Marathon II

Penned in with the somewhat pensive yet jittery polyester clad people waiting for the starting gun, I reviewed our nutritional necessities packed for the journey.

I decided to carry all the food because I like being the pack mule for My Love. Well, that and my shorts have pockets and hers don’t. It is interesting to feel the packs banging into your thighs with every stride but lessening as the stores are depleted during the run.

Like a male flight attendant before an international departure I laid out the menu, “We’ll begin with Black Cherry Clif Shots Bloks, moving on to a refreshing Pina Colada Blok, finishing up with a long string of Margarita Shots to keep up the salt content of our bloodstream as things heat up.”

The names sound much better than they taste, but these are a huge improvement over the gels I used to suck down during races. Bloks are like thick rubbery cubes with plenty of sugar and other carbohydrates to keep you going (to avoid your body eating your muscles for fuel) and in some cases (like Margarita) extra salt (needed when it is hot and sunny, or you are just a sweater – like me and My Love).

They are a welcome innovation over the gooey, syrupy and sticky gels of various at-first-tastes-good-but-after-a-few-hours-gag-inducing flavors. I actually tried a “plain” gel once that tasted exactly like Elmer’s Glue. I don’t need a trip down memory lane to grade school during exercise.

At last the final countdown to the 7:00AM start approached, and various inspirational songs were blasted on the loudspeakers. My favorite among them was “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” which is becoming a staple at these types of events. They even kicked off the Walk for Autism using this anthem. “While the girls are sucking long necks down. Cure Autism!”

The gun fires and we are off!... to stand there for 15 minutes until the waves of people in front of us could take off and pull us along with them. I mused that it would be interesting if everybody just started running, but of course in reality it is like a traffic jam. Except you are ok with standing there a little while longer. Your official time doesn’t start until the chip you have attached to your shoe passes the starting mat anyway, so for anal retentive people like me it is comforting to know you are not being “charged” for this time.

The course was very beautiful. Nice smooth black asphalt for most of the way, with some charming cobblestone roads in the downtown area. Trees on the right, Lake Superior on the left (sometimes also blocked with trees so that you were just a human herd running down the black path with tall tree borders).

A couple of miles into the race I noticed far in the hazy horizon a familiar shape. Like the tiny Stonehenge mock-up on stage in the Spinal Tap concert (“it was in danger of the dwarves trodding upon it”) that huge steel bridge downtown I had mentioned before appeared.

Stupidly, I pointed out this fact to My Love because I thought it was interesting, the hulking mass reduced to a cute little toy in this visual.

She didn’t think it was cute. “That can’t be that bridge. It looks too far away.”

We both got quiet, acquiescing to the reality of our fate.

I needed a diversion so I decided to pee. Now, I am usually good with controlling my eliminations during races, but darn it I really had to go and didn’t like the thought of holding it for the next four hours.

Lots of dudes were just pulling to the side and watering the many trees along the path. I was a bit more demure and waited until a water station. My back turned to the hordes of friendly volunteers, I stepped down the embankment again and got my sweet relief. The upside is that I could use a cup of water to wash my hands as well (baby!).

There were aid stations sprinkled about every two or so miles along the course. I quickly learned the importance of making “mini-goals” like of reaching the next aid station instead of counting down the miles. It seems much less daunting than thinking to yourself, “Hmm… 10 miles down, only 16.2 to go. No problem!”

I just finished the book “The Power of Now” and the practice of staying in the moment and enjoying what is presented to you now really helped me in through the run. When my mind would wander towards how far I had to go, how far away that stupid bridge looked still, how great it was going to feel drinking that huge margarita at Angie’s Cantina afterwards, whatever, I would just remind myself, “Enjoy what is going on right now, this is what you trained for!”

If I started feeling down, I just reminded myself nobody is paying me to do this. In fact, a great deal of time and money has been invested to get me out on this course to, apparently, subject myself to such torture. So, enjoy!

Besides the scenery and conversation with My Love, I really enjoyed the crowds, both of the runners and of the on-lookers.

For the runners, I noticed a few interesting things (well, actually, much more, but I’ll just recount a few).

There was one skinny tall woman running in front of us for awhile. This was past mile 16 when the conversation between My Love and me started to die down a bit as we each got into the “zone”. She was wearing what appeared to be flesh colored support hose on each leg all the way up to her knees. She was really struggling and it was painful to run behind her and realize she had over 10 miles to go like that.

There was this one group of five guys with their last names and then numbers from one to five, father and sons, it appeared. We were rooting for them, but saw two of the even numbered ones camped out at a medical tent about mile 18. Five men start, three men finish. That is going to be an awkward dinner for those two poor bastards.

Speaking of bonking, My Love and I passed a young looking guy who appeared to be in perfect running form totally doubled over with the medical personnel repeating calmly to him, “Stay with me, son, stay with me, son, don’t pass out, stay with me, son.” The worst part: this was during mile 26. So close, and yet so far, dude.

Then there was this group of three guys who passed every mile marker and loudly exclaimed in unison, “Mile 3. Ha! Ha! Haaaaaa!”

It was funny the first 12 times.

Luckily we outpaced them. Who’s laughing now?!

Anyway, the on-lookers at this race were first class. As this was the 23rd year of the marathon, the people who live on the route really have this down to a science. There were countless parties with people getting drunk on all different sorts of libations, from the bikers with beer to the prim and proper starched collars with all sorts of top shelf liquor. If have to admit, that was torture; seeing all these people enjoying themselves, calmly sipping a margarita at 9AM watching us sweat. I tried to turn it into motivation and picture that giant margarita in my hand after the race. That stupid bridge still seemed pretty small, though.

The on-lookers got increasing drunk as we ran on. Towards the city there were groups of what appeared to be frat and sorority houses doing beer bongs and offering shots to us. I always went over and high-fived them, and they loved it. “Yeah, Jack, go for it, man!” they would yell at me. They were a very pleasant bunch, I must say, genuinely cheering on the runners, thanking us for legitimizing their public display of drunkenness at 10AM.

By the way, I had worn my Jack’s Singlet (which is kind of a funny name for a running T-shirt, by the way. When I was told I would be wearing one, I pictured one of those like wrestling outfits that is a one piece brief and tank, and I kinda freaked out. Imagine my relief when I was just handed a bright orange dry fit top instead.) I wanted to finish at least one marathon in this outfit, having bonked Chicago last year just past the halfway mark (where I proceeded to lie down in the grass behind my charity tent an weep bitterly into a block of ice).

It worked out well wearing this shirt, people kept cheering me on, “Go Jack!”, or “Go Jack’s Team!”. One time, My Love got a, “And you too… green shirt!”. She did not find it motivating.

As the race drew to a close, I realized we kept seeing the same groups of on-lookers at specific points along the race. They must organize themselves to drive to certain mile markers and congregate, congratulate, and then carpool onwards. There was one special needs young man, overweight in a Packer’s jersey with his family. He always greeted us with a huge smile on his face, and I made a point to high five him the three or four times I saw him. Even though he was… you know…

A Packer fan.

The mile 20 aid station was dramatically marked. The infamous Mile 20. Where the race begins, the veterans say. I don’t mind saying I got choked up when I reached it. This was now the longest race I had ever run in my life, every mile beyond this would be a personal best. But that wasn’t good enough. I had about 10K to go, and I knew I was going to finish it. It was a beautiful feeling.

I expressed this to My Love. She ran a bit faster to stay a few steps ahead of me, safely out of ear shot. “Headache. I need some ibuprofen,” was her terse reply. I had counseled her not to take the drugs before the race, as I had listened to many endurance podcasts on the subject that reported new evidence that doing so actually impedes performance and recovery. I regretted this advice at this moment, but was able to find uniformed marines very soon afterwards who gave My Love Motrin. She perked up, and we ran on.

As we neared the city and the end of the race we ran into some pretty steep hills, the first (and, thankfully, last) of the race. I commented to My Love that the elevation change was sort of refreshing, after having run flat and downhill so much. She stopped talking to me after that.

The last mile, my body surged with prickly excitement and I tried to soak in every last second, every last step. Just around this corner, and we would finish! No, wait, around this block here and! Oh, a bit more down this street and!

Seriously, where the fuck is the fucking finish line?

The circuitous course finally led us to the HUGE BRIDGE (at last), around a huge ship where, My Love and I, hand in hand, ran the last length of the race, and finished with a kiss.

For the past three years, I have been training, thinking, registering, fundraising, talking, reading, listening and dreaming all about and for this moment.

For the past years, My Love has stood around the large bronze pate commemorating the finish point of Grandma’s Marathon in the cobbled lakeside street with her children during her family’s annual trip to northern Minnesota and told them, “One day, Mommy is going to run this marathon.”

And we both did it. Together.