Sooooo...I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. I got beat. I experienced the most demoralizing loss I could, and not just by the usual other 99% of the people running that day. I was beaten by Jenny. Whether it was the puppies in the basket that I saved from a runaway truck, or when I ran off course to pull children out of a burning orphanage that cost me the 20 second loss to her, I'm not sure. But, lets back up a bit.
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| At least the race course had nice views |
About a week and a half before the race I had run a new pr for the half on a training run. (Almost twenty minutes faster than my standing race pr!) Afterwards I still felt great, and figured that the heart and sole half didn't stand a chance. I knew Jenny had been training hard for the Tobacco Road marathon, but hey, so was I. We both kept an eye on the predicted temperature and watched with sinking hearts as it went from 30's to 20's to a race start of around 17 degrees.
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| My apologies to Shar-pei owners |
That week, fate deciding that I wasn't being challenged enough; I got around 4-6 hours of sleep a night and managed to catch some bug that made my breathing sound like an asthmatic share-pei, and feel like my lungs were filled with trash bags. The morning of the race came, and I, in my infinite wisdom, decided that breakfast was for suckers and pansies. I hopped in the car armed with shot blocks and a bottle of water and off we went.
As we arrived in the community for the race, we were stopped by the local police force and pointed in the general direction we were to park....about a half a mile from the race start. In 17 degree weather. Figuring we needed a warm up anyway and realizing we didn't have enough time not to run to the check in site, we jogged up got our bibs and timing chips and quickly jogged back to the car and laced up for the race.
By this time the cold had begun to seep through my gloves and into my fingers to the point where I was sure that I was going to lose three fingers to frost bite. Jenny chose this time to reveal that she had brought some "hand warmers" for both of us to the race. For those not in the know, (Like me before this past weekend.) they are small packets that you shove in your gloves or shoes that when activated keep small areas of your body warm. Grateful, I tried to make the words "thank you" come out of my mouth, but had long since lost the ability to make comprehensible speech due to the cold. We jogged it back up to the race start, where we had missed the all important race speech detailing that there both aid stations and a port-a-potty on the course. I took time to look around and for the first time in a long time, had no idea where people stood in terms of who might win or place in this race. (With the exception of one collegiate runner from the Virginia tech who, even in this weather, still had on shorts that looked more appropriate for a blonde on venice beach in the 1970's.) Thankfully we didn't stand around long as the race director decided to eschew the normal countdown from ten and just start from five. It caught me a little off guard, but I was so very thankful not to have to stand still any longer than necessary.
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| All of Gotham city will burn!! I mean...the race will start in five seconds |
We took off, and I felt pretty good from the outset, starting off with a 7:30ish pace. A little faster than I had intended to begin, but hey, I had run faster times on a training run recently. We headed back towards the neighborhood entrance, with a few of the elites making their presence known by sprinting out with a pace almost a full minute faster than my own. As we came close to the curb and turn around leading back into the neighborhood there was a police officer pointing a patch of ice closest to the turn. Watching as the two ahead of me cut a wide swath around it I though
I can cut the tangent and save .00000000003 miles if I run through the ice! Decision made, I cut through it and looking like the whitest man on the dance floor I (somehow) managed stay on my feet I passed the two runners who had been directly in front of me. Feeling pretty good I was a little elated to see the mile 1 marker just ahead of us.
By the way, remember those hand warmers? Turns out they start out kind of feeling like this:
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| All warm and cozy and such |
But after a few miles they start to feel more like this:
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Less cozy and such
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I tried shifting them around inside my gloves, but not wanting to have the equivalent of "Grade D" burned into my hands I ditched the gloves and the hand warmers in them for just a few miles.
Flash-backing just a little more, the week before the race I had become completely dehydrated on the long run to the point where I almost fell out at mile 17 and was forced to cut it short. In the week leading up to the race I was determined not to make the same mistake, so I drank insane amounts of this water stuff (as compared to my usual hydration methods) and even snatched up a bottle the morning of the race. As it turns out....I probably didn't need that last bottle. By the time we hit the mile three marker I felt like my bladder was going to burst I had to go to the bathroom so badly. Looking around for a port-a-potty I realized tow things. Somehow I missed the only one on the course about a quarter of a mile back, and that every possible police officer, and sheriff and available law enforcement in the county was on hand to volunteer for the event. I persevered for a while longer, while looking for any spot in the woods I might be able to run off into, simultaneously and violently shaking my head at every aid station volunteer who offered me hydration.
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| Damn runners, I'll get you all, and your little dogs too!! |
As I swept my eyes back and forth over the roads I noticed something else I hadn't seen at many races before. It was as if every resident in the neighborhood hated our presence there. It was more than not returning a wave or a smile; (they did neither) every person in their car actively made sure to make an exasperated expression as we ran by, as if my wave, smile or call of good morning had somehow sincerely offended them. At first I chalked it up to one or two strange incidents, but it happened over and over. As I contemplated it we took a turn onto a stretch of highway to encounter the mile six marker and blessedly, TREES!! Having broken away from Jenny about a mile back I craned my head around to see her about a quarter mile back and decided that it was now or never and cranked the pace up as I darted behind some trees to finally use the bathroom. By the way...to any single ladies who might have passed me at that point in the race I would like to take the time to remind you that it was indeed very, very cold that morning.
Almost 45 seconds later and feeling much, much better / lighter I took off to try to close the gap on not only the new runners who had passed me, but those who I had passed earlier and who had come up to take a lead on me. Sighting Jenny way off in the distance I set a target and dropped into what would end up being my second fastest pace of race in an effort to catch her. I succeeded around a half mile later when she slowed to stop at an aid station in one of the many cul-de-sacs the course took us through. This was the point in the race where we hit the gradual, rolling hills of the golf course. In truth they weren't so bad, but on tired legs they felt like monsters going up them as my pace would roll up and down right along with them.
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| He's only angry because he's misunderstood |
Over the next few miles, I glanced back and Jenny was never farther than two tenths of a mile behind me, and probably closer than that at most points, but I was fading hard. I had noticed however, that the mile markers weren't lining up right and it was looking like the race might end up being almost a quarter mile or more short. I took great solace in that fact and tried to use it to push myself as I was fading hard.
We had looped back around and hit the mile 10 mark, (The same spot as the mile 6 marker) when Jenny came up beside me and informed me that she had seen what would be the first place woman far ahead of her. She had second overall female in the bag and was pushing me to continue on at race pace. I told her I think she was going to get the best of me today; but unmercifully, she would not accept my surrender and told me to get moving. We ran together for another mile when my legs began to feel like some sic-fi channel-movie-of-the-week-land-walking-human-stalking-shark was chewing on my legs and shoulders. Seeing that I wasn't keeping pace she took off and I tried just to hang on and keep her in sight as I wondered how much farther we would really have to run if the race was going to come up short.
As it turns out, the last two mile markers were so far off that they made up for the distance that was lost earlier. We hit mile 11 as the road branched split left and right. I watched one runner lean towards the right while Jenny went left. Not knowing who was going to be right until they got up to the volunteer who would tell them which direction to run in, I ran in the middle of the street hoping one of the locals wouldn't hit me from behind and give me a mercedes-benz medallion tramp stamp indent as the mowed me down. The guy who chose to run to the right ended up being correct and we all veered off in that direction for our final two miles.
With just about a mile to go we came up on one big hill and as Jenny told me after the race "I kept thinking that you were going to sprint that hill and catch me so I gave it all I had." She wasn't far off. My last mile was the fastest of the race and I kept her and the one lone runner she was with in my sights as I slowly closed the gap, lungs burning, shoulders on fire and quads begging me to stop this foolishness.
I watched the space between us get shorter and shorter as I kept telling myself that the race was going to fall short (it didn't) and that I was almost there. (I wasn't) Rounding another corner I recognized the first aid station and tried to do the math not only of how much we had left, but did I have enough distance left to close the gap?? A long straightaway allowed me to chew up the asphalt and get closer, closer, just a little closer, but then I saw it. The finish line banner and I knew there was just no way to close that last little bit. Jenny flew under the banner and over the timing mat, and I followed exactly 20 seconds later a little angry at myself.
The anger quickly abated as I realized that I had pr'd from my last official race time by more than twenty minutes, and congratulated Jenny on running a hell of a race. But then another nagging thought began to creep into my brain...
If this happened in a half....what's going to happen in New Orleans?!? What about Tobacco Road?!? Was I really ready, or was I just fooling myself this whole time?!? I frowned and mentally went through everything that had gone wrong today and considered it a good lesson learned for the big upcoming races. I would much rather make these mistakes here and take home the big wins later. Luckily for me oncoming frostbite through my gloves interrupted my thoughts, and I suggested we wait inside for the awards ceremony to start.
A short while later Jenny claimed 2nd overall female and I took home first in age. All in all, not a bad day. As I write this, I'm mentally prepping for the tonight's run in the rain so that in two weeks I can describe how good it feels to still be clean shaven in New Orleans. And as I think about it, I'm actually (just a little) happy I got beaten solidly. After all, what fun is a rivalry if one person wins all the time? To end on an even better note, here's another age bracket winner who did the best thing I've ever seen with a medal:
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You can thank me later
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