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.