Bushwhacked! (Plus pictures from CCM)

Friday the pictures from the Cape Cod Marathon were released. I was kept in unbearable suspense all afternoon, since I saw that the pictures had been released but there was no way to retrieve them without my bib number. The bib number was not listed on the results page, so I was forced to be patient all afternoon, remembering all the cameras I had seen on the course and imagining the badass photos that would be their fruit. I mean, these were going to be intense enough to be used in a Gatorade ad. Sometimes it's better not to look...

I was expecting pictures that exuded the tune of Eye of the Tiger, instead I was stuck thinking, Eew, do I really look like that?! Unfortunately (or luckily, depending on how you look at it) the photographers' web site has managed to prevent me from pirating pictures of myself off the internet or even providing a link, so if you want to see pictures of me looking like a duck doing an impression of a... well some faster land bird, then you'll have to click here, find the Cape Cod Marathon and search for number 1467.

Despite my clumsy running stance, which is so rigid it makes Frankenstein look like Gumby, Cape Cod brought something out in me that I didn't think possible. Suddenly, I love running! All week I was resting up, spinning easily on a stationary bike my mom bought in the mid-90's and I only ran once. By Thursday I was raring to lace up my running shoes again and go prancing through some new places. My discovery of coolrunning.com (something that I always knew was there, but never took advantage of because, well, I hate to run) led me to a local trail race in Framingham, MA named the Busa Bushwhack.

Bushwhack: v. 1. To make one's way through the woods
by cutting at undergrowth, branches, etc. 2. To fight as a
guerrilla in the woods, to ambush.
Definitions adapted from Dictionary.com

The race was billed as a trail run with a choice between a flat 5.3 mile course, or 9.3 mile course with "some hills". The little angel on my left shoulder whispered in my ear, "If you're going to do this, do the short course. You don't want to get injured." The little devil on my right shoulder simply whispered, "Don't be a pussy!" I'm a righty, guess who I listened to. While filling out the waiver form I asked the volunteer, "If I sign up for the 9 mile race, will I have the option of doing the 5 mile race instead if I get tired?" She urged me not to, but said I should let someone know if I changed my mind mid-run so I wouldn't be accused of cheating. So I put a check in the box next to 9.3 miles.

While huddling in the elementary school gym for warmth I made friends with a guy from New Hampshire named Thom. He gave me the skinny on the central New England trail racing scene, pointed out who were the big guns, and urged me to do some races that were coming up. The one he was plugging the most was a 16-miler in Derry, New Hampshire in JANUARY. He said that a lot of the guys come across the line in nothing but spanky shorts and a singlet with icicles hanging from their ears and facial hair. The t-shirt is well worth it, he explained to me. Ironically, it's a thermal winter fabric. I looked around and noticed that a lot of the other runners were minimally-dressed for today's event, despite temperatures that I was sure were going to freeze my sub-tropical butt off (the high 40's). I myself was wearing some hearty workout pants that I'm sure were designed for yoga once upon a time and my thermal winter pullover (which is actually a cycling top) which, when zipped up all the way, makes me look like a ninja or a surgeon.

I groaned as the MC/race organizer announced over the bullhorn that we would have the pre-race meeting outside. Unlike some MCs, the laughs that this MC elicited were actually genuine (*ehemTrickorTrotcough*). He began, "The trail has been really well-marked with pink ribbons, I know because I was out there yesterday for 2 hours putting them up myself." Everyone cheered. Yesterday the remnants of hurricane Noel came through MA, and it was pouring cold rain with winds up to 50 mph all day. "We used to have pie plates with arrows marking the turns, but some of those have been blown away, so we'll have volunteers at all the turns indicating which way to go, so you won't get lost. If this is your first trail race, keep your eyes on the ground or you will be on the ground." A laugh rippled through the runners, but homeboy knew what he was talking about. I saw no fewer than three people "eat shit" (as the Californians so eloquently put it) on the course. In the first couple of miles I saw one guy trip and fall a few people in front of me. He picked himself up quickly, but in a few minutes he was down again, this time with several runners at close enough range to have to make quick detours to not trample him. He got on all fours, and as he was getting his legs under him, they slipped right out again and he fell right over a second time. Afterwards I saw him back in the school and he had 2 huge band-aids over each knee, poor guy! The MC earned a few more laughs before we all hoofed it down to the start.

I expected the ground to be super-squishy after all the rain yesterday, but actually the ground was relatively firm save for a few puddles, and the only danger from yesterday's weather was that the leaves blown off the trees hid the roots and rocks that you could trip over. I got stuck behind a man with a gait that was so springy it just made him look silly. I passed him and found myself behind a sinewy man that must have been on the far side of 70 to whose cervical spine the years had not been kind. This guy was a hunchback! I don't mean he just tended to lean too far forward, or rounded his shoulders too much, I mean that his shoulderblades and the crown of his head were at the same height. I worked away at him, and heroically passed him when he tripped over a root and fell over. Hey, I mean, I asked if he was okay and everything... what was I supposed to do?

After what seemed like only 10 minutes the leaders of the 5-mile race started bounding back along the single-track path, breathing like sprinters. This was especially irritating, since this was where the 5-foot-across puddles made their debut. The true priss I am, I managed to keep my white (road) shoes clean. Before I knew it, I was at the turnaround for the 5 mile people. I felt like I'd hardly been running at all, definitely not a full two and a half miles, and didn't even think twice about keeping going. Before long I was amb.. bushwhacked by the first hill. We were running along, minding our own business, and then suddenly there's this WALL with people on it. You're kidding, right? I thought as I started walking. I got to the top with my breathing labored and my hamstrings giving out like after a bad run-in with some lunges. On this hill Grandpa passed me... walking. He was WALKING and I couldn't catch up with him! I kept his hunched figure within my sight for the rest of the race, but I just couldn't catch him! I would get close to him on the downhills and the flats, and then we would reach an incline and he would just slip away, even when he was walking! The impossible hill stunt was only repeated once more, but there were enough small hills that Grandpa seemed firmly out of my grasp.

When we had made it to flat ground again for the return trip I had an even stranger sight in front of me than grandpa: a woman with a discman. I could never get a discman whose anti-skip lasted more than a week, let alone however long it's been since they made the last portable compact disc player, but there it was, with big headband earphones. She was so weighed down that I could pass her easily. I came up behind her and said, "On your left... excuse me." I guess she couldn't hear me, because when I edged around her she let out a scream, as if a snake had just crossed her path or something. "Sorry," I said. Weirdo.

I noticed that I was starting to feel like my tank was running low and wondered if a mile and a half justified busting out the Clif Blocks when I spotted Grandpa ahead. I ditched the idea of trying to breathe around gooey-chewies. It was just between me and Grandpa now. Like hell I was going to let a septuagenarian with a dawager's hump beat me! I pushed the envelope, the whole time staring at Grandpa's wiry, skinny little chicken legs and marveling at how they still managed to hold up his weight. As we came out of the woods and onto the road for the last half mile back to the school I pulled up next to him. "Hey..." I gasped, "I've been... following you... all morning!" He didn't say anything at first, and I thought that maybe he was a jerk. "Pass me if you want," he said finally, not ill-naturedly. "Are you... kidding me? It's... all I can do... to keep up... with you!" But I did manage to get about a foot ahead of him after several minutes of redlining. Only the finish wasn't where the starting line had been. We still had a couple more blocks to go, and wouldn't you know, there was an itty bitty, teeny weeny hill and he pulled away from me! Grandpa beat me!

I crossed the finish line gasping for air. I was still wearing my ninja sweatshirt (sans hood) with my number pinned to my t-shirt underneath. "Number?!" the volunteer yelled at me. "Oh yeah, sorry," I said, lifting my shirt. Only the fitted sweatshirt caught my t-shirt on the way up and I damn near flashed the woman before managing to pull my shirt and number back down. I was quite pleased to look at my watch and see that Grandpa had pushed me to finish in 1:35 and a nickel! With hills, walking, and the fact that it was trail, pulling off 10:13 min/mile is definitely a cause for celebration. I consoled myself in the fact that Grandpa had surely won his age group, and that made me feel a bit better. I mean, come on, only a jerk would want to beat Grandpa in a sprint finish (a jerk like me). I was happy for Grandpa (no I wasn't), he deserved to win (as long as he was behind me).

Thom was there waiting for me at the end with a some information about where to find more local races, and then I went and changed into real clothes before watching them giving out the awards. I wanted to see Grandpa accept his award. They worked their way through both women's and men's divisions before announcing the winner of the men's 70+ age group. They called out a name and a man walked up to accept his trophy, and it wasn't Grandpa! It was a compact little man with all his hair and an inconspicuously straight spine! And it's not like there were hundreds of people there, I don't think that the participants of both distances reached the 100 mark. But no, really, I'm proud of myself. Really. Getting my ass beat by a runner-up old guy, that's cool.

Speaking of old guys, I spotted a Rubbermaid container full of t-shirts with a sign that said, "GET YOUR FREE SHIRT AUTOGRAPHED BY RICH BUSA!" Who is Rich Busa, you ask? Why Rich Busa is the man who the Busa Bushwhack is named for, 78 years old and still running ultras such as Western States. I'm a t-shirt junky, so I went over to get my t-shirt autographed by Rich Busa. I was all ready to fawn over him and make a local celebrity feel special, but Rich Busa was kind of hard of hearing and I was chomping on a cookie while trying to talk. He stopped trying to listen after he'd finished autographing my shirt. I got stuck listening to the 30-something woman next to him enumerating his achievements (which were quite inspiring, especially with my new respect for the elderly athlete after being bushwhacked by Grandpa) while Rich Busa turned his attention to his grand daughter. She told me how one of his training runs is 20 repeats up THE HILL OF DEATH (as I call it, the Framingham Track Club calls it Busa Hill), and I was dealing with serious feelings of inadequacy, but when she shoved a newspaper article in my face with a full-page picture of Rich Busa, I found it hard to look interested and listen for my number as they called out the lottery winners at the same time. Are you ever in one of those situations where both parties are bored with the conversation, but it would still be rude to walk away? I figured I should put my Rich Busa autographed shirt over my long-sleeved shirt, but I was wearing my marathon t-shirt and didn't really feel like covering it up just yet before anyone had even noticed it. Finally I ungracefully escaped, but I could have read the article about Rich Busa anyway, because I didn't win anything in the raffle either (which is fine, because I'm not competitive).

As I rode home I continued listening to the audio book I started yesterday. I listen to audio books because I get less bored driving to a story than driving to music. And do you know what this audio book was? No joke, The Hunchback of Notre Dame!