Not too bad (Boston Marathon 2007)

For five years, I’ve tried to break the four hour mark in the Boston Marathon. For five years, I’ve failed. Each time that I’ve fallen short of my goal, I’ve been upset, but I’ve tried to tell myself that in the grand scheme of things, it’s not all that bad. After all, I’ve qualified for and run the oldest and grandest marathon in the world – five times in a row! All things being equal, a four hour plus marathon at Boston is really not all that bad.

But the reality is that it’s bugged me. And bugged me. And bugged me. So, just a few weeks after the 2006 Boston Marathon – at which time, I had declared that it was time to take a year or two off from Boston, and then reconsider my goals again in the future – I decide that I need to go for it again in 2007. I figure that I’ve been carrying the four hour monkey for a long time, and I’d like to get it off my shoulders. And so the entry goes on the calendar, and my credit card gets charged, and – finally – I make my travel arrangements.

The travel arrangements almost keep me home this year. Mick has come with me to every Boston, and I’ve grown spoiled by seeing him near the 16-mile marker, not to mention having him chauffeur me to the start in Hopkinton every year. But this year, he’s deep into a political contest, and months before the race it hits me that I cannot even think about asking him to accompany me to Beantown. With no idea about where to stay there on my own, I email my Taper Madness friend Shelagh, since I know she’s going to Boston again this year. Where will you stay? Shelagh tells me that she and a couple of her running friends from Victoria are sharing an apartment on Beacon Hill, and then – to my eternal surprise and delight – invites me to stay with them. Travel problem solved, in a most delightful way.

But the travel challenge really doesn’t go away completely. Late in the game, I end up with a business trip to New Jersey the week before the marathon. At first, I think this won’t be too bad, but when I get lost leaving Newark Airport after midnight Wednesday night, I think I might have been wrong. I get lost another time or too before I finally get to my room at the Marriott in Somerset, NJ, so it’s after 2 a.m. when I start to unpack. But when I fall into the wonderful bed with fresh, fancy linens, including a down comforter, just before dozing off at the insane hour, I think that this isn’t too bad at all.

My colleagues at work warn me that the drive from Piscataway, NJ, to JFK Airport might be horrible, so I leave early Friday afternoon. As it turns out, the drive is not bad at all. My flight is delayed, but I take the chance to sleep on the plane. I find one of my roommates for the long weekend – Cindy – waiting for me at baggage claim at Boston’s Logan Airport, and we talk like old friends while we wait for Shelagh and Joan to arrive. Their flight is late, too, so my delay is not so bad.

Our little apartment on Beacon Hill is up three flights of stairs! I stare at my suitcase (I do not pack light!) and wonder how the hell I’ll get up all those stairs, but in the end, it’s not such a bad climb. It’s the Friday night before the Boston Marathon, and I have an apartment on Beacon Hill, and a bottle of red wine to share with my Canadian friends. I’m starting to think that this is not a bad way to start a weekend.

Shelagh and I stay up WAY too late and talk about our Taper Madness friends, and we laugh and giggle and tell stories into the wee hours of Saturday morning. We’re acting more like teenagers at a slumber party than 50 year old women! Still, when the phone wakes us on Saturday morning, I don’t feel too bad at all. We make our way over to the expo, and pick up race gear, and then some. What happens to the rest of Saturday and Sunday? It disappears in a flash. I’ve been worried about spending all this time with people I’ve never met before. But in just moments, strangers turn into friends, and a brunch turns into the party-of-the-century. I break training in many ways – for the first time ever, I run the day before a marathon (the Freedom Run on Sunday morning), and I have red wine both Saturday and Sunday nights. I think that if this is the way to screw up your chances of a sub-four race, I’ll take it. Having this much fun cannot be all bad.

It rains on Sunday, all day long, and it rains Sunday night, all night long. It’s one thing to wake up repeatedly the night before a marathon; it’s another thing entirely to wake up repeatedly the night before a marathon to the sounds of a raging nor’easter outside. When it finally comes time to get up on Monday morning, the weather is still raging. It’s a relief to turn on the inside lights in the apartment so that – until the sky brightens some time later – we can’t see the rainfall outside.

The walk to the buses on Monday morning is wet and miserable. The wait in line for the buses at Boston Common is interminable – almost an hour, and steadily falling rain. But we find a kind gentleman from LA who shares his umbrella, and we’ve wrapped ourselves in every bit of plastic available in the little apartment, so when we get on the bus and strip off a few wet layers, it turns out that none of us has gotten completely soaked. It’s a forty-five minute ride to Hopkinton, just the perfect amount of time to get dried out and warmed up.

At Hopkinton, we’re dispensed from our bus back into more rain, but it’s not so bad. We have gear to protect us, and the temperature is really not all that bad – low 50s, which is quite a bit warmer than the forecast. As happens every year, there is utter chaos getting out of Athlete’s Village and down to the second wave corrals in the center of town. Because we’re jogging along, it’s almost impossible to notice that the rain abates just before the gun goes off. As I discard my fleece blanket at the start line, I have a faint glimmer that maybe this race won’t be so bad.

I’ve barely made it to my corral before the gun sounds, and then we start moving. It’s chaotic and nerve-wracking, but so much better than standing around, waiting, in either heat or rain. I look down, and notice a bright copper penny, face up, in the asphalt below my feet. I bend down to pick it up, but realize that it’s embedded in the asphalt. I think it’s a good omen for all of us runners today. Not a bad way to start a run.

And now we’re running, and I know that I want this to be a good day. I’ve had too many disappointments on this course, a course that I’ve come to know just well enough, and that I love. Can I just will my legs into a good day? I instinctively head over to the right hand side of the course, where there are tons of kids standing behind the barricades (even in the rain), and I try to high-five every single one of them, even with my soggy gloves. I think about the fact that after reading last year’s race report, my friend Ellen said, “maybe if you didn’t do all of that high-fiving, you’d hit the sub-four”, and I think she might be right. But what would be the purpose of a Boston where you didn’t do this? I high-five everyone I can. It’s not raining, and it’s cloudy and cool, and it’s all glorious. How bad can this be?

It’s all Boston from here, Boston as I’ve come to know and love. Down the first mile in Hopkinton, wearing a garbage bag to keep the heat in. Watching for the mile markers on the right hand side of the road, also painted dead center in the road (ya gotta love a race course where the mile markers are permanently painted on the road surface). Fans lining the roads, as if it hadn’t rained throughout the morning, as if they didn’t have the choice of being home in nice dry, cozy homes, instead they’re handing out orange slices early in the day. Signs! Signs everywhere. Hopkinton, then Ashland, then Framingham. Along the commuter rail tracks, through the commercial districts of these little towns that wouldn’t be known at all if not for this crazy annual 26.2 mile event that brings in people from all over the world and brings out locals in all kinds of crazy weather.

I hit the split button on my watch at the first mile, and only later realize that, at 9:08, it’s the slowest first mile I’ve ever run at Boston. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t realize this at the time. As I run, I think, “not too bad”. I know it’s the next 5 or 6 miles that will set up the day, and as I hit that same lap button every mile, I continue to think, “not too bad”. The splits get better – 8:49 and 8:51 and 8:46 - and I’m feeling okay – not stellar, as my right calf is hurting some, and my legs feel a little stiff – but all in all, I start to have hopes that today might be a pretty good day.

It starts raining again around mile 5, and continues to come down past mile 8, and then it tapers off again. My splits slow down just a tad, but I keep thinking that I don’t feel too bad. My legs are a bit stiff, but my gimpy right calf isn’t acting up too badly. I think about my marathon friend Michele as we run through her hometown of Natick. The wind hits us as we run past the lake, but it’s not too bad. The roads are wet, but there only a few potholes and very few spots of flooding. I’m amazed at all of the people out cheering us on.

I go through the ten mile mark in 1:29:59, just a second better than a 9 minute pace. I’d like to be a bit faster on this first half, but I figure that this isn’t too bad. I might just have a chance at a sub-4 today. No matter what, I’m smiling all the way.

Because the wind is howling, out of the ENE, the sound of the Wellesley women screaming reaches us a full mile before we get to that campus. It’s always a pick-me-up, and this year does not disappoint. I smile as I trot on by. Who could run through this noise tunnel and not be jazzed? I know that the tough miles are looming.

For some reason, these middle miles are always the toughest for me at Boston, and I work to keep my pace up through the halfway point. There’s a 9:12 that concerns me in mile 11, but then an 8:55 and 8:58, so I’m feeling pretty good as I pass through the half-way point in 1:58:04, just a tad over a 9 minute per mile pace.

The clouds are lifting, and it looks like we might have clear weather all the way to the finish, but it’s getting colder. The wind is picking up, and while it isn’t consistent, it either gusts in a swirl or hits us head-on in the face. I’m wearing shorts and a long-sleeve throwaway shirt over a singlet, fully expecting to ditch the shirt early in the race. But it’s been cool enough that I’ve not yet thrown away the throwaway shirt. Around mile 15, I start to feel a bit too warm, so I pull it off, and tie it around my waist. The cool wind spooks me just enough that I think I might need it again later.

Pushing through miles 15 and 16, I focus on mentally getting through the 16 mile point. Normally, this is where I see Mick, and I’ve been worried that it will feel extra empty today. But instead of spending energy scanning the crowd for his smiling face, I send him a mental kiss, and then I’m across the bridge over I-95 and starting the first serious climb of the day. Given the rain and cold and wind, I figure that Mick picked the right year to miss Boston.

I’m cold. Seems silly that I just took off that shirt, and now I’m cold. Freezing, even. A woman running near me asks, “Are you cold?” and I answer “no”. What the hell am I thinking? Macho me. Stupid me. Too stubborn to immediately put my shirt back on, I run on, thinking that I’ll generate some heat going up the hills. But it’s a weird day, and I can’t shake the cold going uphill. Even though it’s up and up, I watch my heart rate drop, precisely at a point in the course where I should be working to keep it low.

These hills are where people start to show the effects of the pounding, and today is no different. People walking, people stopping, people weaving. But on the side of the road, the faithful fans! So I do what I always do here, and run close to the left hand side of the road, and smile at people who cheer as I run by. One volunteer, a big man in rain gear, chants, “You’re making mom proud” over and over as I go by. I hope that he’s right.

Then finally, there it is: the 21 mile marker, the gold sign standing in vivid contrast against the backdrop of the huge gothic church of Boston College at the top of Heartbreak Hill. It’s my sign to turn it on. And so I do, but only after putting the long-sleeved shirt back on.

These next miles are deceptively tough, but I’m getting to know the lay of the land here well enough to know what to expect, so today it’s easier to deal with. I make it through the stretch where the T runs right next to the roadway on the left-hand side, and then down the nice downhill stretch to Cleveland Circle. I’m smiling all the time now, since I’m starting to believe that this is the day I’m going to get that 4 hour monkey off my back. The people behind the barriers see me coming with my mile-wide grin, and they all shove out their hands for high-fives. How can I not do this? Even if it might slow me down a smidge, I draw energy from each and every hand that I slap. People smile back, and I know this is why they come out – to have a role in someone’s good day.

And I finally allow myself to believe: this is going to be a good day. It’s not an easy day, not one of those effortless days where the miles just seem to fly by, but it’s definitely a good one. So I smile. And I high-five everyone along the route. And I run.

These are the fastest miles of my day – something that makes me proud: 8:40, 8:48, another 8:40, and then for mile 24, 8:34. Later I’ll figure out that this is my fastest ever mile at Boston, and I’ll be extremely pleased. Not all that fast in the grand scheme of things, but after all those mile of pounding, down and up, up and down, it’s a very good thing. Now there’s the Citgo sign, and now there’s the one mile to go sign, and now there’s the little dip under Mass Ave that was new last year, and now – finally! – that turn that I love so much, the right-hander onto Hereford. Hereford looks like a mountain today – when did they make the uphill here so steep? – but then there are people smiling at me and sticking out their hands, so I high-five yet more people, and now I’m making the last left-hander onto Boylston.

This stretch is pure joy, knowing that I have the sub-four in the bag, and yet needing to force it in, as hard as I can go. It’s pure pain, too, since you can see the finish line down there, but it seems so far away yet, and not getting any closer. The 26 mile marker is the only one that I miss all day, but it doesn’t matter, what matters is that I cross the finish line just as I hear an announcer call out my name, and I punch my watch and read 3:57:25. Four hour monkey? Back there somewhere on the course. Yee-haw!

Boston has a long finish area, where it feels like you walk for miles and miles after you’ve run for miles and miles, and this year it is no different. No different, of course, except for the fact that I’m smiling wildly and wanting to shout it out to anyone who might be within earshot. Sub-four at Boston!

It takes awhile before I start to find people I know – my Canadian friends have run close to me all day, some in front of me, some behind; although I haven’t seen a single one out on the course, I start to find them soon after picking up my warm clothes. We’ll hook up with the rest of the Canadian contingent, and then head back to our apartment for quick showers and then out for a big celebratory dinner. We’ll laugh about our three flights of stairs that don’t seem quite as bad as we had feared. We’ll talk about how the rain ended just as we started to run, making the weather not nearly as bad as we had feared. In fact, when the day is done, it will seem that – given the weather warnings and the rainy start and all of the rest of it - none of it has been all that bad. Not too bad at all.

Hotlanta (aka Georgia Marathon 2007)

Sometimes, the best things in life end up being the unexpected. That’s my experience at the Inaugural Georgia Marathon, on March 25th, in Atlanta.

Sure, I’ve been to Atlanta before. Well, if you count making connections at Atlanta’s busy Hartfield Airport. Or driving through downtown Atlanta in the wee hours of the night on my way to (or was it from?) Florida for spring break when I was in college. Or maybe marching through the iconic Southern city in the multiple times that I’ve seen “Gone With the Wind” and “Driving Miss Daisy”.

Well, then, I guess maybe not. It seems a good thing, then, that my membership in the 50 States Marathon Club requires that I make a pass through Georgia. And even better yet when my friend Michele alerts me to that fact that ING is sponsoring a new 26.2 mile jaunt through her town in March of this year. In the marathoning community, we know that running an inaugural marathon has its risks; I’ve felt this pain in the old Mile High City Marathon and at the inaugural Tecumseh Trail Marathon in Indiana. Snafus are more than likely. But a couple of facts help me ignore the risks of the newness of this race. One is that ING is the sponsor, and they sponsor many big city marathons, including New York, Miami, and Amsterdam. They must know what they’re doing, right? And the other fact is simply this: when Michele makes the announcement, many of my Taper Madness buddies immediately sign up to do the race. How could I not join them?

So on race day, I find myself on the MARTA train with Michele (my hostess for the weekend, and from here on out “1L”) and Michelle (my fellow boarder at 1L’s house in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, “2Ls”). We have a wee bit of stress as we worry about the train getting us to the start on time, but our worries are for naught. We reach the Underground station with enough time to cycle through bathroom lines before checking gear in the UPS trucks. We run into a few more TM friends (Lori and Autumn) who are frantically making their way to the port-a-potties for their final pre-race stop, and then we all wish each other good luck as we head off for our respective places for the race start.

It’s still dark for this 7 a.m. race start, but the bad news is that it’s already warm – I watch as the huge Coca-Cola sign changes the temperature from 65F to 68F in the minutes while I wait for the race to start. It feels weird to be suddenly alone, in a huge crowd of people. 1L has gone off to find her neighbor and training partner Sally, and 2Ls has gone to find the 6 hour pace group. As for me, I have no idea what to expect from the day. My training cycle has been weird – influenced in a bad (slow) way by far too much snow on the ground this winter – and I don’t really feel prepared for a marathon. Last fall, I ran 4 marathons between the end of September and the first part of December, and it all started to feel routine. Now, with 3 ½ months between races, it all feels new and foreign again. What’s ahead?

Helicopters circle overhead, and it’s impossible to hear the speakers, but I have a sense that the race has started. There’s a small amount of movement from where I’m standing, way, way back in the crowd. Finally, after walking several blocks, it seems that we’re running across the start line. But wait. It says “Finish”. Huh? I know that the race will end back here, but I’m confused – is there a separate start? In a panic, I start my watch, only to realize, a few moments later, that there is actually a separate start line. I frantically stop my watch and hit reset, just before I finally cross the true start line. Whew. So much energy and panic, and the race is barely underway.

The scenery in the first few miles could be anytown, anywhere, anymarathon: people, wall to wall people. For an inaugural event, this puppy is huge: 15,000 people in the combined half-marathon and marathon, and we’ve all just started together. I don’t really mind, at first, that it’s this crowded – it all adds to the excitement of the start. But shortly into the run, as I have to weave around walkers and people proudly wearing t-shirts with slogans like “I know I’m slow but I don’t care” printed on the back, I get a bit annoyed. I’m happy to share the race course with these people – God bless you for getting out here to run – but if you’re going to walk in the first couple of miles, next time could you please line up at the back???

Around the two mile mark, it’s getting light out, and we make a major left-hand turn, running just past the Martin Luther King Center and the church where MLK preached back in the early days of the civil rights movement. Pretty cool stuff, but the cool stuff I’m looking for is the water offered up at the first aid station here. Now I’m on familiar turf, since 1L took me on a tour of the race course yesterday, and I’m starting to recognize landmarks. We run right past the MLK birthplace, but I have to admit that today I miss it entirely. Good thing I caught a glimpse yesterday.

The road remains crowded, and I’m looking forward to the point, around 3 ½ miles, where the half marathoners split off and we full marathoners will have the entire road to ourselves. Just before the two race courses split, there’s a second aid station. It’s a bad sign that I’m already looking forward to more liquids this early in the race, but it’s quite warm for a marathon. The really, really bad news is that just as I run up to the aid station, I see the last two cups for water disappear, and hear volunteers say that they are out of cups. Out of water this early in the race? Unbelievable. But there’s nothing to be done except to keep running and look forward to lots of liquids at the next aid station.

We split from the half marathoners, and finally have a bit of room on the road. We’ve just run through the Atlanta areas of Inman Park and Little Five Points, and I’m feeling okay. My right calf/Achilles tendon have been bothering me from the start, but they’re starting to go numb, so I’m okay. My splits are slower than for any of my marathons last fall, but given the hills and heat, that’s not unexpected. I’m just running and starting to enjoy the scenery.

As 1L pointed out yesterday, we’re running through some really beautiful areas in Atlanta. Old neighborhoods, re-gentrified and nicely kept. Everything is in bloom – dogwoods and azaleas and cherry trees – and there are pockets of people out cheering us on.

As I run, I try to remember the course map, trying to picture the biggest climbs. At what point in the race do they come? Since this course is mostly a loop, there is no net elevation change, but there are lots of ups and downs along the way. 1L ran much of the course a few weeks ago with her training friends, and declared the course to be much harder than Boston. I was a bit skeptical of this diagnosis until we drove the thing yesterday, and I was convinced that she was right. The only saving grace, I think, is that the first half has more downhill than the second half. I hope that I can use this fact to help to establish a faster pace out of the chute, and then try to maintain that on the way back to the barn.

As my splits reveal, the strategy does not work, but I won’t know that until later in the day.

The one thing I remember clearly from the maps is that the first big climb of the day starts around mile 6, and goes on for about a mile and a half. Just around the six mile marker, there is a sign announcing an upcoming aid station. Since I didn’t get water at the second aid station, I’m really looking forward to this one, and I swallow a gel. The only problem is: there is no aid station. After running for a while past the sign, I start to talk to people around me. Isn’t there an aid station here? Everyone agrees that they also saw the sign, but no water appears. The temperature is climbing. I’m getting thirsty. This is starting to seem like a really, really bad idea.

We run through some lovely areas, and then along a divided roadway. The climb is done, and finally – finally! – there’s another aid station at mile 8. I want to stop and drink several glasses of water, but instead I just grab a couple of cups, trying to have some sympathy for the back-of-the-packers yet to come. We pass Agnes Scott College – a beautiful campus – and then turn into the town of Decatur.

Our bibs today have our names pre-printed on them, and so far I haven’t heard the fans along the roadside take advantage of this fact. But as we turn into Decatur, there is a nice gathering of fans all cheering insanely loudly. The Decatur High School cheerleading squad is lined up on the left hand side of the road, in uniform, and the first cheerleader looks squarely at my bib. She turns to her squad, and as I run by, they post up a cheer “Go Judy Go Judy Go Judy!” What a rush! And then it seems a huge number of people stick out there hands, just so I can high-five them as I run by. There are moments in every marathon that stand out, the things you’ll remember months later, maybe years later, after all the pain is gone, after you’ve recovered and run several more races, after you’ve forgotten much of the race course itself. These are the reasons that we get out of bed at insanely early hours on Saturday and Sunday. As the cheerleaders chant my name, and my hand slaps the hands of who-knows-how-many spectators, I think that this is one of those moments. This moment alone might make my day.

On through the town of Decatur, and past several huge churches with pastors in full robes standing at the open doors. We no longer have the full road, and we’re running in a single coned-off lane. It’s a bit crowded in that lane, but worse yet, the road is slanted. The roadways here all seem to be crowned – probably to funnel off rain – and that’s bad news for anyone who is forced to run mile after mile after mile on a single side of the road, because it puts undue pressure on one leg. I try to run as much toward the center of the road as possible; that means I often run outside of the cones, and I keep my eyes out for cops and race officials who might disqualify me. I see lots of other people doing the same thing. I’m worried about how this is going to affect my gimpy right leg. But I’m more worried about the lack of electrolyte replacements – there has been none of the advertised Powerade on the course – and think briefly that I’ll head into a convenience store if I see one, just to buy a bottle of Gatorade – but there are so many people cheering in little sections now that I never see a store.

The temperature is continuing to rise, and we continue to run. Atlanta is a beautiful city, and this course takes us through many beautiful areas. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the thing from ever being boring. Soon, we are making yet another turn and heading through a small part of the Emory University campus, where there is an aid station. Finally, the aid stations are coming fairly frequently, and this is by far the best – spread out, lots of volunteers, and the volunteers seem to have experience. The only unfortunate thing – other than the sharp up and downhills through the campus – is that the aid station is set up right on top of a mile marker; it’s the only split that I miss today.

The next several miles are by far the prettiest of the course, through the Druid Hills, past the Driving Miss Daisy house (which, by the way, I never really see). These are mansions of the antebellum style that I associate with the south, with lots of huge overgrown trees and shrubs. Up LullwaterRoad, then down Oakdale Road – more of the same, huge old beautiful homes. What surprises me most is the support offered by the residents. Everywhere now, there are pockets of people out cheering, and there are even a few little bands out playing for us.

Along Oakdale Road, I run with a woman for awhile who introduces herself as an Atlanta native. It’s a nice distraction to have someone to talk with, and we weather the hills here together. But I’m watching my heart rate, and it’s quite out of control, here at the halfway point; at one point, I utter a sentence to the woman, and then think that I’m going to pass out because I can’t catch my breath. In fact, for a moment I think I’m going to have a heart attack, but I concentrate on breathing, and the moment passes. Better not to talk anymore. My running partner utters another sentence or two, but then she bids me farewell with a “I’m slowing down” utterance, and I’m on my own again.

The heat is taking its toll. The hills are taking their toll. And it’s only the halfway point.

At the halfway point, I hit another split on my watch. 2:05. Not bad, I think. Because of the heat and the beating my legs are taking from the hils, I expect my second half to be slower. Still, I think that maybe I can turn in a 4:15 for the day, and I’d be very happy with that. So I try to hang on, but my initially slow speed is slowing even more, and I’m feeling the effects of dehydration. My right calf, which had gone silent many miles back, now makes itself known again by starting to cramp badly. I run through the cramp, but the cramp moves into my right foot. Uh-oh, I think; this could be a really long day if I have to walk the rest of the race.

But I seem to be able to run through the cramp, and I take another electrolyte replacement tab when I reach the next aid station. I really need some Gatorade, but there is none on the course. I’ve taken a couple of gels at this point, but decide that my stomach is going sour too quickly, and I decide to hold off on taking more. Besides, the thought of swallowing another gel in this heat pretty much turns my stomach. So on I run.

Next up: a funky little out and back route on Freedom Parkway, just past the Carter Center. This might be a nice stretch of roadway, except for the fact that it’s all completely exposed to the cruel sun. I start looking across the parkway for familiar faces, but don’t see anyone. There’s one odd brief moment of respite from the sun, when we run under a concrete shelter that seems to make no practical sense, but as long as I’m not in that sun, I’ll take it.

I don’t spot any other Tapers until the turnaround point at mile 19, where I see Deeter standing on the grass in the median, taking photos. We greet each other. “How are you doing?” asks Deeter, and I reply that I’m doing okay. What a colossal lie. When he responds after I pose the same question back to him, it’s with “I’ve been better.” Ah, at least one of us is telling the truth.

Somehow, seeing speedy Deeter just having fun with the day and clearly not working towards any goals just kind of takes away any remaining incentive I have to try to do something with the day. It’s not going to be a PR day; it’s not going to be a sub-4 day; it’s just going to be a tough slog to the finish, so who cares? That’s the lethal thought that implants itself in my brain, and it makes the final 7 miles of the race nothing but a painful death march.

From here on out, everything cramps at various times. My right calf, my right foot, my entire left leg south of my knee. My hip flexors. Then my left knee twinges in a weird new way, and I think it might just give out entirely. I run through the cramps, all of them, but I must look odd as I do it. I’m in pain, more than ever before in a marathon. This is not a good race for on-course photos.

I still recognize a few neighborhoods and areas from the tour of the course yesterday, but I’m no longer really enjoying this tour of Atlanta…until. Until we reach the Virginia Highlands area, where the local folks out cheering are just incredible. And they have ice. ICE! God bless them, everyone! I take ice from everyone and anyone offering it, even though it means that at times I’m stuffing huge ice cubes in my mouth so that I can hold more huge ice cubes in both hands, and then bathe my entire body with ice. ICE! God’s most incredible invention.

But the ice can only do so much. The rest of the race is pain, pure pain. At some point I decide that my only remaining goal for the day is to finish in under 4:30. At the time I adopt this goal, it seems a no-brainer. But the cramping continues, and I’ve started to get light-headed, so finally at mile 23, I start walking in sections. I’ve never done this before in a race, not beyond walking through aid stations. Even in my first marathon, all those years ago, I walked only once late in the race, on a serious uphill; even then, I vowed I’d never do that again. Today, I don’t care. I’m seriously afraid of passing out, so when my head starts to spin, I start to walk.

There is far too much uphill in these last miles of the race, and I’m crawling. I play mind games: when I get to the next block, I’ll run. And then I get there, and I say, okay, the next block. It’s not a pretty sight.

Finally, as I monitor my watch, I determine that I’m going to have to pick it up in order to finish in under 4:30, so when the course finally turns a bit downhill in the last half mile, I start to run again. I manage to eke out a 4:28:36. I cross the finish line, but I don’t do the traditional Rocky pose. This is pure survival, and it doesn’t feel like I should celebrate. It’s more simple than that: I’m done. Another state crossed off. Another medal for the collection.

I’m not feeling so great about the day, but as I exit the finish area, I find 1L and Len (a Taper who very wisely stuck with just the half marathon), and then moments later, a whole passel of Tapers join us. We hobble off to the Atlanta Underground area, where the team tents are set up, and we proceed to pump fluids into our bodies, attempting to avoid further cramping, and we share stories of the misery out on the course. There is far too much truth in the adage “misery loves company”; usually there’s something sad in the truth of it, but today there’s only joy. This misery seems universal among us runners: we all experienced the same heat and dehydration and hills and lack of fluids on the course, and we all have similar stories to tell. Somehow, it’s so much easier to laugh at your own misery when you’re sharing it with someone who understands at a molecular level what you’ve just gone through.

There are several of us Tapers, just hanging around; nobody has much need to move, to go, to leave this gathering. Every once in a while somebody says, “I wonder how Michelle is doing out there?” and we all express concern, hoping that maybe she took the smart route and dropped from the marathon to the half. 2Ls, however, is a marathoner, so the smart money is that she’s still out there on the course. Finally, 1L remembers that 2Ls took her cell phone with her, and calls. She’s at the 24 mile point, walking, but going to finish!

So we all sit around a bit longer, then we stand up and complain about our aching bodies, and we limp our way back to the finish area, picking up bottles of water and pretzels for 2Ls, and whatever else we can scrounge along the way. We get there a moment too late – Michelle has her medal when we find her, but she’s still jazzed about finishing. She’s thrilled that we are all there to meet her, just absolutely thrilled. I feel like this is the best thing that I’ve done all day. In truth, this is the unexpected best thing about the day: the time spent with friends.

And so it is that I have a story to tell my friends and family in the following days, when I return home and they ask me about the Georgia Marathon. It was a train wreck, I’ll tell them. A horrible race. Heat, hills, dehydration, cramping, crawling to the finish. Ah, too bad, they’ll all say in response. I’m sorry you had a rotten time there.

And then I’ll correct them. No, not at all. I had a terrible race. But I had a fantastic time.

Tucson Marathon 2006

Many years ago, my marathon mentor, Jay, told me about the Tucson Marathon. It’s a fast one, he said. But it’s downhill, and will kill your legs if you’re not prepared. I put the race on my “someday” list. Then late last year, Jay told me that he was going to run Tucson again this year – and I immediately put the marathon on my calendar. For the entire year, I thought of Tucson as my target race for the year - the one where I might have a chance to run fast.

But fast is a relative term, and my definition of fast has never matched that of others. I’m conservative in my estimates of my own running ability. I’ve never had Olympic style aspirations, just a desire to do the best that I can on any given day, without taking risks that might have me walking the last part of a 26.2-miler. Been there, done that. But on the other hand, I don’t agree with the philosophy of many of the 50-staters, who go out to bag marathons, not caring at all about finishing times. After all, for me a marathon is a race, not just another daily run.

The last couple of weeks leading up to the Tucson Marathon, on December 10, have been a disappointment. I’ve targeted this race as my best chance for a fast time this year, and yet, in the end, my training has taken a nose dive off into never-never land. I ran the Valley of Fire Marathon in Nevada on November 18, in a birthday celebration, and in a time of 4:31. It was a slow course, and I expected a slow time, but the result was a good 15 minutes slower than I expected for that day. It’s always a struggle to run a race that you know will be slow: your head “gets it”, but your heart always has a harder time buying into it, and you end up wondering if you aren’t simply getting slower and slower.

To make matters worse, the three weeks following Valley of Fire were just awful for training. The first week post-race, Mick and I were traveling. Not only were my chances to run greatly curtailed, but every time I did get some time, it rained. And rained and rained and rained. And then when we got back to Colorado, it snowed. And snowed and snowed and snowed. And, atypical for Colorado, the snow stuck. So my running for the last two weeks leading up to Tucson was all on snow and ice, in frigid temperatures, and I spent my time slipping and sliding, and I just kept getting slower and slower. Finally, to add insult to injury (or more properly, injury to insult), a week before Tucson, I fell during a run, and it was a hard fall, and it hurt badly. I cursed (and limped) the rest of my way home from that run. What else could go wrong?

Finally, race weekend rolls around. Bright and early Saturday morning, I leave for Tucson. I’m surprised every step of the way that something more isn’t going wrong. Despite all that has gone wrong, I still cling to a hope that this race will somehow be fast. It’s a crazy hope, but this is my last shot for the year. This will be my eighth marathon this year, and I have not yet run faster than last fall’s Marine Corps Marathon. If not Tucson, then what?

Having just passed my 50th birthday, I’ve been secretly worrying that maybe my times will all be slower. When I started training with my coach nearly five years ago, he told me that once a runner starts working on speed, s/he will have somewhere around seven years to get faster. Since then, I’ve read similar estimates, but with a range of five to ten years. I’ve started to think: have I reached my potential, in just the five years? And I worry that all of the energy, time, money, and dedication that I put into running are just an unfounded conceit. Maybe the miles, the times when I really don’t feel like running the two hours that my coach has assigned, the painful massages, the trips to Boulder to see the chiropractor, the hours on the acupuncturist’s table, the time reading and studying race reports and race reviews: maybe this is all a colossal waste. And then what?

These are the thoughts that occupy my mind as I sit at DIA, waiting for the flight to Tucson. The boarding area fills up with a bunch of people who look like runners. You can pick them out by the tell-tale signs: the running shoes, the duffel bags, the race t-shirts, the ultra-fit bodies. I’m impressed to be in the company of so many others seeking the same fast race that I’m seeking. This trip starts to feel a bit like a pilgrimage.

These are still my thoughts as we approach the landing in Tucson, and I look down on a landscape that is alien to me, mountains to the east, mountains to the west, and in between, desert that is punctuated with Chinamen’s hats: little uplifts that break up the landscape. These are my thoughts as I grab my bag and make my way to the rental car pick-up area, and I listen to other marathoners in line around me.

But my mind is distracted as I pull into the IHOP, where I’ll meet my brother Scott, who lives in Phoenix, and who has driven down to spend the afternoon with me. I haven’t seen Scott in more than a year now, so it’s a nice little reunion. Scott comes to the expo with me, which is a nice expo for a race of this size, then drives the course with me. We take note of the ups and downs, and Scott, getting into the spirit of the thing, starts to point out landmarks for my reference. We go back to my hotel room, and turn on the tube, and there, completely by happenstance, is the coverage of Ironman Hawaii. All of the athletes are impressive, but I find one story most inspirational – the 76-year old former nun who finishes just a minute under the cut-off time. If a 76-year old woman can complete an Ironman, what is there to hold me back?

Mick calls, and we talk about the race. Mick decided late in the game that he would like to come to this race with me, but it was just not logistically possible with all of his other commitments. So instead of being here to support me physically, he’s calling often to support me emotionally. He says, “I think you are going to be fast tomorrow.”

Scott heads back to Phoenix, and I meet up with Jay and his family for the pasta dinner. A speaker gives instructions for the race, and warns everyone against letting the downhill in the early miles suck you into running too fast. “Slow down!” he says, over and over. I glance at Jay, who is looking at me, shaking his head. “You’re not going to do that, are you?” he asks. I assure him that I am not. I’m here to take advantage of the downhill.

We talk awhile before heading off, and Jay asks me about my goal for tomorrow. I don’t normally have a specific goal going into a race, preferring to just see how the day goes, and to go as fast as possible without risking a major bonk in the second half of the race. But tonight, I tell Jay, “I’d really like to run 3:49, even if it’s 3:49:59, just so I can say that once in my life I broke 3:50.”

There. I’ve said it. Putting it out there scares me, because it means I have to own it. I’ve already feared that I’ve jinxed things by telling another friend that I’m hoping for a PR, and that I’ve delayed sending in a Boston entry in the hopes that just possibly I might come out of the day with a faster time. Jay just smiles and nods. “This is a good course for it.” And then we wish each other good luck, and head our separate ways.

At the hotel, I talk to Mick one last time for the day. Again, he says, “you are going to run fast tomorrow, I know it.” The thing is, Mick usually has a better sense than I of how my marathons will go. I wonder if he’s just being nice, but I know that’s not like him.

In the morning, I check the temperature on The Weather Channel. Fifty degrees. Just perfect. That is, until I walk out the door, and the wind greets me. As I drive through the five a.m. darkness to the buses that will take us to the start, the signs are not good: flags are flying straight out, indicating that the wind is strong and coming straight out of the south.

We will run directly south for much of the day on this point to point course. My heart sinks.

But the Tucson Marathon has a treat in store: the buses to the start line are not the typical yellow school buses used by every other marathon. Today we get plush tour buses! Wow! A comfy seat, warmth, and a smooth ride. And leg room, to boot! And to sweeten the pot just a bit more, when we get to the start line, the buses stick around, so we get to stay inside in the warmth until the last possible moment before the race starts. This alone already makes Tucson one of my favorite marathons.

The time on the bus is good for me. I’m warm and relaxed – so relaxed that I nap while we wait for the sky to lighten. We’re in a really beautiful area in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, just outside the old town of Oracle. It’s oddly beautiful – all cactus and scrub oak and desert. It’s not surprising that this place that seems so desolate to some was the home of Edward Abbey, and is also the home to Biosphere 2. When I close my eyes, before nodding off, it’s completely dark outside, and then later, when I open them, it’s dawn. What an odd way to wake up for the second time of the day.

The race start goes off on time, at 7:30, after an obligatory recorded rendition of the national anthem. This is not a huge marathon – just under 1200 people will finish today – but the road is a narrow, asphalt country road, so it takes nearly a minute to cross the start line. I’ve been watching Pam Reed, the race director, walk back to her truck from the start line, and almost forget to start my watch. Pay attention! I tell myself. You only get one chance at this race – don’t blow it from the start.

Having scoped out the entire race course with Scott yesterday, I know that the first mile is a rare uphill mile. But that’s okay – it will keep everyone from going out too crazy fast. I remind myself to look around, since it’s really beautiful – if stark – country.

A woman running near me says, “oh no, I don’t know what I did with my pack of gels – I must have left it on the bus.” A guy nearby offers her one of his gels, and I chime in and offer her one, also. “Thanks, but I’m okay,” she says, “I’ll just wing it”. I run along and think about how upsetting it would be to have your entire race plan changed by just one little lapse like this. And then I think that offering and actually giving are two separate things. I fish through the pockets of my Race Ready shorts, and pull out a gel, and pick up my pace just a bit to catch the woman. “Here!” I tell her. “I always bring extra.” She thanks me and accepts the gel. I figure that it never hurts to build a little karma early in the race..

The first mile rolls, and when we hit the big uphill, I think, “uh-oh, this is steeper than I thought from driving it”. But then before I can even adjust my stride, it’s over. I think that the big hill must still be coming, but no, that’s it. Pretty soon we’re passing the first mile marker. I hit my split button. 9:02? For an uphill mile, it’s much faster than I expected, and I’m pleased. That big hill must be in the second mile.

This is desert/mountain country, and there are just a few Edward Abbey-type people sitting or standing at the end of driveways, big dogs at their feet and tin cups of coffee in hand, watching us run by. Other than that, just stark scenery. I see a woman slightly ahead of me with a bouncy gait, and I watch her for a minute or so before I realize that she’s running on a carbon-fiber prosthetic leg. I’m mesmerized by her. I run close behind her for a short time, but then she gradually pulls away in front of me. I’m impressed beyond words. I say a quick prayer that I might be given so much courage if I ever lost a limb.

I’m waiting for that big uphill, but it never comes. We pass the mile 2 marker, and I hit the split button again. 8:10. What the heck? I almost laugh out loud. This must have been some serious downhill, since I just don’t run 8:10 miles. I hear Mick’s voice in my head: I think you’re going to have a fast race. A few seconds later, someone is saying, did I miss the second mile marker? Yep, I say. About 33 seconds ago.

We’re now in the little town of Oracle, and the road has widened out a bit. It’s still downhill, and still easy running. There are a few more people out on the few street corners, and I wave to a couple of firefighters sitting in chairs out on the driveway of the firehouse. My heart rate monitor finally registers (I have a new strap, after the old one died just ten days ago, and this one seems to take a bit longer to connect with my watch), and I’m exactly in the zone where I want to be. Pretty soon we pass mile marker number 3, and I almost laugh again. 8:28? This is so far outside my experience that I don’t even know what to think. Mick’s voice is there again: I just know you’re going to run fast! Again, somebody says, did I miss mile marker three? Yep, I say. About 18 seconds ago.

I think about the advice from last night’s speaker, and wonder if I shouldn’t slow down. But it’s just a fleeting thought. I feel great, the pace feels good, and my heart rate is exactly where it should be. Why on earth slow down? When I hit my split button for mile 4 and see 8:06, I’m almost giddy. What on earth is going on?

It’s way too early, but I start to think, yes! I can run 3:49 today! Maybe even 3:48! But it really is too early to have these thoughts, so I just watch the road. In these early miles, the road curves around and turns a bit, and I think that if Mick were here, he’d be telling me to run the tangents. So I try to look up the road and pay attention to the tangents, and my legs keep churning. Just before mile 5, we make our biggest turn for the day, off these little rural roads onto Oracle Road, where we’ll be until just before the finish. I hit my split button again, and see 8:11.

By now, this is all beginning to seem like a dream. I stare at my watch for a moment trying to make sense of these crazy splits. My accumulated time is 41:57, and I can’t even compute what that means. I work and work at trying to average it, but I don’t have any experience with these numbers. I run 9 minute miles! Not 8:something miles! Who knows how to do math with 8:something miles?

Oracle Road is a major north-south road in Tucson, and we’re far north of the city now, where it is sometimes a two-lane road and sometimes a four-lane road. When it’s two lane, we get a coned off stretch of good asphalt shoulder; when it’s four lane, we often get the use of both the shoulder and a lane of the roadway – all coned off. In these early miles, the coned-off shoulder is a bit narrow for the number of people out here. It’s plenty wide to run, but a bit tricky to pass, especially when people are running together.

Still, the other runners all seem to be friendly. I only talk briefly with people, but everyone is nice. There’s a woman in a yellow top from Phoenix who is running her third marathon; she tells me she’s hoping for a time better than her previous best of 3:57. I’m still trying to figure out what my crazy splits might mean for a final time, and I just say, if you keep this pace up, you have that in the bag. She takes off in front of me. But that doesn’t mean I’ve slowed down too much: my splits for miles six through twelve are 8:30, 8:24, 8:30, 8:30, 8:35, 8:36, and 8:23.

I have no idea what is going on. My heart rate is right where it’s supposed to be, and my legs feel great, and it feels like easy running.

At some point, I calculate that I’m running an average of under 8:30 per mile. That just seems insane to me, and I don’t even know what 8:30 translates to for the 26.2 miles. Maybe 3:45, I guess? I’ve never had a reason to figure out what an 8:30 pace would mean. For a moment I allow myself a brief fantasy of finishing in 3:45, but then I tell myself to get real. I’ll do well to finish in 3:49, and if I can hold on for 3:48, it will be a stellar day. I have never even dreamed of running 3:45. Okay, I’ve thought about it a few times, but those thoughts have been in the same realm as thoughts of winning the lottery. Pure fantasy.

But I keep thinking that I’m running on borrowed time. The weather is almost perfect. Almost. At mile five, we go by a time and temperature sign, and it’s still just 53 degrees. The sun has risen over the Catalina Mountains in the east, but some thick clouds are hanging over the mountains, obscuring the sun. This keeps the temps nice and cool. But the damn wind is only getting stronger and stronger, and I start to think that it’s going to totally tank my day.

We’re running almost directly into the wind, and when we make a slight turn just after mile thirteen, we are going smack dab into the full force of the wind. It’s coming on gangbusters. I think that it’s a good thing that I’ve had so many fast miles in the first half of this race, since I definitely start to slow at the beginning of the second half of the race.

The halfway point is not marked with a sign, but I run over a mark on the road that says 13.1. I look at my watch, and it says 1:51 and change, and I think that the halfway point must be up the road further, since there’s no way I’ve run the first half in that kind of time. But nope, that was it.

Later, I’ll read that the wind averages 16 mph with 26 mph gusts. For now, all I know is that it’s a serious pain to contend with. The good thing about the narrowness of our running lane is that you often have someone directly in front of you. I start to strategize on how to draft behind people as much as possible.

But the field seems to keep opening up in front of me, and just when I think I have a big guy to block the wind for me for the next bit, he seems to take off and leave me to battle the wind on my own. People chatting me up now tend to open with, “I could do without this damn wind!” The gusts sometimes cause me to kick myself in the shin.

My splits start to show the effects of running mile after mile into the wind, and I’m happy that I haven’t been able to calculate a finishing time based on those crazy 8:30 and under miles from the first half of the race. Miles 13 through 17 are still downhill, but much flatter than the first half of the race, and they go by in 8:42, 8:35, 8:52, 8:48, and 8:52. I’m trying to chase down guys to draft off, but I have a dilemma. Since they’re all running just a bit faster than me, my heart rate is getting a little out of the zone where it should be. I finally make a decision and decide to take the risk with my heart rate, and to try to stay in contact with people. It seems that I don’t really have a good choice, and I’m tired of racing conservatively. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.

And sometimes you have to remember to look around. Every once in a while, I remember to look up, and it’s beautiful scenery. The clouds hovering around the top of the Catalinas make the vista spectacular. I am stunned, over and over again, by the stark beauty of the desert. There is no grass – anywhere! How do people live here? But the cacti are so majestic – and so iconic – that it almost feels like I’m running through a movie set.

Tucson is not a good marathon for spectators. Oracle Road is just too busy and well-traveled to allow people many good opportunities to support runners. So I’m pleased at the number of folks who still attempt to cheer us on. As the miles tick away, we’re running into civilization with strip malls and commercial developments and heavier traffic. The aid stations have been plentiful – about every two miles, and more frequent in the last 6 or 8 miles. The volunteers are, as always, great. The cops directing traffic at the busier intersections as we approach town have a tough job, but they still smile when I thank them for their help, and some even offer up encouragement.

The road turns a bit somewhere around mile 17, and the wind turns to our sides for the next several miles. This is heaven! Miles 18 through 20 go by in 8:47, 8:50, and 8:41.

I’ve been wondering if I’ll have anything left when I hit mile 20 today. Will I be able to turn this into a race at that point? Or will my legs be trashed from the downhill miles, and my game plan ruined by letting my heart rate stay up at the bottom of the red zone starting around mile 14 and 15? I’ve been praying that all those days, weeks, months, and years of running and running and running will pay off today.

It helps that the road becomes more steeply downhill again with mile 20 through mile 24. I tell my body that it’s time to go, and my legs respond. Wow! I’m sailing again! Counting steps and listening to my breathing, I’m focused on getting to that finish line. I’m vaguely aware that I’m passing people now, at first just a few, then more and more, but today I’m not so much thinking about picking them off as I am thinking about avoiding them. People walking or slowing seem to weave, I notice, and they are also apt to just come to a dead stop right in front of you without warning. So I’m being vigilant, and playing human pinball, just trying to avoid obstacles. Miles 21 through 24 go by in 8:22, 8:15, 8:08, 8:17.

Each time I hit my split button, I try to calculate my finishing time, but it’s an exercise in futility. My mind just won’t compute with these numbers. I know now that I have 3:49 in the bag, and probably 3:48. But can I hope for more than that? I don’t have any idea.

Mile 25 flattens out, and I feel the effects of the miles and miles of downhill, and the wind, and the heat. Sometime in the last ten miles, the clouds have dissipated, and the sun has come out. It’s not really all that hot – around 65 degrees at the finish – but combined with the wind, which is now directly in our face again, it’s not as comfortable as it was in the early miles. My split for mile 25 is 8:44, but it’s not the split that I see when I look at my watch – it’s the accumulated time of 3:33 and change.

Since I’ve had such a hard time doing mental math, I’ve finally figured that I would just add ten minutes to my mile 25 split and then have a good estimation of my finishing time. My mind tries this on, and when I come up with 3:43, I think Holy Shit! I hear Mick say I know you’re going to be fast. And I say to myself Run Judy Run!

This mile is harder than any other of the race. In a cruel twist, the final mile is uphill. I count steps and look for the yellow sign on the side of the road, but it doesn’t come and it doesn’t come and still it doesn’t come. I know that we will have a ninety-degree left-hand turn right before the finish, and every possible driveway seems like a false alarm. Finally, finally, just at the turn, there is the 26 mile sign. I capture a split of 9:18, and think that the 3:43 is out of the question, but then I see the finish sign much closer than it should be. Later, I’ll figure that the 26 mile sign was probably off by at least a tenth of a mile. But now, my thoughts are on that finish line. I’m in a sprint (my heart rate average for this stretch is my max heart rate - no wonder I feel like hurling), and I’m starting to let myself believe. Believe in the impossible, in the fantasy. I cross the finish in 3:43:47 – a PR of almost seven minutes.

I can hardly wait to call Mick, but it takes a while to get back to the rental car. Jay has finished about ten minutes in front of me, and I run into him and his family in the finish area. I’m so excited that I can hardly contain myself, and I tell anyone who even glances at me that I had a fabulous day. The beautiful thing is that everyone seems to be as happy for me as I am for myself.

When I finally get to call Mick, he says, “See, I knew you would be fast today!” And for once, I don’t say, oh no, I’m slow. Today, I believe. Today, I am fast.

For my birthday, a few weeks ago, a friend gave me a gold-colored gift, because, she said, I had entered the Golden Years. I wasn’t so sure how I felt about that. Is Golden Years just a euphemism for old and decrepit? Today, this race, this thing that was too good to be true, too good to even be a dream, has changed me. If this is the beginning of the Golden Years, then Wow! Maybe there are more great things in store. Running anything faster than 3:48 or 3:49 was always tucked away in the back of my brain, just like the fantasies of winning the lottery. Something that you might dream about, but not really believe in. But now, maybe it’s time to re-think all those fantasies that live in the back of my brain. Maybe they are not all quite as far-fetched as they once seemed.

And maybe it’s time to buy a lottery ticket.

Valley of Fire Marathon (November 2006)

What better way to commemorate the finale of your fifth decade on Planet Earth than to run a marathon with some friends?

That pretty much sums up my day at the Valley of Fire Marathon on November 18th. Mick and I have met up with my friends Melissa and Michele (“M&M”) and their respective significant others, Buddy and John, in the metropolis of Overton, Nevada. When we drove in yesterday – Friday - the day was bright and sunny and warm, but this morning, it’s dead cold – the kind of cold you get in the desert that you know won’t survive the sun’s daily morning assault, but it makes you shiver all the same. It’s that kind of cold when we start to load up the car to drive to the marina where busses will pick us up to take us to the Valley of Fire State Park, where the race is held.

A marina, you ask? Didn’t you just say you are in the desert? Well, yes, but we’re also just north of Lake Mead. This is a weird but beautiful part of the world.

The bus delivers Melissa, Michele, John, and me to the race start/finish area; Mick and Buddy are following on bikes. In fact, we watch for them as we stand around waiting for the race to start, but don’t see them before the race director marches us all uphill to a blue start line painted on the two-lane asphalt road. The roadway between the start line and the finish line – 385 yards, to be exact – is festooned with American flags flying on both sides of the road. In keeping with the patriotic spirit, we all sing the national anthem together. What a hoot! If I do say so myself, as an impromptu a capella chorus, we do a damn fine job.

Just as we’re wobbling about the land of the free, I look around and see Mick riding up the hill behind the assemblage, but it’s too late to get a last minute good luck kiss from him – the race is on!

Somehow, Melissa and Michele and I have all worn color-coordinated clothes today, with a black and pink theme. It’s easy for me keep my eye on the two M’s as they pull away from me right from the start. For a few moments, I feel like I’ve missed out on something – last minute good luck wishes? – but then I get to work, and focus on getting myself up the hill.

For up the hill it is. This course is nothing but hills. It’s an out and back route, all on Nevada state highway 40, through the heart of the Valley of Fire State Park. I decided that I wanted to run this race more than a year ago, after viewing photos of the scenery on the race’s website. I’ve been forewarned that this race will not be fast. I know that the first half of the race is a net elevation gain, but with plenty of ups and downs to make the return trip a challenge. I know that we’ll be in the desert, so we have relentless sun from the get-go. I know that there will be little shade on the course (actually, there’s none at all, with the exception of a few very brief places where we run through narrow road cuts, and we have shade from the rocks on either side of us).

What I don’t know is that the race course is drop-dead spectacular from start to finish, with no exceptions. Those beautiful photos on the website? Well, it’s like that the entire 26.2 miles!

It seems that everybody out here today is here for fun. People seem to smile more than normal, and everyone I talk to is friendly. There is a group of four women all wearing identical neon orange tops and Race Ready shorts (just like mine), and they run together for much of the journey, and they are friendly, laughing, talking, every time that we pass one another. There are two more women running together – these two are both wearing identical red singlets, and I keep them in my sights for the entire first half of the race. It seems more like a party out here than a race.

Which is a good thing, all things considered, when I start to take note of my splits. My first few miles are actually faster than I anticipated (there’s a great steep downhill in the second mile, which helps the split for that mile, but makes me think, “boy is that gonna suck going the other direction), but then they all fade away in the wrong direction – heading from 9 minutes to 10 to 11 to 12 to 13. Ah well, I tell myself. This is not a day for speed. This is a day just to enjoy being out here. And I do enjoy it.

Given that this is an out-and-back course, and there are three different races being run simultaneously, there’s plenty of opportunity for fun. The 10k crowd turns around right around the 3 mile mark, so I shout encouragement to everyone on their homebound journey. And then the half marathoners turn around several miles up the road, and I repeat the process. Other than the race leaders, who are all focused and serious-faced, all of the runners going the other way are smiling and having fun. When I say “looking good” and “good job” to them, they pretty much universally return the compliment.

Mick rides up and keeps me company for awhile before riding off in search of M&M. Later he’ll come back to ride with me a few more times during the day, and I love getting the immediate feedback on how the race is going. It’s like having my own personal sports commentator, telling me how far ahead M&M both are, and if this next hill ends pretty soon or not, and the names of the kids working the aid stations. Buddy rides by me once, and looks like he’s focused but not having so much fun – I think he’s not really a cyclist, and these hills are taxing him. I pass him at the 8 mile mark on the course, where he’s stopped, and he says that he’s done. That’s it. Can’t go anymore. Mick happens to be riding next to me at this point, and Buddy hands Mick a gel. “Will you give this to Melissa if you see her?”

Around the 10 mile mark, the race leader passes me going in the other direction. Ummm…that would mean that he’s already 6 miles ahead of me?!? Holy Moses is he smoking! The next few full marathoners trickle by in the other direction, the first 10 or so all serious and focused on the road in front of them, not responding to my cheers. “Great job!” “”Way to go!” But then come the people just out having fun. And they all start to return the greetings. It’s like a party. Really. Everybody is SO friendly. I’m almost tempted to yell to them, “and it’s my birthday!” It just seems like this is one huge birthday party.

But I don’t yell this – because it isn’t really my birthday, yet. More’s the pity for me on this. If I ever had age group award aspirations, this is not the day for them. It turns out that Valley of Fire has ten-year age groups, which means that M&M and I are all in the same age group. How weird is that? In another couple of months, after Michele’s next birthday, we will all run the new Georgia Marathon in Atlanta, and we’ll be in three separate age groups. But here we are today, just one big happy age group.

Around mile 10 or 11, I start running alongside a guy who has passed and repassed me a number of times. It turns out this guy is running is 73rd marathon. This is my 26th, which I thought was quite a lot, but now it’s all in perspective. The time goes by quickly while we run along, chatting. But he drops off at one of the aid stations, so I’m on my own on the long downhill to the 13 mile turnaround.

The turnaround on this course is at the 13 mile mark, not the 13.1 mile mark. This allows the race coordinators to double up on all of the mile markers along the course. These mile markers are among the best I’ve ever seen in a marathon – they’re large and marked on both sides of the road with flags. How could you miss one of them? The aid stations are like clockwork also, every two miles without fail. Not only does this race offer spectacular scenery, it also has great organization.

After the turnaround point, I start to count people. I’m actually pretty far back in the field of just over a hundred marathoners. My heart rate has been abnormally high throughout this race – something that I finally chalk up to the combination of heat and hills – so I’ve been holding myself back. At the turnaround, I decide to just let go a bit, and focus on picking up the pace some. So I start to pick out runners in front of me to pass, and start working my way up through the crowd.

Crowd? Well, um, actually, no. In this second half of the race, it actually gets a little lonely at times. The field is spread far apart on the course, and all of the 10-k and half marathon racers are long gone. The road is open to traffic, and sometimes it’s nice to have a car go by, just because the people tend to smile and shout encouragement.

I’ve started to pick off people, but early in my second half a couple of women catch up to me and overtake me. In a normal large race, this wouldn’t even register, not at this point – 14 or 15 miles – in the race. But today, I’ve set a goal for myself: to pass as many people as possible on my return trip, and to not allow anyone to pass me. These two chatty women are making me miss that goal, and it starts to really annoy me.

They pass me once, but I keep them in sight and pass them back when they stop to walk through the next aid station. But then, after several minutes, I can hear them catching me again, and it’s really, really annoying, but there they go again, and I can’t match their pace. I keep them in sight, but I just can’t catch them. Then two miles down the road, they pull off at the aid station, and one of them heads into the port-a-john. Aha! I pick up my pace and run just a little harder. I listen for their steps behind me for the rest of the race, but this time I’ve left them behind for good.

I’m surprised, and disappointed, that I just can’t get my pace up to a “normal” marathon pace; it seems that the hills and heat have just zapped my ability to get my legs to turnover. The heat is not crazy debilitating heat like Madison – it never gets above 75 degrees – but it is constant, 68 at the start, then climbing quickly and holding at this temp. My legs finally respond, and I run my first sub 9-minute mile in mile 19 of the race.

I’m passing people fairly regularly now, and it gives me something to focus on. I catch a couple of guys somewhere around mile 19, and drop one of them quickly, but the other one hangs with me. He picks up his pace and stays with me for a mile or more, until we hit the aid station at mile 20, where he stops to walk. He’s another true nut job (I say that out of complete respect!): this is his 157th consecutive month of running a marathon or longer distance. That’s more than 13 years! And this is his 200-and-somethingth marathon. He chats away and tells me much of his life story, and the mile goes by more quickly than any since before the turnaround.

The final miles are hard, and rewarding, and still fun. I’ve already passed one of the women in red – I followed them both to the turnaround, but one of them took off like a rocket at that point, so I could only catch the other. In the last few miles, Mick rides up and accompanies me the rest of the way to the finish, with stories of Melissa’s finish (7th woman overall and second in AG!) and Michele’s cramping before her finish (12th woman overall!) When Mick reaches me, I’ve just passed two of the women in orange. They’ve apparently split up – now, where are the others? These two greet me as I go by.

That great downhill in mile 2 truly does suck going up the other side, but I run it all. It doesn’t seem that big of a deal to me – just slow, putting one foot in front of the other – but Mick says to me proudly when I crest the hill, “you’re the only one who ran the whole thing!” Victories – you gotta take ‘em where you can get ‘em. And now I know what waits me on the other side: a beautiful long – maybe a mile and a half – sweeping downhill, all the way to the finish.

And I let go with everything I have. It’s a delicious feeling, to know that as slow as this race has been, I can finish strong. I pass lots more people on this stretch – people cramping, walking, just gingerly jogging along. I feel almost guilty to feel this much glee, and to feel so good at this stage of the race when these people are so clearly suffering. Melissa meets me with about a mile to go, and jogs alongside for a moment, handing me some wildflowers she’s picked for me. “How do you feel?” she asks. I point to the woman in orange just a short way in front of me. “I’m going to catch her!” Later, I will think that this is an odd response, but at the time it’s the only thing in my mind. Focus is good. And effective. I pass the woman in orange, who says, in what seems to me to capture the spirit of the day, “You go girl!”

And so I finish my 26th marathon in my 21st state on the last day of my 50th year on Planet Earth. My time is one of the slowest I’ve run – 4:31:23 – but today, it’s not about the time. It’s about being able to come out and run with my friends in a spectacular setting in a well-organized race and just enjoy the day. Later, we all head into Las Vegas for a fun show and a fabulous dinner with an incredible 12-layer chocolate cake for dessert; it’s a wonderful celebration. But it would have been just fine without all of the hoopla. This is the thing that makes my day so special: running with my friends. It just doesn’t get any better than this. Okay, maybe, a slightly faster time….but I’ll leave that for the next half century.

My Trip to Oz (aka the Wichita Marathon, October 2006)

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife... `From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm.” - The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum.

This is mostly what I know about Kansas: that the wind can be brutal. For my Kansas marathon, I’ve selected the Wichita Marathon on October 22. This choice is, at least in part, driven by the reviews of the marathon from past years that all proclaim that this point-to-point course is typically blessed with a tailwind for most of the 26.2 miles.

Too bad that the typical tailwind decides to stay home this year and send its wicked witch stepsister – the one from the northwest, the direction that we run – in its place.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The real story of my Wichita Marathon experience is about a warm and generous woman, the Sunflower Runner (aka Mary) from my internet running group, who, at the last minute, offers to open her home to me. Up until this time, I’ve been planning on going solo for this race; it just hasn’t worked out for any of the usual suspects to accompany me to or meet me in Wichita. That’s okay – I travel alone enough to be comfortable with it – but the offer of home and companionship and a home-cooked meal is far superior. And meeting Mary and her family and friends makes the race on Sunday morning a completely different experience from the solo journey that I had planned.

When I reach Wichita on Saturday afternoon, it’s cold and a little rainy and very windy. Not cold as in “a nice cool day for a marathon”. But cold as in “brrrrr, whose idea was this anyway?” I’m hoping that the conditions improve, and by Sunday morning, they have improved - some. It’s no longer raining. But it is still very cold – just barely over 30 degrees when Mary and I leave her home to drive to the race start. Yes, this remarkable woman who has given me food and shelter is also providing taxi service to the race start at oh-dark-thirty on this chill morning. We pick up Mary’s friend Cheryl on the way to the start. Cheryl is a new runner, and even before I showed up on the scene, Mary had planned to introduce Cheryl to the marathon by coming out to cheer on runners together. Suddenly, I have not only a taxi driver but an entire cheering section for the day!

The start of the Wichita Marathon is in the town of Derby, which turns out to be a bedroom community just south of Wichita. We get to wait in a nice warm school building, with more than enough actual flush toilets (such a treat! Indoor plumbing! And no waiting!) until just minutes before the race start. Mary knows everyone, so I get introductions to lots of the local fast runners. There are actually three races taking place: the marathon, a half-marathon, and a marathon relay, which consists of two-person teams. All races start together, and follow the same course route.

It’s dark when we go inside the school, and light when we come outside again 45 minutes later for the race start. It’s still cold, but I make a last minute decision – one I’m glad about later – and leave my jacket with Cheryl. That leaves me wearing just shorts and a singlet and a lightweight long-sleeved technical shirt. Once I get moving, I’m happy with my decision. The important items – my gloves and headband – will stay with me for nearly the entire race.

The race starts on a wide, flat street, and I’m happy that I don’t notice any wind. The first mile feels unusually good, and I’m happy when I punch my split button to capture an 8:50 first mile, and a heart rate (HR) of 150. Just perfect.

But then we make a turn, and I realize that we’ve been running with the wind at our back. The first part of the course is a fish-hook, heading in the opposite direction from where the race will finish. As we finally turn north after a brief jaunt eastward, it becomes clear that the wind is, indeed, going to be a factor today. But how much so?

The first ten miles of the race seem to just melt away. These first miles snake around through some different residential areas, where a few intrepid folks stand at the end of their driveways to cheer for us. We have coned off lanes on busier streets, and the full roadway when we meander through some of the side streets. For a while, I run with a younger woman named Amy, and she provides a nice companion. But Amy has a cough that gets worse – she’s just returned to running after some time off – and I lose her after the first few miles. After I lose Amy, I see Mary and Cheryl along the course, and it’s huge fun to have a cheering section, long before I expected it. Around mile five, a guy named Jon falls into step next to me, and we run well together for the next couple of miles; it seems that the mile 7 marker comes long before I’m expecting it. But Jon is feeling his oats – he wants to break 4 hours today, something he hasn’t done before – and he takes off. Shortly after Jon leaves me behind, there are Mary and Cheryl again! And I thought I was coming to run this race alone!

In these early miles, the course rolls gently, never anything really steep, but never totally flat, either. It’s nice going – or would be, without that confounded wind. It’s not a killer wind, but it’s just strong enough to be annoying.

At mile 8, we’re at the highest point on the course, and you can see all the way to downtown Wichita. It’s an impressive view, from good new roads that connect some new residential subdivisions. I’m chilly, and wondering if I did the right thing when I tossed my l-s shirt to Mary when I saw her along the course a mile or so back. It’s too late now to change my mind!

One of the great things about the Wichita Marathon is that the miles are well marked, and there is someone calling out splits at every single mile. I’ve never experienced this before, and it’s pretty cool. My HR is right where I want it to be, but my splits are a bit schizophrenic. My ideal pace for the day would be around 8:47/mile. My first mile seemed to indicate a perfect day for a PR, but after that, my splits are all over the place – and, sadly, the direction is all more than 9 minutes/mile. I chalk it up to the wind, but that doesn’t help the disappointment that I feel each mile when I hit the split button. My effort feels like I’m sailing along like a Hobie cat on the waves. My splits tell a different story – more like a battleship slowly making way.

At the mile 10 marker, we pass a group of people cheering, including Mary and Cheryl. Some other folks shout “Go Judy!” and I wonder if my personal fan club has been talking about me. But then I remember that my name is on my bib (thanks, as so much of the good parts of my weekend are, to Mary). It’s only the second time that I’ve had my name on my bib, and I love the feeling. There’s an immediate connection with these great folks who are standing out in the cold, cheering us on.

The next ten miles are tough. We turn onto the McConnell Air Force Base, and the road goes bad. The road is unmaintained asphalt, which means potholes, uneven surfaces, and way too many opportunities to trip or twist an ankle. A guy from Arkansas joins me and starts to chat, but I can’t maintain a conversation – I’m spending way too much energy just keeping myself upright.

The course is still rolling, and eventually we hit better maintained roads. Because we’re on the AFB, there aren’t many spectators, but the folks working the aid stations and time checks are great. We pass the half way point, where the half-marathoners peel off, and the relay teams make their exchanges.

It’s kind of fun to see the AFB and all the buildings and monuments that are old airplanes. When I ran the Air Force Marathon last month in Dayton, OH, I didn’t see much of the Wright-Patterson AFB because of the low-hanging fog that lasted for most of the race that day. Today, it might be breezy, but it is clear and bright. I’m perfectly comfortable now in my singlet and shorts. I like running through the memorials, and then past the Kansas Air National Guard Museum. What I don’t like is that my splits continue to be 15 or 30 seconds slower than how my effort feels. It’s all wind. Out here on the AFB, there is nothing at all to block the wind that feels like it’s coming all the way down the plains from Montana.

We leave the AFB shortly before the 20-mile mark. I look for Mary and Cheryl – I’m getting to that point in the day where a friendly face can do *so* much to bolster you – and there they are, just where Mary said they would be! We shout and hurrah each other. I get a huge boost from seeing them, and I feel ready to race. Mary asks how I’m doing. I shout out to her that I’m a bit slower than I wanted to be, but now I’m feeling great.

And the truth is that I *do* feel great now. Everything changes in just a few miles. Now, we lose a little in elevation and enter a park, where there’s shelter from the wind. Mary and Cheryl keep turning up, over and over again, and it’s so much fun to see them. It’s like a boost of adrenaline each time I see the bright yellow jacket that Mary’s sporting. There she is, taking yet another photo!

And it helps that I’m passing people left and right. What a rush! More and more and more. Nobody passes me.

We run for a while – around three miles - on a bike path. I have mixed feelings about the path – it’s sheltered from the wind, but the asphalt is old and buckled and makes for poor footing again. But Mary has figured out how to get out on the path at multiple points to cheer for me, so I mostly just love this section of the race.

Just at the 25 mile mark, we emerge from the bike path onto Douglas Avenue, and I recognize this as the final stretch of the race. I pass a woman – have I mentioned that I’m passing people left and right? – but this woman surprises me and doesn’t let me go. The footing here is a bit better than the bike path, but it’s not great – lots of potholes and road cracks to dodge. And now this woman just won’t go away. She surges ahead of me, then I push it and take the lead, and then I feel her on my shoulder again. It’s an outright race!

There’s less than a mile to go, and I wonder if I can hold off this woman for that long. And then I have a sudden flash, and I know that I cannot wonder this – I have to believe! After the first half, with all those 9:09 and 9:20 miles earlier in the day, I began to believe that breaking 4 hours today would be a tough goal. But now, I’m flying, and I’m racing, and I’m starting to believe that 3:55 is within my grasp. And I know that I can beat this woman – but only if I believe in it.

So I push, and I push, and pretty soon, I don’t feel this woman on my shoulder quite so close. We make our last turn on the course, and enter marathon hell: the final two blocks of the race are on cobblestones! It’s miserable, but by the second block, I’ve found a concrete strip about 12 inches wide on the side of the road, and I’m taking advantage of this. Better to run on a tightrope than on those nasty cobbles.

There’s the finish banner, and the finish chute, and I give it everything I can to finish in 3:55:51. This is not my best time, but given the conditions for the day, I’m thrilled with this finish. If not for the demon winds, this very well might have been a PR kind of day.

The finish of my marathon is like the best parts of my day: shared by Mary and Cheryl, who meet me as I receive my medal. My Wichita friends grab water and Gatorade and food for me, while handing me my warm clothes. It’s still chilly, although the day sports a perfect blue cloudless sky with full sun. I see Jon, who has finished in just over four hours. He’s set a PR for the day, but is still a little disappointed in not hitting his sub-4 goal. But then Mary hussles me home to shower and change so that we can get back to the awards ceremony. We both think that there’s a good chance that I’ve won an age group award.

But they never call my name at the ceremony, and I think that it’s a lesson in hubris, to have been so confident in something that was not a guarantee. Mary sends me on my way with a cooler full of snacks for my drive back across the Kansas plains. The drive is uneventful, like all good drives, save the shared phone calls with friends (including Mary!) and family from around the country. Later, the race director will call me to tell me that they somehow screwed up, and I actually won the award for third place in my age group. But it hardly matters at all, since I’m home again, and the entire weekend has started to feel like a dream.

Aunt Em cried,”Where in the world did you come from?” “From the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy. “And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be home again!” -The Wizard of Oz

Air Force Marathon 2006

It was August, and I was in a fog. My friend Theresa – we had been friends since junior high school, and I had thought of her as my best friend since our college days together – lost her battle with cancer on July 20th, and, although I knew it was coming, her death floored me. I could function, to be sure, but I was on autopilot. Eat, drink, work, run. Those were all things I did by rote, no need to think in order to do them. But those things that signify life to me - thinking, planning, scheming, looking far into the future, figuring out the next steps in these days we have on planet earth – those things did not come naturally to me anymore. In fact, they didn’t exist in my world.

But gradually, the rhythm of life started to return, and the things I had planned before Theresa’s death rolled around on my calendar. First up was Pikes Peak Ascent; although I really didn’t feel like running it at the time, it turned out to be a good, life-affirming experience for me. And then, a week later, Hood to Coast. With eleven very alive and lively female teammates, I felt that the fog – like the fog in Mist, on the way to the Oregon coast, in the mid-morning hours of the relay - was starting to lift.

So finally, in late August, I decided I needed to find an answer to the question that everyone was asking me, “what marathon are you running this fall?”

I checked out the schedule on marathonguide.com, and for some odd reason, the Air Force Marathon caught my attention. Maybe because of the connection to Theresa: the two of us had traveled to Washington, DC, last fall for the Marine Corps Marathon, and it had been a great experience. That day was a PR day for me, and I called Theresa my lucky charm. Something about running another marathon sponsored by the military just seemed “right” to me, even though I’m not really a big rah-rah military kind of person.

And then I saw that the Air Force Marathon is in Dayton, Ohio. My good friends Jonni and Jim moved from Denver to Dayton last fall, and I’ve missed them immensely. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be with friends. I didn’t care that people told me that the course would be boring. I didn’t care that people told me there are better, faster marathons in Ohio. I didn’t care about any of it. I just wanted to be with friends again.

So this is what brings me to Dayton, Ohio, a place I might never have otherwise visited, on a beautiful early fall weekend. The last two weeks before the race are a marathoner’s worst nightmare: I catch a terrible, full-blown cold, and then have to go to Argentina on a business trip the week of the marathon! Luckily, the cold settles down a bit during the last few days before I have to travel, and the Argentina trip gets scrubbed at the very last minute because of delayed flights. So when I arrive in Dayton on Thursday night, we’re back to Plan A. And Plan A has Jonni standing at her car, waving and hollering my name, as I emerge from the Dayton airport, at 11:30 p.m. In a moment, we’re both screaming and hugging and laughing. And I know, in a heartbeat, that no matter how Saturday’s race goes, that I’ve come to the right place.

Jonni and Jim have been most gracious, offering me loads of hospitality. They’ve given me a full guest suite in their beautiful mansion, in a golf course development in an upscale suburb of Dayton. On Friday, Jonni takes me to the marathon expo, and treats me like I’m a celebrity, taking pictures at every turn. Jim and Jonni have previous plan for Friday night, so they lend me a car so that I can head out to the pasta dinner at the Air Force Museum. And, incredibly, Jonni tells me that she wants to go to the marathon with me. Not only does she not mind waiting around at the finish area for four-plus hours, she’s excited about it, and tells me she loves the experience.

So at oh-dark-thirty on Saturday morning, the two of us drive out of the golf course development. The surprise, on walking outside, is that there is a thick, not-quite-pea-soup fog hanging low to the ground. It’s wonderfully cool. Given that the forecast for the day is in the low 80s, this is a very welcome surprise.

We reconnoitered the route to the race start on Friday afternoon, so we find our way very easily at this early hour on Saturday morning. It’s still quite dark, and still quite foggy, as we drive through the “Blue gate” at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Parking is a breeze. We’re here early, and everything seems to be a bit too easy.

The next hour goes by quickly, and while the fog hangs on, the sky lightens considerably. The music on the loudspeakers is exactly what you’d expect at a military-sponsored marathon: Stars and Stripes Forever is the last song before the Star Spangled Banner is broadcast. I take my time, cycling through the port-a-potty lines, and then, at the last minute, head up to the race start area. I spot Jonni on the sidelines, and she becomes pure paparazzi, snapping photo after photo. It’s embarrassing. It’s flattering. It’s a huge boost, to have this kind of a fan, right at the start of this undertaking.

Truth be told, I’m a little spooked about today’s race. Last year and early this year, I had a streak of five sub-four-hour marathons. I thought that I had it all figured out. I thought that I had mastered the distance. But then there was Boston, where I had an okay day, but not a great one, and for the fifth year in a row, I just couldn’t breach that four-hour barrier. Then came Madison, where it was hotter than Hades – really, too damn hot for a marathon. Then came San Diego Rock n Roll, where I ran with my cousins. The purpose of that race was always to run with my cousins, but the timing was bad; it was another long, slow day when I really needed to be able to run fast. I started to wonder if maybe I’d never see the other side of four hours again.

So today, I’m running with the same goals that I always have. Only, today, those goals are a bit more important. My first goal is, always, to finish a marathon. Second to finishing, I want to have a good race; no bonking or death marching. A negative split (running the second half faster than the first half) is always an indication of a “good race”, so it’s part of that goal. Third, if things are going well, I know I have a chance at that sub-four performance. Beyond the sub-four goal, the sky is the limit. Anything better than sub-four is gravy, and a PR (better than 3:50:29) is worthy of a major celebration.

The start gun sounds, and we begin shuffling to the start line. It’s a chip timed race, so there’s no need to rush towards the start line. But it’s also a fairly modest field – there will be right around 1400 finishers – so the shuffle to the start line will be fairly quick. I start a jog right before the chip mat, and then we’re under the “Start” banner, and running for real.

The Air Force Marathon promotes pace groups very strongly at the expo and pasta dinner. By chance, I met the leader of the four hour pace group – Rick - at dinner on Friday night, and we had a nice long chat – long enough for me to gain a respect for this guy’s running resume. At the dinner, he encouraged me to join his group, but I demurred. I run by heart rate (HR), I told him. In a way, I’d like to have a group to run with, but I know that my HR is a better guide for me than a pace group leader.

But now, here in the first mile, I find myself running at the same rate as the four hour group, so I settle in near Rick and join the conversation that he’s having with a few other runners. In fact, lots of people are chatting with him, and we have a good time as the first mile or so roll on by. Before we’ve even hit the first mile marker, there is an aid station. Wow! To have an aid station this early on is rare. And the volunteers are – as they will turn out to be throughout the day – wonderful and enthusiastic. I’m able to grab a cup of water without breaking stride, and I lose the pace group for a short time.

This part of the course is flat, but at the start of mile two, the terrain takes an upward slant. Suddenly, people are working a bit harder, and I turn my attention to my heart rate monitor, and drift off a bit further away from the pace group. This climb is serious: not dauntingly steep, but just steep enough to get your attention. Then, after a brief climb, there’s a short downhill, and it all feels like it will even out in the end. But then, there’s another climb; again, not too steep, but steep enough to get your attention. I’m starting to be very grateful for the lingering fog.

The fog means that there is very little to see. The day is still cool, and the mile markers already seem to just drift by. My first mile was a bit slow – 9:27 – but then the next few are faster. When I hit the split button on my watch at mile 3, I say, to nobody in particular, “I bet that marker was off by a bit”, for my time for that mile is 8:21. Somebody mentions that it was downhill, but I think “it wasn’t that downhill”. But the next mile – mile 4 – is definitely downhill. We make a right-hand turn at the bottom of the hill, and I say to the folks around me, “boy is that gonna suck going the other way”. Everyone laughs and agrees.

The Air Force Marathon race route is a kind of keyhole route, where the first and last six or so miles follow the same route, but the middle section is a big loop. The route is wholly contained within the Wright Patterson Air Force Base. This makes the race route really nice from the standpoint of traffic control. For the length of the marathon, we have the entire road to ourselves – no sharing the road at all with anyone. But it also makes the race route a bit quiet. It’s not easy for spectators to get onto the AFB, so our only real spectators are a few Air Force guys that we see along the route, and the seemingly hundreds of volunteers.

By the time we hit mile 5, I think I’m having a pretty good day. I pass mile 5 in 44:40, and I think that, if I can maintain this pace, I’ll finish in well under four hours. But I’m working on an experiment today, and have no idea how it will turn out. After some discussions during the week with my on-line marathon group, I’ve decided to push my pace (as determined by my heart rate) to see how that affects my performance. Typically, I target a HR of 150-155 during the first 10 miles of a race, and then work on keeping my HR between 155 and 160 during the second 10 miles. After mile 20, anything goes. On the good days, I can really push it, and I rarely look at my HR after that mile marker.

But today, I’ve decided to push it earlier. I’ve got my HR in the 155-160 range almost right out of the gate. At mile 5, I figure that this has contributed to my better-than-average split at mile 5. But how will that affect me for the rest of the race?

The answer is, not so well. Mile 6 goes by in 8:27 (another downhill stretch), but then the course flattens out, and I watch as my splits get slower. The entire loop section of the route is dead flat. And the best that I can do is an average of 9:15 miles for this part of the race. I will come to believe that the course is badly marked, since my splits seem to be all over the place, while my HR remains steady right around 160. But no matter how the miles are marked, the reality is that I’ve slowed down since the initial six miles, and there’s no picking up the pace without putting my HR in jeopardy for the final part of the race. It’s a struggle to keep my HR at 160.

We’re lucky in that the fog holds. Every mile, every split I take, I look at the low hanging fog, and can’t believe this luck. I know that when the sun comes out, it could get brutal quickly. The halfway point comes, and there is still fog. And it is still cool. This is a gift.

In the loop, I run well behind the four hour pace group. In the early miles – when I was running a sub-9 minute pace – I got a bit ahead of the pace group. Then they passed me, and I wondered about the strategy of the pace group leader. But after awhile, I started to see them as the model again, and I knew if I let them out of my sight that my hopes of a sub-four hour day would be done. So I keep them in my sights. Sometimes they are way up there, but I can always see them.

The aid stations remain plentiful and frequent. This is probably the best supported marathon I’ve ever run. It seems that there are aid stations at least every mile – maybe much more frequent than that. The volunteers are handing out cool, soaked sponges early in the day, and often along the route – although with today’s fog, it’s not really necessary. Many of the aid stations have bananas or oranges or Gu in addition to the water (every time) and the Gatorade (most stations). The volunteers – have I mentioned this – are terrific. They understand that a half filled cup is superior to a full cup, and – I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating – I rarely have to break stride to grab a cup of water. Could they do anything better with the aid stations? Well, unless the volunteers actually came out and carried you for a hundred yards or so, no.

Around mile 17, I hear a woman singing behind me. Well, sort of singing. She kind of belts out a line from a song every once in a while, and then goes silent. She actually has a pretty good voice, and she’s singing something very soulful and bluesy. She sings a line, and then several seconds go by, and then she finally sings another line. I could swear that the voice belongs to a youngish black woman who knows the blues, but when I turn to look, I’m a bit dumbfounded. The owner of the voice is a fiftyish white woman, wearing an Ipod and headphones, and she’s clearly doing a selective sing-a-long to her recorded tunes. She looks like she’s having fun, and she overtakes me slowly. Then she’s gone into the distance.

During this race, I see the same people over and over. I figure that some of them are folks who stop at aid stations, so we trade places. Around this stage of the race – around the 18 mile mark, I start to catch up to people who have left me in their dust in the earlier miles. I’m definitely not speeding up – at least not yet – so I recognize this as the start of a death march for some of the runners.

For a few miles, we run on a bike path. The sun is starting to threaten to break through the fog, and the bike path is heavily shaded by trees, which seems like a really nice insurance plan. The bike path is nice asphalt, and it seems to be the tail end of some nature conservancy that we’ve been running through for awhile. But by this time in the race, it’s all starting to look the same.

The race has a related marathon relay, and it’s only the second time that I’ve run in a marathon that has the related relay. It can be most disheartening; you’re plodding along for the full 26.2 miles, only to be passed time and again by relay runners - who are running no more than 6 or 7 miles per person – so it feels like you’re constantly losing the race. But today, for some odd reason, it’s kind of fun to hear the relay runners approaching from the rear. You always know that it’s a relay runner – they just have way too much energy. And most of them, at least today, are gracious when they blow by you.

The other good thing about the relay is that the exchange points are real concentrations of cheering throngs. Well, maybe not quite throngs, but the crowds are definitely concentrated at the exchanges, so they are something to look forward to. We come out of the nature preserve, off the bike path and onto the road again, and now there’s the final relay exchange. There are lots of people here, cheering, and I’m starting to get that late-in-the-race stupid grin that I get when I’m having a good day. Okay, so this isn’t a stellar day, but I’m having a good time out here. And then, just a short way up the road, I start to recognize that we’re suddenly back on the early outbound portion of the race.

At mile 20, I think, Okay, time to go for it! But I can’t find another gear. It doesn’t help that we have the first of the reverse uphills here, and that the course switches from asphalt to concrete for a short time. It all hurts.

Benji, my coach, always has me break the race into three segments. The first 10 miles are outwardly focused, the second 10 miles are inwardly focused, and the final 10 kilometers are all about racing. Normally, when I’ve managed my HR throughout the day, I can pretty easily pick it up when I reach mile 20. But it seems like I just can’t move any faster today.

I realize that I need a gel, and fish my Espresso Love 2xcaffeine Gu out of a pocket in my Race Ready shorts. I’ve taken fewer gels than normal today, and only had one of these caffeinated gels with me at the start. Now I suck it down and hope that it helps me find that extra energy that I can’t seem to tap into.

And magically, it does. Within just a few minutes, I notice that I’m running faster. The overdrive gear has finally kicked in. I start to pass people left and right. At mile 21, I finally catch and pass the four hour pace group. Hi Rick! Bye Rick! Miles 23 and 24 are pretty much substantial uphill miles, and I just plug right along. Many (most?) of the people around me walk up these hills. The aid stations come, and I take water, and a sponge or two, but mostly just concentrate on running fast.

Between aid stations, a young girl – probably 6 or 7 – all dressed in pink, is yelling encouragement to the runners. “You’re looking strong! Keep it up!” she says to me as I pass her. I wonder where she got such adult language. And I love her for being out here, cheering us on.

Mile 25 is a glorious downhill sprint, and you can start to see the finish area. I’m passing people like crazy. They are, mostly, hurting. And mostly, they offer encouragement as I blast by them. Good job! I try to return the positive message.

Now I’m working on just picking off one runner at a time. The 26th mile is dead flat again, and it’s full sun and quite warm. The road is completely closed and open to runners, but on the other side, there are young Air Force dudes doing running drills with their sergeants. I wonder why they are running drills rather than the marathon, but it doesn’t really matter. It just seems that the whole world is out here running now.

The course does a 180 degree turn so that we can run down through a collection of vintage Air Force aircraft at the finish; the last turn on the course is a clean 90 degrees. I’ve being passing people for a while now, and it has become second nature to target and overtake.

And then, rounding that final 90-degree turn right at the 26 mile mark, I see her again. Her! The fiftyish blues singer. She’s gotten herself quite ahead of me, but I decide, when I spot her, that I have to pass her. So I gut it out some more. My HR is already pretty darn close to its max, so I don’t have much room to find another gear, but I’m gaining on the woman, and think I might be able to pass her, and then I’m spooked for a moment.

At the Marathon to Marathon last summer, I passed a woman with about ¾ mile to go in the race, and she surprised me in a sprint at the finish that I couldn’t answer. Then at the Omaha Marathon last fall, I targeted and passed two women just before the 26 mile mark. Both of them dug deep and passed me again after we turned the 26 mile corner, and they both beat me to the finish. It’s starting to seem like a pattern. And, all of a sudden, with the finish line in sight, and the Blues Singer right in front of me, I have a moment of recognition. I won’t let that happen again.

So I adjust my pace, just slightly, so that I’m behind the Blues Singer. When I think it’s time, I pour it on. Every bit of it. Every last ounce of guts that I have left. I’m dizzy. I think I’m going to puke. And I pass the Blues Singer, just before the finish line, and I win the race. The crowd at the finish appreciates the race that they witness and cheer wildly. I imagine that it’s all for me.

Okay, maybe it’s not really “winning the race”, but it feels good to, for once, get it right at the finish. I look over at the Blues Singer and take note of her bib number; later, I figure, I’ll go home and look up her stats. Is she even close to the same age group as me?

Even without the drama of the sprint finish, the finish of the Air Force Marathon is worth the price of admission. I’m directed into a finish chute, and when I reach the end of the chute, there is an Air Force general to greet me. He takes a medal (the best medal of all the races I’ve done – it’s huge and heavy and beautiful, with a red-white-blue ribbon) and drapes it carefully around my neck. Then he looks me directly in the eyes, and shakes my hand, and offers his congratulations. It’s a huge honor, and brings me close to tears.

Oh yeah, my time. I’ve finished the race in 3:57:37. That’s not my best, by far, but it’s definitely in the category of a pretty-darn-good day. I’ve run the first and second halves in almost identical times, about 12 seconds slower for the second half.

Jonni and I hook up once again, and we get ready to head back to her house. As it turns out, I see that results are posted just as we’re getting ready to leave, and we decide to go have a look. To my utter astonishment, I see a number 3 next to my name in the “age group finish” category. The Blues Singer? She was, after all, in my age group. And I finished exactly one second in front of her. My sprint at the finish made the difference between getting an age group award and just going home with a finisher’s medal. This is not something I’m used to – I’ve only won a couple of age group awards in the past, and they were in really small races – so it’s a huge surprise and a huge thrill.

So Jonni and I hang around for the awards ceremony. There’s an Air Force band playing in the tent where the awards will be, and we sit and enjoy their music for awhile, as incongruous as it is to watch guys in battle fatigues playing very good rock and roll. The band wraps up their performance, and then the fly-bys start. Every year, the Air Force features a different airplane for the marathon. This year, it’s the A-10, or the Warthog. The plane is featured on the medal, and it’s what they use for the fly-bys. Two Warthogs fly low over the tent in one direction, then they come back again from another direction, then they come back yet again. Everyone is up out of their seats, watching this awesome display of air power. For whatever odd patriotic reasons, it makes me very happy to be an American.

The awards ceremony is fast paced, and the awards are very cool. They call all three age group spots to the podium together, and when they call my name, Jonni screams and yells. The guys we’ve been talking to look astonished, and then they yell, too. I get to the stage, and receive my award, and have my picture taken with the base commander and the race celebrities – Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar. Bill Rodgers says, while shaking my hand, “you don’t even look tired”. Then he says it again. I wonder if he says this to everyone who takes the podium. But it doesn’t matter. I’m on the podium with one of my running heroes from way, way back. At this moment in time, I cannot imagine that life could be much better.

A couple of days before coming to Dayton, I had a long phone conversation with my brother Dave. He told me that he and some of his friends had been talking about luck. They had decided that everyone is lucky in some particular way. One of his friends is lucky in real estate deals, and another always seems to find a parking place right by the front door. Dave said that his kids were his luck: he feels blessed to have kids who are bright and healthy and generally good kids, and are fun to be around, too. I tried to figure out what I might be lucky at, but, thinking back to Theresa’s death, I couldn’t think of a single thing. I told Dave that I didn’t think I was lucky at anything.

But today, as I leave the Air Force Marathon in the company of my good friend Jonni, I realize that this is where I’m lucky. I’m lucky to have friends and family who indulge my obsession, and who actually take pleasure in coming out to hang around for hours while I’m off running. I’m lucky to have friends and family who have given me rooms to sleep in before marathons, and fed me pasta dinners, and supplied bagels and oatmeal and toast and juice and coffee on race mornings. I’m lucky that so many of these people have given me rides to and from airports and to and from race starts and finishes. I’m lucky that they’ve been out there on the course, cheering for me, and sometimes even out there pacing me for a while. And, mostly, I’m lucky that on days like today, those same friends are there to share the joy. I am, indeed, a very lucky person.