friend came to the track to run with me, and I could only run in one direction at that point to maintain track etiquette. From that point on, I ran almost exclusively in one direction.

My goal was to run under three hours for the marathon. I knew my first mile would be slower, but eventually, I had to average 6:53 mile pace to run under three hours. I would switch podcasts at around 20 minutes and listen to something else to give myself some variety outside the run.

After that, at 40 minutes, I had company and conversation for the vast majority of the rest of the run. It went by a lot faster as a result, and they graciously agreed to join me for the last approximately 20 miles of this marathon on the track, so that allowed me to socialize as well.

However, around mile 12 or 13, I eventually realized I was miscounting my laps by one. I fortunately was tracking my GPS watch the whole time. During running in very repetitive, circular loops, the GPS can sometimes be off by a little bit. I recognized that my GPS, from mile 4 on, was approximately .15 miles longer than how many laps I had actually run, so I was able to recalibrate a bit.

I ran my last five miles or so all under a 6:15 mile pace. Like most of these random marathons around repetitive loops, I felt best at the end. I also wanted to get the run over with, so I did.

I ended up running this particular marathon with all its 105.5 laps in 2:53:26, a bit over 6:30 mile pace. I was a little sore after, but I could go about the rest of my day and be happy about an accomplishment that most people won’t have.

Marathon around Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Screenshot from the author on Strava

About a month later, I met up with some of the athletes I coach in Brooklyn and ran a marathon around the biggest park in Brooklyn, Prospect Park. These are some friends from high school who recently got into running, and they have improved very fast through consistent training.

Prospect Park is an approximately 3.34-mile loop (according to a Strava segment), so it was less monotonous than many loops. The original intent was to do a marathon around Central Park since I was staying in lower Manhattan.

However, it really was not that close. I was in Manhattan for a friend’s event, and then was going to visit my family on Long Island the next day. I decided to pivot to Prospect Park because my friends were running there, and it was closer to where I had to go to visit my parents. I stayed up a bit too late for a friend’s event and had some drinks with friends the night before, so I probably could have used a bit more rest prior to this attempt.

That morning, I woke up around 5 a.m., but I actually ran into some pre-run logistical hurdles. Since I stayed in a part of Manhattan with notoriously little street parking, I had to pay for a parking garage. I unfortunately did not read that the garage did not open until 7 a.m., so I had to either wait around for an hour and a half to get my car or adjust.

But I did not want to wait around and do nothing for an hour and a half. Since it was the peak of the summer and early, my friend, who was running 17 or so miles that day was also awake at 5:40 a.m., so I texted him, and he said I could drop off my stuff at his place before going on the run. I took the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn around this time, realizing that when I finished the run, I would need to take the subway back to Manhattan.

When I started the run, I felt pretty horrible. I went uphill for the first mile and was still a bit fatigued and slightly hungover from the night before. My first mile was a 9:16 mile and I struggled to hit that 9:16. As a 2:34 marathoner, that pace is pretty pedestrian, so I knew at that point that running under 3 hours for this particular marathon was slightly out of range.

Plus, Prospect Park is very hilly, and there was one hill that felt like it lasted almost a mile. I tried not to look at my watch much. I listened to a podcast during the first 40 minutes before switching to music, and then rotated my audio stimulation throughout. About 30 minutes into the run, I ran into my friends who were doing their long runs and ran with them a bit before continuing my pace.

I ran around this loop the whole time, and it was a pretty hot and humid day. Fortunately, for hydration, I got bailed out by a local running organization, NYCRuns, having a water and Gatorade stop. I got a cup of water every time I passed by this very clutch hydration station, which was every 23–26 minutes.

I saw the same people over and over again, and as the sun started rising, it got warmer and warmer. I tried to chase the shade as much as I could, but as 7 a.m. became 8 a.m., and then 8 a.m. became 9 a.m., that became significantly harder.

While I did just run a marathon around this loop, I did change directions once in a while. This came as I, like anyone in that situation, got bored. I came through the half marathon in 1:33:37, so I wanted to just maintain the same pace. Every time I ran into my friends and coachees, I ran with them for a bit to chat before resuming my pace.

However, I started to feel a lot better around mile 20 and wanted to close the marathon strong. I ran some 6:20s and closed the second half marathon in around 90 minutes.

I then had to take the subway back to Manhattan to get my car, but I needed about a 10-minute break just to rehydrate from a water fountain and sit down. At the water fountain, I must have refilled my cup from the hydration station six or seven times. It was 9:30 a.m. and I had already run a marathon, so it was a great start to the day.

It was another one off the checklist.

The marathon around a 1 mile road on the beach

Screenshot from the author on Strava

Three days after my Prospect Park marathon, I ran a marathon around a one-mile road on the beach close to where I grew up. It was a service road that was actually slightly more than a mile (maybe 1.07 miles). I went back and forth 25 times and made 25 180-degree turns that slowed me down quite significantly.

I started at 6 a.m., like the other marathons. I was one of three people along this whole road for a while before many other people came. It was the end of the summer before school started in the area, but given this was a flat, straight road, I wanted to try to break three hours in this marathon.

My first miles are almost always a struggle on runs, but during this first mile, I ran a 7:59. As I started to go faster, however, I realized there was one thing capping my ceiling of how fast I could go: the turns. Every 180-degree turn meant I was coming to an almost complete stop. It zapped my momentum on the run, and it took about a minute before I could go as fast as I was before. I didn’t notice this as much when I was running 7-minute miles, but the moment I started to run 6:20 miles, it was difficult. It made me realize how much these turns slow us down when we’re going all out in the middle of the race.

I tried to turn my mind off and just listen to my podcasts and music. But I also had other worries during this run. At 8 a.m., the beach would start charging for parking, and the meter would not let me pre-pay. I tried, in the middle of this run, to download an app and pay for parking once it hit 8 a.m. I was sweating a bit and getting sweat all over the phone, so it frustratingly wouldn’t work, and I was having trouble with this app, as well.

I hate stopping during runs and would often rather take alternative routes than stop during street crossings if I can. But I would rather be safe than sorry, and stopped to pay for parking and go to the bathroom.

After that, however, I got a bit of a second wind and ran faster in the last hour. I probably averaged 6:20 miles for the last hour. I ended up running a 2:58 for the full marathon, passing by the same people over and over again countless times.

Most of why I do these efforts is probably about the bucket list. Yes, I could just run a marathon around the city. But doing it around just one place is a bit more unique. A lot of people have run the New York City Marathon.

But far fewer people have done a marathon just around Prospect Park or Central Park. These efforts are a test of my own ability to withstand monotony and boredom, to be able to break up an approximately three-hour run into phases and segments. It’s discipline that helps not only in running, but in long, boring tasks in daily life or in my job as a lawyer.

Another part of running marathon distances in training (once in a while) is breaking the mental barrier. I run 24 miles in training all the time to prepare for marathons. I did not get there overnight, but built up to it over years and years of marathon training. As a society and community, we treat the marathon like some sort of behemoth distance, but what is another 2.2 miles? The marathon is a completely arbitrary distance based on a Greek myth, after all.

I usually put pressure on myself to run these marathons under 3 hours. A 3 hour marathon is not a walk in the park, but it’s not all out. It’s not the kind of effort that will put me in the hole for recovery. For what it’s worth, something about the adrenaline of running a marathon on a track, treadmill, one mile road, or single loop does help me run faster paces. And there is always time pressure not to be out there forever.

It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I try to run under 3 hours because I have always heard that the run hurts more than it helps if someone runs longer than three hours. For friends that I coach, I have experienced this — they might run for more than three hours on a 16-mile run or so. They may be so tired from a three and a half hour run that they are too fatigued to run for the next two or three days.

Thus, as a general rule, I tell my athletes to cut runs short the moment they get to three hours. It’s not a hard and fast rule (3 hours and 5 minutes is no big deal), but it’s the general principle.

To get these done, the runs almost always start slow but finish strong. The first mile will be a huge struggle to run under an 8:30 mile, and the last mile will often be under 6 minutes. I think that’s an important part and element to it — the ability to go easy to start. My younger self would go out and run a 6:30 mile to start to try to “bank” time for later on, but now I have had enough late run and late race blow ups to know better.

It also takes a bit of planning with hydration and food. I would rather not be in a complete state of glycogen depletion by the second hour, so this is something I have to be on top of. The good thing about a loop is that I can put water or food down in a certain location and get back to it when I need.

There are more marathons on the bucket list. I still need to do a little over four loops around Central Park. I still need to run a few marathons around various loops in Atlanta, where I went to college.

It seems crazy, but each marathon around another half mile loop or one mile road is a big confidence boost — if I can do this, the world of what’s possible expands. I think these efforts seem very boring to the naked eye, but they are an analogy for how to improve at running generally.

Running is a lot of very monotonous, very boring work. Hours, weeks, months, and years, of doing the same thing over and over again, putting in consistent, sustainable work over a very long period of time. It’s how I went from a 9:53 mile in the 7th grade to a 2:34 marathon now.

These are the same principles I instill in the runners I coach — put in an average of 10 miles a week for 12–16 weeks and you will be amazed how much better you get. It’s okay to take a couple days off here or there. But several weeks off in the middle of a training block can be a setback if not done after a big race or recovering from an injury.

It’s time for me to embrace those same principles of long-term, consistent, boring work, in running and life as a whole. I can’t promise a 2:25 marathon. But I can promise I stacked the work to optimize my chances of getting there.

This post was previously published on Ryan Fan’s blog.

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