When I step out of the hotel at seven a.m. on Sunday morning, May 28, my first thought is, “oh Christ!” This is not because I am deeply religious and getting ready to go to church. It has more to do with the fact that I’m in Madison, Wisconsin, for the Mad City Marathon, and at this early hour, it’s already 75 degrees and 80-some percent humidity. The sun is beating down – already – and there is not a cloud in the sky. It’s not exactly what you would call a good day for a marathon. In fact, it’s just too damn hot to run a marathon.
But they don’t typically change a marathon start time or date just because the weather is a bit “off”, so I and a large number of my internet running friends soon find our way to the start of this race. The website where we all hang out and avoid work is called “Taper Madness”, and hence, the group members are affectionately referred to as Tapirs. A contingent of about 20 or so Tapirs have gathered here to celebrate fellow Tapir Melissa’s 40th birthday. The marathon is just an excuse to get together and party. Who cares if this is not looking like a good day for a fast run?
Mike McKenna and I have talked about running the first few miles together, and we stick together for the first mile; I’m actually surprised by how good this mile goes, especially given the conditions. But the first mile is mostly a nice gradual downhill, and much of it is shaded, so although I’m already working to keep my heart rate (“HR”) under control, I log the fastest mile of my day, just over 9 minutes. But Mike is itching to run faster, and just past the first mile marker he tells me that he wants to stretch out his legs, and he takes off. Although I’ll miss having a running partner, it’s a bit of a relief, because Mike was clearly pulling us along at a pace that was not in line with my need to keep my HR in check. So I watch him stride it out, and then I’m on my own.
In fact, I watch lots and lots of people stream by me in the next several miles. This happens to me frequently in marathons, so I’m learning not to fret it too much. But my HR is settling into a zone that is far too high for a race this long, and I have to go much more slowly than feels natural, just to keep it from skyrocketing.
For a small race, Mad City has a good supply of aid stations, especially here in the early miles. At the first aid station, I notice that they’re handing out ice cubes in paper cups. I’m past the first aid station with hands already full (one cup of Gatorade and another of water), but make a mental note to be ready at the next stop. Sure enough, at the next aid station, they’re offering ice again and I take a cup, and then savor the ice for as long as I can make it last. Ice is the greatest invention for running on hot days, and I run along with a mantra in my head:
God bless the race organizers for the ice.
As I take a cup of ice at the second (or is it the third?) aid station, the person offering this cold treat also utters my name. I’m befuddled. How is that? I don’t recognize the person, and grab the ice on the run, and don’t have a chance to figure out who it is. Someone I know? In Madison? How could that be? I look down to see if maybe they’ve put our names on the bibs, and I just hadn’t noticed. But that’s not the case at all. I wonder for a while, but I never do figure out this mystery.
For years and years, I’ve heard that Madison is a great place, but these early miles do nothing to form a positive impression. Lots of old and formless and featureless residential areas, houses without style or architecture. Just as I wonder about the ice angel calling my name, I also start to wonder, “where is the Madison I’ve always heard about?”
People are passing me steadily. I feel like I’m barely moving, and, indeed, my splits show that I’m running well slower than my normal marathon pace – almost a full minute per mile slower. The 4:10 pace group catches me and runs alongside me, but then they leave me as I slow once again in an effort to keep my HR low. I chat with the pace group leader for awhile, until they drop me in the dust. I am realizing that this might be a really, really slow day.
Around mile 5, we turn left into Warner Park, and a short time later I see Mike up ahead of me. I wonder what’s going on – why am I catching him so early in this race? As I pass him, he tells me that his own HR has gone out of control and he’s had to slow considerably. He also tells me that he ran with CK and Kent for awhile before determining that he couldn’t maintain that pace. The first of the heat casualties is recorded.
Mad City Marathon Training Tip #1: Put treadmill in sauna. Turn sauna to highest temperature and bring humidity up to max. Run on treadmill for 4+ hours. Repeat as needed.
After Warner Park, we finally reach a pretty area. In fact, for the rest of the race (as long as I’m capable of noticing such things) we’ll be in much nicer neighborhoods than the first five miles. The race course turns south and a bit west at this point, and we catch glimpses of Lake Mendota off to the right. This is a lovely residential area, and we get the added bonus of stretches of shade. There are spectators scattered in small clumps along the race course, and I notice that there seem to be lots of pregnant women.
Along this stretch, I notice a woman running quite a ways ahead of me who looks very much like CK. But I can’t believe that it would be her, since she should be running much faster than me. CK has just finished an incredibly great training cycle, and, if race conditions were favorable, she should be on track for a Boston qualifying (“BQ”) time today. So I figure that it’s just a woman wearing an outfit much like CK’s.
But I keep this woman in sight, and I slowly – ever so slowly – start to inch up behind her. In fact, I’m already starting to pass a few people. It’s a sad sight: so many people already done in by the heat, so early in the race. It’s really just too damn hot out here today. Finally, somewhere around mile 9, I spot two Tapir friends, Paula and Julie, approaching on their bikes. They are both (is it luck or intelligence) not running here today, and have decided to ride along to support all of the Tapirs. I’m happy to see them coming my way, but then the woman who looks like CK – and as it turns out, actually is CK – stops as she sees them approach, and in a moment I’m joining this little Tapir reunion.
Normally in a race, I would be thrilled to catch up to someone who I know is faster than me. But today my competitive juices are trumped by my feelings of friendship and empathy. I know how hard CK has trained, and how badly she wants this day – and this race – to go well, and how much she deserves a fast time. My heart goes out to her as I run up from behind; it’s as clear as the bright relentless sun in the overhead sky that CK’s day is not going to be the one she signed up for. The chances for a BQ in this kind of weather are pretty much zip, zilch, nada. It’s just too damn hot.
The consolation prize is that I get to meet Kent, who has been running with CK, and who I haven’t met until this time. The three of us run along together, and Paula and Julie ride alongside, and chatting with the group takes our minds off the heat. Paula points out some yard signs along the way - “Impeach Bush” - and I figure that I’ve finally found the Madison that I’ve heard about for so long.
Paula and Julie ride off, vowing to return (after Julie recommends putting the ice that I’m still picking up at every aid station down my bra and shorts, and I find this adds an interesting dimension to the cooling effect of the ice). CK and Kent are walking through aid stations while I run through the aid stations, and eventually they do not rejoin me after a water stop. I’m sad to lose the company.
But I’m enjoying the scenery. Lake Mendota is still off to the right, and sometimes we run right next to the lake, and the views are impressive. It’s a perfect day to be out on a boat, just enjoying the heat of the day, and I envy the people out on the water. I wonder to myself, if somebody had told me 20 or 25 year ago how wonderful Madison was, would I ever have made it from Iowa to Colorado? I think maybe, if I had come to Wisconsin at that point in my life, I might just have stayed here. It’s beautiful.
We’ve been enjoying enough shaded sections to keep my HR in check, but as we approach the halfway point, we’re completely exposed again. Just before the halfway point of the race is a 180 degree turn, and for a short time the course loops back on itself. As I pass the halfway mark, I see CK and she yells at me, and I yell back. She’s looking good, and I hope that she can catch me. I pass the halfway point at 2:08:09.
For a brief moment, I think that maybe I can still finish this thing in something around 4:15, just a little negative split. I have purposely not been checking my total elapsed time up until this point, in order to focus only on running within a smart HR. But the negative split thought sticks around for only a minute or two; in this stretch we are completely exposed to the relentless sun, and now, just in case we’re not already having enough fun, we get an extremely stiff headwind.
The forecasts all called for some significant winds today, which I had been dreading since I hate running into the wind. But until this point in the race, the slight winds have been a kind of godsend, providing a cooling effect. But now the wind is just plain cruel. It’s blowing hard, and we’re running under the harsh glare of a mid-morning sun, and there is nothing cool about this scene. My HR skyrockets, and I slow even more just to keep it at bay. It’s really just too damn hot.
The saving grace to this part of the race is that Kent catches up to me. We will run the next six or seven miles of this thing together, and they are by far the best miles of my day. What do we talk about? Who knows. I only know that we run along companionably and chat a bit, and even though it’s really miserable to be out here, it’s not so bad with a friend at my side.
Mad City Marathon Training Tip #2: Jump into hot tub, fully clothed, with temperature turned to max. Run in place for 4+ hours. Repeat as needed.
We run through parts of the University of Wisconsin campus, and it’s beautiful. We get a brief respite from the mean sun when we run in the shadow of a large football stadium. There are more pregnant women cheering us on here. Past the stadium, we pass Nancy McKenna, looking cool and in control as she walks the half-marathon. We weave in and out of residential and commercial areas, and at some point, Frank rides up to join us. He rides alongside for a mile or so around the 15 mile point, and I start to have really nice thoughts about continuing on with my merry band of Tapirs all the way to the finish.
But Frank rides off, promising to return. We enter the Arboretum, and have a mile or so of delicious shade, but then we break out of the shade and are once again in fully exposed sun. My HR gets under control in the shady bits, but goes through the roof each time we get into fully exposed sun. The air here is so thick with cotton from cottonwoods that people will later say the cotton is thick as snow in a blizzard. But there is no mistaking this for a blizzard. It’s just too damn hot.
Around mile 19, we find Mike Murphy and Kim running along together. I point them out to Kent, and then yell to Mike. When he finally hears me – we’re just about to overtake them – he turns around, stops, and says, “oh shit”. It’s the oddest reaction, but I just laugh. I’m not surprised to hear anyone utter anything out here today. Mike and Kim have both stopped running now, and watch as we go by. Kim seems a bit out of it as she yells, while we pass, “I crashed at mile six”. It seems to be the story of the day.
Around mile 20, we have another aid station, and I think about picking up the pace a bit since I’m now entering the final 10k of the race. In a normal race, this is where I would start to kick it in for the finish. But this is no normal race. It’s just too damn hot. The biggest heartbreaker is that my legs feel great, and I know that I would have a really, really strong last 10k today if the weather would but cooperate.
Kent has been stopping to fill his water bottle at the aid stations, and then catching up to me as I continue to run, but after mile 20 it’s a while before he catches up to me. When he does, he tells me that his stomach isn’t feeling well, so he’s going to back off, and he’s only caught up to me to offer me an electrolyte tab. I take the tab, gratefully, but it’s a huge disappointment to lose this comfortable companionship, going into the toughest miles of the race. I had already started to have visions of us crossing the finish line together. And now I’m on my own again.
I have visions of meeting up with the bicycling Tapirs again, or maybe finding another Tapir to run with, but it just doesn’t happen. At some point, I realize that it’s just me and my own thoughts between here and the finish line. But I’ve been here before, and I know how to just gut it out. I pick up my effort for the next two miles and it shows in slightly faster splits, but I pay for it. My max HR, as tested in the last year or two, is 178, yet during this stretch I see my HRM register 179 at one brief point. It occurs to me, when I get light-headed, that I can’t maintain this effort for 6+ miles today. It also occurs to me, when I see people prostrate on the side of the race course and hear ambulance sirens in the distance, that it’s foolhardy to push it at all today. So I settle back into a less aggressive slog, and start to count steps to get to the finish. It’s just too damn hot to do anything else.
As the day has worn on, the aid stations have run out of ice, and I’ve been uttering a new mantra along the way:
Curse the race organizers!!!
But here in the final four miles, I find ice at a few spots. At one place, some spectators (yes, more pregnant women) are handing out ice, and I grab a handful. I stick some in my mouth, some down my bra, some down my shorts, and the rest I just carry in my hands. When this ice melts, I grab everything cold I can find at the aid stations. At one aid station that, miraculously, has cups of ice late in the race, I’m already carrying 2 or 3 cups of liquid when I see the person with ice. Like a 2-year old abandoning one toy for a newer, brighter one, I simply drop a full cup of water. Plop. On the ground. It splashes on both me and a volunteer, but nobody seems to notice. It’s worth it just to get the cold stuff in my hands.
The spectators have not been out in volumes like Boston, but there is a steady supply of good generous folks along the course, applauding and cheering. I’ve tried to engage people along the way, since I need to get strength somewhere, and I’ve been rewarded with lots of cheers and smiles and applause. I’ve just wished that more people would have understood how wonderful a little ice is. (I’ve become like a crystal meth addict, only it’s not drugs I want, just frozen H2O.) Now in these final miles, I find the first spectator to offer something really useful: popsicles! For the first time ever in a race, I take a popsicle (green!) and start to suck on it. Ah, just to hold something cold!
The last part of the race course is actually a bit annoying. We run up and over a pedestrian overpass. I pass a guy who says, “good job” as I shuffle on by. It occurs to me that I’ve been passing people pretty steadily for quite some time, but it doesn’t feel as good as it normally would. The people I’m passing are suffering – really suffering – far more than me. And many of them are gracious enough to offer kudos as I run past. It must be the Midwestern flair for politeness.
Finally, finally, I am passing mile 26 and then rounding the corner for the final stretch. I’ve saved just a bit of a kick for this point, because I’m expecting my Tapir friends to be somewhere along this stretch and I really want to look strong for them. There are no disappointments. The Tapirs are yelling loudly as I pass them, and then I hear my name on the loudspeaker. The crowd at the finish line is cheering loudly, but I wave my hands to stir them up a bit more, and they accommodate me. Some days you’ve earned the finish line drama more than others, and today is one of those days. I cross the finish line in 4:26:20, one of my slowest ever marathons. It feels like one of my biggest victories.
And so it turns out that the thing that brought me to Madison – Melissa’s birthday and the promise of spending time with friends – is the very thing that helps me to survive this marathon, and this weekend. For the only thing that can be done with a marathon on a day like today is to survive. It’s just too damn hot to do anything else. And I’m happy enough to have done just that. The rest is all friendships and bonding and people: the essence of life, boiled down into 26.2 mile increments.
On Monday morning, I think about going out for a run when I get up, but I figure it’s just too damn hot. Who would run anything in this heat? I try to go for a walk after breakfast instead, but it’s just too damn hot, and I take refuge in a Starbucks for an hour or so before heading to the airport. Just before I board my plane for the short flight from Madison to Chicago, the gate agent tells us that the air conditioning is not working on the plane we’ll be on. It’s a short flight, but it’s just too damn hot to be stuck in a small metallic tube on a day like today without any air conditioning. For several minutes, I think I might pass out because it’s so incredibly hot on this small plane. We board the flight to go from Chicago to Denver, and it’s a bit cooler, but still quite warm. But weather is moving in, and once we’re out on the runway, the pilots are told to turn off the engines because we won’t be taking off anytime soon. So once again it’s just plain hot, and then a thunderstorm buffets the plane as we sit out here, waiting. I think, this is what my entire weekends was about: everything just too damn hot, and everything just way too long to complete. We take off for Denver more than 3 hours later than scheduled.
Jesse Colin Young sings, in his song “Ridgetop”, that the very best part of every trip is the road that brings him back home. And that’s long how I’ve felt about coming home to the crisp, clean, cool air of Colorado. Normally, I notice the delightful quality of this air as soon as I step out of the airport, and today does not disappoint.
It’s much later than it should be when I step into the taxi that will take me home. The sky is dark, and getting darker, and it starts to thunder and lightning well before we reach my home. The cab driver opens the windows and the breeze rushes in. Typically, this would be far too cold for me, but today it feels wonderful. Giant raindrops are beating down on the car as we pull up in front of my building. The cabbie races with my bags to the shelter of the front entrance, but I take my time. I stand on the sidewalk and let the rain fall on my head. It is wonderfully, deliciously cool.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Boston, Take Five (April 17, 2006)
It was not her best time, it was not her worst time……no, that’s been done.
All happy marathons are alike….no, that’s been done.
What can you say about a 49-year old woman who………..no, that’s been done, too.
Hmmm. I can’t seem to find my own words, my own voice, to tell you about the Boston Marathon 2006.
Maybe it’s because my mother always told me “if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all”.
And I’m having a hard time finding the good things to say about this run.
So, breaking Mom’s rule, I’ll just out with it. It shoulda been a great race. My fifth Boston Marathon: that grand old race – the thing I thought I’d never qualify for – where I feel a bit of an imposter every year, just to be there with all the really fast runners. Just to be granted a number to run this race is a huge honor. Just to be allowed admittance to this club – and for five years in a row! – should have been more than enough to keep me happy for the rest of my life. Just to run it should be the reward.
But, no. I have to ask for the moon. I have to reach for the stars. After running four Bostons, I have to make it my priority in life to run a sub-4 hour race here.
Why does it matter so much? Who knows. All I know is that it does matter to me.
So on April 17, 2006, I make my way to Hopkinton – a little berg in Massachusetts, just 26 or so miles west of Boston – with the sole intent on running this thing in something under 4 hours. In truth, I’m not all that picky. 3:59:59 will fill the bill just perfectly, thank you, and then we can all go home and get on with our lives.
It’s not an unreasonable goal, not an out-of-reach quest. Or so I believe. I’ve run many sub-4 marathons – including a string of them in the last year: every marathon I’ve run since Boston 2005, in fact, has been a sub-4, and there were 5 of them. They weren’t all walks in the park – none of those deliciously fast courses like St. George or Steamtown. I ran sub-4 at the Marathon to Marathon in Iowa, and at Omaha, and at Seattle, and at Austin. I ran a major sub-4 at Marine Corps – my best ever, 3:50:29 – on a crowded course that is not reputed to be fast. I ran sub-4 in the humidity and hills of Omaha, and in the rain and wind in Iowa, and in the very cold and icy conditions in Austin.
So it is not with a small measure of hubris that I approach this Boston with a belief that sub-4 is just there for the taking, given a day with good marathon conditions.
Of course, this allows me to steep myself in my strongly held beliefs about my underperformance in earlier Bostons. My first Boston – my best time at the grand old lady – was when I had my best time ever here, and that was a 4:00:55. Why not a perfect marathon day? Well, it was a perfect day, and I would have easily broken 4 hours (so I’ve told myself, and the legend has grown in my mind) had I not broken a rib skiing that year, disrupting my ability to train for the race. The next three Bostons have been hot-hot-hot. The fact that my best showing in these three years was last year’s 4:04:00 had nothing to do with my running ability, only those hot conditions. Surely, if I had a day with perfect marathon weather – and no broken bones – then I could easily run well under 4 hours.
That’s the theory, anyway.
But sometimes the running gods have other plans.
This year, Boston is split into two waves, and I find myself dead center in the middle of the second wave, which is set to start racing at 12:30 p.m. The fast folks took off at noon, straight up. I don’t mind being in the second wave since it’s just such an honor to be here – at least I don’t mind until the race gets underway.
Yet, somehow, reality keeps interfering with the story that I tell myself. As I enter my corral before the race, I’m struck by how dissociated I am with the whole thing. I look around for a couple of friends who should be in the same corral, but I can’t find them – among the thousand or so runners who share this space of roadway with me – and I think that maybe I should have planned something more positive, just to ensure that I’d see them.
But nothing about this race is coming together, least of all plans to meet other runners.
I’ve not found any friends when the crowd starts to move forward. It’s one of those odd realities of racing in large marathons that you rarely hear the starter’s gun, and it’s true of Boston each year. The only sign that the race is underway is the gentle motion of the crowd starting to move forward, like a train pulling out of the station. I’m still looking for Monique or Lori – with no luck – as we head forward. I look for Mick on the side of the road – he left me at the corral gate just a short time ago – but there are too many people, and this crowd is moving too fast, so soon to be running, when last year’s race took me nearly 20 minutes to reach the start line.
And what happens next is the story of my day. The crowd is thicker across the starting mats (for the chip timing) than I’ve ever experienced at Boston, and I’m caught in the pack. I normally head to the side of the road to high five the kids who line up there as we leave Hopkinton, but this year the crowd has me pinned in so that I can’t get there. It’s impossible to take advantage of the nice downhill at the start of the race, just too many people.
The crowded conditions continue for a long time, and then the darters and weavers keep up their elbowing act for miles and miles and miles. I wonder about cause and effect. Do I notice these annoyances because I’m not having a great day, or do I have a not-great day because of the annoyances? It really doesn’t matter much, because the bottom line is that I spend the first several miles trying – in vain – to get into my usual marathon rhythm, and today, for whatever reasons, it just doesn’t happen.
At mile 5, I look at my split and think, “what the hell?” I’ve been checking my heart rate monitor (HRM) regularly to make sure that I’m not running too hard this early in the race, but my time is so slow here that I have a sinking feeling. I double check the HRM, just to make sure that I haven’t inadvertently slacked off, but my ticker is beating along, fast as it can. It’s just my legs that refuse to move quickly.
As the race wears on, I try to maintain hope; I try to keep my spirits up; I try to keep pushing and pushing – hoping that my legs will magically find a gear that they seem to have forgotten today. I desperately want to love this day, this race, this run. This is the Boston Marathon, after all!
But I already know this course, and its newness has worn off and today it seems like an old friend who betrays you, and you just can’t seem to accept that the friend would do this to you. I run through the familiar checkpoints – past the guy in the first mile who always blasts out the theme from Rocky, and the place where the road splits in Ashland, and the “check your style” sign at the huge plate glass windows around mile 8, and the women of Wellesley, screaming their heads off. And then, at each mile marker, I hit the split button on my watch and glance down, hoping against all hope that somehow that last mile was faster.
Hope is a funny thing – it propels you along, even when there is little reason to believe in it anymore. Besides hope, the thing I have going for me is that this is Boston. Boston!!! And I know this crowd, and never before have I used it so much to get me through a tough day. Once I recognize – early in the day – that my splits are not in line to get me that sub-4 that I so badly want, I turn to the crowd for inspiration. Somewhere in Framingham, I head over to the side of the road and start slapping hands with the kids who stand with their hands outstretched. It only takes a short amount of this to have me smiling and thinking, “yeah, this is what it’s all about”.
So it is that the people along the course are – as always, year after year – the impetus that moves me along this 26.2 mile journey……..and they are by far the best thing about this particular Boston. There are the kids I high five in Framingham. There is the guy who runs out on the course with me somewhere in Natick, yelling, “you got it, Baby!” There are kids and more kids in Newton. There’s the group of guys in Newton (or is it Brookline) who are high-fiving, so I reach out my hand, and one of the guys slaps my hand and then runs a few steps after me, yelling “I love you I love you I love you!!!” There are the folks with oranges and popsicles and more oranges and water and more oranges and bananas and pretzels and twizzlers and jelly beans and yet more oranges along the course. I take water from several impromptu water stations along the way, and I’m reminded that it is this – this particular spirit of Boston, in which the race is really owned by the people along the course who are as much – or more – a part of the tradition than those of us who are allowed access to the hallowed route – that makes the race such a great event.
My salvation is always in Newton – the site of the hills – and this year it's one bright spot. No matter that I’m not having the day I had hoped, I somehow always seem to do better than most of the rest of the crowd through this stretch. Today does not disappoint. Maybe it’s the karma I draw from Mick, who always waits for me just past the mile marker for mile 16, just as the course turns uphill. Today, I’ve been counting down the miles until I will see him since early in the race, and now, just running past him, blowing him a kiss and yelling “je t’aime” gives me the juice to tackle the coming hills.
But it’s not enough. At some point I accept that this will not be my sub-four day, and I try to draw something else out of it. A second best day at Boston, maybe? But after some point, I don’t even try to figure my anticipated finish time. I’m just running – running as absolutely fast as I can, relying on the logic of “the faster I go, the sooner I’ll be done running today”.
In the last week leading up to Boston, the number four kept appearing in my life. My last short run was in a time of 44:44. At my pre-race acupuncture appointment, my acupuncturist noted that the time on my running watch – set to military time, and still on my wrist after a mid-day run – read “14:14” just as she finished setting all the needles. I won $4 in the Powerball drawing. And on and on. I wrote on my running blog that I would be happier with these “signs” if they were more indicative of sub-four – say, for instance, 3s and 5s and 9s. But no, all the signs were fours.
So it is not a great surprise that, when I cross the finish line of my fifth Boston Marathon, on a beautiful and perfect Monday in April 2006, I find that my official time for the race is a perfect 4:04:00. This is, as unlikely as it might be, the exact time – down to the second – of my finish at Boston in 2005.
After the race, Mick and my coach Benji and others try to find the reasons I cannot find for how this day went. “Maybe you’re coming down with something”, says Benji, who knows that I’ve been suffering badly with allergies for the last week or two. “It was more crowded than ever”, says Mick, who has lived through my previous hot weather Bostons with me, and who knew, again today, when I reached him just past mile 16, that I was not running the race I had hoped to run. Somebody else suggests that the headwind was a factor. It’s a comfort to me that other people make excuses for me, since I can’t really find a rational reason for this – this not-horrible-but-not-great-race that I really wanted to be a really-good-race. In my heart, I know that none of the excuses proffered on my behalf can explain this day.
As for me, I think I’ll just blame it on the moon. What else can I reasonably do? I have a theory (only slightly supported by facts) that the marathons that I run closest to the new moon are my fastest, and those – like this year’s Boston – that are closer to a full moon are slower. It’s as good a reason as I can muster for my race today. Simply out of my hands. Blame it on the moon.
Bette Davis, at the end of “Now, Voyager”, says, “Don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.” And after Boston 2006, for some moments, I think that maybe Bette Davis got it right. I’ve had the stars – all these chances to run the world’s greatest marathon, all my good races in myriad places around the country: maybe I should just accept that Boston will never be fast for me. But I am not a quitter, and this race has gotten under my skin. As the days after Boston roll on by, I try to figure out what to do next. Run Boston again, give up my sub-four goal entirely, or maybe take a year or two off before returning again?
I’m leaning towards the option of taking a year or two off from Boston, just to recharge, but then Amie, Benji’s “glass half full” wife, points out to me that with my age group change (later this year), my Boston time is good enough to gain me entry to next year’s race. She and Benji are considering running it, which is another incentive to return to Beantown. Another friend mentions that she will be back in Boston in April 2007. Our B&B host – with whom we’ve stayed for three years in a row now – says, as we leave for the airport on Tuesday morning, “see you next year”. So, while I’m really thinking about taking a year or two off, I just peek at the moon charts for 2007. The third Monday in April coincides precisely with the new moon.
And then I wonder: is it really so bad to reach for the moon?
All happy marathons are alike….no, that’s been done.
What can you say about a 49-year old woman who………..no, that’s been done, too.
Hmmm. I can’t seem to find my own words, my own voice, to tell you about the Boston Marathon 2006.
Maybe it’s because my mother always told me “if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all”.
And I’m having a hard time finding the good things to say about this run.
So, breaking Mom’s rule, I’ll just out with it. It shoulda been a great race. My fifth Boston Marathon: that grand old race – the thing I thought I’d never qualify for – where I feel a bit of an imposter every year, just to be there with all the really fast runners. Just to be granted a number to run this race is a huge honor. Just to be allowed admittance to this club – and for five years in a row! – should have been more than enough to keep me happy for the rest of my life. Just to run it should be the reward.
But, no. I have to ask for the moon. I have to reach for the stars. After running four Bostons, I have to make it my priority in life to run a sub-4 hour race here.
Why does it matter so much? Who knows. All I know is that it does matter to me.
So on April 17, 2006, I make my way to Hopkinton – a little berg in Massachusetts, just 26 or so miles west of Boston – with the sole intent on running this thing in something under 4 hours. In truth, I’m not all that picky. 3:59:59 will fill the bill just perfectly, thank you, and then we can all go home and get on with our lives.
It’s not an unreasonable goal, not an out-of-reach quest. Or so I believe. I’ve run many sub-4 marathons – including a string of them in the last year: every marathon I’ve run since Boston 2005, in fact, has been a sub-4, and there were 5 of them. They weren’t all walks in the park – none of those deliciously fast courses like St. George or Steamtown. I ran sub-4 at the Marathon to Marathon in Iowa, and at Omaha, and at Seattle, and at Austin. I ran a major sub-4 at Marine Corps – my best ever, 3:50:29 – on a crowded course that is not reputed to be fast. I ran sub-4 in the humidity and hills of Omaha, and in the rain and wind in Iowa, and in the very cold and icy conditions in Austin.
So it is not with a small measure of hubris that I approach this Boston with a belief that sub-4 is just there for the taking, given a day with good marathon conditions.
Of course, this allows me to steep myself in my strongly held beliefs about my underperformance in earlier Bostons. My first Boston – my best time at the grand old lady – was when I had my best time ever here, and that was a 4:00:55. Why not a perfect marathon day? Well, it was a perfect day, and I would have easily broken 4 hours (so I’ve told myself, and the legend has grown in my mind) had I not broken a rib skiing that year, disrupting my ability to train for the race. The next three Bostons have been hot-hot-hot. The fact that my best showing in these three years was last year’s 4:04:00 had nothing to do with my running ability, only those hot conditions. Surely, if I had a day with perfect marathon weather – and no broken bones – then I could easily run well under 4 hours.
That’s the theory, anyway.
But sometimes the running gods have other plans.
This year, Boston is split into two waves, and I find myself dead center in the middle of the second wave, which is set to start racing at 12:30 p.m. The fast folks took off at noon, straight up. I don’t mind being in the second wave since it’s just such an honor to be here – at least I don’t mind until the race gets underway.
Yet, somehow, reality keeps interfering with the story that I tell myself. As I enter my corral before the race, I’m struck by how dissociated I am with the whole thing. I look around for a couple of friends who should be in the same corral, but I can’t find them – among the thousand or so runners who share this space of roadway with me – and I think that maybe I should have planned something more positive, just to ensure that I’d see them.
But nothing about this race is coming together, least of all plans to meet other runners.
I’ve not found any friends when the crowd starts to move forward. It’s one of those odd realities of racing in large marathons that you rarely hear the starter’s gun, and it’s true of Boston each year. The only sign that the race is underway is the gentle motion of the crowd starting to move forward, like a train pulling out of the station. I’m still looking for Monique or Lori – with no luck – as we head forward. I look for Mick on the side of the road – he left me at the corral gate just a short time ago – but there are too many people, and this crowd is moving too fast, so soon to be running, when last year’s race took me nearly 20 minutes to reach the start line.
And what happens next is the story of my day. The crowd is thicker across the starting mats (for the chip timing) than I’ve ever experienced at Boston, and I’m caught in the pack. I normally head to the side of the road to high five the kids who line up there as we leave Hopkinton, but this year the crowd has me pinned in so that I can’t get there. It’s impossible to take advantage of the nice downhill at the start of the race, just too many people.
The crowded conditions continue for a long time, and then the darters and weavers keep up their elbowing act for miles and miles and miles. I wonder about cause and effect. Do I notice these annoyances because I’m not having a great day, or do I have a not-great day because of the annoyances? It really doesn’t matter much, because the bottom line is that I spend the first several miles trying – in vain – to get into my usual marathon rhythm, and today, for whatever reasons, it just doesn’t happen.
At mile 5, I look at my split and think, “what the hell?” I’ve been checking my heart rate monitor (HRM) regularly to make sure that I’m not running too hard this early in the race, but my time is so slow here that I have a sinking feeling. I double check the HRM, just to make sure that I haven’t inadvertently slacked off, but my ticker is beating along, fast as it can. It’s just my legs that refuse to move quickly.
As the race wears on, I try to maintain hope; I try to keep my spirits up; I try to keep pushing and pushing – hoping that my legs will magically find a gear that they seem to have forgotten today. I desperately want to love this day, this race, this run. This is the Boston Marathon, after all!
But I already know this course, and its newness has worn off and today it seems like an old friend who betrays you, and you just can’t seem to accept that the friend would do this to you. I run through the familiar checkpoints – past the guy in the first mile who always blasts out the theme from Rocky, and the place where the road splits in Ashland, and the “check your style” sign at the huge plate glass windows around mile 8, and the women of Wellesley, screaming their heads off. And then, at each mile marker, I hit the split button on my watch and glance down, hoping against all hope that somehow that last mile was faster.
Hope is a funny thing – it propels you along, even when there is little reason to believe in it anymore. Besides hope, the thing I have going for me is that this is Boston. Boston!!! And I know this crowd, and never before have I used it so much to get me through a tough day. Once I recognize – early in the day – that my splits are not in line to get me that sub-4 that I so badly want, I turn to the crowd for inspiration. Somewhere in Framingham, I head over to the side of the road and start slapping hands with the kids who stand with their hands outstretched. It only takes a short amount of this to have me smiling and thinking, “yeah, this is what it’s all about”.
So it is that the people along the course are – as always, year after year – the impetus that moves me along this 26.2 mile journey……..and they are by far the best thing about this particular Boston. There are the kids I high five in Framingham. There is the guy who runs out on the course with me somewhere in Natick, yelling, “you got it, Baby!” There are kids and more kids in Newton. There’s the group of guys in Newton (or is it Brookline) who are high-fiving, so I reach out my hand, and one of the guys slaps my hand and then runs a few steps after me, yelling “I love you I love you I love you!!!” There are the folks with oranges and popsicles and more oranges and water and more oranges and bananas and pretzels and twizzlers and jelly beans and yet more oranges along the course. I take water from several impromptu water stations along the way, and I’m reminded that it is this – this particular spirit of Boston, in which the race is really owned by the people along the course who are as much – or more – a part of the tradition than those of us who are allowed access to the hallowed route – that makes the race such a great event.
My salvation is always in Newton – the site of the hills – and this year it's one bright spot. No matter that I’m not having the day I had hoped, I somehow always seem to do better than most of the rest of the crowd through this stretch. Today does not disappoint. Maybe it’s the karma I draw from Mick, who always waits for me just past the mile marker for mile 16, just as the course turns uphill. Today, I’ve been counting down the miles until I will see him since early in the race, and now, just running past him, blowing him a kiss and yelling “je t’aime” gives me the juice to tackle the coming hills.
But it’s not enough. At some point I accept that this will not be my sub-four day, and I try to draw something else out of it. A second best day at Boston, maybe? But after some point, I don’t even try to figure my anticipated finish time. I’m just running – running as absolutely fast as I can, relying on the logic of “the faster I go, the sooner I’ll be done running today”.
In the last week leading up to Boston, the number four kept appearing in my life. My last short run was in a time of 44:44. At my pre-race acupuncture appointment, my acupuncturist noted that the time on my running watch – set to military time, and still on my wrist after a mid-day run – read “14:14” just as she finished setting all the needles. I won $4 in the Powerball drawing. And on and on. I wrote on my running blog that I would be happier with these “signs” if they were more indicative of sub-four – say, for instance, 3s and 5s and 9s. But no, all the signs were fours.
So it is not a great surprise that, when I cross the finish line of my fifth Boston Marathon, on a beautiful and perfect Monday in April 2006, I find that my official time for the race is a perfect 4:04:00. This is, as unlikely as it might be, the exact time – down to the second – of my finish at Boston in 2005.
After the race, Mick and my coach Benji and others try to find the reasons I cannot find for how this day went. “Maybe you’re coming down with something”, says Benji, who knows that I’ve been suffering badly with allergies for the last week or two. “It was more crowded than ever”, says Mick, who has lived through my previous hot weather Bostons with me, and who knew, again today, when I reached him just past mile 16, that I was not running the race I had hoped to run. Somebody else suggests that the headwind was a factor. It’s a comfort to me that other people make excuses for me, since I can’t really find a rational reason for this – this not-horrible-but-not-great-race that I really wanted to be a really-good-race. In my heart, I know that none of the excuses proffered on my behalf can explain this day.
As for me, I think I’ll just blame it on the moon. What else can I reasonably do? I have a theory (only slightly supported by facts) that the marathons that I run closest to the new moon are my fastest, and those – like this year’s Boston – that are closer to a full moon are slower. It’s as good a reason as I can muster for my race today. Simply out of my hands. Blame it on the moon.
Bette Davis, at the end of “Now, Voyager”, says, “Don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.” And after Boston 2006, for some moments, I think that maybe Bette Davis got it right. I’ve had the stars – all these chances to run the world’s greatest marathon, all my good races in myriad places around the country: maybe I should just accept that Boston will never be fast for me. But I am not a quitter, and this race has gotten under my skin. As the days after Boston roll on by, I try to figure out what to do next. Run Boston again, give up my sub-four goal entirely, or maybe take a year or two off before returning again?
I’m leaning towards the option of taking a year or two off from Boston, just to recharge, but then Amie, Benji’s “glass half full” wife, points out to me that with my age group change (later this year), my Boston time is good enough to gain me entry to next year’s race. She and Benji are considering running it, which is another incentive to return to Beantown. Another friend mentions that she will be back in Boston in April 2007. Our B&B host – with whom we’ve stayed for three years in a row now – says, as we leave for the airport on Tuesday morning, “see you next year”. So, while I’m really thinking about taking a year or two off, I just peek at the moon charts for 2007. The third Monday in April coincides precisely with the new moon.
And then I wonder: is it really so bad to reach for the moon?
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Austin Marathon (February 19, 2005)
My first thought upon deciding to run the Austin Marathon in February is that Mick will want to come along, since Austin is reputed to be a great cycling city, evidenced by the fact that seven time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong lives and trains there. But Mick tells me that he doesn’t want to come to Austin, he has other things planned that weekend. By this time, though, my cousin Kerri has told me that she’s coming to Austin to run the half-marathon. But after I register and buy my airline ticket, Kerri tells me that she’s not coming, either. Not to worry, my v-team friend Brian has, in the meantime, told me that he’s going to run Austin. When Kerri bows out, I contact Brian only to learn that he’s not coming either.
Is this a sign? Maybe this is not the right race for me?
But then again, I’ve been training with this race in mind, and it’s all going very well. And then a couple of weeks before the marathon, a flash in the news: Lance and Sheryl have broken up. (In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have been a hot item, and they were engaged – formalized with a 6-carat diamond – last fall.) The breakup means that Lance is, once again, available.
I think that it’s a sign. Lance needs me.
So, for the first time ever, I’m completely on my own as I make my way to a marathon. But I find other marathoners waiting for the flight to take me from Denver to Austin on Saturday morning, and have a nice time chatting with a few like-minded folks. At the expo in Austin, I finally get to meet, in person, Rich Benyo and Jan Seeley, the publisher and editor of Marathon and Beyond. We get to have a nice chat, something that probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been with others. And while I go for a short drive to see a bit of Austin before heading to the pasta dinner on Saturday night, I drive right by Chuy’s Tex-Mex Restaurant. Lance has mentioned Chuy’s several times in his books; it’s his favorite Mexican restaurant in Austin, a place he likes to hang out.
Clearly, this is a sign. Lance wants me.
But when my race morning wake-up call comes at 4 a.m. on Sunday, I’m not really thinking about Lance. I’m thinking about the weather outside, and how warmly to dress. The forecast is for the temperature to stay in the 30s throughout the morning. But when I walk through the hotel lobby, somebody tells me that last night’s rain turned to ice when the temps dropped into the 20s overnight. I test the sidewalk for ice, and, finding none, look down at the key fob to open my rental car. The next thing I know, I’m on my back. Yes, there is ice. Is this a sign that there shouldn’t be a marathon today?
But the roads aren’t bad, and I’m soon downtown, parked, and waiting in line for the shuttle bus to take us to the start line. It’s warm on the bus, but only 31 degrees Fahrenheit outside. There is moisture in the air – a bit more than a mist, a bit less than a drizzle. The bus deposits us at the starting area, and it’s a cold wait for the race start, which gets delayed by more than 30 minutes because of traffic jams. I am reminded that the road is icy in spots as I watch a couple of people end up on their backsides in the parking lot. I slide whenever I step on painted lines on the pavement, and start to watch my steps carefully. It’s cold, and everyone is trying to stay warm in whatever way that they can. I do this by jogging around the parking lot. Other people take shelter next to cars and trailers and tents that are scattered throughout the parking lot. I watch as a man – a runner, judging by his shorts and shoes – bundles up his wife by buttoning her coat collar as high as it will go, and then rubbing her shoulders to warm her; it’s the most tender moment I’ve ever seen at the start of a race.
This is a large race – around 10,000 people total in the combined marathon and half-marathon races, which start together – and the starting area is crowded. People crowd together a bit more than necessary, just to stay warm. We hear a commotion at the front, and think that the race might have started, but back where I’m standing, nobody moves. We’re all frozen to our places.
But eventually, the crowd moves, and I’m crossing the Start Line. The start is at a suburban office campus of Freescale Semiconductor, the major sponsor of the race. As we run along the narrow road that circles the main building, there’s a cry from the crowd near the building. A deer is running wildly. First there is one deer, and then several, all running scared; it looks like they want to cross the road but the stream of runners is preventing them, and they are in a frenzy. These deer are all little, and I think it strange that Texas, a state that prides itself on everything being oversized, would field such small animals.
It’s crowded going, and my first mile is the slowest I’ve ever run in a marathon. I’ve been worried about ice on the road, but decide that it’s time to break free of this crowd and pick up some speed. But I’ve started just behind the 4-hour pace group, and they are like a fortress across the road – a moving fortress. It takes me more energy than I want to expend to just get around them, but it feels good to have some open road in front of me when I at last pass them. This group will haunt me for the next several miles, though; they sneak up behind me, and I feel a crowd closing in, and look over my shoulder to see the pace group sign just a few steps away. A few miles down the road, I finally drop them.
While the pace group is incredibly annoying, I’m enjoying the other people along the way. The volunteers are, as always, super. There are volunteers standing at bridges, warning us about the ice. At the second aid station, there is a volunteer wearing an ankle length fur coat, handing out sticks with Vaseline; this is one of the most incongruous sights that I’ve ever seen at a marathon. There are volunteers dressed as leprechauns, and volunteers wearing laurel wreaths, and volunteers dressed in grass skirts and plastic leis.
The runners aren’t any less colorful. In the early miles of the race, I follow a woman who is wearing pants that look more like pajama bottoms than running tights. There’s a guy that I see multiple times in the first several miles who runs with his hands clasped behind his back, and then frequently turns around and runs backwards. There is a guy running with his dog – a yellow lab mix – who tells me that they will probably only go 22 or 23 miles since she (the dog) has never run more than 21 miles at a time. For many miles, I follow a guy wearing a neon green wig/hat that is nearly identical to a wig that I gave Theresa two years ago when she was undergoing chemo; Theresa’s wig was neon purple, and she shocked the other residents of the Transplant House by wearing it proudly. Early in the race there is a guy sporting a long white-gray ponytail that goes halfway down his back and is crimped multiple times; he also sports a matching ZZ Top long white beard. In the second half of the race, I trade places several times with a guy wearing a fleece hat with long green streamers that look like snakes sprouting from his head. When we run through the University of Texas, I pass two Elvises running together.
But my favorite racer is Tutu Man.
This guy is all decked out in pink. He passes me slowly a few miles into the race, and I have ample time to take in the full impact of his running costume. He is wearing a pale pink, knee-length tutu with a couple of flounces. His singlet is pink, as are his gloves. He is wearing a cowboy hat that is (you guessed it) pink. His socks have pink flowers, and he carries a pink wand as well. The piece de resistance? His shoes, which are dyed a bright fuschia. It’s worth the entry fee just to see this guy.
The fans lining the course are great, and I take note of the signs along the way. The first sign I read says “Pay No Attention to this Sign, It Contains No Valuable Information”. A little later there is a woman holding a sign “Get Your ASSets Moving (Sorry, attempt at Accounting Humour)”. I think that my friend Melissa, an accountant, would like the sign but hate the conditions (Melissa lives in Florida and would be running in a down coat today if she were here.) In recognition of the cold, there’s the sign that says “We’re Cold, but Jen’s Hot!” There are the kids holding signs for their running parents, of which my favorite is “My Mom’s Faster Than Your Mom”. And then there is my favorite sign of all, “Go Your Name Here!” The guy holding this sign catches my eye, and when he sees me laughing, he shakes the sign and cheers.
But not all the signs are in people’s hands. One guy displays his simple sentiment on his gray t-shirt “Anne Fan”. People have painted signs on the road, and the one that resonates the most is “Ship of Fools”. Volunteers at aid stations put up signs, too: “This seemed like a good idea in September” and “What happens at the Dawg Station Stays at the Dawg Station”.
The miles roll on by as I watch runners and fans and volunteers along the way. The scenery is, well, not all that scenic, especially for a town that bills itself as “a city within a park”. We start out in a suburban office park and meander through some nice residential areas. We pass a sign for the Deerpark Middle School shortly after the race start, and it seems fitting, what with the deer racing alongside us. There’s some more residential – all ranch homes, all with nicely manicured lawns – and some more commercial and light industrial areas. There are icy spots on the bridges and on the painted surfaces of the road; at one point, we cross a bridge where the highway crews have laid down sand that is so thick that it feels like running on a beach. We pass a sign for the “JJ Pickle Research Campus”, and I have some fun for the next stretch of road wondering about what kind of pickle research might exist (gherkins? Dill? Kosher?), and wondering who among my friends would try to set me straight by telling me that it’s a high tech research institute associated with the University of Texas.
It is so cold at the start that I wear four layers on top, and two layers of gloves. I wear shorts, but that’s only because I don’t have any tights with pockets, and I can’t figure out how to carry my gels without the pockets in my shorts. I liberally apply BodyGlide to my legs in the hopes that this will provide a layer of protection against the cold. On my head, I wear a headband to warm my ears, with a billed cap on top of that. At the start, I figure that I’ll take the headband off when I warm up. I’m still wearing the both the headband and the hat when I cross the finish line.
I normally set my pace by using my heart rate monitor (HRM), but today my HRM does not register properly for the first three miles because I am so cold. By the fourth mile, I’m finally building up some heat – under my four layers of clothes – and the HRM kicks in. But I already think that I’ve got a feeling for the “right” pace, since, other than my first slow mile, I’ve been running almost identical splits (8:58, 8:58, and 8:55 for miles 2-4). At mile four, I decide to take off my outermost layer, and I leave a throwaway shirt and my outer pair of gloves along the road.
Between miles 6 and 7, there are people trying to get across the race course to make their way to the Great Hills Baptist Church. These are people dressed in their Sunday finest, carrying Bibles, and for a moment I’m surprised: I’ve forgotten that this is what other people do on Sunday mornings. Some of the churchgoers say something to some of the runners in front of me, but I can’t make it out. Are they offering encouragement, or a reproach? At first I think it’s the former, but then I’m afraid that it’s the latter. “This”, I want to say to them, “this is my church. This is my worship and my meditation, this is my healing and my salvation.” I think of the song "Signs" from the 70s and want to sing, “thank you Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine”.
But I don’t need to sing – there is plenty of music along the course without adding my voice to the mix. The race packet included an Entertainment Guide that lists 36 different bands that are scheduled to play along the course. While there are not that many bands out here today – who can blame those who choose not to come out in this weather – the quality of the groups who show up to provide entertainment is remarkable. There are bands of every musical genre, and they all help to make the race go quickly.
Around mile 8 or so, I realize that my legs are numb; if not for my hamstrings tightness, I would not be able to feel them at all. It’s still very cold, and there is still moisture in the air. I wish I had worn tights.
My favorite stretch of roadway is another residential area, just before the halfway point, called Shoal Creek. One side of Shoal Creek is, once again, middle class residential housing, but the other side backs up to a park or open space area, and it’s just a pretty stretch of road. This is somewhere just before the halfway point, and we pass a time and temperature sign: the temperature is still 32 degrees.
But it starts to dry out after this stretch, which is a welcome change. The pavement is no longer wet and dangerous. The half marathoners are gone after a well-marked split in the course, and now the field is narrowed to those of us going the full distance. There are aid stations almost every mile on this course, and in the early miles, I take water at almost every aid station, even though the water at the early stations is filled with ice crystals from the cold. But now, as we run alongside a freeway, I have to pee desperately. I have had to pee since standing in the starting corral, but at that time I thought it was just typical pre-race nerves, and didn’t worry. I’ve been slowing down my fluid intake, hoping that this urge will just go away, and still it doesn’t make a difference. Needing to pee is a big distraction, but not the kind of distraction that I want. It’s made worse by signs along the way that bring it to mind, like the one we’ve just passed for a company called “Flow Sequence”.
There are bushes between the road we’re running on and the freeway, and I think that this might be my best chance to make a quick “pit stop” – there have been lines at all of the port-a-johns along the course, and I’m just not willing to waste valuable race time waiting in a line. The freeway traffic is a concern until a freight train comes between our residential street and the freeway. I think to myself, “it’s now or never” – but something holds me back. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never made a pee stop in a marathon, and it just seems like bad form. Maybe I’m still holding onto the hope that this urge will just magically pass. Or maybe it’s that little devil who suddenly appears on my shoulder. “What the heck”, he says, “this isn’t a PR day anyway, why worry about the time.” And I’m almost ready to step off the road, before I reconsider. Not a PR day? Sez who???
And I make a decision to make it to the finish. That’s all that really matters – making the decision. I hear Billy Bob Thornton in “Bandits”, saying “okay, no more juice boxes”, and it makes me laugh. I determine to limit my water intake as much as I safely can between now and the finish line. I hear Lyle Lovett say, “what would you be if you didn’t even try?” It’s still very cold, so I figure that I’m not sweating all that much, and I can risk limited fluid intake for the next 12 or so miles.
At long last, it’s mile 15, and I am finally warmed up. I feel good. Really good. Like one of those days that you’re on a PR pace. I can finally feel my legs again, and they feel great – happy to be running! That little devil didn’t stick around for long, and I forget almost entirely about anything except just enjoying this run. We’ve passed through a few more residential areas – first a more modest area, and then a development with old mansions. There are more people out along the course (God bless them for coming out in this cold), and I’m getting strength from the fans. The bibs for this race are pre-printed with first names, and I hear people shout my name over and over. It’s amazing how much strength you can pull out of the sound of people yelling your name at you.
And now, people are yelling at me not just my name, but things like “I love that smile”, and “keep on smiling”. I realize that I’m just grinning ear to ear. Marathons have this effect on me.
Along this stretch, there is a lone musician, a young girl, playing the theme to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on a violin, her dad standing at her side. The melody lodges in my mind. I’m humming to myself as we pass through the University of Texas campus, and approach downtown. There are swarms of people here as we run up and around the capitol.
And now the dreaded out-and-back. It just seems cruel for race directors to design marathon courses like this, but many of them do, with an out and back so near the finish. My motivation at this point in a race is like that of a horse heading back to the barn: take the straightest and most direct route possible. But this course has us turn, with the finish area in sight, and run away from it. At mile 22, we head west – into the wind – for a 2 ½ mile jaunt out on a road that parallels the Colorado River. This might be a nice stretch of roadway on a normal day, but today it’s miserable. After miles and miles with a mixture of tail winds and cross winds, we are running into a full-on head wind. To make matters worse, we’re going uphill on a steep little deserted freeway ramp (there are no fans!). To further make matters worse, the temperature, coming off the water, drops again. I felt warm enough at mile 15 to drop my second throwaway layer, but now I’m feeling cold again. My HRM stops working as the sweat I’ve built up cools and dries.
The only nice thing about the out and back is that we finally get to see other folks in the race. As we run west, I watch the 3:40 and 3:45 pace groups go by, so much nearer the finish than I. I scan my eyes for a 3:50 pace group, but don’t see one. This gives me a bit of hope that maybe I’m on a good pace; I can’t really tell, since I’ve lost my ability to do time-math. I see Tutu Man go by in the other direction. Finally, we turn around just before the 24 mile mark. Now we can see the folks behind us, still running west. I recognize pony-tail ZZ Top Man as I run past him; he’s slowing down considerably, and I’m still picking up speed. I see that damn 4-hour pace group on the other side of the road. They are still running as a blockade, and I curse them from my side of the road, happy that I’m not behind them any longer.
Now, the glory moments. Crowds are gathering as we approach the final turns, and I relish each step I take across one final bridge. You can see the finish area from afar: tents and balloons and a crush of people. You can hear the cheering of the crowd waiting at the finish line. Coming off the bridge, we are routed into a final stretch that is fenced off, and I find myself alone as I run towards the finish line. I imagine that this is like riding in the cordoned off area at the end of any of the stages of the Tour de France; pure bliss. This is my glory moment, and it’s perfect: nobody directly in front of me, and nobody surging from behind. I’m across the finish line, and my watch reads 3:51:43.
This is not a PR day for me, after all, but it’s good enough for a third best out of my twenty marathons. A bronze medal in my own personal pantheon of competition.
I’ve been looking for Lance along the way – surely he would try to find me out on the course today, wouldn’t he? But there were no cyclists out early, and only a few stalwart folks on bikes later in the race, and I couldn’t spot a really super-fit guy wearing the blue and gray colors of the Discovery Team anywhere along the course. But what does it matter, now? I have my medal and my finishing time, and it’s still too cold to just hang out. My rental car says that it’s still only 35 degrees. I head back to the hotel and stand under a hot shower for a long, long time, but the water never seems quite hot enough to really warm me up.
After I check out of the hotel, I think I will give Lance one last chance, and head to Chuys for a post-marathon meal, even though my stomach still has that post-marathon rockiness. As I sit at a stoplight along the way, I watch a bird with a huge wing span (an eagle? A hawk? I can’t tell.) glide and soar in the sky overhead. My eyes drift from the large bird to yet another, familiar sign: this time it’s the green and white airport symbol. And I think that, yes, it’s another sign, and it’s time for me to head back to the airport and catch a flight home. Chuys and Lance will have to wait for another day.
At the airport, I settle into a sports bar where I’m confronted with multiple posters and memorabilia of Lance’s seven Tour de France wins. I notice that there are no posters commemorating his relationships with his ex-wife or with Sheryl Crow, and I start to think that relationships are not his strong suit. I shake my head and think, “so Lance, if you really want me so much, you’re going to have to do much better than this weekend.” And then I head to my gate for the flight home.
On the plane, I strike up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. She’s from Boulder, and has run this marathon multiple times. We talk about races that we’ve done, and races we would like to do, and we recommend races to one another. When we part ways at the baggage claim area in Denver, I ask for her name, and she replies, “Kerri”. That’s the same name as my cousin who was meant to run with me this weekend! Is it another sign?
But when I get home and look up finishing times, I can’t find any women from Colorado in the results with a name anything like “Kerri” (or any of the multiple spellings I try), and I wonder if maybe I’ve imagined this, maybe I’ve dreamed up this conversation in my head and created this sign, and all the other signs as well. Was anything about the weekend real? I look across my desk, which is covered with race memorabilia: my race bib, the course map, travel itineraries, my finisher’s medal. My legs are sore and aching, and I’ll have bruises tomorrow morning from my early fall on the ice in Austin. And I know this much to be true: on a frosty February morning in Austin, Texas, I ran a marathon. I can feel the truth of it just as I can feel the post-marathon glow seeping from my pores. And I recognize that the true sign is this.
Today, for 26.2 miles, I have lived.
Is this a sign? Maybe this is not the right race for me?
But then again, I’ve been training with this race in mind, and it’s all going very well. And then a couple of weeks before the marathon, a flash in the news: Lance and Sheryl have broken up. (In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have been a hot item, and they were engaged – formalized with a 6-carat diamond – last fall.) The breakup means that Lance is, once again, available.
I think that it’s a sign. Lance needs me.
So, for the first time ever, I’m completely on my own as I make my way to a marathon. But I find other marathoners waiting for the flight to take me from Denver to Austin on Saturday morning, and have a nice time chatting with a few like-minded folks. At the expo in Austin, I finally get to meet, in person, Rich Benyo and Jan Seeley, the publisher and editor of Marathon and Beyond. We get to have a nice chat, something that probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been with others. And while I go for a short drive to see a bit of Austin before heading to the pasta dinner on Saturday night, I drive right by Chuy’s Tex-Mex Restaurant. Lance has mentioned Chuy’s several times in his books; it’s his favorite Mexican restaurant in Austin, a place he likes to hang out.
Clearly, this is a sign. Lance wants me.
But when my race morning wake-up call comes at 4 a.m. on Sunday, I’m not really thinking about Lance. I’m thinking about the weather outside, and how warmly to dress. The forecast is for the temperature to stay in the 30s throughout the morning. But when I walk through the hotel lobby, somebody tells me that last night’s rain turned to ice when the temps dropped into the 20s overnight. I test the sidewalk for ice, and, finding none, look down at the key fob to open my rental car. The next thing I know, I’m on my back. Yes, there is ice. Is this a sign that there shouldn’t be a marathon today?
But the roads aren’t bad, and I’m soon downtown, parked, and waiting in line for the shuttle bus to take us to the start line. It’s warm on the bus, but only 31 degrees Fahrenheit outside. There is moisture in the air – a bit more than a mist, a bit less than a drizzle. The bus deposits us at the starting area, and it’s a cold wait for the race start, which gets delayed by more than 30 minutes because of traffic jams. I am reminded that the road is icy in spots as I watch a couple of people end up on their backsides in the parking lot. I slide whenever I step on painted lines on the pavement, and start to watch my steps carefully. It’s cold, and everyone is trying to stay warm in whatever way that they can. I do this by jogging around the parking lot. Other people take shelter next to cars and trailers and tents that are scattered throughout the parking lot. I watch as a man – a runner, judging by his shorts and shoes – bundles up his wife by buttoning her coat collar as high as it will go, and then rubbing her shoulders to warm her; it’s the most tender moment I’ve ever seen at the start of a race.
This is a large race – around 10,000 people total in the combined marathon and half-marathon races, which start together – and the starting area is crowded. People crowd together a bit more than necessary, just to stay warm. We hear a commotion at the front, and think that the race might have started, but back where I’m standing, nobody moves. We’re all frozen to our places.
But eventually, the crowd moves, and I’m crossing the Start Line. The start is at a suburban office campus of Freescale Semiconductor, the major sponsor of the race. As we run along the narrow road that circles the main building, there’s a cry from the crowd near the building. A deer is running wildly. First there is one deer, and then several, all running scared; it looks like they want to cross the road but the stream of runners is preventing them, and they are in a frenzy. These deer are all little, and I think it strange that Texas, a state that prides itself on everything being oversized, would field such small animals.
It’s crowded going, and my first mile is the slowest I’ve ever run in a marathon. I’ve been worried about ice on the road, but decide that it’s time to break free of this crowd and pick up some speed. But I’ve started just behind the 4-hour pace group, and they are like a fortress across the road – a moving fortress. It takes me more energy than I want to expend to just get around them, but it feels good to have some open road in front of me when I at last pass them. This group will haunt me for the next several miles, though; they sneak up behind me, and I feel a crowd closing in, and look over my shoulder to see the pace group sign just a few steps away. A few miles down the road, I finally drop them.
While the pace group is incredibly annoying, I’m enjoying the other people along the way. The volunteers are, as always, super. There are volunteers standing at bridges, warning us about the ice. At the second aid station, there is a volunteer wearing an ankle length fur coat, handing out sticks with Vaseline; this is one of the most incongruous sights that I’ve ever seen at a marathon. There are volunteers dressed as leprechauns, and volunteers wearing laurel wreaths, and volunteers dressed in grass skirts and plastic leis.
The runners aren’t any less colorful. In the early miles of the race, I follow a woman who is wearing pants that look more like pajama bottoms than running tights. There’s a guy that I see multiple times in the first several miles who runs with his hands clasped behind his back, and then frequently turns around and runs backwards. There is a guy running with his dog – a yellow lab mix – who tells me that they will probably only go 22 or 23 miles since she (the dog) has never run more than 21 miles at a time. For many miles, I follow a guy wearing a neon green wig/hat that is nearly identical to a wig that I gave Theresa two years ago when she was undergoing chemo; Theresa’s wig was neon purple, and she shocked the other residents of the Transplant House by wearing it proudly. Early in the race there is a guy sporting a long white-gray ponytail that goes halfway down his back and is crimped multiple times; he also sports a matching ZZ Top long white beard. In the second half of the race, I trade places several times with a guy wearing a fleece hat with long green streamers that look like snakes sprouting from his head. When we run through the University of Texas, I pass two Elvises running together.
But my favorite racer is Tutu Man.
This guy is all decked out in pink. He passes me slowly a few miles into the race, and I have ample time to take in the full impact of his running costume. He is wearing a pale pink, knee-length tutu with a couple of flounces. His singlet is pink, as are his gloves. He is wearing a cowboy hat that is (you guessed it) pink. His socks have pink flowers, and he carries a pink wand as well. The piece de resistance? His shoes, which are dyed a bright fuschia. It’s worth the entry fee just to see this guy.
The fans lining the course are great, and I take note of the signs along the way. The first sign I read says “Pay No Attention to this Sign, It Contains No Valuable Information”. A little later there is a woman holding a sign “Get Your ASSets Moving (Sorry, attempt at Accounting Humour)”. I think that my friend Melissa, an accountant, would like the sign but hate the conditions (Melissa lives in Florida and would be running in a down coat today if she were here.) In recognition of the cold, there’s the sign that says “We’re Cold, but Jen’s Hot!” There are the kids holding signs for their running parents, of which my favorite is “My Mom’s Faster Than Your Mom”. And then there is my favorite sign of all, “Go Your Name Here!” The guy holding this sign catches my eye, and when he sees me laughing, he shakes the sign and cheers.
But not all the signs are in people’s hands. One guy displays his simple sentiment on his gray t-shirt “Anne Fan”. People have painted signs on the road, and the one that resonates the most is “Ship of Fools”. Volunteers at aid stations put up signs, too: “This seemed like a good idea in September” and “What happens at the Dawg Station Stays at the Dawg Station”.
The miles roll on by as I watch runners and fans and volunteers along the way. The scenery is, well, not all that scenic, especially for a town that bills itself as “a city within a park”. We start out in a suburban office park and meander through some nice residential areas. We pass a sign for the Deerpark Middle School shortly after the race start, and it seems fitting, what with the deer racing alongside us. There’s some more residential – all ranch homes, all with nicely manicured lawns – and some more commercial and light industrial areas. There are icy spots on the bridges and on the painted surfaces of the road; at one point, we cross a bridge where the highway crews have laid down sand that is so thick that it feels like running on a beach. We pass a sign for the “JJ Pickle Research Campus”, and I have some fun for the next stretch of road wondering about what kind of pickle research might exist (gherkins? Dill? Kosher?), and wondering who among my friends would try to set me straight by telling me that it’s a high tech research institute associated with the University of Texas.
It is so cold at the start that I wear four layers on top, and two layers of gloves. I wear shorts, but that’s only because I don’t have any tights with pockets, and I can’t figure out how to carry my gels without the pockets in my shorts. I liberally apply BodyGlide to my legs in the hopes that this will provide a layer of protection against the cold. On my head, I wear a headband to warm my ears, with a billed cap on top of that. At the start, I figure that I’ll take the headband off when I warm up. I’m still wearing the both the headband and the hat when I cross the finish line.
I normally set my pace by using my heart rate monitor (HRM), but today my HRM does not register properly for the first three miles because I am so cold. By the fourth mile, I’m finally building up some heat – under my four layers of clothes – and the HRM kicks in. But I already think that I’ve got a feeling for the “right” pace, since, other than my first slow mile, I’ve been running almost identical splits (8:58, 8:58, and 8:55 for miles 2-4). At mile four, I decide to take off my outermost layer, and I leave a throwaway shirt and my outer pair of gloves along the road.
Between miles 6 and 7, there are people trying to get across the race course to make their way to the Great Hills Baptist Church. These are people dressed in their Sunday finest, carrying Bibles, and for a moment I’m surprised: I’ve forgotten that this is what other people do on Sunday mornings. Some of the churchgoers say something to some of the runners in front of me, but I can’t make it out. Are they offering encouragement, or a reproach? At first I think it’s the former, but then I’m afraid that it’s the latter. “This”, I want to say to them, “this is my church. This is my worship and my meditation, this is my healing and my salvation.” I think of the song "Signs" from the 70s and want to sing, “thank you Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine”.
But I don’t need to sing – there is plenty of music along the course without adding my voice to the mix. The race packet included an Entertainment Guide that lists 36 different bands that are scheduled to play along the course. While there are not that many bands out here today – who can blame those who choose not to come out in this weather – the quality of the groups who show up to provide entertainment is remarkable. There are bands of every musical genre, and they all help to make the race go quickly.
Around mile 8 or so, I realize that my legs are numb; if not for my hamstrings tightness, I would not be able to feel them at all. It’s still very cold, and there is still moisture in the air. I wish I had worn tights.
My favorite stretch of roadway is another residential area, just before the halfway point, called Shoal Creek. One side of Shoal Creek is, once again, middle class residential housing, but the other side backs up to a park or open space area, and it’s just a pretty stretch of road. This is somewhere just before the halfway point, and we pass a time and temperature sign: the temperature is still 32 degrees.
But it starts to dry out after this stretch, which is a welcome change. The pavement is no longer wet and dangerous. The half marathoners are gone after a well-marked split in the course, and now the field is narrowed to those of us going the full distance. There are aid stations almost every mile on this course, and in the early miles, I take water at almost every aid station, even though the water at the early stations is filled with ice crystals from the cold. But now, as we run alongside a freeway, I have to pee desperately. I have had to pee since standing in the starting corral, but at that time I thought it was just typical pre-race nerves, and didn’t worry. I’ve been slowing down my fluid intake, hoping that this urge will just go away, and still it doesn’t make a difference. Needing to pee is a big distraction, but not the kind of distraction that I want. It’s made worse by signs along the way that bring it to mind, like the one we’ve just passed for a company called “Flow Sequence”.
There are bushes between the road we’re running on and the freeway, and I think that this might be my best chance to make a quick “pit stop” – there have been lines at all of the port-a-johns along the course, and I’m just not willing to waste valuable race time waiting in a line. The freeway traffic is a concern until a freight train comes between our residential street and the freeway. I think to myself, “it’s now or never” – but something holds me back. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never made a pee stop in a marathon, and it just seems like bad form. Maybe I’m still holding onto the hope that this urge will just magically pass. Or maybe it’s that little devil who suddenly appears on my shoulder. “What the heck”, he says, “this isn’t a PR day anyway, why worry about the time.” And I’m almost ready to step off the road, before I reconsider. Not a PR day? Sez who???
And I make a decision to make it to the finish. That’s all that really matters – making the decision. I hear Billy Bob Thornton in “Bandits”, saying “okay, no more juice boxes”, and it makes me laugh. I determine to limit my water intake as much as I safely can between now and the finish line. I hear Lyle Lovett say, “what would you be if you didn’t even try?” It’s still very cold, so I figure that I’m not sweating all that much, and I can risk limited fluid intake for the next 12 or so miles.
At long last, it’s mile 15, and I am finally warmed up. I feel good. Really good. Like one of those days that you’re on a PR pace. I can finally feel my legs again, and they feel great – happy to be running! That little devil didn’t stick around for long, and I forget almost entirely about anything except just enjoying this run. We’ve passed through a few more residential areas – first a more modest area, and then a development with old mansions. There are more people out along the course (God bless them for coming out in this cold), and I’m getting strength from the fans. The bibs for this race are pre-printed with first names, and I hear people shout my name over and over. It’s amazing how much strength you can pull out of the sound of people yelling your name at you.
And now, people are yelling at me not just my name, but things like “I love that smile”, and “keep on smiling”. I realize that I’m just grinning ear to ear. Marathons have this effect on me.
Along this stretch, there is a lone musician, a young girl, playing the theme to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on a violin, her dad standing at her side. The melody lodges in my mind. I’m humming to myself as we pass through the University of Texas campus, and approach downtown. There are swarms of people here as we run up and around the capitol.
And now the dreaded out-and-back. It just seems cruel for race directors to design marathon courses like this, but many of them do, with an out and back so near the finish. My motivation at this point in a race is like that of a horse heading back to the barn: take the straightest and most direct route possible. But this course has us turn, with the finish area in sight, and run away from it. At mile 22, we head west – into the wind – for a 2 ½ mile jaunt out on a road that parallels the Colorado River. This might be a nice stretch of roadway on a normal day, but today it’s miserable. After miles and miles with a mixture of tail winds and cross winds, we are running into a full-on head wind. To make matters worse, we’re going uphill on a steep little deserted freeway ramp (there are no fans!). To further make matters worse, the temperature, coming off the water, drops again. I felt warm enough at mile 15 to drop my second throwaway layer, but now I’m feeling cold again. My HRM stops working as the sweat I’ve built up cools and dries.
The only nice thing about the out and back is that we finally get to see other folks in the race. As we run west, I watch the 3:40 and 3:45 pace groups go by, so much nearer the finish than I. I scan my eyes for a 3:50 pace group, but don’t see one. This gives me a bit of hope that maybe I’m on a good pace; I can’t really tell, since I’ve lost my ability to do time-math. I see Tutu Man go by in the other direction. Finally, we turn around just before the 24 mile mark. Now we can see the folks behind us, still running west. I recognize pony-tail ZZ Top Man as I run past him; he’s slowing down considerably, and I’m still picking up speed. I see that damn 4-hour pace group on the other side of the road. They are still running as a blockade, and I curse them from my side of the road, happy that I’m not behind them any longer.
Now, the glory moments. Crowds are gathering as we approach the final turns, and I relish each step I take across one final bridge. You can see the finish area from afar: tents and balloons and a crush of people. You can hear the cheering of the crowd waiting at the finish line. Coming off the bridge, we are routed into a final stretch that is fenced off, and I find myself alone as I run towards the finish line. I imagine that this is like riding in the cordoned off area at the end of any of the stages of the Tour de France; pure bliss. This is my glory moment, and it’s perfect: nobody directly in front of me, and nobody surging from behind. I’m across the finish line, and my watch reads 3:51:43.
This is not a PR day for me, after all, but it’s good enough for a third best out of my twenty marathons. A bronze medal in my own personal pantheon of competition.
I’ve been looking for Lance along the way – surely he would try to find me out on the course today, wouldn’t he? But there were no cyclists out early, and only a few stalwart folks on bikes later in the race, and I couldn’t spot a really super-fit guy wearing the blue and gray colors of the Discovery Team anywhere along the course. But what does it matter, now? I have my medal and my finishing time, and it’s still too cold to just hang out. My rental car says that it’s still only 35 degrees. I head back to the hotel and stand under a hot shower for a long, long time, but the water never seems quite hot enough to really warm me up.
After I check out of the hotel, I think I will give Lance one last chance, and head to Chuys for a post-marathon meal, even though my stomach still has that post-marathon rockiness. As I sit at a stoplight along the way, I watch a bird with a huge wing span (an eagle? A hawk? I can’t tell.) glide and soar in the sky overhead. My eyes drift from the large bird to yet another, familiar sign: this time it’s the green and white airport symbol. And I think that, yes, it’s another sign, and it’s time for me to head back to the airport and catch a flight home. Chuys and Lance will have to wait for another day.
At the airport, I settle into a sports bar where I’m confronted with multiple posters and memorabilia of Lance’s seven Tour de France wins. I notice that there are no posters commemorating his relationships with his ex-wife or with Sheryl Crow, and I start to think that relationships are not his strong suit. I shake my head and think, “so Lance, if you really want me so much, you’re going to have to do much better than this weekend.” And then I head to my gate for the flight home.
On the plane, I strike up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. She’s from Boulder, and has run this marathon multiple times. We talk about races that we’ve done, and races we would like to do, and we recommend races to one another. When we part ways at the baggage claim area in Denver, I ask for her name, and she replies, “Kerri”. That’s the same name as my cousin who was meant to run with me this weekend! Is it another sign?
But when I get home and look up finishing times, I can’t find any women from Colorado in the results with a name anything like “Kerri” (or any of the multiple spellings I try), and I wonder if maybe I’ve imagined this, maybe I’ve dreamed up this conversation in my head and created this sign, and all the other signs as well. Was anything about the weekend real? I look across my desk, which is covered with race memorabilia: my race bib, the course map, travel itineraries, my finisher’s medal. My legs are sore and aching, and I’ll have bruises tomorrow morning from my early fall on the ice in Austin. And I know this much to be true: on a frosty February morning in Austin, Texas, I ran a marathon. I can feel the truth of it just as I can feel the post-marathon glow seeping from my pores. And I recognize that the true sign is this.
Today, for 26.2 miles, I have lived.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Seattle Marathon (November 27, 2005)
Late in 2004, my friend Karen, who lives just outside Seattle, wrote a report about her experience in the Seattle Marathon, which is run on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. As I read the report, I vaguely thought to myself that this is interesting timing for a marathon, and I made a mental note that the next time that I drive to see my brother Dave in Salem, Oregon, for Thanksgiving that I should work this marathon into my schedule. What better way to burn off all that turkey and pumpkin pie than running a marathon a few days later?
At the time, I certainly didn’t realize that Mick would suggest that we drive to Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. But as our plans start to gel, I remember the marathon and think that this would be a good time to run in Seattle and to be able to cross Washington off of my 50-states must-do list. Having just run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC, at the end of October, I like the symmetry of running two “Washington” marathons back to back, and on opposite coasts. So it is that I make a decision to run this thing, and I send Karen a message. Will she be running again this year? Can we get together?
It’s a delight to get the response from Karen: no, she’s not running this year – she’s just not ready for her next marathon experience yet. But her husband, Kerby, is planning to run. And, she asks in an email, will we stay with them while we’re in the Seattle area?
This is better than any dreams I’ve had, and the prospect makes the marathon all that more attractive. Karen has become a really good friend in the last few years, but it still seems extremely generous of her to offer this hospitality. So I go to the marathon website to register, and find that I’ve missed the on-line registration. No problem, says Karen. She will even do my in-person registration for me. This is taking the hostess role to a level I’ve not experienced before (would Martha Stewart complete my marathon registration for me? I have my doubts.), and it only builds my excitement for the race.
Thanksgiving. So Mick and I take off for Oregon on the Tuesday before the holiday. The weather is perfect across Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. We spend Tuesday night in Boise, Idaho, planning to reach Salem by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. But Boise is socked in with horrible fog and freezing roads, and it takes us many more hours than anticipated to get to Oregon. By the time we arrive in Salem, it’s dark, and Dave’s kids are arriving to spend time with us. My very standard 90-minute pre-race run that should occur today does not happen. This is the first time since I’ve had Benji as a coach that I have not followed his pre-race schedule to a “T”, but I rationalize skipping the run. This marathon is not goal oriented, just for fun. Who cares if I miss this run?
Thanksgiving Day arrives in Oregon, brisk and cloudy. I go for a short run in the morning, and as I get back to Dave’s it’s just starting to rain. This is the start of Pacific Northwest weather in its winter phase: cold and damp and raining, drizzling incessantly, always low hanging clouds. No sign of the sun. But I have an extra piece of pie after my turkey dinner, justifying it with thoughts of carbo-loading. Friday morning comes, and the weather is nothing but drizzle.
As the day wears on, I start to have serious doubts about the marathon. I’ve run marathons in the rain before, and will run marathons in the rain in the future, but the thought of standing around in a certain consistent rain is just too darn depressing to contemplate. The day wears on, and the more I think about the marathon, the more reason I find not to run it. I start to think that there was a sign in the fact that on-line registration for this race closed early. And another sign in the fact that I couldn’t fit in my pre-race run on Wednesday? And then there’s the thought about getting home a day earlier if we don’t make the drive to Seattle, but start out for Denver on Saturday instead. Before long, I’ve convinced myself that the marathon is completely out of the question.
It takes a moment to get my courage up to call Karen and tell her we won’t be coming. I try her home number, but no answer. Damn, I want to do this now. So I call her cell phone, and am relieved when she answers. But her answer sends things back one hundred eighty degrees. “We’re at the expo now, and I’m doing your registration – it’s good that you called so I can answer all these things correctly.” Whoops. Maybe this is the sign that I should run the marathon? Before I know it, I’ve had a change of heart, and Karen is telling me that I’m registered for the race, and, by the way, what size shirt do I want?
Pre-race Day. On Saturday, Mick and I and Dave and his kids all go to the Original Pancake House in Salem for breakfast. Breakfast at the Pancake House has long been a family tradition for us, and it fits well into my pre-marathon carbo-loading plan. Another coincidence, or another sign?
Speaking of signs, the rain has let up, and the sun makes a brief appearance. I have a brief hope that the race on Sunday will be a dry one, but that hope is soon drowned by the rain that Mick and I drive into in Washington. It seems inevitable that this will be my wettest marathon on record.
It’s dark when we arrive at Karen and Kerby’s, but we can tell in the weak light that it’s a beautiful area. Their house is incredible – beautiful and rich and still homey. We arrive just in time for the pre-marathon pasta dinner that Karen prepares. Karen is a bit of an enigma to me. On one hand, she’s strong, smart, focused, independent, and ambitious; on the other hand, she is a fantastic homemaker and mother and cook. She clearly takes pride in all of these roles and executes them all with flair. Tonight, she sautes shrimp and makes a fabulous tomato and pasta dish, which would be plenty by itself, even without her baked cheese appetizer, and the salad, and the two kinds of pie (homemade, of course) for dessert. In keeping with my “I’m just running this marathon for fun” approach, I break training (for the second pre-race night in a row) and indulge in a glass of wine with dinner. It’s just too good to pass up.
Race Morning. Here’s a thing I love about race morning: that shared experience of getting up in the pre-dawn hours, and forcing down food and coffee before the day should really be starting. As with our entire experience with Karen and Kerby, the morning arrangements are just perfect. The coffee is ready when I come back downstairs to the kitchen, the bagels are ready for toasting, and the cream cheese is waiting on the counter for the warm bagels. Karen has also made oatmeal (not the nuked kind, but the “real” stuff) and that makes Mick happy, since it’s just about his favorite food in the world. We all troop out into the brightly lit garage to start our marathon journey.
Karen has graciously offered to chauffeur us to the marathon start. Karen and Kerby’s daughter Hailey is along for the ride, and sits between Mick and me in the back seat of the SUV as we make our way into Seattle. This is most excellent: Karen and Hailey and Mick will be the support and cheering team for Kerby and me today, and it takes all of the hassle of figuring out where to go out of my hands. Karen knows the way – start to finish – so I’m worry free on the journey into downtown Seattle.
Of course, it’s raining. There’s a drizzle as we leave the house, and then it turns into real rain as we drive. It doesn’t bother me so much anymore, this prospect of a wet day, now that I’m amongst friends. So instead of obsessing about the weather, I watch a movie that Hailey has put into the DVD player that she’s brought along for the day. She’s watching “Ice Age”, and I find myself entranced by it. Distractions are great on race morning. While I’m watching a cartoon movie, we drive right into downtown Seattle – and what’s more – right out of the rain. When I turn my attention from the movie back to the road, I realize that the rain has stopped. How stupendous.
Karen knows the way to the start, and we end up parking just a block or so from the start line. Perfect timing: just enough time to cycle through port-a-potty lines a few times, and then it’s time to move towards the start line. Karen and Mick take my warm sweats, and then Kerby and I drift off in the direction of the start line. We’re in the shadow of the Seattle Space Needle, a geographic landmark that will also guide us back to the finish line. And then it’s time for the race to start.
The race. We haven’t planned on it, but since Kerby and I have drifted together toward the start line, when the start is signaled, we drift along together running side by side. I’m surprised and pleased: surprised because I’m pretty sure that Kerby is quite a bit faster than I, and pleased since we’re just enjoying chatting as we motor along. We pass the first mile marker while running through downtown Seattle – with Christmas displays in storefront windows – in 9:25. I think, “uh-oh, that was pretty slow” and Kerby says, “that was a little fast”. Hmmm. What does it mean?
Kerby and I continue running side by side. We pass coffee shops on every block, and Christmas lights in window displays and on light posts. The miles seem to melt away. Soon, we’re running on a freeway ramp – concrete, badly canted, narrowing – and we catch up to the half marathon walkers who started a half hour earlier than the marathon. There are a few little uphills, and on these I find myself lagging behind Kerby, since I’m trying to gauge my effort by my heart rate monitor (HRM), so I slow considerably going uphill, but I seem to keep catching up on the downhills.
As we run along together, Kerby tells me about some friends of theirs who also run, and who tend to finish at the top of the game in local races. We’re now running on an out-and-back section of the course that takes us on a deserted freeway floating bridge out to Mercer Island and back. Sure enough, no sooner has Kerby described the local friends to me than one of them goes by in the opposite direction, yelling a greeting to Kerby. This guy is one of the five or ten front runners today.
There is a long underground tunnel as we head towards Mercer Island, and suddenly I’m not cold anymore. In fact, it gets almost clammy in the tunnel. But Karen has warned me not to get sucked in, since there are often wicked crosswinds on the bridge to Mercer Island, and as we traverse this next section of the race, I’m grateful for her advice. We come up out of the tunnel to find a chilling crosswind. We have a mile of flat concrete running before we start to head uphill: approaching Mercer Island. The road leads into another tunnel – this one feels more like a bat cave, and there’s a 180 degree turnaround just inside the cave. And when I look to my side, Kerby is gone.
Through the corner of my eye, I see him run off towards a bank of port-a-john’s. There’s a short line, and I wonder when I will see him again. And then it’s back across the same odd stretch of over-water freeway that we’ve just traversed.
I’m almost on the other side of the bridge again when I fall into step next to a runner who is nursing a gel. I make a comment to him about the gel – the only way I can stomach gels in a race is to swallow them down in just a few gulps for each packet. This is a great conversation starter, as it turns out this is the first marathon for runner 2288, and he’s still trying to figure out the whole gel thing. We chat for awhile, and then, as we exit the freeway in a free-for-all downhill circular ramp, I leave him behind.
The course now takes us south/southeast along the Lake Washington shoreline. I start to look for Karen and Mick, since Karen said that they would try to see us at this point. I’m still a bit chilly, but warming up nicely, so I take off my extra long-sleeved shirt and tie it around my waist. I want to be able to hand it to Karen or Mick when I see them.
It’s not long before I spot them – and Hailey – and the moment is gone in a flash. There they are, and we’re all shouting things at each other, and the only one I can answer is Hailey. She’s on the side of the road and shouts, “hey, where’s my daddy?” Good question, and one worthy of an answer. “He stopped in a bathroom”, I reply as I toss my shirt in the general direction of Mick and Karen, hoping that they can retrieve it without having to step into the on-coming path of other racers.
There is no mile marker at mile 9, right around the point where I see Karen and Mick, and that’s disconcerting to me. I’ve been recording my splits faithfully, and feel pretty good about the way the day is going. But the only thing to do is keep running. And it’s a beautiful area to run. On one side, Lake Washington. On the other, a lovely residential area.
The next couple of miles slip by, and then I hear someone approaching quickly from behind, and then overtaking me. It’s Kerby, who says, as he blasts around me, “I’ve had to run eights to catch up to you!” but then he’s gone. He looks good and strong, and seems to be running a pace that’s more natural for him now. I watch as he disappears around the runners in front of me, just before I see a guy holding a sign that proclaims, “Hey Ladies – You’re Sexy When You’re Sweaty”.
This is another out-and-back section of the course, so we get a view once again of the front runners. Normally I don’t like out-and-back courses all that much, but I do like seeing the fast folks out in front. (I overhear a conversation among the front runners who pass me: “we’re running 6:15s” and I can’t even imagine running that fast in a 10k.) But as we enter Seward Park for a little loop, we lose sight of the other runners.
In fact, we lose sight of a lot. There is not a mile marker at mile 12 or 13, and I’m watching closely at both spots. The halfway point is marked, and we cross a chip timing mat. At this point, I’ve lost touch with what kind of pace I’m running, and I’m just running for the fun of it.
The turnaround point in Seward Park is in a heavily wooded area, and I think I’m starting to get a sense of what a real rainforest is like. Little light penetrates down to the road we’re on, and we’re surrounded by extremely tall trees. It’s mossy in here, and a bit chilly without the sun. For a few moments I regret sending my warm shirt home with Karen and Mick. We have been, incredibly, blessed: not a drop of rain. “No rain yet,” I remind myself as we exit the rainforest.
Every so often, I hear a distinct plop-plop-plop behind me. Turning each time I hear this sound, I find a couple of young women running side-by-side, passing me. One of them is clearly a flat-footed running, but damn, it upsets me that she passes me. But this happens over and over in these middle miles of the marathon, and I surmise that I’m clearly passing the clopping duo at some point in between.
There’s a sign “Will Run for Cookies” along this stretch of road, and now I’m looking for Mick and Karen again. Just where they were earlier, so they are again. It’s the same crush of voices shouting encouragement and questions to me, and it’s almost impossible to even comprehend what they are saying, much less answer them. “We’ll see you at mile 21” is the last thing I hear, and then it’s back to the business of running the race.
We pass the Mercer Island Bridge, and continue north along Lake Washington, but the road has changed. It’s hillier here, and more residential. The road surface is getting less predictable: it’s all asphalt, but now we’re hitting patches of buckled and rolling roadway. But still, it’s a pretty route and the miles click on by.
At mile 20, there is a bit of steep-ish uphill, and at the top of the hill I see a familiar form from behind: Kerby. He’s slowed and is slowing more to grab a bottle from his fuel belt, and he stops to walk as I cruise on by him. We yell greetings to one another, and then we’re on our separate paths to the finish.
There are lots of people slowing here: a testament about going out fast, especially with significant hills this late in the game. The clop-clop-cloppers are gone now, not to be seen or heard from again. I pass a girl who is stopping on the side of the road to give back to the earth, albeit involuntarily, some Gatorade. I decide that I don’t really need any more Gatorade, thank you, and that water will be just fine for the rest of the day.
Last night, I asked Karen about the course, and she got out the map and then described it perfectly to me. It was her advice that saved me from freezing early on. And it was her advice that warned about the super-steep hill that hits right after mile 20. If not for her warning, this hill (a run on your tippy-toes hill) would crush my spirit. But I know from Karen – and I’ve learned to trust her – that it only goes on like this for a block or so, and then I’ve conquered it, and am on a slight downhill, recovering.
There’s a nice stretch of roadway after this – E. Madison Street – with a nice downhill bit. I come up behind a 4:00 hour pace group, and go around them, but slowly. The pace group leader tells me that I’m looking strong and that I’m sure to beat four hours, but for a moment I’m not so sure: I’m having a heckuva time just getting around this lot of runners: they seem to be picking up steam. But a few steps later, I figure that these four hour folks have reined it back in – after all, I’m headed for something faster than four hours. In fact, at this point, I’m just starting to think that this is going to be a pretty darn good day, time-wise, and to think I’m just on a four hour pace is a bit of a scare.
I come into an aid station right at mile 21, looking for Karen and Mick and Hailey – they had said they would be here – but I don’t see them. Just as I’ve grabbed a cup of water and made the sharp turn back onto Lake Washington Boulevard, I hear Mick shout my name. But its’ too late, I’ve missed them, and now I know I won’t see them again until the end.
After the turn onto Lake Washington Boulevard, we enter the Arboretum. There’s a nice long stretch of really pretty roadway, with low-hanging trees, all very damp. The road is wet in here, and it’s dark because the trees block out all the light. The roadway is undulating asphalt, and it’s slippery with the wetness of the environment. I’m careful, since I’m a bit respectful of the road. All the same, I’m targeting runners and moving up all the time. It feels good to be running strong at this point in the race.
The Arboretum is heaven compared to what comes next. Karen has warned me that the last part of this course is not very nice at all, and she’s right. We run on frontage roads along I-5, and as we criss-cross the freeway on on/off ramps, the fumes of car and truck exhaust are unpleasant. But I’m feeling strong and on track for a pretty good day, so I barely take notice of the scenery – or lack thereof – for the next few miles.
When we turn onto the final part of the marathon course, my eyes focus on the Space Needle up ahead. Aha, I think, there’s the finish. I’m over a mile out when I see this landmark, and it’s kind of odd to think of closing the big long loop that we’ve run since leaving the shadow of the Space Needle just a few hours earlier.
Karen has warned me that the last stretch of the race is a long gradual uphill grade, and the description is perfect. But forewarned is forearmed, and since I know it’s coming, I take it in stride. There are more people along the roadway here, and I’m having a grand time, knowing that once again I’ve been blessed with a good race. The asphalt road is cracked and wavy and potholed, and I’m thinking about Karen’s report from last year, in which she fell just as she made the final turn of the race. So when I get to the final turn that takes us into Memorial Stadium for the finish, I’m extra cautious. Then I’m running into the stadium, and onto turf. The turf is a surprise, but it’s pleasant – softer than the asphalt I’ve just left, but offering very even footing. I cross the finish line in a time of 3:55:19.
Post Race. It’s turned out to be an almost perfect day for a marathon: we haven’t had a spot of rain, and the temperature has stayed mild – almost too chilly, but not quite – and very little wind. But after I stop running and make my way through the finish area, I get cold in a hurry. Where are Karen and Mick and Hailey? And where is Kerby???
It takes a short while to find the others, and when I do, they are all together – including Kerby, who finished just a short time after me. He describes his day as “a really good 20 mile race”, and leaves it at that; he seems happy enough with the results, given that he’s only started marathoning this year. I’m thrilled about the results, since my time is good enough to be my fourth best ever performance.
We get a little food at the finish area, and then head back to Karen and Kerby’s house, where the hot shower feels stupendous. We get a more thorough tour of K&K’s house, which only serves to reinforce our impressions of a beautiful home, but then we’re packing our stuff into my car again. Kerby is settled in for a nap as Karen makes sure that we have food and water for the drive, and then we’re driving away, headed home. We drive off through the snow speckled Snoqualmie Range; Mick encourages me to nap while he’s driving. But the scenery is too beautiful, and I’m amazed at the parts of the country that this odd sport of running continues to show me. When we cross the state line back into Oregon, several hours have passed, and it’s grown dark. We stop along the highway to eat, and I’m ravenous.
At the time, I certainly didn’t realize that Mick would suggest that we drive to Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. But as our plans start to gel, I remember the marathon and think that this would be a good time to run in Seattle and to be able to cross Washington off of my 50-states must-do list. Having just run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC, at the end of October, I like the symmetry of running two “Washington” marathons back to back, and on opposite coasts. So it is that I make a decision to run this thing, and I send Karen a message. Will she be running again this year? Can we get together?
It’s a delight to get the response from Karen: no, she’s not running this year – she’s just not ready for her next marathon experience yet. But her husband, Kerby, is planning to run. And, she asks in an email, will we stay with them while we’re in the Seattle area?
This is better than any dreams I’ve had, and the prospect makes the marathon all that more attractive. Karen has become a really good friend in the last few years, but it still seems extremely generous of her to offer this hospitality. So I go to the marathon website to register, and find that I’ve missed the on-line registration. No problem, says Karen. She will even do my in-person registration for me. This is taking the hostess role to a level I’ve not experienced before (would Martha Stewart complete my marathon registration for me? I have my doubts.), and it only builds my excitement for the race.
Thanksgiving. So Mick and I take off for Oregon on the Tuesday before the holiday. The weather is perfect across Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. We spend Tuesday night in Boise, Idaho, planning to reach Salem by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. But Boise is socked in with horrible fog and freezing roads, and it takes us many more hours than anticipated to get to Oregon. By the time we arrive in Salem, it’s dark, and Dave’s kids are arriving to spend time with us. My very standard 90-minute pre-race run that should occur today does not happen. This is the first time since I’ve had Benji as a coach that I have not followed his pre-race schedule to a “T”, but I rationalize skipping the run. This marathon is not goal oriented, just for fun. Who cares if I miss this run?
Thanksgiving Day arrives in Oregon, brisk and cloudy. I go for a short run in the morning, and as I get back to Dave’s it’s just starting to rain. This is the start of Pacific Northwest weather in its winter phase: cold and damp and raining, drizzling incessantly, always low hanging clouds. No sign of the sun. But I have an extra piece of pie after my turkey dinner, justifying it with thoughts of carbo-loading. Friday morning comes, and the weather is nothing but drizzle.
As the day wears on, I start to have serious doubts about the marathon. I’ve run marathons in the rain before, and will run marathons in the rain in the future, but the thought of standing around in a certain consistent rain is just too darn depressing to contemplate. The day wears on, and the more I think about the marathon, the more reason I find not to run it. I start to think that there was a sign in the fact that on-line registration for this race closed early. And another sign in the fact that I couldn’t fit in my pre-race run on Wednesday? And then there’s the thought about getting home a day earlier if we don’t make the drive to Seattle, but start out for Denver on Saturday instead. Before long, I’ve convinced myself that the marathon is completely out of the question.
It takes a moment to get my courage up to call Karen and tell her we won’t be coming. I try her home number, but no answer. Damn, I want to do this now. So I call her cell phone, and am relieved when she answers. But her answer sends things back one hundred eighty degrees. “We’re at the expo now, and I’m doing your registration – it’s good that you called so I can answer all these things correctly.” Whoops. Maybe this is the sign that I should run the marathon? Before I know it, I’ve had a change of heart, and Karen is telling me that I’m registered for the race, and, by the way, what size shirt do I want?
Pre-race Day. On Saturday, Mick and I and Dave and his kids all go to the Original Pancake House in Salem for breakfast. Breakfast at the Pancake House has long been a family tradition for us, and it fits well into my pre-marathon carbo-loading plan. Another coincidence, or another sign?
Speaking of signs, the rain has let up, and the sun makes a brief appearance. I have a brief hope that the race on Sunday will be a dry one, but that hope is soon drowned by the rain that Mick and I drive into in Washington. It seems inevitable that this will be my wettest marathon on record.
It’s dark when we arrive at Karen and Kerby’s, but we can tell in the weak light that it’s a beautiful area. Their house is incredible – beautiful and rich and still homey. We arrive just in time for the pre-marathon pasta dinner that Karen prepares. Karen is a bit of an enigma to me. On one hand, she’s strong, smart, focused, independent, and ambitious; on the other hand, she is a fantastic homemaker and mother and cook. She clearly takes pride in all of these roles and executes them all with flair. Tonight, she sautes shrimp and makes a fabulous tomato and pasta dish, which would be plenty by itself, even without her baked cheese appetizer, and the salad, and the two kinds of pie (homemade, of course) for dessert. In keeping with my “I’m just running this marathon for fun” approach, I break training (for the second pre-race night in a row) and indulge in a glass of wine with dinner. It’s just too good to pass up.
Race Morning. Here’s a thing I love about race morning: that shared experience of getting up in the pre-dawn hours, and forcing down food and coffee before the day should really be starting. As with our entire experience with Karen and Kerby, the morning arrangements are just perfect. The coffee is ready when I come back downstairs to the kitchen, the bagels are ready for toasting, and the cream cheese is waiting on the counter for the warm bagels. Karen has also made oatmeal (not the nuked kind, but the “real” stuff) and that makes Mick happy, since it’s just about his favorite food in the world. We all troop out into the brightly lit garage to start our marathon journey.
Karen has graciously offered to chauffeur us to the marathon start. Karen and Kerby’s daughter Hailey is along for the ride, and sits between Mick and me in the back seat of the SUV as we make our way into Seattle. This is most excellent: Karen and Hailey and Mick will be the support and cheering team for Kerby and me today, and it takes all of the hassle of figuring out where to go out of my hands. Karen knows the way – start to finish – so I’m worry free on the journey into downtown Seattle.
Of course, it’s raining. There’s a drizzle as we leave the house, and then it turns into real rain as we drive. It doesn’t bother me so much anymore, this prospect of a wet day, now that I’m amongst friends. So instead of obsessing about the weather, I watch a movie that Hailey has put into the DVD player that she’s brought along for the day. She’s watching “Ice Age”, and I find myself entranced by it. Distractions are great on race morning. While I’m watching a cartoon movie, we drive right into downtown Seattle – and what’s more – right out of the rain. When I turn my attention from the movie back to the road, I realize that the rain has stopped. How stupendous.
Karen knows the way to the start, and we end up parking just a block or so from the start line. Perfect timing: just enough time to cycle through port-a-potty lines a few times, and then it’s time to move towards the start line. Karen and Mick take my warm sweats, and then Kerby and I drift off in the direction of the start line. We’re in the shadow of the Seattle Space Needle, a geographic landmark that will also guide us back to the finish line. And then it’s time for the race to start.
The race. We haven’t planned on it, but since Kerby and I have drifted together toward the start line, when the start is signaled, we drift along together running side by side. I’m surprised and pleased: surprised because I’m pretty sure that Kerby is quite a bit faster than I, and pleased since we’re just enjoying chatting as we motor along. We pass the first mile marker while running through downtown Seattle – with Christmas displays in storefront windows – in 9:25. I think, “uh-oh, that was pretty slow” and Kerby says, “that was a little fast”. Hmmm. What does it mean?
Kerby and I continue running side by side. We pass coffee shops on every block, and Christmas lights in window displays and on light posts. The miles seem to melt away. Soon, we’re running on a freeway ramp – concrete, badly canted, narrowing – and we catch up to the half marathon walkers who started a half hour earlier than the marathon. There are a few little uphills, and on these I find myself lagging behind Kerby, since I’m trying to gauge my effort by my heart rate monitor (HRM), so I slow considerably going uphill, but I seem to keep catching up on the downhills.
As we run along together, Kerby tells me about some friends of theirs who also run, and who tend to finish at the top of the game in local races. We’re now running on an out-and-back section of the course that takes us on a deserted freeway floating bridge out to Mercer Island and back. Sure enough, no sooner has Kerby described the local friends to me than one of them goes by in the opposite direction, yelling a greeting to Kerby. This guy is one of the five or ten front runners today.
There is a long underground tunnel as we head towards Mercer Island, and suddenly I’m not cold anymore. In fact, it gets almost clammy in the tunnel. But Karen has warned me not to get sucked in, since there are often wicked crosswinds on the bridge to Mercer Island, and as we traverse this next section of the race, I’m grateful for her advice. We come up out of the tunnel to find a chilling crosswind. We have a mile of flat concrete running before we start to head uphill: approaching Mercer Island. The road leads into another tunnel – this one feels more like a bat cave, and there’s a 180 degree turnaround just inside the cave. And when I look to my side, Kerby is gone.
Through the corner of my eye, I see him run off towards a bank of port-a-john’s. There’s a short line, and I wonder when I will see him again. And then it’s back across the same odd stretch of over-water freeway that we’ve just traversed.
I’m almost on the other side of the bridge again when I fall into step next to a runner who is nursing a gel. I make a comment to him about the gel – the only way I can stomach gels in a race is to swallow them down in just a few gulps for each packet. This is a great conversation starter, as it turns out this is the first marathon for runner 2288, and he’s still trying to figure out the whole gel thing. We chat for awhile, and then, as we exit the freeway in a free-for-all downhill circular ramp, I leave him behind.
The course now takes us south/southeast along the Lake Washington shoreline. I start to look for Karen and Mick, since Karen said that they would try to see us at this point. I’m still a bit chilly, but warming up nicely, so I take off my extra long-sleeved shirt and tie it around my waist. I want to be able to hand it to Karen or Mick when I see them.
It’s not long before I spot them – and Hailey – and the moment is gone in a flash. There they are, and we’re all shouting things at each other, and the only one I can answer is Hailey. She’s on the side of the road and shouts, “hey, where’s my daddy?” Good question, and one worthy of an answer. “He stopped in a bathroom”, I reply as I toss my shirt in the general direction of Mick and Karen, hoping that they can retrieve it without having to step into the on-coming path of other racers.
There is no mile marker at mile 9, right around the point where I see Karen and Mick, and that’s disconcerting to me. I’ve been recording my splits faithfully, and feel pretty good about the way the day is going. But the only thing to do is keep running. And it’s a beautiful area to run. On one side, Lake Washington. On the other, a lovely residential area.
The next couple of miles slip by, and then I hear someone approaching quickly from behind, and then overtaking me. It’s Kerby, who says, as he blasts around me, “I’ve had to run eights to catch up to you!” but then he’s gone. He looks good and strong, and seems to be running a pace that’s more natural for him now. I watch as he disappears around the runners in front of me, just before I see a guy holding a sign that proclaims, “Hey Ladies – You’re Sexy When You’re Sweaty”.
This is another out-and-back section of the course, so we get a view once again of the front runners. Normally I don’t like out-and-back courses all that much, but I do like seeing the fast folks out in front. (I overhear a conversation among the front runners who pass me: “we’re running 6:15s” and I can’t even imagine running that fast in a 10k.) But as we enter Seward Park for a little loop, we lose sight of the other runners.
In fact, we lose sight of a lot. There is not a mile marker at mile 12 or 13, and I’m watching closely at both spots. The halfway point is marked, and we cross a chip timing mat. At this point, I’ve lost touch with what kind of pace I’m running, and I’m just running for the fun of it.
The turnaround point in Seward Park is in a heavily wooded area, and I think I’m starting to get a sense of what a real rainforest is like. Little light penetrates down to the road we’re on, and we’re surrounded by extremely tall trees. It’s mossy in here, and a bit chilly without the sun. For a few moments I regret sending my warm shirt home with Karen and Mick. We have been, incredibly, blessed: not a drop of rain. “No rain yet,” I remind myself as we exit the rainforest.
Every so often, I hear a distinct plop-plop-plop behind me. Turning each time I hear this sound, I find a couple of young women running side-by-side, passing me. One of them is clearly a flat-footed running, but damn, it upsets me that she passes me. But this happens over and over in these middle miles of the marathon, and I surmise that I’m clearly passing the clopping duo at some point in between.
There’s a sign “Will Run for Cookies” along this stretch of road, and now I’m looking for Mick and Karen again. Just where they were earlier, so they are again. It’s the same crush of voices shouting encouragement and questions to me, and it’s almost impossible to even comprehend what they are saying, much less answer them. “We’ll see you at mile 21” is the last thing I hear, and then it’s back to the business of running the race.
We pass the Mercer Island Bridge, and continue north along Lake Washington, but the road has changed. It’s hillier here, and more residential. The road surface is getting less predictable: it’s all asphalt, but now we’re hitting patches of buckled and rolling roadway. But still, it’s a pretty route and the miles click on by.
At mile 20, there is a bit of steep-ish uphill, and at the top of the hill I see a familiar form from behind: Kerby. He’s slowed and is slowing more to grab a bottle from his fuel belt, and he stops to walk as I cruise on by him. We yell greetings to one another, and then we’re on our separate paths to the finish.
There are lots of people slowing here: a testament about going out fast, especially with significant hills this late in the game. The clop-clop-cloppers are gone now, not to be seen or heard from again. I pass a girl who is stopping on the side of the road to give back to the earth, albeit involuntarily, some Gatorade. I decide that I don’t really need any more Gatorade, thank you, and that water will be just fine for the rest of the day.
Last night, I asked Karen about the course, and she got out the map and then described it perfectly to me. It was her advice that saved me from freezing early on. And it was her advice that warned about the super-steep hill that hits right after mile 20. If not for her warning, this hill (a run on your tippy-toes hill) would crush my spirit. But I know from Karen – and I’ve learned to trust her – that it only goes on like this for a block or so, and then I’ve conquered it, and am on a slight downhill, recovering.
There’s a nice stretch of roadway after this – E. Madison Street – with a nice downhill bit. I come up behind a 4:00 hour pace group, and go around them, but slowly. The pace group leader tells me that I’m looking strong and that I’m sure to beat four hours, but for a moment I’m not so sure: I’m having a heckuva time just getting around this lot of runners: they seem to be picking up steam. But a few steps later, I figure that these four hour folks have reined it back in – after all, I’m headed for something faster than four hours. In fact, at this point, I’m just starting to think that this is going to be a pretty darn good day, time-wise, and to think I’m just on a four hour pace is a bit of a scare.
I come into an aid station right at mile 21, looking for Karen and Mick and Hailey – they had said they would be here – but I don’t see them. Just as I’ve grabbed a cup of water and made the sharp turn back onto Lake Washington Boulevard, I hear Mick shout my name. But its’ too late, I’ve missed them, and now I know I won’t see them again until the end.
After the turn onto Lake Washington Boulevard, we enter the Arboretum. There’s a nice long stretch of really pretty roadway, with low-hanging trees, all very damp. The road is wet in here, and it’s dark because the trees block out all the light. The roadway is undulating asphalt, and it’s slippery with the wetness of the environment. I’m careful, since I’m a bit respectful of the road. All the same, I’m targeting runners and moving up all the time. It feels good to be running strong at this point in the race.
The Arboretum is heaven compared to what comes next. Karen has warned me that the last part of this course is not very nice at all, and she’s right. We run on frontage roads along I-5, and as we criss-cross the freeway on on/off ramps, the fumes of car and truck exhaust are unpleasant. But I’m feeling strong and on track for a pretty good day, so I barely take notice of the scenery – or lack thereof – for the next few miles.
When we turn onto the final part of the marathon course, my eyes focus on the Space Needle up ahead. Aha, I think, there’s the finish. I’m over a mile out when I see this landmark, and it’s kind of odd to think of closing the big long loop that we’ve run since leaving the shadow of the Space Needle just a few hours earlier.
Karen has warned me that the last stretch of the race is a long gradual uphill grade, and the description is perfect. But forewarned is forearmed, and since I know it’s coming, I take it in stride. There are more people along the roadway here, and I’m having a grand time, knowing that once again I’ve been blessed with a good race. The asphalt road is cracked and wavy and potholed, and I’m thinking about Karen’s report from last year, in which she fell just as she made the final turn of the race. So when I get to the final turn that takes us into Memorial Stadium for the finish, I’m extra cautious. Then I’m running into the stadium, and onto turf. The turf is a surprise, but it’s pleasant – softer than the asphalt I’ve just left, but offering very even footing. I cross the finish line in a time of 3:55:19.
Post Race. It’s turned out to be an almost perfect day for a marathon: we haven’t had a spot of rain, and the temperature has stayed mild – almost too chilly, but not quite – and very little wind. But after I stop running and make my way through the finish area, I get cold in a hurry. Where are Karen and Mick and Hailey? And where is Kerby???
It takes a short while to find the others, and when I do, they are all together – including Kerby, who finished just a short time after me. He describes his day as “a really good 20 mile race”, and leaves it at that; he seems happy enough with the results, given that he’s only started marathoning this year. I’m thrilled about the results, since my time is good enough to be my fourth best ever performance.
We get a little food at the finish area, and then head back to Karen and Kerby’s house, where the hot shower feels stupendous. We get a more thorough tour of K&K’s house, which only serves to reinforce our impressions of a beautiful home, but then we’re packing our stuff into my car again. Kerby is settled in for a nap as Karen makes sure that we have food and water for the drive, and then we’re driving away, headed home. We drive off through the snow speckled Snoqualmie Range; Mick encourages me to nap while he’s driving. But the scenery is too beautiful, and I’m amazed at the parts of the country that this odd sport of running continues to show me. When we cross the state line back into Oregon, several hours have passed, and it’s grown dark. We stop along the highway to eat, and I’m ravenous.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Marine Corps Marathon (October 30, 2005)
For some reason – don’t ask me why – I have never really been too keen on the idea of running the Marine Corps Marathon. Okay, do ask me. I think it’s a combination of several things. For one, the bizarre, multi-phase lottery just seems like too much work to get into a marathon (okay, to be honest, I’ve never really checked out the lottery, but hearing other people describe it made me think it just seemed too hard). For another thing, I’ve heard that the organization at the start was poor (okay, I’ve also heard that the Marines along the course and at the finish were super, but that’s another story). Finally, I’ve read too many reports from friends who thought they would have a great day at Marine Corps, but instead crashed and burned (okay, these are the same yahoos who crash and burn at every marathon, but still…). Never mind; don’t ask me why I’ve never really wanted to run the Marine Corps. Heaven only knows.
But then on a glorious Colorado day in late March I’m out running on the Cherry Creek bike path, and I run into my friend Cindy. Well, okay, I don’t literally run into her, but we recognize each other – sunglasses and all – while running in opposite directions, and we stop to chat. Cindy mentions that she and Jay – her husband – are going to run Marine Corps in the fall, and why don’t I join them? She tells me that this is the 30th anniversary of the race, and in honor of that fact, they are opening the registration to the first 30,000 folks who can get their entries in on-line. This changes everything: friends running the race, an open registration, and I’m a complete sucker for things like the 30th anniversary. So I agree to think about it, but everyone who knows me knows that when I say I’ll think about doing a marathon, it means that I’m already figuring out what to wear.
Et voila, the following week, I’m in!
In the meantime, my friend Theresa – you’ve heard me talk about her before, right? – and I are searching for an exotic fall marathon where she can run a shorter course and I can do the full monty. I’m thinking Hawaii, Alaska, somewhere cool and different. I tell her about the Marine Corps just to let her know that the weekend of October 30th is already taken, and the next thing I know, she’s entered the Marine Corps 8k. Well, waddaya know – it’s starting to sound like a party. First Cindy and Jay, and now Theresa. This is a weekend that I can get excited about. I’m still a bit less than overwhelmed by the thought of the actual race itself, but what the heck – it’s shaping up to be a fun weekend.
Getting to DC. When we started to plan this thing, both my boyfriend Mick and Theresa’s husband Kirk claimed an interest in spending the weekend in DC, so we had a huge party in the works. But in the last month or so leading up to the event, both Mick and Kirk came down with terminal cases of “workitis”, so we’ve scaled back the plans. Theresa and I have determined to make this a girlfriends weekend (no disrespect to Jay, of course, who is still planning to run with Cindy).
So it is that I’m traveling by myself from Denver to DC, via Chicago. At O’Hare I notice a woman boarding the same flight to DC; this woman looks like a runner, and she’s sporting a “Western States 100” t-shirt. Now, I’m not a crazy ultramarathoner, just a wannabe, and anyone who knows anything at all about ultramarathons knows that the Western States 100 is a Big Deal. So as we depart the plane once we land in DC, I go up to Ms. Western States 100 T-Shirt, and ask “so did you actually run the Western States?” Now, there’s a creative intro. And duh, sure, how many people would be walking around with the t-shirt if they hadn’t run the darned thing? Still, I’m lucky that the woman is friendly, and we strike up a conversation. Of course she ran the Western States. Of course she is here to run Marine Corps. And of course she too is from Colorado. We have a nice chat until her husband – also running, but who came in earlier – meets her and I depart to the taxi-stand.
I arrive at our hotel to find Theresa already checked in, tucked into bed, and dozing with the TV on and the sound off. Okay, it’s really not so much a hotel as a glorified motel, but we’re from Iowa and we’re cheap. It turns out that we chose this place because it was on the marathon website and listed as being “4” away from the race start. We interpreted this to mean 4 blocks. Not the 4 miles that it actually is. But not to worry, despite the nasty reviews that I read on the internet after we had made the reservations, it’s actually an okay place.
And what do we really need? Two old friends, hanging out, staying up way too late chatting. The only real problem is that I haven’t had a proper supper – just a bunch of fruit that I brought on the plane – and now I’m hungry. But this is a motel without a restaurant, so I get around my hunger pangs by talking Theresa’s ear off, and finally forget about being hungry. It’s a strange thing, two days before a marathon, to go to bed hungry. Normally I would have taken some liberties with cookies or ice cream (carbo-loading at its best) on the penultimate day before the race, but somehow it just didn’t happen today. No worries, I’ll get a great breakfast in the morning.
Saturday in DC. But no. It’s late when I finally fall fast asleep – really late, like 4 a.m. – and then I sleep hard. At moments before 10 a.m. Theresa wakes me to tell me she is going to the motel’s continental breakfast to grab us some grub, and she comes back with some cake donuts and not much else that interests me. I’m hungry, so I scarf down a few of these gut bombs, and then we finally get out the door.
We’re headed, generally, in the direction of the expo to pick up race stuff. The motel’s shuttle drops us off at Pentagon City to catch the Metro, and since we’re still hungry, we go inside the mall to get a bite to eat. Somehow, the whole food experience of DC is just not quite working out the way I envisioned. We choose one restaurant, but when we sit down, they give us a different menu than the one posted on the door, and when neither of us sees anything to our liking, we get up and leave. The second restaurant is a bit better – or is it just that the food seems okay now that we’re totally starving? We don’t linger too long here, though, since the place is like the inside of a walk-in refrigerator. We are finally out of the mall and on our way to the expo, and the day is slipping away.
Everyone has reported how friendly and helpful the Marines are for this marathon, but when we get to the expo, we find the opposite to be true. Nobody seems friendly, and it seems like they mostly just want us out of their hair. But the expo is not a complete loss, at least as far as food is concerned. My v-team internet buddy Russ lives in the DC area, but it’s not working out for us to get together. As a substitute, he’s told me to look up his friend Chip, who is working at the Clif Bar booth. We find the booth first, and then find Chip (not too hard to spot the 6-foot-plus-a-whole-lot-more triathlete), and I introduce myself. Chip is friendly and wants to know “how did you and Rusty meet?” It’s hard to describe – kind of like internet dating – that although Russ and I have been friends for a couple of years now we’ve not really ever met in person. Chip gives me one of those looks, so I just shut up. But as some kind of consolation prize, he tells me to open up my expo bag, the one with the t-shirt and chip and race number and other assorted crap. Once the bag is open wide, Chip dumps – and I mean dumps! – an entire box of Clif bars into it. A woman standing next to me gasps in surprise, and then whines that she only got a couple of the little samples. Theresa laughs. We take off. Food at last.
It’s now mid-afternoon, and we need to find bagels for the morning. Instead of wandering aimlessly, Theresa suggests that we go back to the mall since she’s certain she spotted a bakery there. So back we go. At Pentagon City, we find a shop with bagels (already stale, but I’m starting to realize that good food is not on the menu this weekend) and I snatch up a couple. Just in case dinner goes badly, I pre-dessert with an ice cream cone, and it’s about the best food of the day.
We’ve planned to hook up with Jay and Cindy for dinner, but haven’t made specific plans. So while we’re finishing our food shopping at Pentagon City, I call Jay and Cindy. They give us instructions to meet them at the Lincoln Memorial, with some vague directions on how to get there. Theresa and I get back on the Metro (this is starting to feel like a yoyo experience), and get off the Metro at the Smithsonian stop, as instructed, and consult maps before starting the trek down the Mall. Pretty soon, I’m getting a sense of how far we have to walk and I’m starting to swear. What the hell am I doing walking this much the night before a marathon??? This is all starting to seem extremely insane. Out of frustration, and attempting to rationalize this irrational pre-race behavior, I remind myself (and Theresa) that this marathon is simply a notch on the old headboard, and I don’t really care about the race itself. This is definitely not a fast course, so who cares. This seems like a pretty good rationale, as far as these things go. The true consolution is that we get to see – right at twilight – some really cool sights along the Mall. We reach the Lincoln Memorial just as it’s getting dark, and the lights of the memorial are really quite cool. And there are Cindy and Jay – with a cast of thousands of their other friends – so all is not lost.
Not lost, of course, until we try to figure out where to have dinner. Now, what kind of insanity is this: trying to get a group of about ten people into a restaurant serving pasta the night before a marathon with 30,000 runners in town for the event? I will spare you the aggravation. We drive, we take cabs, we stand on the street to hail more cabs, we walk blocks and blocks and more blocks, we go into and out of restaurant after restaurant, and it just gets worse and worse. The clock is ticking away and I’m thinking about the early morning and about my growling stomach from last night, and Theresa and I finally decide to bail on the party. We get on the Metro and end up…..you guessed it: back at Pentagon City. The first thing we spot is an Italian fast-food eatery, and I’m walking away with a heaping plate of pasta before anyone can change my mind. It may not be great, but it sure is filling. We’re so exhausted from the day that we’re soon back at the motel and lights out for the morning.
Race morning. Theresa suggests that we should ask for a wake up call, especially since Saturday night is the night that the clocks change. No worries, I say, since I always set two alarms before a race: my travel alarm clock and my race watch. Somehow, neither of them works in the morning, but quite luckily, race day instinct gets me out of bed. My bagel is stale, but the motel room coffee is hot and I’ve decided to not worry about food anymore. We’re out the door and waiting for the shuttle earlier than planned.
The motel is running a shuttle over to Pentagon City where it is reputed that the marathon has shuttles to the race start. Given the size of the line at the motel, I’m concerned about making it to the race on time if we have to wait for multiple ferries, so Theresa does the intelligent thing and goes into the front office and has the clerk call for a taxi. We move out of the shuttle line and find a couple who has also decided to go the cab route. She is running her first marathon, and he’s here to support her. When a cab arrives, we all pile in and head off to the start.
Now, this cab driver is a piece of work. He asks if we want a tour of the course (uh, no, we’ll be doing that ourselves soon enough, thank you), and we all look nervously at each other. Is this nut case going to take us to the start or what? But there is hope, since the cabbie says that he lives near the start of the race, and wanted to go home to get something to eat soon. We’re on a freeway – none of us passengers has the slightest clue where we are or exactly where we are going – and now the cab driver decides to recite a poem that he’s written. It ends, and nobody says a word. But then, compelled by some sense of self-preservation, we all start to compliment him at the same time. “I have goosebumps,” I say, but I don’t bother to add that the goosebumps are because we were standing around in about 30 degree temperature before climbing into his taxi. Finally, we see an area that looks like the race organizing area, and we’re out of there. I figure that if I could survive that cab ride, the marathon itself will now seem anticlimactic.
We are near the entrance to what appears to be the Athlete’s Village, so we head down the hill. There is a long row of tables set up, and a bunch of Marines in fatigues standing near the tables. We figure that this is the security checkpoint we’ve heard about, so we walk up to the Marines, who are all facing the other way. It turns out that we’ve entered from an opposite direction from where the shuttles drop off people. We approach the Marines, and have to work to get their attention. A couple of them finally turn around, and we ask if they need to see our bags. One of the guys laughs and says, “you’re inside already!” So much for tight security. All you have to know is the back door to the race staging area, and you’re in. I have some new concerns about the safety and security of my country with these jokers running the show, but I push the concerns aside. I’m here to run today, not to get all political.
We’re quite early, but that’s okay, I can relax now that we’re within a short walk to the start line. So that’s where we go next – to check out the start line – but a Marine on the road alerts us to the fact that there are limited port-a-potty facilities at the start line, so we turn back to the area we just came from. By the way, have I mentioned that the race start/finish is at Arlington National Cemetery? Yep. Gives you a bit of a pause to look out at all of those white markers in nice neat rows. So we spend some time tramping around this grand old monument. Okay, we don’t actually tramp around the graves, but there is a nice wide lawn that has been set up with all kinds of race related facilities. There are enough port-a-potties so that there is never really much of a line.
It’s cold out though – in the thirties - so I’m reluctant to check my warm togs at the bag check until as late as possible. It’s clear that Theresa thinks I’m crazy. As I laid out my race clothes last night– shorts and singlet – she asked, incredulously, “Is that all you’re wearing???” To be sure, it was cool and sunny – and a bit windy – on Saturday, but it’s supposed to warm up a bit today. I would much rather be a bit cool on a long run than to be overdressed, so I’m going with my clothing plan. I’m also wearing a throwaway long-sleeved t-shirt and my trusty purple gloves (they are actually ski glove liners that work just perfectly for running in in-between temps), so I figure I’ll be okay. But while I’m checking my warm clothes at the bag-check, Theresa, mother hen that she is, gets busy scoring a trash bag for me from some folks nearby. They brought an entire roll of super-sized garbage bags to the race and are giving the extras away. Theresa helps me get the thing on, and it’s like a full length ball gown. I am now the picture of fashion. And it’s actually quite warm.
Finally, it’s time to head to the start – and I think I might have waited too long, it’s so crowded on the road. Theresa and I wish each other good luck in our respective races, and then part ways. I ditch the garbage bag, and then just as I reach the start line, I throw my long-sleeved t-shirt away. There is, suddenly, so much happening! There are sky divers falling out of the heavens, and there are bands playing, and there is a guy making announcements on a loud speaker. I reach the designated area for my bib number and am grateful that I have this low bib number (1771) and don’t have to fight my way through the crowds further back. Later I will learn that I was given a preferred start because of my predicted finish in my age group, but right now I’m just thinking about staying warm until the gun goes off. Maybe I tossed that warm shirt too soon.
It’s crowded here – just as I expected from what I’ve heard about this race in the past – but I notice a couple of Marines walking through the crowd, checking bib numbers and sending people back to their proper areas. I’m grateful for this, since it thins the crowd just a bit. A guy standing next to me and I chat a bit about expectations for the day, and we both have the same philosophy: take what the day gives you. And then after some more commotion, we’re moving.
The race. As soon as we start to move, it seems that there is a crush of people and it is just flat out crowded, almost too crowded to run. I swear to myself, and think that I really hate big races and these crowds. But it’s a beautiful day – although still quite chilly – and the crowd is keeping me warm. There is a band playing right at the entrance to Arlington – at the 26 mile marker – and they have great band uniforms with exceptional plumage. As race starts go, this one is pretty glitzy.
But the crowds, hola! I’m shuffling along, and just following directly behind a whole bunch of people. People – crazy people – are darting and weaving, trying to get through the sea of racers, and they scare me – I’m certain that one of them is going to cause a major pileup. Pretty soon we’re passing the first mile marker, and I hit my watch to capture the split. 9:44??? Now I’m in despair. That is, without a doubt, the slowest first mile I have run in any marathon, including the trail races I’ve done. It’s quite possibly slower than my first mile going up Pike’s Peak, which is slow because it’s so dang steep. I remind myself that I’m just running today for fun, and have no goals.
From the course elevation map, I know that the first two miles are mostly uphill, but I don’t really feel the hill until the start of the second mile, and then it looks like it’s straight up in front of me. I’m trying to just run a straight line and stay out of trouble, since it’s still insanely crowded, and now I notice that everyone seems to be weaving. Can nobody run a straight line? Judging by this crowd, apparently not. But as we hit the two-mile mark, I recognize the surroundings, and laugh. We’ve just passed through Rosslyn, one of the areas we visited last night in our mad search for a restaurant. I had no idea we would be back through here again today, and find it funny. I hit my watch for my second split, and am more disheartened – 9:34. Still extremely slow. I figure that it’s just going to be a long slow day, and that I had better settle in for the ride.
But the course turns downhill after we pass the second mile marker, and it also somehow magically starts to open up some. I concentrate on sight-seeing along the way. We run briefly along the Potomac, an area that surprises me for its rugged beauty – steep cliffs and heavy woods. We pass over the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I recognize from last night. We turn onto M Street, and are running through Georgetown, past the restaurants that didn’t have room for us last night. This area looks entirely different in the daylight, but we don’t have time to window shop today. Soon enough, we’re passing mile 5 and turning through some back streets.
I hit the split button on my watch, and look down to see my elapsed time. Huh? I have not really looked at my watch since that horribly slow second mile, and now I’m confused. My watch says that my elapsed time for the first five miles is 45:21, and I do the math quickly – I’ve recovered quite a bit of time from those first two miles and am now running consistent sub-9 minute miles. Maybe the day won’t be such a loss after all.
We leave the very urban setting of Georgetown and head out on the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, which is the first of a number of out-and-back sections of this race. And it’s absolutely beautiful here. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that Marine Corps was such a beautiful course? We’re running on a wide parkway that is heavily forested all around, with a thick canopy of leaves overhead. For a brief time, the front runners are directly across a short median from us, and they are impressive to watch. But then the median widens and puts more distance between the two parallel sections of roadway. And then the sirens approach.
Since the road is completely closed to traffic, I think that the sound of sirens can only mean that someone has been injured further on the course, and it’s a disturbing thought. But the sirens draw closer and closer until finally a motorcycle cop with full siren blaring is parting the crowd of runners beside me. I look over my shoulder to see a wheelchair competitor right behind the motorcycle. What the heck??? Most races start the wheelchairs early because they tend to be faster than runners, and this way they have a clear roadway to work with. But the Marine Corps organizers, for some dunder-headed reason, started the wheelchairs in today’s race in between the two waves. From this point on, we will have the intermittent sound of wheelchairs coming up behind us and people yelling for runners to get out of the way. This is just plain stupid planning, and it’s dangerous for everyone. I shake my head in amazement that the same people who are responsible for the race logistics are also in charge of the country’s military. A very scary proposition.
We make the turnaround on the parkway and head back. It’s turning into a gorgeous day. At times during the early miles, I have been slightly chilly, but now I am thinking that this is about as perfect weather conditions as you can get. Still, a slight chill in the air, but full sun overhead and not a hint of clouds.
We pass the 9 mile marker just as we reach the Potomac once again, and I check my elapsed time. I have been doing mental math along the way, and I’ve figured that perfect 9 minute miles would put me at 81 minutes at this checkpoint. And my watch reads 1:20:52 – I’m thrilled! I start to entertain thoughts of running a sub-4 hour marathon.
Now we’re approaching the Mall, and the crowds are growing alongside the road. I recognize the Lincoln Memorial as we approach it from behind, and now we’re running along the Mall itself. There are lots of people here, and more bands and entertainment along the way. Someone near me wonders out loud if W will be outside the White House watching the race, and I think about looking closely when we go past the White House. But there is so much happening here – so many sights, so many people, so many distractions – that I miss the White House entirely. In fact, I would miss the Capitol if it weren’t for the fact that we turn around directly in front of it. I recognize the Smithsonian Castle as we pass by, as well as the Washington Monument. I’m enjoying the sights and sounds, and find myself thinking “wow, this is a pretty cool place to hold a marathon”, and then I laugh at myself. How quickly we forget our old bogus opinions when we’re having a good day at the races!
And as we pass the halfway point – which is on the Mall – it occurs to me that this may just be one of those good days in marathoning. I’ve only had a few stellar days, and they are always unexpected and welcome. But you just never know until well into the second half of the race, so I try to rein in my spirits.
Shortly after the halfway point, a woman running alongside me asks, “do you know if there is any gel on the course?” She explains that she has lost her running partner and is down to just a single gel for the rest of the race. I tell her that I think there might be a gel station ahead, but I’m not sure. Then I check my pockets; I always pack an extra gel, “just in case”. Sure enough, I calculate that I can spare one of my remaining gels, and I offer it to her. She takes it gratefully, and I figure that I’ve just earned myself some karma. I take this as an excellent omen.
But now there is a tall, skinny drink of water – a woman – who becomes my nemesis for the next couple of miles. This woman looks like she’s suffering – she stops to walk and looks in pain, and each time she does that, I pass her. But then somehow she picks it up again and starts to run and sprints past me. Time and time again. I know – know – that she will not be able to keep this up; I know too well how horrible it is to suffer like this in a marathon. But still, she is an annoyance and a distraction for a mile or two. Finally, as I know will happen, she disappears from my radar, and I never see her again.
What I do see is the Jefferson Memorial, and what a glorious view it is. We’ve left the Mall now, and we’re making an arc around the Tidal Basin, and the Jefferson Memorial stands out in its alabaster glory. Again I think that this is a superb setting for a marathon. And then the memorial is behind us and we’re heading out on a loop around the East Potomac Park.
We’re starting to hit the miles where everyone who went out too fast starts to hurt, and it’s evident on this stretch of the race course. It’s a lovely place to run – nice and flat, with nothing but wide river and open parklands around us. The crowd has spread out nicely at this point – there are always people around, but nobody impeding your progress. There is a crowd of people at the entrance and exit to this park, but not many spectators along the route, and that’s fine with me. I’ve settled into a really nice groove and I’m starting to know that this is going to be a really good day.
A guy falls into step next to me, and we run together for the next couple of miles. He’s friendly and talkative, and a distraction, which is nice given the quiet area we’re passing through. We pass by a camera checkpoint, and the guy is downright ebullient, waving to the photographers. I tell the guy – whose name I ask but then don’t remember – that I think I’m having one of those stellar days. He tells me that he’s starting to fade, and I figure that we are only running partners for a short time. Soon, I notice that he’s leaning into me, bumping against me, and almost stepping on me. Ew! Perhaps he’s getting a bit too familiar? At any rate, it’s not at all comfortable, and today I have the perfect solution. I have another gear just under the surface, crying out to be used, and now I turn it on. I dust the guy. It’s a beautiful feeling.
The loop around the East Potomac Park is coming to an end, and we pass the 20 mile marker as we get back onto a major roadway and the bridge that will take us out of DC and back into Arlington. I’m chomping at the bit, like a horse ready to leave its starting gate. I’ve been keeping my heart rate in check for many miles now, but my body says “go!” The 20 mile marker is my starting gun, and it goes off in my head, and I’m – finally – running full tilt.
This is stupendous! There is a crowd of people as we leave the park, and then we’re flying across the bridge. Wow, are there a lot of people walking – but I’m flying. The next six miles are a blur – I’m just racing, full out. I take splits at the mile markers, but I never really look at my watch again – I just know that I’m giving it all I have. There is a cookie station around mile 21 or so, but I don’t want to risk anything at this point and just pass it by – but shortly after the cookies, there are sponges, and those are wonderful. It’s getting warmer, and there is a bit of a wind, but I am just floating along, this feels so wonderful. We make a 180 degree turn at Crystal City, and then a few more zigzags before I start to recognize the road we’re on. Somewhere along this stretch of road, we pass by the Pentagon, but I miss it entirely. How you can miss an entire building as huge as the Pentagon is a mystery to me, but I’m not looking left or right just now, I’m just focused on the road directly in front of me. The finish of the race retraces a short bit of the race start, and it feels really weird to be repeating these steps.
The 26 mile marker is at the turn into the Arlington National Cemetery, and the next hundred yards or so are a short steep hill. This just about does me in, but I’m breathing out loud and I’m hungry for the finish. I’ve just glanced at my watch and for the first time in the day, I realize that I’m on pace for a new personal record. But we get to the top of the hill, and you can’t see a finish line. I’m grunting and chugging, and just willing the finish line to appear, and finally, around a bend in the road – there it is! I raise my arms in race finish triumph, and then hit my watch. Yes! My time is 3:50:29, a new personal best.
Post race. It feels like time for a post race party, but how can you have a party by yourself? I sob deeply – with utter joy - as I gasp for breath while a Marine drapes a medal around my neck, and then I look around for Theresa.
But I don’t spot that familiar head of fiery red hair anywhere, and so I make my way through the post-race maze in a bit of a daze. I grab some food and then head off to pick up my checked bag. Bag in tow, I find the meet-up area, and sit down to munch on a bagel and keep an eye out for Theresa.
She shows up eventually – she has waited at the finish, hoping to get a shot of me crossing the line, but missed me in the crowds, and is enormously disappointed to have missed my PR. But I tell her that she is my lucky charm, and I need to bring her to all of my marathons after this. Her race – the 8k – was a success, too; she’s pleased with the fact that she ran the entire thing even though her training had been spotty.
So we head off to the motel, and I’m thinking of post-race beer and grub, but I’m learning that my expectations of good food and drink in this town are not to be. We get back to the motel, and I’m on a perpetual high, but Theresa’s stomach is rebelling, and it’s a rough afternoon for her. We order dinner delivered to the room, but when it arrives, it’s cold and congealing, and Theresa dumps hers immediately into the trash. The problem is, she’s not able to keep any foods down after the race, and we’re both getting worried.
Finally, Theresa calls the emergency number at the Mayo Clinic – where all of her cancer care and the liver transplant have been done – and they recommend getting to an emergency room. So instead of living it up on the town, we find ourselves riding in an ambulance at 10:30 p.m., and settling in to the ER at a hospital in Arlington. It’s not the finale that I’ve envisioned to such a perfect marathon, but then again, this weekend is nothing at all that I expected. And while I would like to be out guzzling a brewski or at home sleeping, as I watch Theresa – pale as the hospital sheets – dozing with an IV in her arm, I’m reminded of life’s fragility, and that we can take nothing for granted.
The good news is that the blood tests come back fine, and a couple of liters of IV fluids and some anti-nausea medicine get Theresa in shape to be released from the hospital. We get back to the motel at about 3 a.m., so it’s a short night. Theresa feels well enough to travel in the morning, so I make the trek to the airport with her, and watch as she goes through security. I’m thrilled to have had this weekend with my friend, but I’m also alarmed at how quickly one’s health can turn.
It’s another brilliant sunny day in DC, and my flight does not leave until late afternoon, so I meet up with Cindy and Jay and their friend Jeanie on the Mall. We tour a couple of outside sculpture gardens – it’s just too beautiful to not be outdoors – before heading into the National Archives. There are some great displays inside the Archives, but the things I’ve most wanted to see – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – remind me of the lessons I’ve learned this weekend. These incredible historic documents are almost completely faded to nothingness. Nothing is permanent in this world, not even the Declaration of Independence. But the day itself is too glorious to dwell on this thought, and we all walk along the Mall. We have a grand time talking about the race – the sights along the way, the things we all saw, or that we all missed. And all too soon, I’m heading back to the airport.
At the airport, I finally sit down at a bar to have that post-race beer. It doesn’t taste nearly as good as I expected it to, but I’m also reminded – by a sudden light-headedness – that I’ve hardly eaten today. Now there’s a central theme of the weekend, completely atypical for a marathon trip. So I get a few snacks, and head off to the plane. To my surprise, Ms. Western States 100 is boarding the plane at the same time as me, and we share race results. When we get to Denver, Western States and I walk along the concourse together, talking about the weekend and the race. We compare past races and future plans, and finally decide that we’ll probably be at a race again together in the near future and exchange business cards.
As I head out of the airport, I think about my expectations and how I thought that this would be a weekend of terrific times with friends, and that the race really wouldn’t matter that much. As I stuff my new friend’s card into my wallet, it occurs to me that maybe this was, after all, a weekend about friends. But I’ve learned that you can’t predict anything about your time with your friends anymore than you can predict your race finishing time. And that sometimes, you just need to take what the day – or the weekend – gives you, and be grateful for it. And I go home to finally scrounge up some really good food.
But then on a glorious Colorado day in late March I’m out running on the Cherry Creek bike path, and I run into my friend Cindy. Well, okay, I don’t literally run into her, but we recognize each other – sunglasses and all – while running in opposite directions, and we stop to chat. Cindy mentions that she and Jay – her husband – are going to run Marine Corps in the fall, and why don’t I join them? She tells me that this is the 30th anniversary of the race, and in honor of that fact, they are opening the registration to the first 30,000 folks who can get their entries in on-line. This changes everything: friends running the race, an open registration, and I’m a complete sucker for things like the 30th anniversary. So I agree to think about it, but everyone who knows me knows that when I say I’ll think about doing a marathon, it means that I’m already figuring out what to wear.
Et voila, the following week, I’m in!
In the meantime, my friend Theresa – you’ve heard me talk about her before, right? – and I are searching for an exotic fall marathon where she can run a shorter course and I can do the full monty. I’m thinking Hawaii, Alaska, somewhere cool and different. I tell her about the Marine Corps just to let her know that the weekend of October 30th is already taken, and the next thing I know, she’s entered the Marine Corps 8k. Well, waddaya know – it’s starting to sound like a party. First Cindy and Jay, and now Theresa. This is a weekend that I can get excited about. I’m still a bit less than overwhelmed by the thought of the actual race itself, but what the heck – it’s shaping up to be a fun weekend.
Getting to DC. When we started to plan this thing, both my boyfriend Mick and Theresa’s husband Kirk claimed an interest in spending the weekend in DC, so we had a huge party in the works. But in the last month or so leading up to the event, both Mick and Kirk came down with terminal cases of “workitis”, so we’ve scaled back the plans. Theresa and I have determined to make this a girlfriends weekend (no disrespect to Jay, of course, who is still planning to run with Cindy).
So it is that I’m traveling by myself from Denver to DC, via Chicago. At O’Hare I notice a woman boarding the same flight to DC; this woman looks like a runner, and she’s sporting a “Western States 100” t-shirt. Now, I’m not a crazy ultramarathoner, just a wannabe, and anyone who knows anything at all about ultramarathons knows that the Western States 100 is a Big Deal. So as we depart the plane once we land in DC, I go up to Ms. Western States 100 T-Shirt, and ask “so did you actually run the Western States?” Now, there’s a creative intro. And duh, sure, how many people would be walking around with the t-shirt if they hadn’t run the darned thing? Still, I’m lucky that the woman is friendly, and we strike up a conversation. Of course she ran the Western States. Of course she is here to run Marine Corps. And of course she too is from Colorado. We have a nice chat until her husband – also running, but who came in earlier – meets her and I depart to the taxi-stand.
I arrive at our hotel to find Theresa already checked in, tucked into bed, and dozing with the TV on and the sound off. Okay, it’s really not so much a hotel as a glorified motel, but we’re from Iowa and we’re cheap. It turns out that we chose this place because it was on the marathon website and listed as being “4” away from the race start. We interpreted this to mean 4 blocks. Not the 4 miles that it actually is. But not to worry, despite the nasty reviews that I read on the internet after we had made the reservations, it’s actually an okay place.
And what do we really need? Two old friends, hanging out, staying up way too late chatting. The only real problem is that I haven’t had a proper supper – just a bunch of fruit that I brought on the plane – and now I’m hungry. But this is a motel without a restaurant, so I get around my hunger pangs by talking Theresa’s ear off, and finally forget about being hungry. It’s a strange thing, two days before a marathon, to go to bed hungry. Normally I would have taken some liberties with cookies or ice cream (carbo-loading at its best) on the penultimate day before the race, but somehow it just didn’t happen today. No worries, I’ll get a great breakfast in the morning.
Saturday in DC. But no. It’s late when I finally fall fast asleep – really late, like 4 a.m. – and then I sleep hard. At moments before 10 a.m. Theresa wakes me to tell me she is going to the motel’s continental breakfast to grab us some grub, and she comes back with some cake donuts and not much else that interests me. I’m hungry, so I scarf down a few of these gut bombs, and then we finally get out the door.
We’re headed, generally, in the direction of the expo to pick up race stuff. The motel’s shuttle drops us off at Pentagon City to catch the Metro, and since we’re still hungry, we go inside the mall to get a bite to eat. Somehow, the whole food experience of DC is just not quite working out the way I envisioned. We choose one restaurant, but when we sit down, they give us a different menu than the one posted on the door, and when neither of us sees anything to our liking, we get up and leave. The second restaurant is a bit better – or is it just that the food seems okay now that we’re totally starving? We don’t linger too long here, though, since the place is like the inside of a walk-in refrigerator. We are finally out of the mall and on our way to the expo, and the day is slipping away.
Everyone has reported how friendly and helpful the Marines are for this marathon, but when we get to the expo, we find the opposite to be true. Nobody seems friendly, and it seems like they mostly just want us out of their hair. But the expo is not a complete loss, at least as far as food is concerned. My v-team internet buddy Russ lives in the DC area, but it’s not working out for us to get together. As a substitute, he’s told me to look up his friend Chip, who is working at the Clif Bar booth. We find the booth first, and then find Chip (not too hard to spot the 6-foot-plus-a-whole-lot-more triathlete), and I introduce myself. Chip is friendly and wants to know “how did you and Rusty meet?” It’s hard to describe – kind of like internet dating – that although Russ and I have been friends for a couple of years now we’ve not really ever met in person. Chip gives me one of those looks, so I just shut up. But as some kind of consolation prize, he tells me to open up my expo bag, the one with the t-shirt and chip and race number and other assorted crap. Once the bag is open wide, Chip dumps – and I mean dumps! – an entire box of Clif bars into it. A woman standing next to me gasps in surprise, and then whines that she only got a couple of the little samples. Theresa laughs. We take off. Food at last.
It’s now mid-afternoon, and we need to find bagels for the morning. Instead of wandering aimlessly, Theresa suggests that we go back to the mall since she’s certain she spotted a bakery there. So back we go. At Pentagon City, we find a shop with bagels (already stale, but I’m starting to realize that good food is not on the menu this weekend) and I snatch up a couple. Just in case dinner goes badly, I pre-dessert with an ice cream cone, and it’s about the best food of the day.
We’ve planned to hook up with Jay and Cindy for dinner, but haven’t made specific plans. So while we’re finishing our food shopping at Pentagon City, I call Jay and Cindy. They give us instructions to meet them at the Lincoln Memorial, with some vague directions on how to get there. Theresa and I get back on the Metro (this is starting to feel like a yoyo experience), and get off the Metro at the Smithsonian stop, as instructed, and consult maps before starting the trek down the Mall. Pretty soon, I’m getting a sense of how far we have to walk and I’m starting to swear. What the hell am I doing walking this much the night before a marathon??? This is all starting to seem extremely insane. Out of frustration, and attempting to rationalize this irrational pre-race behavior, I remind myself (and Theresa) that this marathon is simply a notch on the old headboard, and I don’t really care about the race itself. This is definitely not a fast course, so who cares. This seems like a pretty good rationale, as far as these things go. The true consolution is that we get to see – right at twilight – some really cool sights along the Mall. We reach the Lincoln Memorial just as it’s getting dark, and the lights of the memorial are really quite cool. And there are Cindy and Jay – with a cast of thousands of their other friends – so all is not lost.
Not lost, of course, until we try to figure out where to have dinner. Now, what kind of insanity is this: trying to get a group of about ten people into a restaurant serving pasta the night before a marathon with 30,000 runners in town for the event? I will spare you the aggravation. We drive, we take cabs, we stand on the street to hail more cabs, we walk blocks and blocks and more blocks, we go into and out of restaurant after restaurant, and it just gets worse and worse. The clock is ticking away and I’m thinking about the early morning and about my growling stomach from last night, and Theresa and I finally decide to bail on the party. We get on the Metro and end up…..you guessed it: back at Pentagon City. The first thing we spot is an Italian fast-food eatery, and I’m walking away with a heaping plate of pasta before anyone can change my mind. It may not be great, but it sure is filling. We’re so exhausted from the day that we’re soon back at the motel and lights out for the morning.
Race morning. Theresa suggests that we should ask for a wake up call, especially since Saturday night is the night that the clocks change. No worries, I say, since I always set two alarms before a race: my travel alarm clock and my race watch. Somehow, neither of them works in the morning, but quite luckily, race day instinct gets me out of bed. My bagel is stale, but the motel room coffee is hot and I’ve decided to not worry about food anymore. We’re out the door and waiting for the shuttle earlier than planned.
The motel is running a shuttle over to Pentagon City where it is reputed that the marathon has shuttles to the race start. Given the size of the line at the motel, I’m concerned about making it to the race on time if we have to wait for multiple ferries, so Theresa does the intelligent thing and goes into the front office and has the clerk call for a taxi. We move out of the shuttle line and find a couple who has also decided to go the cab route. She is running her first marathon, and he’s here to support her. When a cab arrives, we all pile in and head off to the start.
Now, this cab driver is a piece of work. He asks if we want a tour of the course (uh, no, we’ll be doing that ourselves soon enough, thank you), and we all look nervously at each other. Is this nut case going to take us to the start or what? But there is hope, since the cabbie says that he lives near the start of the race, and wanted to go home to get something to eat soon. We’re on a freeway – none of us passengers has the slightest clue where we are or exactly where we are going – and now the cab driver decides to recite a poem that he’s written. It ends, and nobody says a word. But then, compelled by some sense of self-preservation, we all start to compliment him at the same time. “I have goosebumps,” I say, but I don’t bother to add that the goosebumps are because we were standing around in about 30 degree temperature before climbing into his taxi. Finally, we see an area that looks like the race organizing area, and we’re out of there. I figure that if I could survive that cab ride, the marathon itself will now seem anticlimactic.
We are near the entrance to what appears to be the Athlete’s Village, so we head down the hill. There is a long row of tables set up, and a bunch of Marines in fatigues standing near the tables. We figure that this is the security checkpoint we’ve heard about, so we walk up to the Marines, who are all facing the other way. It turns out that we’ve entered from an opposite direction from where the shuttles drop off people. We approach the Marines, and have to work to get their attention. A couple of them finally turn around, and we ask if they need to see our bags. One of the guys laughs and says, “you’re inside already!” So much for tight security. All you have to know is the back door to the race staging area, and you’re in. I have some new concerns about the safety and security of my country with these jokers running the show, but I push the concerns aside. I’m here to run today, not to get all political.
We’re quite early, but that’s okay, I can relax now that we’re within a short walk to the start line. So that’s where we go next – to check out the start line – but a Marine on the road alerts us to the fact that there are limited port-a-potty facilities at the start line, so we turn back to the area we just came from. By the way, have I mentioned that the race start/finish is at Arlington National Cemetery? Yep. Gives you a bit of a pause to look out at all of those white markers in nice neat rows. So we spend some time tramping around this grand old monument. Okay, we don’t actually tramp around the graves, but there is a nice wide lawn that has been set up with all kinds of race related facilities. There are enough port-a-potties so that there is never really much of a line.
It’s cold out though – in the thirties - so I’m reluctant to check my warm togs at the bag check until as late as possible. It’s clear that Theresa thinks I’m crazy. As I laid out my race clothes last night– shorts and singlet – she asked, incredulously, “Is that all you’re wearing???” To be sure, it was cool and sunny – and a bit windy – on Saturday, but it’s supposed to warm up a bit today. I would much rather be a bit cool on a long run than to be overdressed, so I’m going with my clothing plan. I’m also wearing a throwaway long-sleeved t-shirt and my trusty purple gloves (they are actually ski glove liners that work just perfectly for running in in-between temps), so I figure I’ll be okay. But while I’m checking my warm clothes at the bag-check, Theresa, mother hen that she is, gets busy scoring a trash bag for me from some folks nearby. They brought an entire roll of super-sized garbage bags to the race and are giving the extras away. Theresa helps me get the thing on, and it’s like a full length ball gown. I am now the picture of fashion. And it’s actually quite warm.
Finally, it’s time to head to the start – and I think I might have waited too long, it’s so crowded on the road. Theresa and I wish each other good luck in our respective races, and then part ways. I ditch the garbage bag, and then just as I reach the start line, I throw my long-sleeved t-shirt away. There is, suddenly, so much happening! There are sky divers falling out of the heavens, and there are bands playing, and there is a guy making announcements on a loud speaker. I reach the designated area for my bib number and am grateful that I have this low bib number (1771) and don’t have to fight my way through the crowds further back. Later I will learn that I was given a preferred start because of my predicted finish in my age group, but right now I’m just thinking about staying warm until the gun goes off. Maybe I tossed that warm shirt too soon.
It’s crowded here – just as I expected from what I’ve heard about this race in the past – but I notice a couple of Marines walking through the crowd, checking bib numbers and sending people back to their proper areas. I’m grateful for this, since it thins the crowd just a bit. A guy standing next to me and I chat a bit about expectations for the day, and we both have the same philosophy: take what the day gives you. And then after some more commotion, we’re moving.
The race. As soon as we start to move, it seems that there is a crush of people and it is just flat out crowded, almost too crowded to run. I swear to myself, and think that I really hate big races and these crowds. But it’s a beautiful day – although still quite chilly – and the crowd is keeping me warm. There is a band playing right at the entrance to Arlington – at the 26 mile marker – and they have great band uniforms with exceptional plumage. As race starts go, this one is pretty glitzy.
But the crowds, hola! I’m shuffling along, and just following directly behind a whole bunch of people. People – crazy people – are darting and weaving, trying to get through the sea of racers, and they scare me – I’m certain that one of them is going to cause a major pileup. Pretty soon we’re passing the first mile marker, and I hit my watch to capture the split. 9:44??? Now I’m in despair. That is, without a doubt, the slowest first mile I have run in any marathon, including the trail races I’ve done. It’s quite possibly slower than my first mile going up Pike’s Peak, which is slow because it’s so dang steep. I remind myself that I’m just running today for fun, and have no goals.
From the course elevation map, I know that the first two miles are mostly uphill, but I don’t really feel the hill until the start of the second mile, and then it looks like it’s straight up in front of me. I’m trying to just run a straight line and stay out of trouble, since it’s still insanely crowded, and now I notice that everyone seems to be weaving. Can nobody run a straight line? Judging by this crowd, apparently not. But as we hit the two-mile mark, I recognize the surroundings, and laugh. We’ve just passed through Rosslyn, one of the areas we visited last night in our mad search for a restaurant. I had no idea we would be back through here again today, and find it funny. I hit my watch for my second split, and am more disheartened – 9:34. Still extremely slow. I figure that it’s just going to be a long slow day, and that I had better settle in for the ride.
But the course turns downhill after we pass the second mile marker, and it also somehow magically starts to open up some. I concentrate on sight-seeing along the way. We run briefly along the Potomac, an area that surprises me for its rugged beauty – steep cliffs and heavy woods. We pass over the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I recognize from last night. We turn onto M Street, and are running through Georgetown, past the restaurants that didn’t have room for us last night. This area looks entirely different in the daylight, but we don’t have time to window shop today. Soon enough, we’re passing mile 5 and turning through some back streets.
I hit the split button on my watch, and look down to see my elapsed time. Huh? I have not really looked at my watch since that horribly slow second mile, and now I’m confused. My watch says that my elapsed time for the first five miles is 45:21, and I do the math quickly – I’ve recovered quite a bit of time from those first two miles and am now running consistent sub-9 minute miles. Maybe the day won’t be such a loss after all.
We leave the very urban setting of Georgetown and head out on the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, which is the first of a number of out-and-back sections of this race. And it’s absolutely beautiful here. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that Marine Corps was such a beautiful course? We’re running on a wide parkway that is heavily forested all around, with a thick canopy of leaves overhead. For a brief time, the front runners are directly across a short median from us, and they are impressive to watch. But then the median widens and puts more distance between the two parallel sections of roadway. And then the sirens approach.
Since the road is completely closed to traffic, I think that the sound of sirens can only mean that someone has been injured further on the course, and it’s a disturbing thought. But the sirens draw closer and closer until finally a motorcycle cop with full siren blaring is parting the crowd of runners beside me. I look over my shoulder to see a wheelchair competitor right behind the motorcycle. What the heck??? Most races start the wheelchairs early because they tend to be faster than runners, and this way they have a clear roadway to work with. But the Marine Corps organizers, for some dunder-headed reason, started the wheelchairs in today’s race in between the two waves. From this point on, we will have the intermittent sound of wheelchairs coming up behind us and people yelling for runners to get out of the way. This is just plain stupid planning, and it’s dangerous for everyone. I shake my head in amazement that the same people who are responsible for the race logistics are also in charge of the country’s military. A very scary proposition.
We make the turnaround on the parkway and head back. It’s turning into a gorgeous day. At times during the early miles, I have been slightly chilly, but now I am thinking that this is about as perfect weather conditions as you can get. Still, a slight chill in the air, but full sun overhead and not a hint of clouds.
We pass the 9 mile marker just as we reach the Potomac once again, and I check my elapsed time. I have been doing mental math along the way, and I’ve figured that perfect 9 minute miles would put me at 81 minutes at this checkpoint. And my watch reads 1:20:52 – I’m thrilled! I start to entertain thoughts of running a sub-4 hour marathon.
Now we’re approaching the Mall, and the crowds are growing alongside the road. I recognize the Lincoln Memorial as we approach it from behind, and now we’re running along the Mall itself. There are lots of people here, and more bands and entertainment along the way. Someone near me wonders out loud if W will be outside the White House watching the race, and I think about looking closely when we go past the White House. But there is so much happening here – so many sights, so many people, so many distractions – that I miss the White House entirely. In fact, I would miss the Capitol if it weren’t for the fact that we turn around directly in front of it. I recognize the Smithsonian Castle as we pass by, as well as the Washington Monument. I’m enjoying the sights and sounds, and find myself thinking “wow, this is a pretty cool place to hold a marathon”, and then I laugh at myself. How quickly we forget our old bogus opinions when we’re having a good day at the races!
And as we pass the halfway point – which is on the Mall – it occurs to me that this may just be one of those good days in marathoning. I’ve only had a few stellar days, and they are always unexpected and welcome. But you just never know until well into the second half of the race, so I try to rein in my spirits.
Shortly after the halfway point, a woman running alongside me asks, “do you know if there is any gel on the course?” She explains that she has lost her running partner and is down to just a single gel for the rest of the race. I tell her that I think there might be a gel station ahead, but I’m not sure. Then I check my pockets; I always pack an extra gel, “just in case”. Sure enough, I calculate that I can spare one of my remaining gels, and I offer it to her. She takes it gratefully, and I figure that I’ve just earned myself some karma. I take this as an excellent omen.
But now there is a tall, skinny drink of water – a woman – who becomes my nemesis for the next couple of miles. This woman looks like she’s suffering – she stops to walk and looks in pain, and each time she does that, I pass her. But then somehow she picks it up again and starts to run and sprints past me. Time and time again. I know – know – that she will not be able to keep this up; I know too well how horrible it is to suffer like this in a marathon. But still, she is an annoyance and a distraction for a mile or two. Finally, as I know will happen, she disappears from my radar, and I never see her again.
What I do see is the Jefferson Memorial, and what a glorious view it is. We’ve left the Mall now, and we’re making an arc around the Tidal Basin, and the Jefferson Memorial stands out in its alabaster glory. Again I think that this is a superb setting for a marathon. And then the memorial is behind us and we’re heading out on a loop around the East Potomac Park.
We’re starting to hit the miles where everyone who went out too fast starts to hurt, and it’s evident on this stretch of the race course. It’s a lovely place to run – nice and flat, with nothing but wide river and open parklands around us. The crowd has spread out nicely at this point – there are always people around, but nobody impeding your progress. There is a crowd of people at the entrance and exit to this park, but not many spectators along the route, and that’s fine with me. I’ve settled into a really nice groove and I’m starting to know that this is going to be a really good day.
A guy falls into step next to me, and we run together for the next couple of miles. He’s friendly and talkative, and a distraction, which is nice given the quiet area we’re passing through. We pass by a camera checkpoint, and the guy is downright ebullient, waving to the photographers. I tell the guy – whose name I ask but then don’t remember – that I think I’m having one of those stellar days. He tells me that he’s starting to fade, and I figure that we are only running partners for a short time. Soon, I notice that he’s leaning into me, bumping against me, and almost stepping on me. Ew! Perhaps he’s getting a bit too familiar? At any rate, it’s not at all comfortable, and today I have the perfect solution. I have another gear just under the surface, crying out to be used, and now I turn it on. I dust the guy. It’s a beautiful feeling.
The loop around the East Potomac Park is coming to an end, and we pass the 20 mile marker as we get back onto a major roadway and the bridge that will take us out of DC and back into Arlington. I’m chomping at the bit, like a horse ready to leave its starting gate. I’ve been keeping my heart rate in check for many miles now, but my body says “go!” The 20 mile marker is my starting gun, and it goes off in my head, and I’m – finally – running full tilt.
This is stupendous! There is a crowd of people as we leave the park, and then we’re flying across the bridge. Wow, are there a lot of people walking – but I’m flying. The next six miles are a blur – I’m just racing, full out. I take splits at the mile markers, but I never really look at my watch again – I just know that I’m giving it all I have. There is a cookie station around mile 21 or so, but I don’t want to risk anything at this point and just pass it by – but shortly after the cookies, there are sponges, and those are wonderful. It’s getting warmer, and there is a bit of a wind, but I am just floating along, this feels so wonderful. We make a 180 degree turn at Crystal City, and then a few more zigzags before I start to recognize the road we’re on. Somewhere along this stretch of road, we pass by the Pentagon, but I miss it entirely. How you can miss an entire building as huge as the Pentagon is a mystery to me, but I’m not looking left or right just now, I’m just focused on the road directly in front of me. The finish of the race retraces a short bit of the race start, and it feels really weird to be repeating these steps.
The 26 mile marker is at the turn into the Arlington National Cemetery, and the next hundred yards or so are a short steep hill. This just about does me in, but I’m breathing out loud and I’m hungry for the finish. I’ve just glanced at my watch and for the first time in the day, I realize that I’m on pace for a new personal record. But we get to the top of the hill, and you can’t see a finish line. I’m grunting and chugging, and just willing the finish line to appear, and finally, around a bend in the road – there it is! I raise my arms in race finish triumph, and then hit my watch. Yes! My time is 3:50:29, a new personal best.
Post race. It feels like time for a post race party, but how can you have a party by yourself? I sob deeply – with utter joy - as I gasp for breath while a Marine drapes a medal around my neck, and then I look around for Theresa.
But I don’t spot that familiar head of fiery red hair anywhere, and so I make my way through the post-race maze in a bit of a daze. I grab some food and then head off to pick up my checked bag. Bag in tow, I find the meet-up area, and sit down to munch on a bagel and keep an eye out for Theresa.
She shows up eventually – she has waited at the finish, hoping to get a shot of me crossing the line, but missed me in the crowds, and is enormously disappointed to have missed my PR. But I tell her that she is my lucky charm, and I need to bring her to all of my marathons after this. Her race – the 8k – was a success, too; she’s pleased with the fact that she ran the entire thing even though her training had been spotty.
So we head off to the motel, and I’m thinking of post-race beer and grub, but I’m learning that my expectations of good food and drink in this town are not to be. We get back to the motel, and I’m on a perpetual high, but Theresa’s stomach is rebelling, and it’s a rough afternoon for her. We order dinner delivered to the room, but when it arrives, it’s cold and congealing, and Theresa dumps hers immediately into the trash. The problem is, she’s not able to keep any foods down after the race, and we’re both getting worried.
Finally, Theresa calls the emergency number at the Mayo Clinic – where all of her cancer care and the liver transplant have been done – and they recommend getting to an emergency room. So instead of living it up on the town, we find ourselves riding in an ambulance at 10:30 p.m., and settling in to the ER at a hospital in Arlington. It’s not the finale that I’ve envisioned to such a perfect marathon, but then again, this weekend is nothing at all that I expected. And while I would like to be out guzzling a brewski or at home sleeping, as I watch Theresa – pale as the hospital sheets – dozing with an IV in her arm, I’m reminded of life’s fragility, and that we can take nothing for granted.
The good news is that the blood tests come back fine, and a couple of liters of IV fluids and some anti-nausea medicine get Theresa in shape to be released from the hospital. We get back to the motel at about 3 a.m., so it’s a short night. Theresa feels well enough to travel in the morning, so I make the trek to the airport with her, and watch as she goes through security. I’m thrilled to have had this weekend with my friend, but I’m also alarmed at how quickly one’s health can turn.
It’s another brilliant sunny day in DC, and my flight does not leave until late afternoon, so I meet up with Cindy and Jay and their friend Jeanie on the Mall. We tour a couple of outside sculpture gardens – it’s just too beautiful to not be outdoors – before heading into the National Archives. There are some great displays inside the Archives, but the things I’ve most wanted to see – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – remind me of the lessons I’ve learned this weekend. These incredible historic documents are almost completely faded to nothingness. Nothing is permanent in this world, not even the Declaration of Independence. But the day itself is too glorious to dwell on this thought, and we all walk along the Mall. We have a grand time talking about the race – the sights along the way, the things we all saw, or that we all missed. And all too soon, I’m heading back to the airport.
At the airport, I finally sit down at a bar to have that post-race beer. It doesn’t taste nearly as good as I expected it to, but I’m also reminded – by a sudden light-headedness – that I’ve hardly eaten today. Now there’s a central theme of the weekend, completely atypical for a marathon trip. So I get a few snacks, and head off to the plane. To my surprise, Ms. Western States 100 is boarding the plane at the same time as me, and we share race results. When we get to Denver, Western States and I walk along the concourse together, talking about the weekend and the race. We compare past races and future plans, and finally decide that we’ll probably be at a race again together in the near future and exchange business cards.
As I head out of the airport, I think about my expectations and how I thought that this would be a weekend of terrific times with friends, and that the race really wouldn’t matter that much. As I stuff my new friend’s card into my wallet, it occurs to me that maybe this was, after all, a weekend about friends. But I’ve learned that you can’t predict anything about your time with your friends anymore than you can predict your race finishing time. And that sometimes, you just need to take what the day – or the weekend – gives you, and be grateful for it. And I go home to finally scrounge up some really good food.
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