I’ve been talking about it for a while, and this weekend was the big event, my first marathon.
I made up T-shirts, for the friends who came down to drink heavily, and watch me run, I’ve trained hard, and I think I’m ready.
Saturday morning we drive down to DC, and go to pick up my race packet at the Hyatt Regency. I have my daughter and wife with me and we have to park a mile away, it’s so crowded. The line is 3 hours long, and it’s wrapped around the hotel, and it’s cold outside.
We duck into the hotel as if we’re guests, without getting in line, and standing by the coffeeshop we discuss our dillemma.
This attractive (yet stringy) older lady is drinking coffee next to us, and overhears our discussion about what to do.
“You have that baby with you, so I don’t feel bad about telling you this. You can’t stand in the cold with her and wait. If you go around the corner, and take the elevator down one level, you can cut in front of the whole line.”
We thanked her, and did what she said, bypassing the Marine at the bottom of the escalator.
As we started walking ahead to the front of the line, we started garnering some dirty looks. I just hugged my daughter tightly and said “There, there, honey. I know you’re feeling sick, but we’ll be ougtta here soon. It’s Ok , you’re doing so good.” Nobody said a word, and we were out of there in 10 minutes. BTW, my daughter wasn’t sick, but it sounded like a good thing to be saying.
It occurs to me to try to justify this action, or to say I’m sorry to all the people who stood and waited in the cold wind who I made wait longer by cutting in front of them. Usually having a baby is a tremedous disadvantage in a public situation. This time it was a Godsend. Can I justify it as just the cosmic balance tipping in the other direction for once?
Yes, I’m a bad person and I’m going to Hell. I cut the line without regret. I had a two year old with me and we could not wait outside for 3 hours thus proving the axiom that one only has what morals one can afford.
Anyway, I did it.
We went out with my friends to a restaurant, and I had pasta and calamari, and I took my daughter back to the hotel while my wife and friends went out for a night on the town.
Back at the hotel, I tortured myself over what to wear for the big race. It looked like it could be cold and windy, but it might also turn hot. What to do?
I decided to wear my black stretchy shorts, they’re warm and comfortable, but I don’t like to wear them in public. They conflict with my masculine self-image. Plus, they don’t have a pocket. I put some parachute material shorts over them with a zipper pocket into which goes my Driver’s License, a $20 a $5 and 3 $1s and a credit card. Now, if something happens on the course I’m independant. I put on a tshirt, a light blue nylon windbreaker, and over that a big, but very light and threadbare tank top that has my race number on that. That way if the weather changes I can adjust and still keep the number on the outside. I have some energy bars in the windreaker, and I’ll run with a small camera in my hand.
I take off my clothes and go to bed, and lay awake for 3 hours waiting for my wife to come back, and then for another 2 hours tossing and turning.
Race morning I’m up at a quarter to six. I eat two energy bars, two cups of coffee, drink a quart of water, and sit on the pot for half an hour hoping to get everything out that’s going to need to come out that day.
18,000 other people and myself take the subway to Arlington National Cemetary and the race site. The morning is brisk and sunny, not too windy, ideal running conditions. It’s about 40 degrees.
At the site, 3 gunship helicopters patrol the skies. Security consists of lots of Marines and policemen. There’s no checkpoints, but if you take a moment and look carefully, there are people with guns in secure areas watching everybody, and more people walking around unobtrusively watching. It feels very safe.
I stretch out. They send off the wheelchair racers (who apparently are really fast) and a few moments later the howitzer goes off and 18,000 people and myself go tramping through the start to huge cheers and patriotic cries of “USA! USA!”
There’s a lot of fear. This is the first big event like this in the capitol. It’s a target. They cancelled a race here a couple of weeks ago, and talked about cancelling this one. It’s a military marathon, and a good choice for a terrorist.
Part of the cheering is a big “F— you!” to the terrorists. You can’t stop us. We’re going to do this anyway, and we’re ready. Don’t even try anything.
We’re all clustered together for the first few miles and lots of racers are yelling and cheering back at the crowd. I let out a couple of Yells myself, getting into the spirit. A lean and wiry guy next to me looks at me, smiles and says “Save the energy. You’re gonna need it.”
I really can’t get on my pace for the first few miles, and just go with the flow. As we near the Pentagon, and see the gaping hole, I take a picture, and another when we’re in front of it. The mood changes quickly several times. At first it’s quite and respectful. Some people take off their hats. Some people stop and salute.
As we pass the damage for the second time, everybody just starts to sing “God Bless America” all at once. Really loud. Everybody. Nothing premeditated about it, it just happens.
On we go.
Things spread out, and the crowds are so big, I never do catch sight of my friends who wait to catch a glimpse of me, taking the train to 4 different points of the race. Huge crowds the whole way.
I’m drinking water at every stop to stay hydrated and at the half-way point I feel great. No problems at all and I’m in between the pace runner at 3:30 and 4 hours. I’m on track to break 4 hours which is my goal. I’ve more than made up the 8 minutes it took to cross the starting line, and I have a chip in my shoe that will give me my exact time from line to line. So, if I keep this pace up I might actually break 3:30.
At mile sixteen I slow a little bit as I still have another ten miles to go. I feel tired but good. I’ll make it.
We go past the Lincoln Memorial, The Capitol, The Washington Monument, it’s great! I’m passing people, and I see people dropping out or walking, but I know I’m going to make it.
At mile nineteen I get shot in the back of the right leg by an invisible sniper. My leg cramps with excruciating pain, and it’s all I can do to hop to the side. Nothing like this has ever happened on any of my training runs, and I’m at a loss. The back of my thigh is a had knot, quivering with involuntary spasms. Other than that I feel great, but I can’t even walk!
I sit there for fifteen minutes massaging and stretching. I know I have to fix this, or I’ll never finish. Finally, I think I can go on, and I start running at a hobbling jog. I will not walk.
Another two miles and it starts to happen again. Stretch out, massage for five minutes and off I go. Agony. The last five miles took me an hour. I never got to hit the wall in terms of exhaustion, but I hit the wall in terms of pain. From running awkardly, on my leg, I developed a huge blister on my pinkie toe, which popped and bled through my shoe. It popped about two miles from the finish, and oddly made me feel better.
I was passing people but still getting passed as well. Every onlooker, every Marine, everybody there was cheering us on for the final two miles, and every word of it felt like sincere and heartfelt encouragement. Huge waves of goodwill flooded over me, and I sought to do justice and smile through my pain, and run strong though I yearned to walk. I gave it everything I had, and did the last mile in about 8 minutes of sheer unadulterated hell and crossed the finish line in 4:38:24 almost 40 minutes later than my planned time.
Today I’m happy. Glad I did it, gladder it’s over. Not disapointed either. Someday I’ll run another and the four hour mark will fall.