December 3: St. Jude Memphis Marathon 1, Will Warren 1 (0-0-1)
It is mile 20 when everything starts to give out. The pounding in the knees becomes a little too much; the hamstrings have taken more than their fair share of abuse; the calves desire to explode. I have to walk. I did not want to walk at any point of this, but I have to. The Wall is upon me.
It is at this point that I have to remind myself, over and over, for a very long time, that I am doing this by choice. I wanted this. I wanted to be here, and I want to drag myself to the finish line or die trying. But it might be more useful to back up a bit.
I began running again in late 2019 after running about four times from 2011 to 2019. It had never been my forte, and truth be told, I still prefer the quiet stillness of walking or the solitude of playing basketball alone to some aspects of running, particularly in large group events. But the 2020 goal was a pretty minor one: my dad was turning [AGE REMOVED] that year, and we’d never run in a race together. How hard could a 5K be?
Slowly in January and February - including one quite painful experience where I survived two miles despite having eaten chili 30 minutes prior - I built up. I got to where I could run a couple miles without having to stop. The endurance began to build up; I thought I could do things just fine. Then March 2020 and all of that happened. There is no more gym, there is no more controlled space. It is only you and the open air and by the way you cannot get within 10 feet of anyone or you will feel very anxious for the next week.
The 5K date comes and goes. I end up running a 5K distance with my dad that summer in my family’s neighborhood with a crowd of zero people watching. This is fine, because I still get to do it, but now that I’ve begun to do it, I cannot stop. The 5K turns into a 10K by August. It turns into an 8-mile long run in October. Then, in spring 2021, it becomes a half-marathon in Louisville.
By summer 2022, it has become a total of four half-marathons (two just for fun, not events). The St. Jude Marathon in Memphis comes up as a possibility, and I sign up. I convince someone else I know to sign up, too. Neither of us have ever run a marathon. Neither of us have ever run further than 13.1 miles. No matter, just gotta do it.
This year has been a 12-month experiment in how much I’m able to handle at any given time. I’ve written in the past about how I’ve overloaded myself; how I’ve been unable to tell myself that I can’t do this without help. During all that time, the one constant has been constantly moving. Constantly putting one foot in front of the other. Constantly showing up, even on mornings when I certainly did not feel like showing up.
And then you get to the starting line.
And then you get two miles in.
And all of it, every little bit, has been worth it.
At mile 20, when my lower body felt like it had taken a punch from the new Dodge Ram Double Cab Steroid Maven Edition, it was like pulling teeth to remember anything that had happened before mile 20. Have I ever been here before? No, I haven’t; everything in life is Mile 20 to me at this point in time. (The USMNT’s result versus the Netherlands, experienced exclusively through FOX’s truly horrendous “radio” broadcast, did not help.) But: you hurt, you feel like garbage, but you keep shuffling.
I cannot lie to you: I don’t remember much of anything from miles 20-26.2 and I just did this two days ago. I do remember taking a Fireball shot at mile 22 followed immediately by a pickle juice thing, which were both obviously panic moves, but they seemed potentially useful at the time. Helpfully, Strava has outlined where things were going nicely:
And where best-laid plans went to the recycle bin.
But what I can recall is that there wasn’t a point where I considered stopping. You have to keep going, you have to finish, you have to exert yourself beyond anything you’ve exerted before. I have played ten games of pickup basketball in the same day, I have done 12-mile hikes, I have driven a vehicle from Detroit to Atlanta. Nothing on earth has ever felt close to the sensation of knowing you’ve hit The Wall and still having all that mileage to go.
At every single race - half-marathon and marathons mostly - I’ve attended, they have some sort of motivational person come up and do the thing about Knowing Your Why. Which is useful if you somehow have wandered up to the starting line and are a person who’s just like “well, I am alive” but most normal people have a real reason. Mine is pretty stupid compared to all of the people running in memory of or in support of those that hospitals like St. Jude help, but it is a real reason: I just wanted to see if I could do something I never imagined I could do.
As much as every step hurts, every step is still a step towards the finish. The run/walk shuffle that’s common in every single race I’ve seen is now my own. I have to adopt the shuffle and do what I can with it. Everything hurts; everything is pain; everything is bad; why will the Sun not go away, you freak, it was supposed to be mostly cloudy, where are the clouds. But steps are steps.
The nice thing about Memphis, other than it being a wonderful city, is that their marathon has a downward slope to the finish line. There are rows upon rows of people who have never met you, desperately yelling for you to drag your corpse across the finish line. In 4:14:38, I finally get there. It is not the 4:00:00 or lower I had hoped for. It doesn’t matter. This one’s going on the wall.
Corpse dragged, Tylenol inhaled, I can have this shiny and strangely heavy medal forever. The race course and I share our draw; we’ve both won something today. One point each.
What does anything in this post have to do with Tennessee basketball? Well…nothing, really. But: the season is a marathon in its own way, and not just for the local basketball team. All 363 teams are going to hit The Wall at some point. 295 of them do not survive to reach the finish line. Of those special 68, 16 can reasonably say they’ve hit their goals, while a special 4 can say that yes, actually, the pain isn’t that bad as they are silently screaming for a massage.
I, personally, do not expect to ever be the one. I am simply happy to be one of the 68 at this point. Tennessee has been there as well, and may still be there: just one of the 68. There’s a lot of miles left in the marathon, and a lot of miles left in training. But these guys look great on the trails right now. If they end up on the podium of that special 4, it won’t be considered a surprise. Let’s enjoy each mile while it lasts, and whenever it gets to mile 24, get those boys the pickle juice and an ice bath.
…right, so you signed up for this.
November 30: #13 Tennessee 76, McNeese State 40 (6-1)
December 4: #13 Tennessee 94, Alcorn State 40 (7-1)
I mean, not much to say here: Tennessee was a combined 64-point favorite (per Vegas) in these two games and won by 90 total points. Neither game was exciting whatsoever after the first 10 minutes in either affair. Still, there’s some nice things that happened.
The defense has deepened their lead in the KenPom #1 Defense race. As of writing, Tennessee still sits #1 nationally in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency at 83.2 points per 100 possessions. The only team within shouting distance is Houston at 83.9. The distance from #1 Tennessee to #4 Kentucky (87.4) is the same as #4 to #24.
On pace for something terrifying. Tennessee has forced opponents to turn it over on 29.3% of possessions, which is the third-highest rate in America (Iowa State and UNLV). Given that Tennessee’s schedule is about to get a lot harder and that no one has finished at 29% or better since 2003-04 Air Force, that isn’t going to hold, but no opponent - and this includes four Top 100 teams - has finished with lower than a 23.7% TO%. That’s 0.8% above Tennessee’s average a year ago.
Defensive three-point luck. So: I think Tennessee has done a very good job of guarding the perimeter. Obviously. I think they very much deserve their #1 defensive ranking. However, they’re not going to hold opponents to 22.6% from deep for an entire year. Both McNeese and Alcorn were forced to take awful threes all game long, and it helps Tennessee that the only team they play in the top 100 of 3PT% before mid-January is Arizona. But…everyone gets got eventually, even the elite teams. 2018-19 Texas Tech even had six teams shoot 40% or better from deep on them.
Shot selection wins. Tennessee attempted 63 shots against Alcorn; 59 were either at the rim or from three, per Synergy. Against McNeese, who ran a zone the entire game: 45 of 54. These are games where you can’t learn much aside from what you can’t do, so this is a nice thing to see.
Frontcourt emerging. I’ll wait until after the Maryland game to start making any sort of early conclusions on what’s best/what isn’t, but Jonas Aidoo has posted more minutes than Uros Plavsic in every single game but one. Jahmai Mashack has had 20+ minutes in five games. People beg Rick Barnes to settle on lineups/a rotation early every year, and I get why, but this year it seems to be pretty obvious: nine guys with the likelihood of being whittled to eight come March.
One arbitrary stat. Because I know you all love arbitrary stats.
😤😤😤