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.

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.

Marathon number 2

A marathon was my first real endurance event. It was my first A race too, and therefore my first experience in achieving a major goal. And of course, it was my first time feeling that pain: where your bones feel like they're splintering and your muscles won't move right and they ache and they burn and muscles you didn't even know you had cramp from being so long in crumpled postures you've never been in before and your joints seem to have aged 50 years this morning. Since then I've been there more than once and I guess it never hurts as bad as the first time you're there. This weekend was my second encounter with The Marathon, this time as a B-priority race and mostly motivated by curiosity to se how I could do. One year ago I watched the race at mile 10 with a massive hangover, and I have to admit, more than one cigarette touched my lips before the last runner passed. As I wathed I berated myself for falling off the wagon, not trying to get back on, letting th wagon go, and then turning my back to the wagon trail. In other words, I felt a mess and wanted very much to feel better. I also missed the excitement of a race and the brief-but-nevertheless-important-and-sometimes-even-silent friendships you make along the course. So that day I resolved to do the Barcelona marathon in 2007. And when my season ended with The Race That Never Was I started telling everyone that I was training for the marathon. From November until January that was the only training I did: telling people I was training. This phase of my training climaxed in a full month of not working out once. So when January came and I bought my new shoes and went on my first long run and only made it 13 miles, I upped my training: I signed up. But to my dismay, paying the entry fee didn't put me in any better shape than telling people I was training did.

My entire training was limited to 3 long runs building up to 30k (one of which was on a treadmill: longest 2 1/2 hours of my life), and three half marathons (one of which was the better part of one of my long runs). Race week my girlfriend was completing her metamorphasis into a mean-spirited, entitled, selfish, sullen, and inhumanly lazy bitch and my mind was more focused on how I was going to deal with the challenges of breaking up and moving out than the race at hand. I missed my last taper workout because I couldn't sleep the night before. I was nautious from Wednesday on and feared I'd have to pull out of the race with the flu. And finally, the night before the race I couldn't sleep because my girlfriend had gotten worse than I thought even her capable of. I showed up at the start focused on anything BUT the 26.2 miles ahead of me (or, let's say 42.195 km, since it always seems like you have more to go). Joolie was doing the 10k, so we were able to spend most of the first hour together, and this hour I had fun. But after breaking with Joolie, my mind started to crack. Already. The first gel went down badly. I was already walking every now and then before the 15k mark. Despite my bad mood I still high-5ed all the little kids holding out their hands along the course. Especially the girls. I chased down the little girls to make sure that they slapped MY hand. To these kids every one's a sports star. And when you're a kid you still haven't learned to doubt that you're capable of the impossible; if it's never been done, a kid says (s)he'll be the first. Who knows, maybe they'll go home and say, "I'm going to run a marathon someday." Especially the girls need to see CHICKS out there too. Maybe THEY'LL go home and say, "I'm going to run a marathon someday, and I'm even going to pass some boys!"

My house is one block from the higest point on the course and it did cross my mind to go home. I had given my girlfriend permission to not come to the finish since she hates crowds, but she said she would walk the one block the cheer from next to the house. When she wasn't there I cracked; and we hadn't even reached the halfway point yet. I was feeling anger and hate. I was also feeling like a victim, which never helps matters any. Strangely, though, the distance never really regestered as "long". At half way it felt like a big, fat inconvenience, and I knew full well we were coming into the ugliest part of the city with no shade, no views, no landscaping, few spectators, and the Agbar Tower always within sight: the giant, technicolored dildo rising like a phallic monolith of bad taste out of the ghetto to fuck you in the ass.

For about 10k we ran towards the dildo, next to the dildo, away from the dildo, around the dildo and past the dildo. I came up with a plan to run for 5 songs and walk for a minute. I got to the third song and started walking, and kept walking for the whole song. By the time I finally escaped the dildo I was running for only 2 songs and walking for one. I was also walking at the water stations and sipping my water slowly so I wouldn't have to run again too soon. Every time I stopped running people were yelling encouraging things to me in French, "Allez, allez, Claire!" And other things I didn't understand. I wanted to say, "So what if this IS my f*&%ing race plan, huh?" Then we were running along the beachfront, away from the dildo and back to the RIGHT part of town: the left half, where the finish line was. There were people all along the beach cheering like every runner was their own mother. One man was standing alone and not dressed in beach gear screaming all the names on people's bibs and clapping like he wanted his hands to fall off. "Thank you so much for coming!" I said. "Thank YOU," he said. Later on, some people waiting to cross the street cheered for me and I said, "Muchas gracias" and they laughed with glee. I've watched races before, and most people just run by with a grim look of suffereing on their face. I do that too most of the time, you don't always have time to react. But even if we don't react, the cheering registers and the presence of spectators is so crucial to digging deep in those last miles. Come on, admit it, you run faster and prouder when you know someone's watching. So whenever I can I thank the spectators, because after all, it is they who have gotten out of bed on a Sunday morning to come out and help me along on MY big day.

In the deep, dark moments of the laps around the dildo I'd told myself that I could walk the last 10k if I wanted to. But when I hit 30k I felt okay. Plus we were running through the most crowded parts of the city. I marvelled at how I was running unobstructed down streets where I usually had to use my best crowd-dodging techniques just to move forward. I was amazed by the logistical feat of closing down the entire city for 6 hours, and I appreciated that they had us running through the most heavily trafficked areas at the end of the race, where people couldn't help but watch and cheer us on. I kept running 2 songs and walking one, telling myself that if I didn't want to start running again next time I didn't have to. But I wanted to go home, and really, I felt okay, so I kept running. Only that after a few minutes of running, every kilometer or so, I felt like something inside me was going to explode: not my heart, not my lungs, not my muscles, but my head, or maybe my soul. Maybe it was because I hadn't done hardly any long, slow training recently, and maybe it was because my heartrate was drifting into the high 180s. However, despite this, I was calming down. I knew that I would finish eventually, and I was finally too tired to think of all my other woes outside the race. I was feeling pretty sick though and it was getting hot and I was real thirsty. Water was every 5km, but that was getting to be over half an hour now. Finally we busted out of the old part of town onto the Rambla (the Rambla always surprises me, I'll be walking through these old, narrow, ancient streets, and suddenly I'm in the middle of the biggest pedestrian promenade in the city). There were people EVERYWHERE yelling and screaming and clapping. Boystress college boys were bursting out in cheers every 5 seconds whether there was a runner passing or not. 'Yes!' I thought, 'just a few blocks down and then we're going to be running up diagonally straight up Av. Paral.lel into Pl. Espanya!' But we were only at km 39 and the math didn't seem to work out. I was really, really hoping that the 5 blocks of Av. Paral.lel would be 2 kilometers long. Unfortunately, about half way up we turned right and back into the thick of the city to come into Pl. Espanya uphill.

Coming into the finish Joolie and Jamie called out my name and I waved without looking at them. As I crossed the finish line with more than 5 hours on the clock I held up a fist (being careful to hold my arm high in the air, so it wouldn't look like I was punching my imaginary friend in the ear like in other finishing photos I've had). I sat down to take my chip off and a volunteer ran up and said (in English), "Wait, wait, let me do it!" While she was untying my shoes she said, "Did you like it?" "No," I said, "but ask me again in a couple of hours and the answer will be different." I am always amazed by the volunteers and how helpful and GENUINE they are. Especially the kids who were grabbing sponges from buckets and running backwards up the course until they found someone who wanted their sponge. And they're doing this for free! I found Joolie, Jamie and Ben and we sat in the grass for a little while. While I ate a banana they tried one of my gels and each was surprised at exactly HOW gross they were. People were sitting with their legs in the fountains: the same fountains where they have light shows during the summer and they all have menacing signs next to them with a man getting a lightning bolt to the heart. I didn't stick my legs in because I was wearing long pants and no underwear.

I was able to navegate the stairs in the metro without problems and walk home relatively painlessly. My stomach was upset all day and most of the next, but amazingly my body was fine. I lay down and tried to take a nap and felt a deep, throbbing soreness through my legs like growing pains. I got up, took 2 recovery supplements and 1 anti-oxydent supplement (the cheap stuff: 8 euros at Decathlon) and lay back down. I could literally feel the pain draining from my legs and the muscles breathing a sigh of relief. For the rest of the day I was no more sore than I would be after a normal long workout (which was good because I still had to bike a couple miles round trip to return a DVD). After my first marathon my swim coach (also a triathlete, and an amazon of a woman) asked me if I would do another one. I said, "Only if it doesn't hurt as much." "It always hurts," she said. "I don't think it hurts any less for anyone." But, the truth is, this time it really DIDN'T hurt too badly. By Tuesday I was ready to work out again, and by Wednesday the only pain I had was in my left foot from an old injury that always hurts after a long run. So when I feel like doing another one (maybe in 2009), maybe I'll try for speed. Let's see if I can train to break 4 hours? For the time being I've got to figure out how to do one of those things after biking 112 miles!

26.2 miles, 42.25 kilometers... either way I did it!

The following is a group email that I sent out to everyone I knew after I finished my first marathon. I really wasn't sure if I could do it, and when I did, I was prouder of myself than I ever have been in any race since. If we are lucky, we have that moment once in our lives where we do something that we thought impossible. After that, "impossible" becomes just another synonym for "hard". It's what hooks us and keeps us forever seeking the high of that first finish line. So after MY first finish line I got on my computer and began to write (as I do), and sent out the following email to absolutely everyone I knew, even my former Italian teacher - who wrote back, "brava". So, here it is, as it was sent on April 27, 2005.

After 6 months of training my marathon is finally over, and I did it!!! When I first got the idea into my head and started reading books on how to train for it I didn't think 26 miles was so far, I mean, old people and people in wheelchairs do it, so as a young, healty, athlete it would be a piece of cake, right? Then I sarted training... 12 miles is far, 16 miles is really far, and 20 miles is really f***ing far. I never went more than 20 miles in my training runs so to all of you who saw me these last couple of weeks, I really wasn't kidding when I said I didn't know if I could finish. There were still a full 6.2 miles I'd never practiced - that could take an hour or more! Thanks to all of you who believed in me, it really carried me through when I couldn't go anymore. Well I did do it and I'm really proud of myself. Since I didn't get to do it with anyone else (except Mayra and Megan who came to the finish but I didn't even know were there and left without them) and cuz y'all know how I love to write I'm going to share the experience with all of you now.

Saturday afternoon: I went to Monterey to pick up my race packet. On my way out of the expo I decided I should get souveneers for my parents. Tee shirts were rediculously expensive so I got them socks (how fortunate that my mom is the sock fairy so my cheapness isn't quite as obvious). Then I saw that they had hand-painted christmas ornaments. My parents buy a new ornament on every trip they take, whether it's to a non-Christian country or just up to New Hampshire (which makes for a pretty over-decorated tree). I saw a display of hand-painted globes, which was perfect so I went to look at the price of one and it fell and SMASHED into a million pieces! I looked around to see if anyone had seen me but none of the volunteers had noticed, only the dozens of people milling around me and giving me dirty looks as I tried to figure out what to do. Eventually I had to walk away to get in line and I DID admit to what I did, but I'm sure I looked like a jerk just walking away from the darned thing. Since I bought another one they didn't make me pay for it, which is a good thing cuz they cost 50 bucks!

5 p.m. Saturday: I go to bed.

2 a.m. Sunday: I wake up. Savannah probably thought I was drunk being awake at 2 and cooking myself food.

3:45 am. After drinking tons of water and coffee on the hour drive down to Monterey I have to pee and there are no bathrooms before the bus picks us up. I have to run across the street from the bus stop and pee in a parking lot that wasn't nearly as private as I would have liked. On the bus I start to get nervous for real. I convinced myself I was going to forget how to run, I was sure that when everyone else started to move I was going to fall over and that would be it. On the off chance I could remember how to put one foot in front of the other I would surely forget where I was going and run straight off a cliff. It seemed like a real possibility at the time.

4:45 am. Arrive at the starting line and wait, and wait, and wait. I used the porta poddies three times, twice in the dark; they were better in the dark.

7:00 am. The gun goes off. At 7:03 I cross the start line.

Mile 1: luckily I remembered how to run and did not fall over. Unfortunately I have to pee again. Men keep running off to the side of the road to relieve themselves in the bushes. I'm jealous of them when in a couple of miles I see the porta poddy line and decide to hold it until I sweat it off.

Mile 2: I hear the conversation of some runners behind me. "Hi! *Name*, do you remember me? We met last year! You were trying to get a date. Did you wind up getting her number?" No, *name* did not get a date, the girl finished way ahead of him and he is still single. Better luck this year!

Mile 6: Some guy drops his water bottle and it rolls under the wheels of a passing van and explodes. It was pretty spectacular. I can't believe it's been 6 miles already. I'm going slow and most of the people I see are passing me, but I'm holding out, "running my own race" as they say. I have to admit I felt pretty lame to be passed by old people and a woman with a very large bum wearing spandex.

Mile 7: I crest a hill and think, 'was that hurricane point that everyone complains about? That wasn't so bad!'

Mile 8: I hear sirens. A bus passes, a police car passes. I think nothing of it. Then I hear the police loudspeaker "Stop the bus! Pull the bus over!" He was pulling over one of the school busses that was carrying relay runners from one tradeoff to another. As I pass the people on the pulled-over bus cheered us on (except for the driver who was talking to the trooper).

Mile 9: My butt hurts. I look up to see that the last hill was NOT the 2 mile climb to hurricane point because I can see the enormous incline winding around the hill in front of me.

Mile 9 again: No, my butt really hurts. Usually my tendonitis doesn't start bothering me until about 12 miles, this is not a good sign.

Mile 10: I was glad that I live in Santa Cruz and trained on hills like this one, but my butt really hurt. I start climbing the hill and the man next to me starts talking to me. It was a welcome distraction and we stayed together the entire length of the hill. He came from Alberta, Canada, and at the top of the hill he took a walking break and I had the Canadian national anthem stuck in my head for several miles. I only know "O Ca-na-da... na na na na na na..." so I kept singing that over and over in my head.

Mile 12: What's that in my shoe? Damn.

Mile 13: The halfway point. I am already sore. This makes me nervous. At least I don't have to pee anymore.

Mile 14: I start to think I'm not going to make it. I'll just wait till mile 15 to take more Alieve.
Mile 14: again: No, I'm taking my Alieve now.

Mile 16: Only 10 miles to go. Wait, 10 miles is a long way and I hurt NOW. I smell skunk.

Mile 17: 9 miles to go. I'm already counting down miles. I'm not going to make it. I feel like even my bones are sore.

Mile 18: I start getting disoriented. I think I'm coming up on mile 21 and then the next mile marker only says 19. The scenery is beautiful, but it is NOT distracting me.

Mile 19: No, I will finish. No matter what I do it hurts, but it can't possibly hurt more. And I'm still moving.

Mile 20: This is the longest I've ever gone in a training run, but I still have 10k to go. I start running faster because it feels good to change my pace. I start talking to myself. I come up on another relay point and a waiting relay team starts going crazy screaming for BETSY. I pretend my name is Betsy and start running faster. One of the relay members screams, "That's my WIFE!!!" I'm proud of Betsy. Betsy is done running, lucky her.

Mile 21: I'm thinking I'll let myself walk a little more. By this time almost everyone's walking and because I'm still running I pass a lot of people. A guy comes up behind me and says, "You have this! You've got a great pace going. You have less than a 10k to go. That's nothing! Walking won't do any good now, keep going!" I think it doesn't FEEL like nothing, but I'll keep repeating his words to myself later and it helps. Everything below my waist kills and when a short hill appears in front of me I start walking. Mr. Encouragement keeps running.

Mile 22: We're coming in to Carmel now and there are more houses and less open space. I don't have anything left to keep myself going and I start channeling people who have believed in me along the way to inspire me: Lorraine, Mom, Shane, Drew (who has only had 1 drink in 2005, I'm so proud of him!!!), Olivia, Kat... I pass a farm and it smells like horse poo. I start channeling people who have to work around horse poo every day and I decide that I would rather be me right now than someone who has to work with horse poo. I met up with a girl that I'd met at the starting line with two black eyes (bruising, not her irises). She ran the boston marathon last week, and was saying it had ruined her legs. That makes me feel inadequate because I'm only catching up to her now.

Mile 23: It hurts too much to run, it hurts to walk too. I might as well keep running. I stop smiling for the cameras on the course. The only thing that keeps me going is that I have to finish, there's nowhere to sit down out here.

Mile 24: I'm definitely going to cry when I finish. I am almost crying now. I am definitely going to finish. I can't remember very much about the race from here on out. I just can't believe that there are only 2 miles left. This is everything I have... and then some.

Mile 26: Where the hell is the finish line, I can't see it yet. I start running faster. I can barely breathe, I think I'm about to cry.

Mile 26.2: The finish line! I don't cry. I'm concentrating on staying upright. When I take my foot off the stool after they cut off my timing chip I almost fall over for real.

My official gun time was 4:47:59, although my real time was a little bit less because it took a few minutes to cross the starting line. My goal was to finish in under 5 hours which I did (also, they say you can expect to add 20 minutes to your usual marathon time because of all the hills on the course). What I was most excited about was that my splits (the time for each mile) were consistent within 15 seconds of eachother for the entire race. So what if my race pace was slower than I ever run normally? I walked less than a combined mile of the entire course and finished running. I was 59th out of 85 in my age class, but I came in ahead of more than 1000 people who finished in the 5 1/2 hour time limit. I also like to pat myself on the back knowing that with my stubby little legs I probably ran the equivalent of 30 miles for a normal-sized person.

I could barely walk to get my sweats and find the busses. They put the sweats pickup and the shuttle stop on oposite sides of the finishing area which I really did not appreciate. Also, I stepped in dog poo on the way to the bus. I didn't know that Mayra and Megan had made it, so I just left without them. They waited and waited at the beer tent but I never turned up. Who would have thought that I would miss free beer?! They were worried. Meanwhile I was wandering around a parking garage in downtown Monterey looking for my car. It was gone, I couldn't find it, and I had to walk up and down, up and down the ramp! For the second time today I think I am about to cry. I was in the wrong parking garage. Oops. On the way home a fearless pellican is standing in the middle of the road, impervious to passing cars. Traffic stops in both directions temporrarily. The pellican was still there when I passed and someone at the side of the road was running at it trying to scare it away. The pellican was standing its ground. No news on whether the pellican made it.

For once I'm not downplaying this. I worked darned hard and now I'm loving it for all it's worth. The question everyone keeps asking me is whether I'll do it again. For one, that's an awful thing to ask the day after when you can hardly walk from your car to wherever you're going, but never mind that. Before the race I told myself that if I finished I would never do it again, half marathons would be enough thank you very much. But regardless of how much it hurt, you know what, I think it was worth it. So I think, yes, I might do it again someday, but the next time I train for it I think I'm going to train not to "finish at all costs and then not run ever again", but I'll train so it doesn't hurt so much for so long.

If you've actually followed me through this far, thanks. This was a really amazing experience and I'm glad I got to share it will all you guys. Next up, a triathlon in San Diego on June 26.

Love,
~C