Running Log

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Marathon Stories, Part Seventeen

I promise, I have almost all the marathon stuff out of my system. (Not quite, though)

But I thought I’d share one or two more stories from the race.

At just beore the aid station at mile 21, this woman/girl/lady was jogging along about 300 feet or so ahead of me, just plopped down on the side of the road and whipped out her cell phone and began to make a call.

By the time I trudged up to her she was talking on the phone:

“I’m done.”
She listens. Someone is asking her if she’s OK, I think.
“No, I’m done with this thing. I’m NOT taking another step.”

By this time a whole bunch of us concerned marathoners were gathered around her, all of us motioning for the “tired runner” van which started trucking toward our little huddled group.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks, but I’m not going any further, I’m done. NOT ONE MORE STEP.”

I wasn’t sure whether to feel bad for her (she *only* had five miles to go, atfer all) or perversely delighted that she knew when she’d had enough and also knew exactly what to do about it. Just sit right down and wait for a cab (or whatever) to come along and pick her up. I also have to wonder about people who bring cell phones to a marathon. I ran next to a guy who answered his cell and it sounded like he was closing on a house. Something about a carpet allowance.

Second story, which needs a visual and I’ll draw something tomorrow, when I have access to a Wacom tablet at work during lunch.

After the race, I had collected my belongings which I’d dropped of at the start of the race.

One really nice thing about marathons is that the people in charge seem to be highly organized and efficient. So I was given a numbered bag, in which I deposited my warm up clothes and I could coolect them ater the race. I could have also elected to toss the bag by the side of the road within the first five miles and someone would pick it up. Kind of amazing to me, really.

I was limping back to where Re and the kids were waiting for me and I had to stop because of this two foot ledge drop-off thing on the sidewalk. (No, not the gutter, but those were hard to navigate as well). Basically, the park sloped downward, and this ledge was a natural part of the landscape. But because of the pain in my quads (the front part of my thighs), walking down anything was nigh unto impossible. I live in the basement at work, and I’ve been walking down the stairs backwards; otherwise I just grunt and moan with every step down.

The funny thing is that there were THREE of us all standing there at that ledge, looking down and wondering how the hell we could navigate the thing. I looked over and said to the other two runners, “Well, I guess we are stuck here, until either we heal, someone lifts us down or they build a ramp.” We all shuffled over to where the ledge met the rest of the park and made our way down. I was proud because I only grunted once. The other guys grunted way more.

Jon scribbled this mess on 10/10/06 at 10:02 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post Running Log. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Monday, October 09, 2006

Marathon Story

The Short Version

Wow. Helluva thing to do a marathon. Painful and glorious and every emotion in between.

The Long Version

I’m going to go into hairy details here about the experience. Most of them sound pretty awful and make you say to yourself, “no sane human would do this to himself/herself.” This is indeed a question I asked myself a few times during the course. But overall, I’m incredibly glad I did it. Not sure I’d do it again, but it’s something I’m happy to have done. There is *nothing* like the feeling of crossing the finish line.

But anyway, the stuff I’m about to describe sounds pretty gnarly, but don’t let it dissuade you if you are thinking about a marathon. I’m just being honest.

The official start time for the St. George Marathon was 6:45 AM. Which means buses loaded with eager beaver runners began trundling toward the start line at a smidgen before 4 AM. Yes, not only do you have to run 26.2 miles, but you basically have to get up the evening before so you can start the thing. That’s almost the most painful part, having to get up a four in the A.M.

The start of a marathon is a marvelous thing, really. Whole lot of skinny people (present company excepted, of course, I’m still kind of deliciously lumpy), huddling around bonfires and waiting in line to use porta-pottys. And the lovely thing about the porta-pottys is that after waiting in line (in the cold, more on the cold in a sec), you find a significant lack of toilet paper. And let me tell you, when you carbo-load with oatmeal at 4 AM, my friends, you need T.P. pretty seriously. Ick.

So about the cold. St. George, UT is down in the southwestern corner of Utah and it’s the desert down there. Which means brutally hot summers and chilly winters, since there’s no atmosphere to hold the heat in overnight. In St. George at this time of year at 5:30 A.M. it’s about 38° F. A bit nippy to be wearing shorts and a synthetic tee-shirt, but there we all were. Though my group had brought and distributed Hefty bags, which had the dual bonus of slightly warding off the wind AND making me look even more ridiculous. Bad craziness. Just picture me essentially half naked and wearing a garbage bag. Yeah, not pretty, I know.

The race started promptly at 6:45 and we all began to shuffle toward the paddock leading us out onto the road. I believe this is probably how cattle feel when being led to the slaughter. All crowded together, confused, excited and not really sure about the immediate future.

“Fool In The Rain” by Led Zeppelin was playing on my iPod Shuffle as I crossed the start line and hit the “go” button on my watch timer gee-gaw. Somehow an appropriately titled song for this extravaganza. There’s a full moon and it’s dipping in and out from behind the mountains and it’s all incredibly gorgeous and exciting and breath-taking. “Holy crap! I’m starting a marathon. How cool is this?! And look at the moon! It’s purty!”

The first six miles were nothing. Seriously. I didn’t even notice that I was running. I forced myself to take walk breaks, because I knew I’d need the energy later in the race. People passed me and I passed them and all was well. At about 7 miles we passed through this “blink and you’ll miss it” town called Veyo and we trudged up the first hill in the race. It’s a doozy and perhaps the worst part of it is that you can see it looming in distance from about mile 5. This uphill section lasts until about mile 11. I walked up the really steep part. I was still feeling really good. I’d take my walk breaks and be glancing at my watch, anticipating and chomping at the bit so I COULD START RUNNING AGAIN!

Boy was that dumb.

Everything was going along swimmingly until about mile 18. The halfway point totally rocked as my iPod played “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Smashing Pumpkins as I dunked a cup of water on my head. I was getting tired, of course, and no longer looking forward to getting back to running after my walk breaks, but still I was doing OK. More like having my eyes glued to my watch so I’d know to the second when I could take a walk break, but I knew by that I’d be finishing, maybe even breaking five hours.

Until the cramping began. Around 18.5 miles things began to fall apart. This is a pretty common thing among first time marathoners, I hear. People speak of “The Wall” at mile 18. I’m not sure it’s a wall so much as it’s a big ol’ charley horse in my left leg, just above the knee. Ouch. I’d stop and rub it out and try stretching it out, but it just kept coming back. And when I’d try to stretch it out, my left hamstring would go bananas and start to clench up. Double ouch. So I began to hobble something fierce.

And at mile 21, my right knee began acting up. I’d been having some pain on the side of that knee earlier at around mile 15, but nothing that seemed un-reasonable. Just the usual aches that accompany a long run. But every step (even walking) after mile 21 began to feel like torture. I was in some serious pain. Technically speaking, it was my I.T. band (Iliotibial band) begging for mercy, but who really cares about the details? So I’d run for a few minutes and then have to stop, bend over and rub my knees until the knots went down and the pain subsided. Not pretty, let me tell you. Plus, it just *killed* my time. I was still on track to finish below five hours (not a great time, but not bad for a first-timer), but all the stopping, rubbing and stretching was eating into that possibility.

So I was Sir Gimps-a-Lot until about a half a mile from the end. And then this guy pulls up behind me and starts talking to me. Asking me if this was my first marathon and how I was doing. By this time, I could see the balloons of the finish line and he starts telling me, “See! It’s right there! You can make it! We can drag that leg to the finish! No one can take that away from you! You did it!”

While all of the was true, it was also bugging the hell out of me. I said, “OK, you are just going to have to stop talking now.” I know I was pretty rude, but I needed to concentrate.

He kept at it, so finally, I just said, “Screw it,” and began to run as fast my gimpy-ness could carry me. I was about a half hour slower than I wanted to be, but I sure as hell was going to beat Mr. Motivational Speaker beside me. I caught up and passed two other people and crossed the finish line and started to weep uncontrollably. Seriously. Bawled like a baby. Reha and the kidlets were right at the finish line and she caught a really nice photo of me as I crossed the line.

That guy beside me with the sunglasses was the Team in Training Coach, Troy. He ran everybody in, so I think he ended up doing about twenty miles that day. Bad craziness, but he does ultra-marathons and is kind of crazy anyway, so it worked for him, I guess.

You can’t tell from the photo, but I forgot to douse myself in sunscreen, so I’m burned to a crisp.

OK, the upshot of all this? Running a marathon for most people is one of those Big List type things. Like, “I want to learn to speak Mandarin and climb Mt. Everest” kind of things. I’m glad I did it and pretty much swear that I’ll never do another one. Maybe I’ll do a half next year. But now I have this nagging voice in the back of my head now. “You could have done better. You can definitely break 5 hours. You could even get below 4:30, I bet. Don’t be a pansy. Let’s do it again!”

But that’s a voice I’m not going to listen to for a while. For now I’m content to have this small piece of hardware added to my life. My official chip time was 5:34:08.

And I know I promised photos of my toe blisters, but I’ve thought better of it. The world and the Intarweb will be better places if those photos aren’t brought to the light of day.

Jon scribbled this mess on 10/09/06 at 03:00 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Photos Regular Post Running Log. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Friday, October 06, 2006

Marathon

The St. George Marathon is tomorrow. I’m running in the St. George marathon tomorrow.

Heaven help me, this is possibly the dumbest thing I’ll ever do. Even dumber than when I voted for Bush (41, not the current goon).

OK, it’s not dumb. But it’s a very, very long way. At least it’s mostly downhill.

I’m ready. Kind of. I think. I never really got in my final 20 mile run, but I did a whole bunch of 10-13 milers. That should count for something, I hope. I’ll be slow, but I will finish, I can at least promise that.

And I’ve learned a thing or two about myself.

Anyway, wish me luck! And think of me on Saturday morning at around 11 Mountain Time. I’ll be on some road in southern Utah, less than an hour from finishing, wishing for a cold beverage and wanting it all to be over.

Jon scribbled this mess on 10/06/06 at 12:03 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post Running Log. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Monday, September 18, 2006

Road to the Marathon

This last weekend I was supposed to run 20 miles. At 6:30 in the morning.

Did that happen?

No, not so much.

When I got up it was windy. And hailing. And dark and cold.

AND HAILING! (Don’t skip over that point, please.)

I can do many things, but running at the crack of dawn, before the sun has come up, in freezing rain is not one of the things I’m willing to do. So I bailed and ran later that night.

And of course, my other reason for not running in the soggy mess of Saturday was that I got new shoes! And I didn’t want to ge them all dirty and icky.

The new ones are on the far right. And yes, they are all basically the same shoe, except for the Nikes on the far left. When I first started running I went and got a pair of Nikes, whose basic requirement was that they fit. Then I went to a real running store and they set me straight. I pronate a bit when I run so I need shoes that compensate for that. And these nice and expensive inserts. Because it’s not a real sport in America until you start spending a lot of money on gadetry.

The new shoes (on the right, remember) are the shoes I’ll wear for the marathon in a few weeks. I’m breaking them in and rubbing dead chickens and sprinkling the blood of a female goat on them so they’ll carry me to the finish line. I change shoes after about 250 or so miles. So that pic represents at least 1000 or so miles run.

In the immortal words of Keanu, “Whoa.”

Jon scribbled this mess on 09/18/06 at 01:43 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post Running Log. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Cars:2, Jon:0

Went running last night. Dinky little three miler. No big deal.

Except that I’ve learned once and for all time that I really am no match for a car.

Since I currently don’t possess the ability to run in the mornings very well, I run pretty exclusively at night, except for long runs, when I drag my sorry booty out of bed before the sun comes up. Most people think I’m an idiot for running at night, but those people probably already think I’m an idiot for one reason or another anyway. I’m thinking of taking a poll.

I was out huffing and puffing my way down the road, facing oncoming traffic as you’re supposed to do. Or is it the other way around? Whatever. I’m facing oncoming traffic. So this car is headed toward me. Its high-beams are on and I was pretty much “blinded by the light” and having some trouble seeing anything but the two pin-points of light stabbing at my retinas.

I was running in the street, but way over on the shoulder. This little section of the road didn’t have a sidewalk and no curbs. Grumble. I’m now composing a stern letter to the County.

So since I really can’t see squat in front of me, I fail to notice the Mercedes Benz parked there on the side of the road.

I ran right into the stupid piece of finely crafted German engineering. Well, technically my left hip/thigh hit the beast and I kind of glanced off the front fender.

Right into the oncoming car with its brights on.

Panic set in then, overcoming the pain in my side. (Which, amazingly hasn’t even bruised, which I guess doesn’t speak too highly of how fast I can run.) I sort of stumbled a bit and started my arms flailing so my forward/sideways momentum wouldn’t carry me in front of the oncoming car and so I wouldn’t go “splat” all over it. I smacked into the Benz again. This time into the front door.

Which set off the car alarm.

Then Mr. High Beams honked at me. And you know how I love that! Though I could barely hear it over the combined din of my iPod and the Mercedes’ alarm.

I ran pretty fast after that.

Jon scribbled this mess on 09/06/06 at 12:09 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post Running Log. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link
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