On a recent Sunday morning, as thousands of runners took to the streets for the annual Surf City Marathon, two OVS students joined the crowd on the 26.2-mile journey, equipped with the shoes on their feet, the gels in their packs, and the determination to conquer the trail ahead of them.
In the early winter, OVS junior Benjamin Scordamaglia and senior Eli Roston came up with the idea of running the Feb. 4 marathon in Huntington Beach, leaving themselves only three months to prepare.
VIDEO OF BEN AT MILE 17
“Well, initially, Eli brought it to me. It was almost a joke,” Ben said. “Under further consideration, I was quite thrilled to learn that less than one percent of the population runs a marathon. I was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be sweet if I could run one as well?’ So I pulled the trigger…and decided to run it.”
As the realization set in of the monumental task they had signed up for, their training and preparation kicked off for their journey ahead.
Eli began his preparations by searching the internet for a 30-week running plan to get him on the right track. However, due to lack of time, he began the plan at week 15, cutting his preparation time in half.
Ben, on the other hand, took a more abstract approach in his preparations.
“I was quite unconventional in my training– one could say I almost was training for a triathlon,” Ben said. “I did a mixture of swimming along with biking and a lot of weight training to help me for the marathon…However, I could never get the actual feeling because my shin splints were persisting quite a lot, not allowing me to run.”
As time passed and the months ticked down, a mixture of doubt and excitement filled both Ben and Eli.
OVS Spanish teacher and five-time marathon completer Gretchen Wachter believed that the challenge to stay motivated and push themselves through the training would prove to be unlike anything they had faced before.
“It’s the worst when you have no one there with you to run or nobody to push you,” said Ms. Wachter, who guided the young runners through the process. “I think it helped him just to have somebody to talk to.”
However, thanks to her experience of running and an understanding of the difficult tasks they were going through, she was able to help continue to push Eli and Ben to complete the marathon.
“Both of them, especially Ben, exceeded my expectations,” Ms. Wachter said. “Both of them impressed me a ton because it would have been so easy [to quit]. Like nobody would have been like, ‘Yeah, you suck,’ if they had stopped.”
On race morning, after downing a light breakfast and filled with excitement, the two said their goodbyes to family and friends and went to find their pace groups, which they hoped to be running with throughout the marathon.
After putting in the prep work, the only thing left was the physical and mental battle ahead of them.
“Going into it, I had done a lot of meditating, really just trying to figure out my inner self and trying to figure out how to separate mind from body,” Ben said. “Really trying to not necessarily feel the pain that I might be feeling.”
ELI’S VIEW OF THE MARATHON FINISH LINE
As the race began, both Eli and Ben started the same course but on very different journeys.
Eli began strongly, starting with the 3 hour, 40 minute pace group through mile 10. However, that’s where the true challenge began.
“I was up with them for a while until mile 10, then my ankle started to really hurt, and I was limping pretty much until the end,” Eli said. “Normally, when I run, I stop as soon as I feel an injury, but this time I didn’t. I just pretty much had to run it off for 16 miles.”
Eli knew going into this wouldn’t be an easy task; however, with his ankle injured, he had to struggle through most of the mileage in sheer pain.
“There were times that I had to walk because I couldn’t just keep running on it,” said Eli, who afterward would be diagnosed with a stress fracture in that ankle.
Ben also had his fair share of injuries and pain throughout the race.
“I was struggling with cramps and abdominal pains for the first six to eight miles,” Ben said. “Once I got to mile 22, I hit a bit of a wall. I started cramping up really bad… both my Achilles were a little damaged, to say the least.”
Soon though, after multiple hours of running through pain, both Eli and Ben crossed the finish line,
While you might think that the accomplishment of completing a marathon leaves runners feeling as if they can conquer the world, for Ben and Eli it was reality quite the opposite.
After the race, both Ben and Eli were in pain and too tired to think straight or even stand.
“I could barely walk. I was just in pain everywhere, in my legs and my lower back the most,” Eli said. “When we were going through the hotel, I actually almost passed out waiting for the elevator.”
However, despite all the hardships and pain these two young students went through to complete the marathon, they both do not regret their decision to join and complete it.
“I just wanted to finish,” Eli said. “I mean even though the injury delayed [being able to run] track, it was worth it.”