PR, BITCHES!

If you haven't yet, don't forget to read my Trick or Trot RR from Saturday.

Despite my pugnacious title, after a few comments to the tune of, "Ummm, are you sure that's a good idea?" all my readers have been very supportive of my, shall we say "reckless" dive into the Cape Cod Marathon. Had it not been for my readers (and in part for my pride, but mostly for my readers) I would have scrapped this stupid idea before it even got off the ground. After all, there are plenty of ways to punish yourself without going to the extremes of a marathon. Before I begin the race report, I need to recognize and express my sincerest thanks to:

• Angry Runner, who took pity on my broke ass and lent me the money to sign up for the race so they wouldn't wrestle me off the course. Because of him I really could put my (his) money where my mouth is. (I practically had to hide the money in his suitcase to get him to accept reimbursement this weekend!)
  
• Warrior Woman who volunteered to run the last 10k with me all the way over in London. We figured out roughly what time I would be crossing the 20 mile mark, and she set out in the pissing rain at the same time (5 hours later in England) to keep me company.

I can't tell you how much both their gestures meant to me. If I hadn't felt accountable to people who seem to believe in me so much no matter how dumb my ideas are (or maybe just believe me when I shoot off at the mouth), I definitely wouldn't have pushed through and had such a great day.

By request of Rustyboy and Renee (who I won't link because her page has been hijacked - I anxiously await her return!!!), I took a camera on the course and will give you a visual as well as written account of the race. I'll try to remember to post the official photos when they come up too.

This post won't have as many complaints, calamaties, or sarcastic comments. I had a good day, so consider yourself warned and read on at your own risk. This may be boring.

The Race Report

My day started at 10 minutes to 5 when I awoke from a nightmare in which I was running 2 hours late and was going to miss the start. In fact, I did spend too much time editing my Trick or Trot RR over breakfast and was running late. On the drive up I had my first coffee in over a week (I stopped drinking coffee in the morning a month ago, but have had a few cups from time to time). Part of the experiment of this race was to see if what they say about caffeine, that it increases endurance, is true. I'd never been able to enjoy the performance benefits of caffeine since I'm such a coffee fiend normally, nullifying its effects. I don't know if my experiences today are scientific enough to be counted though, since my cup of coffee was just about the only preparation I had done for this race.

By the time I arrived at the Falmouth High School, my "experiment" had me about ready to wee my pants. I raced through registration. On the way to the bathroom I spotted my high school cross country team captain in thy gym who I hadn't seen for 10 years, but I had more pressing needs and made sure she didn't see me to hold me up. I thought there was going to be a violent incident when the woman before me in line for the bathroom took about 5 minutes with her business. On the way to the start I caught up with my old teammate and we filled each other in on the essentials of the past decade in a 3-minute conversation. Although she was only running the relay she was wearing a Boston Marathon t-shirt, which means that she's still a hell of a lot faster than me, just like in high school.

When I got to the sweats shack I couldn't decide whether or not to drop off my jacket or not. It was around 60 degrees, but I'm not used to cool weather anymore. There was a little nip in the air and I knew Cape Cod could be pretty windy. Finally I decided to hand it over, lasted one minute, and went and asked for it back. "That's way too much," said the volunteer, shaking his head as he handed it over.
I shrugged. "I'd rather have it around my waist and not need it, then need it and not have it," I said. He gave me a "It's your funeral" shrug. I hate that, when I've thought through a decision carefully and people still treat me like a reckless idiot. As I was pulling the jacket over my head the gun went off and there was no time to be jittery, just to go. The crowd was thin, and we were already jogging as we crossed the starting line.

As always, I'd let myself be bullied by the "NO HEADPHONES or we'll throw you in the harbor" clause of the pre-race packet and I was iPod-less. The menacing marshals that would DQ you if they caught you with music were nowhere to be seen on the course, however. I kept myself entertained for the first several miles by fishing my camera out of the fanny pack that Angry had lent me (a cool athletic fanny pack, not the kind that German tourists wear) and snapping pictures. Every time I managed to get the camera stowed away again I would find something else I wanted to take a picture of.
The first section was through residential streets with the harbor off to our right. Let me apologize for the quality of these photos, since I did not actually stop running to take them and the sun was too bright to even see my screen most of the time. Some of them could have used some zoom or adjusting of the frame, or simply a steady hand, but I didn't have time for that. I only had six hours to finish this thing and who knew when I was going to have to start walking.

At mile 1 I looked at my watch to make sure that I wasn't getting carried away, and saw I'd run a 10-minute mile. Good. I also figured that my watch time was roughly 1:00 behind the clock time, information that is always useful when your watch sets back to 0 after every hour ($9, you get what you pay for). For the first 1/3 of the race my pacing strategy stayed pretty much the same: consciously slow down and make sure my breathing was easy.

We ran around the harbor, and I snapped a picture as soon as the sun was in my favor. I love looking at harbors with their big skies, calm water and combination of nature and man-made, but I'm afraid that my photographing skills aren't flattering to the harbor here. I could have used a lot more boat, and a lot less sedan butt.

At mile 2 I began my nutrition strategy. I'd packed a Ziplock bag with about 5 bags of Clif Shot Blocks (six per bag) and just as many packets of Jelly Belly Sport Jelly Beans. I can't do gels, they make me gag. In an event where GI issues can crop up on their own, you don't need anything giving you the effect of a finger down your throat. I ate a Block and the 2 jelly beans that came out stuck to it. I had decided to try the Michellie Jones overeating approach which brought her so much success in 2006, and for the whole race I forced myself to eat 1-2 shot blocks and their Jelly Bean companions at every even mile marker. It broke the race into manageable chunks, and kept my energy from nose-diving. By the end my stomach was sour and I couldn't get the sweet high fructose corn syrup taste out of my mouth, especially coupled with the pukey aftertaste of Cytomax, but I didn't bonk, so it must have done its job. I don't think I'm going to be eating anything gummy and sweet for a very long time.

At around mile 2.5 we came out on the Vineyard Sound and our first views of open ocean. You could see Martha's Vineyard out to sea. Here we encountered our first hill. It wasn't steep or long, but it was enough to get me breathing hard for the first time (not so hard to do) and it was a harbinger to what I had no idea was coming.

There were lots of little inlets with marshy, still brackish for us to run by in the first several miles that hugged sea level. I tried taking some pictures of myself, so I wouldn't only have landscape shots...

... but it's hard enough to take pictures of yourself, and even harder when you're running and you want to get something in the background. After a few tries (the best of which are shown above) I gave up. You'll just have to wait till the official photos to come through to see my face.

I fell into step with a little English woman who must have been at least my parents' age and talked to her for awhile. She told me about all the marathons she'd done and which were her favorites (New York, with Paris a close second). This was a training ride for Philly in 3 weeks and she kept saying, "I'm supposed to be going easier than this, but I feel good. I'll slow down later." Her PR was three minutes slower than mine, but she pulled away from me at a water stop and I watched her pink shorts ahead of me for about 5 miles, before I lost her in the distance. I never saw her after mile 15, so she probably managed a PR. Training run my ass! While talking to her the miles melted away behind me and we left the harbor and headed into the woods and higher ground. When I finally found myself alone again I was surprised to find that I was already chipping away at mile 9.
I don't know why I didn't know that this part of Cape Cod was hilly (see course map and elevation profile here). It had surprised me last month when I biked the same rout, but I figured that the hills must have been in the part of my ride that wasn't the marathon course. Really, I don't know what I was thinking, I just thought that they would go out of their way to find a flat spot, seeing as we had so far to go. Stupid, I know, but I had no idea that the marathon would be hilly. We climbed a cumulative 1,038 feet over the course of the morning! While I was chatting away I hardly noticed that we gradually began to climb around mile 5, but when I hit a series of steep climbs at mile 10 that didn't let up until the half way point, I was starting to wonder what the hell was going on here.
Coming up on the half way point we crested a ridge and had a view of the rolling hills of southwestern Cape Cod. I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it, so I took a picture. Unfortunately, the only place where I had an unobstructed view of the landscape was under a set of power lines and the perspective on the hills didn't come out quite right. Believe me, though, they're there.
My hamstrings and glutes were already starting to get pretty sore, and I was painfully aware that I was already pushing a distance equal to my longest run since last March. By mile 13 I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to learn a lesson in hubris. I took a picture of the 13-mile marker, just to prove that I'd at least made it this far. My thinking, if you have evidence that you got to the half way point, no one can accuse you of cutting the course.
We'll pretend that this picture is blurry because of how fast I was running. Damn fast, man. When I reached the 13.1 mile time clock I was astounded to see that I was still running on par to run a 4:30 marathon, even with all the climbing I'd just done! Even though my legs already felt tired. I knew I was going to slow down considerably, but I'd run regular old half marathons in this time without trying to save my legs!

I'd pretty much lost interest in taking pictures once I got to the teens, but when we came upon a glacial lake (called a kettle hole) I stopped short to take a picture. "Are you okay?!" asked an alarmed woman who almost crashed smack into me. She was gone before I could explain that I had a camera, I can't say that I blame her.

In the interminable hills pain had begun to set in, and pretty soon I was pretty happy about the undulations. Each uphill gave me a tiny goal to focus on, and with that achieved I would get a reprieve on the downhills. Downhills are like free distance, I thought, like I'm not even running. In truth, the downhills were even more punishing because they forced my legs to turn over faster and the pounding was harder. I tried to focus on my breathing and ignore the fact that the impact was already making the bones in my shins and knees feel shattered. I was acutely aware of every pain in my body: my left instep felt like it was getting a blister, my shin and thigh bones felt like they were splintering, my hamstrings were burning, my pouch felt like it was punching sacrum on every step and my stomach felt sour and cranky from all the sugar. Nevertheless, when I focused on only one of these discomforts, I didn't notice the other pains. It's like when you hit your finger with a hammer to distract yourself from a toothache, but it kept me busy and kept the pain manageable. Between my uphill-downhill game, my revolving pain meditation, and the punctuation of feeding every 2 miles I lifted my concentration and realized that I'd already reached mile 20! This was fabulous! I was still even smiling at everyone I saw!

The 20-mile mark not only meant that I only had 10k to go, it also meant that I was no longer running alone. I took a picture of the timeclock to be able to check back in with Warior Woman and find out for how long she had been keeping me company on the course. (According to the clock, I broke 20 miles at exactly 5:01:15 pm Greenwich Mean Time). As the pain built exponentially over the final 10k I convinced myself to keep running, reminding myself that Warrior Woman was with me. WW never, EVER walks in races, even at the point when your legs feel like they're falling off and most people switch to a walk-run. Every time I wanted to stop and walk, I remembered that I wasn't going through this alone, reminded myself that at this very second Warrior Woman was running a 10k as well, and it got me through. And, dammit, I wasn't going to let Angry lend me all that money for nothing either.

Mentally the next 6.1 miles weren't as scary as they had been in past marathons. I'd gotten something like a second wind of optimism. With my virtual British running buddy I drew a mental line in my head and started a brand new run. I run 10k just about every time I go running and imagined that I just had to run my usual hour workout, just this time I was a lot more tired and sore than usual. But come on, I usually run when I'm probably too tired and sore anyway, so this was just the same run as I always do except that I didn't have to worry about saving something for tomorrow. No sweat.
We were coming back down to the coast again and I overheard a man telling the woman next to him that this was his first marathon. "Don't worry, all this pain won't matter when you cross that finish line," she assured him.
"Yeah, you probably won't even remember this part of the race tomorrow," I chimed in. It's that way for me, at least. Right now I'm having trouble remembering most of the day.
"Are you kidding me, I can't even remember it after an hour! I can't remember what happened 10 minutes ago!" she said.
Mile 22 was forever in coming, and I had to snack twice between 20 and 22 miles. The last 5k was a whole new ballgame. We went up the final incline and around the bend at the lighthouse in mile 23 and some 2 miles of flat coastline stretched out in front of us. No nutrition products were making anything any easier or less painful; will power was the only thing keeping me going at this point. I hadn't walked yet, and I wasn't going to walk now, GODDAMMIT! Just wait till I tell 'em! I thought. And they thought I couldn't do it! I'm not sure if they was you or me. My back was killing me, my hamstrings had calmed down, but the pain in my calves was getting unbearable. I was experiencing something I'd never suffered before: cramps (I think). The tops of my calves were screaming. I've heard that there are some seven different adjectives to describe pain, and I was feeling them all. I kept trying to pick my feet up higher behind me to change up the angle of my knee, but my hip flexors were too weak to keep it up for more than a step or two. I knew I was doing an ugly shuffle, but I couldn't speed up, I couldn't slow down. Somewhere behind me a man yelled out. It wasn't a yell of pain, it was the kind of yell you make when you hide around a corner and jump out on your friend to startle them. I was startled and almost fell over. "What the hell was that?!" I asked the girl I was passing, then we both set our eyes grimly back down on the ground and set back to work on keeping moving.

I remember passing and being passed throughout the whole race. I think I was mostly passing by the end, but I was only aware that there were still people out there. Like hell I was going to let them run by me if I walked. If someone wanted to pass me, they were going to have to run to do it! In my death march I found myself shoulder-to shoulder with the same man for the last 2 miles. We exchanged a few words, then went back to being silent. I had no idea how I was going to keep moving for one more mile, I had to just keep repeating in my head Dorry's, "Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming" from Finding Nemo to distract me. I also knew that my readers were watching me, and it wasn't just me that would know if I walked the last few miles, I had to keep going. Then I looked down at my watch, I had 14 minutes to go the last 3/4 of a mile to beat my record. "I'm gonna PR!" I told him. "Congratulations!" Now I had a reason not to let up, to hold on for just another half mile longer.


There were several photographers in the final yards to the finishing chute and I smiled at every single one. "I have goosebumps!" I said out loud to no one in particular. When I crossed the line I flung my hands up in the air and dropped my head bag with an ear-to-ear grin in triumph. Not only did I do it, I ran the whole thing (something I'd never quite done before) and beat my PR by 4 minutes and 40 seconds!

Normally I'm strictly business at the finish line. Normally I have an intense look of concentration as I try to beat someone to the last banana or not to puke or fall over. This time I stood there in my space blanket beaming while the volunteer took the chip off my shoe. I looked over and the woman next to me was doing the same thing. I was absolutely brimming with joy, I wanted to scream! I've never been a person who smiles a lot for no reason (not because I'm morose, it's just not my natural facial expression), but the whole ride home all I had to do was think about that finish line or feel my finisher's metal around my neck and I broke into a huge smile. The demons I needed to get out were gone.

Epilogue

By the time I got into the locker rooms with a fresh change of clothes there was a giant puddle a quarter inch deep on the whole floor, but I didn't care. I'd forgotten a towel and flip flops, but I didn't care. I wanted a shower before driving home, even if it meant contracting a flesh-eating disease. I was lucky enough to find a shower with hot water without having to wait, and when I stepped in I wanted to scream in pain. My chest had chafed under my sports bra (I'll write a post on this later, I'm collecting... material) and felt like a chemical burn as the water washed 4 hours 40 minutes and 22 seconds of dried sweat into the wound. I turned around to get my chest out of the pounding water and had the same reaction on the small of my back from the fanny pack. Agony. I washed each limb separately, sticking it under the water and keeping my torso clear and safe and splashed some water on my face. As I was dressing a woman in her 40s getting into a shower near me dropped her handful of toiletries. A pill container popped open spilling a dozen assorted pills into the puddle. "Oh no!" I sad.
"Oh NO!" she maned, bending down to gather her stuff up. "And these are really good drugs!" Then she reached for one of the pills that was already visibly starting to dissolve in the puddle.
"Don't pick those up," burst out of my mouth without my thinking about it. It was halfway between a plea and an admonishment.

"No, I guess not," she sighed. "But you have no idea how good these drugs were." I recognized one of the pills as generic ibuprofin. I didn't want to know what the rest was.

A few words about the course

All-in-all I would have to say that today was one of the best, if not THE best race experiences I've ever had, and not only emotionally (which I'll have to get into in another post). The course was challenging, but also varied enough to not over-work any one particular muscle group over its opposing group. The scenery was beautiful and varied, and there wasn't a single ugly point on the course. We passed beaches, harbors, lakes, fields, hills, woods, residential areas and marshlands. There were supporters cheering along the whole course (not crowds, but smiles all the same), and the volunteers were helpful, attentive, and numerous. I would DEFINITELY recommend the Dunkin' Donuts, Cape Cod Marathon (Falmouth, MA) to anyone.

Trick or Trot 5k plus road ralley

"I'll find you something lacy tomorrow to make a veil. You are not

cutting up my curtains!"
~Mom

This is it, the weekend I've been looking forward to for weeks! The weekend where Angry was coming up to Boston! It's just like Christmas, only it's Halloween!

After work on Friday afternoon I touched base with Angry, who was already an hour outside of Boston and closing fast, an hour ahead of schedule. I scuttled over to MIT as fast as I could to meet him at the hotel. I got cozy in an arm chair in the lobby and set to work trying to read despite the teenagers from some inner-city upward bound/affirmative action program who were too excited about staying in a hotel with little supervision for the weekend to pipe down. Lookit me! Lookit me! all their unoriginal conversation seemed to be screaming. They were so loud I almost missed Angry's call. "Hi, uh, Claire. Yeah, I'm uh, I'm a bit lost. I'm... FUCK!... like by Fenway park on the wrong side of the river..." Angry's got road rage.
I had him describe where he was and how he got there, but I couldn't give him a reliable way to get to where I was. "Just, um, I don't know, cross the river. There are tons of bridges, you'll figure it out, then go left. If you hit Harvard turn around and come back." I hung up. Job well done, Claire. Back to my book.
Then, a little while later my phone rang again, "Um, I'm... WHAT THE FUCK!... sorry, I just went over the fancy bridge. Um, I think I went the whole... aw, come on, what the fuck is that?!... the whole way around Boston. Now I'm in Sommerville." Now I knew even better exactly where he was, but not how to get him to the hotel.
"Just get back on the highway in the other direction and look for signs for Kendell Square." You can't go wrong that way.
"I think I'm just going to go east, I'll hit it eventually," he assured me. East?! Who knows where east is, especially in a foreign city? I told him maybe he should try to stay close to the major highways. "I'll be there in 20 minutes, mark my words." Yeah right. But in 15 minutes there was Angry in the lobby. I bet he thought he was pretty smart for finding his way all the way to the hotel without directions, but I would put him in his place later (or the Massachusetts road system would, anyway). Soon after, his friend Alison arrived by train from Providence, RI and we went out for dinner and a stroll around the North End (the Italian district).

The costumes:

As you may already know, the theme of this race was to be dresses. Angry had put considerable effort into his costume of a beauty queen, ordering a tiara and custom sash ("Running Queen") online, going out to buy a cute black dress that showed off his fabulous (shaved) legs, and picking out a long, blond wig at a costume shop. I was to be a bride (or "runaway bride" since there was no avoiding it). My cousin had a $100 knockoff of a designer dress that she had ordered online from China which she had fully intended on wearing to her own wedding, but when she got it it was stained and the dimensions were fucked up (surprise!). She got her money back and I inherited the dress. We cut off about two feet of hem and train so I wouldn't step on it while running, and my mom went out and bought some white mesh stuff and attached it to a headband to save her curtains (I'd been joking, but I wasn't about to refuse a free veil). Alison, who had jumped in on the Trick or Trot plans late was going to run in scrubs.

Since I'd actually made a (minimal) effort on my costume this year, I wanted to do it right. I decided that I'd stick to the old tradition, "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue." Something old: I had the headband for that, I'd had that since high school. Something new: I suppose you could count the "veil" since my mom had only just made it. Something borrowed: Well, the dress of course! (although I don't think Christie will want it back now). And something blue: Oh no. What could I... MY UNDERWEAR!!! I wore a blue sports bra, my blue superman chonies (the hole is fake, by the way), and blue socks.

Primping, etc. Pre-race:

The race was to start at 10:00 am. By 8:15 I was rolling into the hotel with running tights under my jeans, a running top under a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a wedding dress draped over my arm. As I entered the breakfast bar the hostess gushed, "Ooooh! Is that a wedding dress?!"
"Technically, but it's just my Halloween costume." Her face went dark and she went back to what she was doing without even waving me through.

Back in the room Angry tried to navigate the wig and dress while Alison spent a considerable amount of time strapping me into mine. Angry wouldn't stand still for a picture before pulling on his Underarmour jumpsuit over the dress, so all I got was this action shot. Luckily, it does manage to make him look kinda' glam. Unfortunately (for reasons that will be explained later), this is the only photo we got of Angry in a dress.

Sexy, no?

We piled into the car and all was going well driving over the Tobin Bridge in the fog towards Chelsea. It was alternating between raining hard and pouring and there was water pouring through the fissures in the upper deck of the bridge above us. "You're looking for the Chelsea Waterfront/East Boston exit," Angry read off the directions.
I looked up into the bridge's rafters and saw a sign that said Chelsea Next 3 Exits. Sweet! We went past two exits that definitely did NOT say Chelsea Waterfront/East Boston, the third said, Everett/ Webster St. Chelsea. "Is that it?! Webster St? I know the address we're looking for starts with a W."
"No, it's on Willow," said Angry.
The next exit was for Revere Beach. This definitely was not right. Crap. "Okay, guys, which of the three exits we passed looked the most promising? We're going to turn around and try it again." We decided on the Webster St. exit, but the highway went on and on, "What, there are no more exits?!" I asked.
"Why don't we just go to the Museum of Science," suggested Alison. "It's raining."
We turned around the first chance we got and wouldn't you know, on THIS side the exit was called Chelsea Waterfront/East Boston. "What did I tell you?!" I said triumphantly. "Just because you have an exit in one direction in Boston, doesn't mean you get the same exit going in the other direction. It's not just me!"
We pulled off. "Okay, now if we were supposed to take a left off the ramp before, then we'll want to take a right off the ramp now," deduced Angry. It seemed like a good idea, but we drove quite a ways and weren't finding the streets we were supposed to.
We turned around. "Okay, now we can go under the highway and see what the exit ramp looks like on the other side," I suggested. "Then we can figure out what we were supposed to do." It was a good plan, but there WAS no exit ramp on the other side. We found ourselves surrounded by one way streets and do not enter signs.
"How much are we betting that we don't get there," asked Alison. "I'm betting a dollar."
We drove along a main street for awhile looking for street signs that matched our directions, but to no avail. Without consulting the man of the car I pulled into a gas station to get directions. I drove in front of the garage as half a dozen grease monkeys watched me try to find a parking space. "Oh, god, Claire, you don't have to do it all proper like!" whined Angry. "Just stop the car somewhere!" But I found a spot in the corner and we sent out Alison, the most vociferous of the group to ask directions.
"Let me guess, you're lost," said the attendant before she could even open her mouth. But he gave us simple directions to follow. One problem though, a big SUV had parked blocking half of my exit rout out of the corner that I'd insisted on parking in, and Angry and Alison had to talk me through a 14-point turn.
"This is like Austin Powers," Angry pointed out, more out of embarrassment than mirth.

Pre-Race:

We pulled in with minutes to spare and raced in to sign up. In the Boys' & Girls' club gym we got an eyeful of our fellow competitors. Few were old enough to vote, or even get a library card without their mother's permission, and worse hardly anyone was wearing a costume. There was one woman wearing an orange tank top with an off-center jack-o-lantern face drawn on with sharpie, and that was the best costume I noticed. "Um, I thought that this would be a Halloween thing, since it's called Trick or Trot and all?" Angry asked the portly middle-aged woman at registration. "I'm wearing a dress under this."
"Oh, that's great!" fawned the woman, and began flirting with Angry like a 16-year-old girl. Why are so many women so turned on by a man in a dress?

We were pressed for time and barely had time to get rid of unwanted layers and chuck them in the car before it was time to go to the start. Angry couldn't live without his warmup, so he did a few laps around the parking lot in the rain while I let my warmup be the dash back to the gym to wait it out with Alison. I decided to leave the camera in the car rather than carry it the whole 5k just for a few action shots.

"Alright, it's not getting any drier, folks," announced the MC. "It's time to get out there!" Everyone held still for a picture that they assured us was going to be in USA Today (Angry and I conspicuously the only ones dressed up), and then the MC started making announcements. "Now when youwah in the pahk with the watah on yuh left..." he started to say. "When youwah in the pahk with the watah on yuh left..." Angry mimicked the accent.
I smacked him, "Quit being a tourist from Connecticut!" I said loud enough for all the people around us with Boston accents around us to hear. "You don't do that here!" Chelsea's one of those neighborhood where you get a lot of Boston accents, and where you don't want to be making fun of the people for any reason. With announcements done, it was just a ready, set, go! and we were off. "Bye Angry!" I yelled after 10 seconds, before he was out of earshot.

The Race

If the Chelsea waterfront sounds picturesque to you, let me assure you that this is not why they chose this location. The course passed some giant fuel tanks, an enormous mound of white lime dust, a drawbridge (the kind that looks industrial, not quaint), and a sheet metal warehouse. The volunteers, however, were wonderful. There were people in costumes or trash bags or costumes and trash bags at every available intersection and everyone yelled their hearts out. I drew quite some attention with my costume and got plenty of comments that made me smile about being late to the chapel or being accused of running from the altar.

Alison agreed to take it slow with me and it was fun to see all the kids starting off like jackrabbits and fading fast. One little girl darted by us after only about 50 meters. "Slow down, honey, you still got 3 miles to go, that's a long way!" urged her mother. We caught up with her about 50m later. "What, tired so soon?" The mom was asking. "How about instead of walking we do a nice, easy jog like this?" At about 1 mile we passed a couple of teenaged boys. One was clutching his side with the other arm in the air dramatically. He let out a quite effeminite moan and gasped, "No, no more running! I'm walking from now on!" I insisted on going easy to save my legs for tomorrow, but we picked off more and more minors as the race went on.

The rain had let up considerably, but my veil was really weighing down the headband and pulling it to the back of my head. Every few minutes I had to pull it off, flip the "lace" in front of my face for a few seconds and try to put it back on. But the material kept sticking to my wet face and it was hard to get the headband to stay still in my wet hair. I decided that I at least had to cross the finish line looking pretty.

This was the first time they'd ever held this event, and the MC's weird-unmarried-uncle sense of humor was a little worse than most. "And here, we have our winner in the bride division!" he announced as I turned the corner into the home stretch. Alison had gone ahead, but I was running right on a guy's heels. I could have easily out-sprinted him, but I decided to let him go and save a little attention for myself. I shuffled towards the finishing shoot and 10 feet away I stopped. "Ladies and gentlemen! The bride didn't make it!" Now, of all the things he could have said! I mean, I was 10 feet away, I was still standing, and I think it was pretty clear that I was going to make it.
"I gotta make myself pretty!" I yelled, and pulled off the veil. I made a big show of putting it on right and threw the lace back over my head dramatically. I flipped some material over my shoulder with all the attitude I could muster, made my entire body seem to give a proud "Hmph!" and trotted across the finish line in a leisurely 30 minutes, 30 seconds.

Me and Alison after the race. My gut's not that big, it's just the dress and the way I'm standing!

Angry and Alison were there watching me finish, but to my dismay, Ms. Running Queen had changed back into his Underarmour jumpsuit. He claims it was because of the rain and the wet, and I don't blame him, all the runners hanging around the finish were literally steaming in the humid air (really makes you appreciate how much fluid we lose by sweating!). But I have a feeling that the real reason he changed was that he didn't want to be standing around in the 'hood in a dress, tiara, and sash that said "Queen". When I ran back to the car to get my camera, there was his wig, tiara still on, flung inside-out in my back seat and the dress crumpled on the floor. I hope he doesn't treat all his women this way!

The drive back was even more eventful than the drive out. It took us some 20 miles to find a major highway again. Driving back through Chelsea we smelled sulfur. "Ugh! What's that!" said Angry rolling down the window.
"Rolling down the window won't do anything, Angry, the smell's outside," I laughed.
"What the fuck is that?!" yelled Angry, pointing at two dozen cars driving right at each other.
"What? You guys don't have rotaries in Connecticut?" I asked.
"I think I saw one once," said Alison from the back seat. I'd said earlier that it wasn't my driving that was the problem, it was the Boston roads; I think I proved my point. The adjective of the day they used to describe the roads was shitshow.

I think that the coolest thing about this race was all the kids. It was a small-time deal with no chips and only between 50 and 60 participants, most of whom weren't runners. But the fact that all the non-runners were in middle and high school and probably came from non-running families was what made it so cool. Nearly everyone outside our party was probably a member of the Boys' & Girls' Club that sponsored the event. Probably all those kids were proud of themselves today, and if it weren't for this race I'm sure that not many of them would have ever dreamed about participating in any sports if it wasn't the NBA or NFL.

At lunch our topic of conversation came back to kids. Angry was going off about how he can't wait to settle down and start making babies so that he can be a stay-at-home dad. "But the only women who like me are middle-aged married women like that fat lady at registration."
"Just wait a couple more years, Angry," I said. "Then the biological clocks of the women our age will start ticking and that's when you'll hit paydirt!" He asked me to include that quotable in my post.

After that there was nothing left to do but check out of the hotel and say our goodbyes since Alison didn't want me to get a Science Museum pass for her from the library after all. All-in-all it was a great visit, I can't wait to do it again... TOMORROW!

Anyone in the northeast down to do a Turkey Trot somewhere in southern New England this Thanksgiving? I'm game!

Coming soon:
A post on chafing and a very special feature. I'll give you a hint:

Big weekend ahead

This is the weekend that Angry is up in Boston. We'll be running in dresses through the not-so-nice parts of Greater Boston. Then tomorrow is my marathon fueled by nothing but piss and vinegar. Stay tuned for some epic blogging...

I spy with my third eye...

I'm tough. I'm one of those no-nonsense, (soy)meat and potatoes, "it don't hurt, just rub some dirt in it and keep going", bad-ass mothaf*&$ers. I bought into lots of crunchy things when I was in California: sushi, organic food, spirulina, trail running, and recycling drinking straws. I would not, however, ever consider becoming a yoga person. Sitting still for an hour or more is not my idea of exercise. I hate to stretch, and therefore am pretty inflexible. In my head, being as un-malleable as a piece of sheetrock made me more of a man. And when injuries cropped up and people suggested I do yoga to build flexibility and loosen up, I poo-pooed the idea. I don't want to loosen up, I drink a liter of black high-test coffee a day, I like being high-strung!

But it's hard to come off as anything but hard-headed when you insist you don't like something before you've ever tried it, so one day after work I went to a yoga class. Before the class there were furry people all over the lobby waiting for the aerobics class before it to end. These specimen were the kind of person who you would never expect to set a (bare) foot inside a gym in their entire lives. They were the type that were too earthy for birkenstocks or even organic deodorants. I knew I was going to hate this. In the class I did my usual un-co-ordinated group exercise routine, only slower, and in even more bizarre body positions. I cracked in about 6 places and was as embarrassed as if I'd passed gas in a quiet aerobics studio. I hated these people for embarrassing me. The instructor was speaking in this unreal whisper-y voice like she thought Mother Earth was speaking through her or something and she kept urging us to breathe through out tailbones. I don't know about you freaks, but I breathe through my mouth and nose, I thought. When I looked around to figure out what I was supposed to be doing everyone seemed to have this blissful look on their faces, obviously they'd discovered the secret of breathing through their tailbones. I survived through an hour of this torture. Five minutes after the hour was up, when Mother Earth was still giving my physiologically impossible orders I picked up my mat and walked out, proud that I was right. Yoga is stupid.

I tried yoga one more time in Barcelona. This time I didn't quite feel like they were going to be passing out purple robes and Kool-ade after the class, so it was promising. The problem was that it was dark in there and I couldn't see what the other people were doing. And the instructor was speaking Catalan. I have no idea how to say "breathe through your tailbone" in Catalan. For the last 15 minutes of the class we were told to make our bodies heavy and relax. I fell asleep on my mat. Well, what did they expect in a class that gives you mats and pillows, turns out the light and tells you to relax? In my opinion, a gym is not an appropriate sleeping place. No doubt about it, yoga is stupid.

Since I've come back to Boston I've been on this detox kick, trying to get my health back. I haven't had a drink in a month, cigarettes are no longer a part of my life, I've quit coffee in the morning and drink green tea instead, I read books instead of watching TV, I've managed to cut junk food out of my diet, I'm sleeping again and exercise out in the fresh air. Now, as you may remember, I have recently discovered FitTV on my parents' cable service. I don't like to do the aerobics stuff because we have an old house that rattles as I jump around, but if only there were a kind of exercise that I could do that were a bit more... static. Convinced in part by the boys on Ironman Talk, in part by Phoenix, and in part by a gradual waring down by people who I respect, I decided that alone, in the privacy of my own TV room I would give yoga one more crack. The first day, trying to execute Warrior 3 I knocked over a Leggo sculpture that my cousin's daughter had made one holiday and insisted we keep for her. If I was supposed to be uttering a "motion phrase woven together with breath" what I was doing was more of a grunt woven by a 10-year-old at summer camp.

But I've kept at it, and I'm doing about 3-4 yoga "sessions" (okay, episodes) a week! I'm not getting much better, but at least I'm stretching regularly for the first time since that brief episode in high school when I had a crush on a cheerleader and wanted to try out for the squad. Some of the poses look pretty funny because I'm neither flexible nor balanced. Like for example, when I try to do the bridge pose, which is supposed to look like this,

my butt hangs down so low that, without taking my fists off the floor, I can stick my thumbs up and poke my butt cheeks. And when I try to do the tree pose that looks like this,

mine looks more like "lumberjack pose" because my arms swing around a bit before I fall down with a loud crashing sound. And, even though after a bit of practice I can get into crow pose for a grand total of maybe about 2 seconds, which looks like this,

I spend most of my crow time sticking my butt up in the air more like a drunk ostrich than a crow.

But I can do this,

And I can do this,
And I can hold this for about 1 and a half seconds,
And I absolutely love doing this,

But I still can't get the damn breathing right! It's something that I've practiced every day of my life, you would think that it would be easier to master. I don't know how I manage it, but I somehow seem to do a whole half hour of exhaling. Whether I've learned something and am exhaling all the way down to my tailbone I have no idea, but whenever that sedated voice tells me to inhale, I still can only seem to blow out.

And yeah, some of that stuff is damn tough when it comes down to it! Standing on one leg for 30 seconds while you've got your arms stuck out com ca and your free leg is stretched out impossibly far from your body cosi you can really get a bit of a burn going on! I was moaning for mercy when one show had me doing a whole 8-minute sequence based in chair pose! And as the blood flows back into my muscles after some of these horrible contortions, it actually does feel really good, kind of warm and rubbery. So I'm going to keep going with the yoga thing until my body looks like this,

and I'm able to do this,

and I've got blinding chakaras and I'm able to see into the future with my third eye. Or if that doesn't work, at least until I can touch my hands behind my back...

Claire in the headlights

I haven't been posting as much lately because I finally started working again. Man, eight hours sure eats out of your free time! You'll forgive me, I hope, if this post is a little less... polished.

Yesterday I woke up at 5:30 so that I could take a run in the woods before work. I didn't fall asleep until almost midnight, but I figured that I could make up for it by relaxing at night since my workout would be out of the way. There were 2 problems with my plan: 1) there are no street lights in the woods, 2) even if there were, I would still not get home in time to shower, pack a lunch, and get to the train station. So instead I snuggled up next to the fireplace with a book and read for an hour (at 6:00 in the morning).

When I got home from work my feet were killing me from clopping around the office all day in low heels and with (p)leather straps digging in to my skin. I had that float-y feeling of exhaustion, and there was nothing I wanted more than to curl up with my book again. But I'm strong, I'm disciplined. I changed and hurried out for a run. (Cue: nod of awe-struck approval).

The sun had just set, so I scrapped the idea of the woods and decided to go for a loop that stayed on well-trafficked and well-lit streets with a few rolling hills. One thing that I had never thought of: streetlights are aimed at the street, not the sidewalk. On pretty residential roads where the sidewalk is set back from the road by a strip of fluffy grass with big, bushy trees lining the road, not a lot of light gets back to the sidewalk. Even worse, the light you do get is from oncoming cars doesn't help much either since it comes right into your eyes and blinds your view of the inky sidewalk. And people should trim their hedges more often My shins were aching a little bit, as they often do when I run on pavement, and the thought crossed my mind that I might be running too much lately. So here I am, lifting my knees high because I know that these sidewalks are not too well maintained and that tree roots tend to push them up in the most surprising of places…

It was a warm night, but not too warm and I was feeling energetic all of a sudden (alright, I just wanted to go home sooner since I was afraid of tripping in the dark), so I decided to pick it up. Normally the only thing I hate more than running is running faster, but this time I was inspired. I tucked my butt under (it's notorious for following 6 inches behind the rest of me - left) to look more like those fast people I saw in Kona last weekend (right). I felt a little twinge in my low abs, a place I'd always heard you were supposed to engage while running, but never quite figured out what they meant by it. Aaah, my stomach's supposed to work to get my BUTT out of the way! Two amazing things happened when I tucked my ass in: 1) my shins stopped hurting, and 2) I started to go faster! It's not like I was going faster with the same effort, because it sure was hard to keep my caboose under control, but it's like I'd cut a gear out of my repertoir. Then, I did something else that I'd heard that good runners do, I tried to limit my up-and-down motion, and I went EVEN FASTER! My body was working, but my lungs were cruising easy, and I was flying!

Because of the dark, I didn't dare sneak a look at my watch until I got home: 59:40! I'd run nearly a full mile more than I usually run in that time, WITH HILLS! I ran the loop in 5 minutes less than last week, even though I'd made it a little bit longer!

Can too!

I don't know why no one believes me that I can do this marathon. Yeah, right, I know, I haven't done a run longer than 12 miles since... um, let's see, my last marathon in March, but that doesn't mean anything. But everyone still thinks I'm "crazy" (rocketpants), nuts, round the bend, insane, bonkers, mad, whacko... Angry Runner has me languishing in an ICU with ruptured legs. Renee, the feminist runner has me puking and soiling myself the entire length of the course (and maybe on the drive home too). Bob Almighty has made an educated guess that I just plain can't do it and my legs are going to fall off below the knee at mile 23. And 100 mile Rusty just wants photos of the carnage.

Oh ye of little faith! What ever happened to "I can't do that, sign me up!"? In fact I've gotten such a negative response to my last post (Angry and Renee have even come back to beg me to re-think this) that now I feel I have to do it, just to prove that I can. What's been one of the mottos of this blog, "If you're going to talk the talk, you'd better walk the walk" (or run as it may be)?! Of course it's going to hurt. Marathons always hurt. Suffering is kind of the point, though (left - look how much my life sucked in the last .2 miles of my last one). See, for me there are two kinds of challenges: the kind where you train, bust your hump and work your booty off for several months, and go out there gnashing your teeth to beat your competitors to a bloody pulp. The alternative is to go out there and beat your own limitations to a bloody pulp. Personally, I find it much more gratifying to be competing against no one but your own expectations.

You only get one first marathon: one time that you get to nervously wonder if you can go the distance, and only one enormous swell of pride when you first realize that you put in all that hard work and YOU DID IT! Congratulations to Renee and Michelle who just smashed this important milestone last weekend. But then what do you do? Go for a PR, try to place better than you ever have before? Try to qualify for Boston? And more congratulations are due to Mr. Satan A. Chillies who not only managed to finish the steamy Chicago Marathon last week, but in a blazing 3:30! Amazing! This isn't my first marathon, it'd be my third and like hell I'm going as fast as I can for 26.2 miles! So where does the new challenge come from? If you aren't looking to go further or faster than ever before, where do you get room to test yourself and find something to be proud of? Twenty-six point two miles is a helluva long way to go to not feel like it's something special. Anything above 10k deserves bragging rights.

So how do I make myself proud? I take something that's someone else's big deal, and I do it on the spur of the moment. This is not to take away from anyone else's big marathon achievements in recent weeks, it's a way to draw upon that enthusiasm and be able to feel the doubt and subsequent exhilaration of finishing again and again. Think of it this way: you're at mile 24 in your first marathon and you find yourself running with a stranger. "This is my first marathon, and I'm going to make it!" you gush to the stranger next to you. Now would you rather have some snooty person next to you saying, "This is my 15th, but I did Chicago/Boston/the Olympics last weekend so I'm just taking it easy today" or someone who says, "I've done one before, but I just wanted to see if I could do it again! Come on, we're going to make it!" A marathon should be a challenge to everybody.

This is not the first crazy-long thing I've done untrained either. I climbed a mountain in Andorra after only one long bike ride in months. I hiked 52 miles on absolutely, positively nothing but my base triathlon fitness. I biked a century all by myself because I hadn't even ridden my bike in a month. I told myself when I started training for distance events that I wanted to be fit enough to be able to sign up for any event (within reason) that I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. I want to be able to see a century or a marathon in the paper and say, "Hey, I'm going to go ahead and do that!" And if I decide one day that I want to do an Ironman, or a 7-day stage ride I want to have the fitness to jump right into the training when it's time. What's the point of having the fitness if you're constantly waiting through a 12-week buildup to use it? When I feel like I need an ego boost, why should I have to wait for an A race to come around?

When people run ultra events, how do they train? Do ultra marathoners run 100 miles a day for a couple of weekends before their taper? Do elite ironmen go out and do an ironman-distance workout once a month before Kona? Was Lance Armstrong simulating the Tour de France once a month for 6 months before the tour every year? HELL no. Know why? Because these kinds of events tear the body up too much, you can only do these things once (maybe twice if you're lucky/crazy) a year. If you try to do these things too often you'll get sub-optimal results at best. The way to train for ultra-endurance events is 50% fitness, and 50% a willingness to grit your teeth and suffer. Then you get to relax. For us mortals, a marathon is the same principle. Very few marathoners actually run 26 miles in their buildup. The idea being that your training is not to cover the distance, but for your body to be able to deal with the strain and load of several hours of strenuous exercise. Although I haven't done a marathon buildup per se, and the pounding is sure to do a number on my legs, my body is used to having 4-6 hours of exercise thrown at it at a time. I'm confident that this will hurt less than my first marathon.

I have my own personal reasons for wanting to do this marathon. In short, I need to prove to myself that I am still strong, and that I do still have the drive to push myself beyond my limits. The reasons why I'm doubting that aren't relevant. But as far as finishing, I know I can. I haven't been sore for more than 2 days after anything I've done in the past 2 years (except maybe lifting weights). Don't you worry about me. As long as the weather's nice and they don't wrestle me off the course (I'll be running as a bandit since I won't be able to raise $80 by Monday), I'll survive. And I'll write a fabulous race report to rub it in the faces of all those who didn't believe in me, and if I can, photos for Rusty. (Do I have to be IN the photos? Sometimes event photos can be pretty ugly - see below).

I feel a stupid idea brewing...

Some of you may remember my suicide ride, and how I like to punish myself every once in awhile to cleanse not only my body, but mostly my mind. Well, my mind needs an emergency trip to the dry cleaner lately and it's beginning to hatch a really, really stupid idea. Maybe you've been reading this blog for awhile and you know that stupid ideas are pretty much the only ones I follow through on.

On October 27th fellow blogger and dear friend The Angry Runner is coming up to Beantown from The Constitution State so we can both run the 5k Trick or Trot in dresses. He will be dressed as a prom queen, and I will be running in a 3-lb bridal gown. Good times will be had by all, and I'm sure there will be great pictures and blogging as a result.

...But then...

...then another exciting idea occurred to me...

When I was on the Cape last weekend I kept seeing all these spraypainted arrows on the ground with the letters CCM underneath. I started to wonder what CCM could possibly stand for. The answer seemed pretty obvious, especially since I saw big numbers painted on the ground in the mid-20s and counting down... I didn't know Cape Cod had a marathon. I've been toying with the idea of running Boston next year as a bandit (since I could never qualify), and I thought maybe I should look into alternatives. But this morning, just out of pure, innocent curiosity, I looked up "Cape Cod Marathon" just to see when it was. Just to see if it would fit into my Vineman buildup. I swear I didn't know it was going to be the day after Angry's and my race, October 28... But really, what's a 5k? Would it really have that much of an effect on an untrained marathon? That little devil on my shoulder's starting to whisper in my ear.

So... what should I do? What do you think? For more evidence you can read about marathon 1 and marathon 2.

Flatland

The whole time that I was living in Spain I got one flat tire. ONE! In 2 rides over three days I have gotten TWO flat tires. And seeing how this is me that we're talking about, both were (of course) spectacularly complicated and astounding feats in stupidity.

Flat #1

On Thursday morning after scoping out rides on mapmyride.com, I figured that there was no way that I could memorize all those turns and decided to go for a simpler plan. I would climb the nearest hill, then when I was done, I would take rout 3 (which crosses right at the bottom of the hill) and see where it went. I rode through commercial and residential areas for about 20 miles and found out that Route 3 isn't very pretty, and that it goes through Lowell. Lowell isn't the nicest place in Massachusetts or the world, it used to be the home of dozens of sweat shops for young women in the 19th century, and hasn't really gotten much better since then. I knew better than to ride my bike through Lowell, so I decided to stop at the first bench that I saw, have a snack, and hightail it out of there. I rode along a cemetery that seemed to go on forever, and finally found an elementary school with a bench out front where I could wolf down my Clif shot blocks, then I turned around. Somewhere about half way home they were doing some road work, and I felt the tell-tale rumbling in my seat that means that there is no longer a cushion of air between my bike and the ground.

Not particularly worried I pulled over and took a look. Yep, flat alright. I didn't have a pump, but I figured that pretty much any gas station or auto shop would have air, and there were dozens along this rout. I walked about a block down to where there was a car detail shop. "Hey, do you guys have a pump?" I asked. Of course they did.

The guy watched me as I pulled off the back wheel. "Wow! That's it? I used to build the kids' bikes and that back wheel was impossible to get off."
"Yeah, well look at these tires!" I said. "These things flat all the time, they need to be able to be changed quickly." Then I continued about my work, pulling out the inner tube.
"Wow, that's a funny little valve stem, do they all look like that?" asked my audience. OH CRAP! I'd forgotten about that! You need an adapter for these kinds of tubes! I'd totally forgotten! Me and my helper greasemonkey decided that we would do the best we could. I switched out the tire and he came out with his hose. He started man-handling the stem, jamming the hose down on it and letting all the air out after he'd pumped it in.
"You have to stop touching it real quick after you pull the hose off," I tried to say.
"But then how do you fill it up?" he said. He wasn't handing over the hose. Never mind, I thought.
Finally we got SOME air in the tire and I said, "Thanks, I think that's enough to get me to a bike shop," and rode away on my flat tire. When I was out of sight of my helper greasemonkey I got off and started walking. I stopped in at 2 more shops where they didn't have the adapter. One mechanic was a biker too and said that I was pretty much screwed. I called my dad, who was in a lunch meeting and asked him to give me a call when he was done. I knew he wouldn't be done for another 2 hours and that I was about 5 miles from the nearest bike shop. I walked about a mile in my clipity-clopity shoes before finding a gas station. As I walked in I heard a man saying, "I was thinking I'd take the brat out for some ice cream..." The attendant and his buddy shut up when I walked in.
"Hi, do you have the adapter for the air pump so that bikes can use it?" I asked.
"No, sorry."
"Alright, well then I'm going to be here for awhile then," I said, setting my sights on the food.
"Wheyah you goin'?" asked The Brat's grandfather.
I told him I was trying to get down to the bike shop and where it was.
"A'ight, I'll take you. Just load your bike in the back of the truck, and if it gets wrecked, it's not my fault." I wavered for a second, but decided that I was too smelly to be in any kind of danger so I accepted his offer. Driving back down the road he told me a story, "Yeah, I'uz drivin' down Route 3A theyuh, y'know wheah it goes through Low-well, wheah the cemetery is'n and theyuh's an elementary school across the street. Well dis kid comes out, like fowahth oah fifth grade oah sumpin and he stands theyuh in da middle of da street and he points dis gun at me and he shoots right through da windshield of da truck! Then he just runs back inta da school. I goes and I finds a cop and I says, 'You ain't gonna believe dis...' Da cop asked if I could recognize da kid and I says, 'hell no I can't' and he says it was probably some gang initiation thing, dat I should just say dat a rock hit my winshield oah else I'd nevah get nothin' from insurance." That was the same school I'd stopped at to eat my snack.

When I got to the bike shop it turned out that the new tire had a puncture anyway. Whether it was from my helper greasemonkey jabbing away at my valve stem, or from the few minutes that I rode away from him wasn't clear, but he changed my tire and sold me an adapter and I rode home sure that something like this would never have to happen again.

Flat #2

Based on Nitsirk's fantastic tip I found a 60-mile group ride on Cape Cod on Saturday morning. Our Indian summer is still in full force (I love global warming!), and it was supposed to be between 75 and 85 degrees all day. Before leaving at 8 am I opened the box to one of my spare tires that I'd brought back from Spain to replace the one I'd punctured Thursday and found that they'd sold me A MOUNTAIN BIKE TUBE! Not to be discouraged I thought, Oh well, if I have a problem, maybe it'll work; and if not someone's bound to have a spare. I donned my summer threads and drove the hour and a half down to the meeting point (get ready, because this is the coolest town name in the world) at the Mashpee high school. Mashpee, Mashpee, Mashpee, I could say it all day long! Anyway, the rout was set to start on the ocean side of the cape, pass along the canal, and come back on the bay side. If Cape Cod is an arm making a muscle, we did a loop around the underarm wattle. For a land mass that isn't much more than a giant sand bar, I couldn't believe how many hills it had! Nearly the whole rout was rolling, although the hills probably never got over 100 feet high. We stopped for food where I had a bag of gumdrops for lunch.

After the gumdrops I had the strength of ten men, and in the last 15 miles while some of the other guys were flagging, I was going strong. I was flying downhill on this well-paved back road through the woods when, too late to avoid it, I saw a pebble in front of me. I knew this pebble was bad news. I hit it, and heard tshhhht, tshhhht, tshhhht as my back tire deflated bit by bit. "SHOOT!" I yelled, or maybe it was "FUDGE", or maybe it was something a little more attention-getting because 2 guys passed me and stopped.
"Are you okay?" they asked.
"Yeah, it's just... um... I don't have a pump and I opened a new spare this morning only to find out that it was the wrong kind of tube." I swallowed my pride. "Would someone mind staying with me?" New friend Mike agreed to stay.

I pulled off the tire and took out the tube. Loading in the spare that New Friend Mike gave me we saw that there was something terribly wrong, it was too big. "Yeah, my wheels are smaller than a standard size," I admitted. I kind of knew that this was going to be a problem, but hoped it wouldn't be.
"Well, why don't we try to patch it?" suggested New Friend Mike. "I've got a patch kit."
"I've got a patch kit too, but I've never done it successfully."
"Me neither," said New Friend Mike. With our 2 heads together we thought we could probably figure it out. NFMike found the hole and put great gobs of glue over it, then I took a patch and stuck it on. "Ok, now what do we do?" said NFMike looking at the instructions for the first time. "'Wait until glue dries fully before applying patch' what kind of sense does that make?!" We solved this problem by putting the instructions away and putting more gobs of glue under the corners of the patch that needed it. After a few minutes we pumped it up again. Tssssssssssssssss. Even I could hear it and NFMike was the one who had the patch up to his ear. "Well, we could put a patch over the patch..." suggested NFMike.
"Okay, while you do that I'll try the mountain bike tube and see if I can make it fit." I was losing faith in NFMike's patching skills. I started stuffing the tube into the rim. "It's really wide, I don't know how I'm going to make it not pinch," I mused. When I had it inside I started peeking around the tire to see if there was any rubber trapped between the tire and the rim. There was, but I couldn't make it go away.
"Maybe it'll pull out when we inflate it a bit," NFMike said hopefully. He started inflating it with his CO2 pump and all was going well until BAM! the tube popped and we could see a 2-inch gash in a clump of rubber that was sticking out from under the tire. Damn.
NFMike's patch wasn't hissing nearly as badly as before, but it didn't look promising. "Well, if worse comes to worse, you can go on ahead and maybe come back and pick me up," I said hopefully, trying not to think about what happens to young women who are left alone on back country roads.
"Maybe once we get it in the tire, the pressure will keep it from leaking," said NFMike, not sounding very convinced. "If worse comes to worse, at least maybe you'll be able to get part way." We loaded it up and... IT WORKED! Just as we were packing up to go, Fixed Gear Guy, who'd flatted and been left for dead came rolling up and the flat brigade took off together.

And wouldn't you know it, the patch held! I made it the 10 miles back to Mashpee high school, apprehensively and slowly, but safely. I loaded everything back in the car, changed my clothes, said goodbye to NFMike and Fixed Gear Guy, and just as I turned on the ignition I heard tssssssssssssssssssssss and the patch gave out in my back seat. I could live with that.