4:30: I've eaten breakfast, I’m in my race gear, and am ready to go. The only problem is that I still
have an hour before I need to leave. The waiting is the hardest part. Except maybe the running.
The world isn't brimming with entertainment options at 4:30 a.m., so I decide to make some coffee to pass the time. I hope I don’t regret this when the race is starting and I have sudden desperate urge to use the bathroom.
5:00: As the local
news begins to air pre-race reports, I'm thankful
that the weather looks great, and growing concern that I have 30 minutes to
departure and still haven’t been able to go to bathroom. A pre-race stomach
explosion combined with a pre-race port-a-potty is every runner’s worst nightmare.
Especially considering how long those lines tend to be.
5:08: As pre-race jitters start to set in, I’m getting
restless. I quadruple check my to make sure shoes are tied (with car key laced therein), gear is comfortable, and that I have my energy gel packets and my colon-cancer awareness wristband that my brother and I wore for the triathlon we did during his chemotherapy.
I finally get the bathroom out of the way.
5:15: Or not.
5:23: The coffee, combined with pre-race jitters,
are setting in. There can’t be anything left inside of me. I tell
myself that at least I won’t have the pre-race port-a-potty issue.
5:30: It’s time to leave, but I really sort of feel like I
need to go back to the bathroom. I’d
rather be a minute or two late than risk a port-a-potty incident. This should
only take a second…
5:35: Repeat entry for “5:30.”
5:39: So, I’m finally off, almost ten minutes late and stomach still queasy. The coffee was a bad idea.
The roads are supposed to close at 6, an hour before the start of the race and
the start-line parking lot is only a ten-minute drive, so I tell myself I should be
ok.
5:47: For some reason, the main road into the parking lot is
already closed, as is the most obvious alternative I know. The
authorities are routing every single one of the 40,000 race participants
through the exact same parking lot entrance on the other side of the stadium, a decision that has turned the surrounding streets into a virtual parking lot as well.
This seems poorly planned.
6:35: Finally parked and my stomach is now ok, my racing jitters
overcome by the aggravation of parking.
6:45: At the start line, feeling great, and ready to go.
6:46: But I could sort of use a quick rest stop, if there
was one nearby.
6:47: A quick walk reveals that there are exactly 12
port-a-potties in the start line area, all with lines that are still 30-minutes deep. The organizers moved the start line downtown this year, but none of the local businesses are open to, err, relieve the
pressure of the pre-race bathroom rush. As I walk around downtown to look for an open business, I see three
or four guys peeing in the alleys. Gross.
6:53: As I scavenge for open businesses or toilets without
ridiculous lines, suddenly the alley idea is starting to seem more feasible.
What do women do in these situations?
6:55: Oh, wait, I now see that they pee near dumpsters in the alleys too.
7:00: I’m at the start line and ready to go. Let’s just say
I solved my problem.
7:03: My running watch is set to beep at me if I deviate
from my desired 8:35 per-mile pace. My goals have gotten progressively less
ambitious as a neck injury derailed my training. I had once hoped for 1:45,
then 1:50, and now just to beat my personal record of 1:52, (set on a much easier course).
I won’t be disappointed as long as I beat my 1:57 time from this same race
last year.
7:04: As the final countdown to the start begins, I think
back to running this race last year with my brothers, Paul and Scott, as a symbol of Scott's fight
against cancer, through a torrential downpour. This year, the weather is
beautiful and there’s no great symbolic victory on the
other side of the finish line. But I still need to do this for reasons I can't easily define. It's been a hard year, and sometimes when life has hands you struggles that you can't defeat, you need to artificially create one that you can.
I can't wait to trounce this one.
And we’re off…
7:08: My first half mile is perfectly on pace, and unlike
last year, I’m not bunched too badly in the crowd. My friend’s band is playing
up ahead, I want to waive at him, but not waste too much energy catching his
attention, as I did last year. Lesson learned.
7:13: First mile down, but somewhere near the band I got
caught up in traffic and lost my pace. Maybe I didn't learn my lesson after all. My watch tells me I’ve barely gone a
mile and I’m already at almost ten minutes. Why didn’t my watch beep at me?
This is not a good start.
7:21: As my watch continues to flash messages that my second
mile is on my desired pace, I cross the mile two mark in 8:00 flat. The good
news is that I’m now back on pace, but I’ve just used way too much energy to do
it all at once. And my watch has apparently gone insane.
7:22: One of the highlights of the race experience is
viewing 13 miles of creative signs. My favorite two so far, “Worst Parade Ever”
and another next to it that simply says “Inspirational Sign.”
7:26: My new favorite sign: “Smile if you pooped today.” I veer over to the holder and say, “Five
times!” That probably just cost me ten
seconds of race time, but it was well worth it.
7:29: Someone has a stereo in their front yard playing the
Rocky song on a continuous loop. It's a nice touch, but the three-mile mark is a
little early for that kind of inspiration. A few houses later, someone else is playing the Indiana
Jones soundtrack. I begin to wonder: “does this mean the natives will be shooting
arrows at me down the road?”
7:40: Somewhere around the 4.5 mile mark, my legs start to hurt
for the first time. I had tried to squeeze in one last training run three days
ago to try to compensate for the time I had missed with an injury. That is
starting to look like a mistake. Meanwhile, a clothing-company has set up a
giant pair of inflatable legs on the course that all runners must go under.
This is a first.
8:01: I’m seven miles in—the point at which I began to fade
last year—and feeling great. My leg soreness has gone away, and I’m running
ahead of schedule. It occurs to me that I
might just beat the 1:50 mark after all. As I pass a table handing out beer to
weary runners, I appreciate the lighthearted sentiment but don’t want to mess
with success. Meanwhile signs in the crowd include, “If Miley can survive 2007,
you can survive this” and “May the Course be with you.”
8:09: Still feeling good at 8 miles. “This is about where I
saw the cross-dresser in the crowd last year,” I think. But not this time. On the bright side, I see a sign that reads: "Your mom is sitting on the couch right now."
8:17: Sign: “Run for Pizza.”
That sounds good.
8:25: Around the 10 mile mark, I see a runner with a sign on
his back reading, “I’m a 55-year-old cancer survivor, and I’m in front of
you.” “Not anymore,” I think, as I run
past. I can set a personal record if I run the last 3 miles in 26 minutes. I
can break 1:50 if I can do it under 24. It’s time to turn on the jets.
8:33: The jets are out of fuel. I spent a lot more energy trying to run fast on
mile 11, but my time wasn't any faster. To break 1:50, I'll have to run 2.1 miles in 15 minutes
and 40 seconds, which isn’t going to happen. But if I can keep
it up, I can still set a personal record and finish with a number that starts
with 1:50.
8:42: At the twelve mile mark, I start to wonder if this
uphill climb will ever finish. I’ve been running uphill for a solid mile and
there’s no end in sight. To make matters worse, I've hit a barren stretch with no spectators in sight to cheer me on. It's just as well, because I don't have the energy to read signs at this point anyway. Just when I think I'm at rock bottom, I hit the 12.1 mile distance on my watch, it
suddenly jumps to 12.7, leaving me no idea of where the finish line actually is.
In the midst of my suffering, I look down at my blue wristband: it provides the same reminder it did about this point last year: if my brother can beat 12 rounds of chemotherapy, I can beat another mile.
8:49: My watch says I’ve already run 13.5 miles, which might be the cruelest joke the running gods have ever played. As the
course finally starts to turn downhill, I hear someone in crowd yell that only
500 yards remain. I can’t see the finish line, but I raise my pace for the home
stretch in the hope that I can attain a 1:50 finishing time.
8:53: I turn a corner and see the finish line. I decide not
to check my watch in favor of a camera-friendly victory sign as the crowd cheers when I cross the
finish line. A few seconds later, my watch says 1:50:42, a personal best and
better than I thought possible a few hours ago. It means absolutely nothing in
the greater scheme of things, but I’m overjoyed.
9:02: I load up on post-race snacks, collect my finisher’s
medal and meet my cheering wife in the parking lot. I’m going to take a shower,
and in a few hours I’ll be eating pizza at our favorite Italian restaurant, just like the sign had instructed.
3:00: My wife went to a baby shower, so I’m sitting in the
sun on my front porch thinking about the race, life, the universe and
everything. I’m not sure if I’ll ever run a race like this again, but I know that I trained really hard for something, overcame some serious pain, and met my
definition for success.
And I even had a lot of people cheering me on along the way.
As I sipped my drink and closed my eyes in the sun, a thought occurred: “If only all of life could work like this." And then I kicked up my feet and thought nothing at all, for a very long time.
