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Wednesday, May 03, 2000
Cheryl Collins Gatons ran the Pittsburgh Marathon three times, finishing second in 1996 and 1999. Collins Gatons is in semiretirement and is serving as the Post-Gazette's race expert this week, discussing everything you wanted to know about running marathons.
Today's question: What do you think of during the race?
"I like to think of songs. I always warm up to music. I really like Van Halen, and they have this one song -- "Dreams" -- that I really like to listen to. There's one part of the song where they sing "higher and higher, straight up we'll climb." I like to think of that when I'm going up a hill. I like to hear the bands on the course.
Sometimes you hear the Rocky theme playing. Most runners don't listen to music, but it motivates me. That's the reason I first started running. I liked to run and listen to my Walkman.
"You hear the fans, too, people screaming for you. The first part of the race you're so excited. Sometimes you have to make sure you're not going out too fast because you're so pumped up.
"You do listen to your body.
"I also like to think of somebody or what you're going to do after the race.
"I always like to think about how I'm going to reward myself with a diet Pepsi."
-- Ray Fittipaldo
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