It's called Rhode Island, the least they could do is lable their Rhodes

First off, congratulations to Angry and Leana, both of whom completed their first marathon in Disney World this weekend. Leana, never one to take the easy way, did hers on the heels of a half marathon the day before. My hat goes off to both of you. Congratulations!

Thirty minutes after our heroes had already crossed the starting line in the Magic Kingdom (or is it Epcot?), I was just rolling out of bed. It was 6:30, mind you, and I had my own little romp to do down in southern Rhode Island. I was really hoping that my girlfriend would show up and make the 2 hour drive worthwhile. Rhode Island may be a small state, but it's apparently possible to be down there for 2 hours and still not see the person you were looking for. Damn. Anyway, the destination was a 10-mile fun run in Jamestown, down in the bottom part of the state where all the inlets and stuff make it look like it's falling apart. True to my M.O., I really meant to be on time, but then factors beyond my control held me up. First I had to de-ice my car (it took several minutes of staring at the inside of a frosted-over windshield for the idea to occur to me that I could scrape the frost off with a credit card), then there was a bitchy 50-something woman with purple hair patronizing the poor little Brazilian girl at Starbucks and holding up the line (anyone over the age of 21 with hair the color of a crayola crayon should be put in a mental institution). Then, of course I missed one of my exits and had to turn around. Then there was a cop driving under the speed limit holding up traffic (aren't you allowed to pass a cop if he's going 10 mph below the limit?).

I managed to arrive on time, but I had to pee so bad I was beginning to understand how normal adults can be driven to wetting their pants. As luck would have it, somebody had decided to set up camp in the onesy at the local cafe and I was about ready to pick the lock I had to go so bad. I must have made an interesting impression on the half dozen runners that piled up behind me in line as I hopped back and forth and squeezed my knees together while we waited 5-minutes for Mr. Pokey to finis his morning business. Now I know that this is something that nice girls don't talk about, but it's a pet peeve of mine: Why do people poo in public bathrooms? I never go in any bathroom but my own, I couldn't if I wanted to. I understand that not everyone has the same fickle GI tract that I do, but when it's a 1-person bathroom in a crowded place with very little ventilation, I just find it rude. It reflects poor planning. It takes too long (because it's never the quick pooers that go in public places), and it leaves the room uninhabitable for the next several guests of the porcelain palace. I think public bathrooms could benefit from a little modification to the old "Do Not Flush" list. "Please do not flush feminine hygene products or turds down this toilet. If you have a turd, please hold it until you can dispose of it properly." Anyway, that's just my opinion, and I feel better now having expressed it.

Having relieved myself, I was ready to run. Most of the dozen or so people there were training for Boston and would be doing much of my same long race circuit as a buildup. I was feeling great and trotting along with the front runners for the first mile and beginning to feel pretty good about myself. I was sure that I could make these guys eat my dust if only I knew what the rout was, but I hung back and listened to the run-down of what courses were going to kick my ass this winter. According to these guys, all of them were going to kick me all up and down the playground. "Don't worry," said a guy named John. "If you can run an 8 minute mile at Derry, you'll be fine for Boston."
"I think I've only run one 8-minute mile in my life, and then I probably fell off the back of the treadmill at the end," I said. Then we hit our first hill and I started drifting back through the crowd until no one was passing me anymore and I was relieved until I figured out that I was bringing up the rear. The next 5 miles were about barely hanging on and not losing the group in the distance. As we rounded the tip of the first loop we passed a lighthouse on our left, and to our right was the ocean looking beautiful and blue. It was one of those moments that you want to stop and take it all in, especially if you feel like your gut is going to bust and you haven't "taken in" any oxygen for at least a mile. Later, when I looked back at my splits I'm not surprised that I (literally) felt like I was going to faint, miles 3 and 4 (the front half of the willie... I mean peninsula... on the map below) were around 8:35 and 8:45 per mile pace. Oh, and did I mention I ran 17 miles on Thursday? I had stopped having fun.
Luckily, one of the runners took pity on me and came back to keep me company (and peel me off the sidewalk if need be). He had one of those cartoonish English accents that someone would have if they said "jolly old England" a lot in conversation. He didn't say H's, he said apostrophes. 'is name was 'arry. Just as I was striking up a conversation with 'arry, my cell phone rang. Normally my policy is not to answer the phone while running, but I knew this would be Angry on the far side of the finish line. "How'd you do?!" I gasped as soon as I picked up.
"Don't you ever make me do anything else like that ever again," Angry stated, slowly and clearly. But after that I couldn't hear anything else that he said. I told him I'd call him later, hung up, and turned back to 'arry.

I was glad to have jolly old 'arry around to keep me company, but the truth is he didn't do much for my self esteem. 'arry was over 70 years old and the second fastest 70-something-year-old in New England. And he only started running when he was 57! The story went that one day he was having a pissing contest (his words, not mine) with a friend of his who said that he couldn't run a certain loop in his neighborhood. He said he could, and by hell, he did. When he told his friend about it and how long it took him, his friend signed him up for a race that weekend. They went on one more run the week before the race. Then that weekend he took out his age group. The race was 5 miles. No shit, he just decided when he was 57 years old to start running, his third run EVER he won a 5-mile race. And here he was running up these hills cool as a cucumber while I was beginning to wonder if maybe that awful wheezing coming out of my throat was something I should be worried about.

To my defense, though, the course was hilly. It felt like we were always going up hills and never coming down them again.
Once we had finished the first out and back everyone was so spread out that the first runners had missed the turn, and the last runners, well who knew where the hell they were. The organizer went out to fetch the front runners, and 'arry and I went off to do the last loop by ourselves. "Just keep going straight, you can't miss it," said John, the organizer. Well that seemed easy enough. 'arry dragged my sorry ass up and down some more hills and I was really starting to feel sorry for myself. Did I mention I ran 17 miles on Thursday? I did? Well, good. Although my legs weren't cramping or tired, I just couldn't seem to push myself, even to keep up with a 72-year-old elf (he was about my height). Then we came to a T-stop. "What do you think we do 'ere?" asked 'arry. "You think we go left?"
"No, that would be the same direction that we came," I said, horrified at the idea of getting lost and having to run longer in this horrible place where the ground was never flat. So right we went, and all seemed to be going well until we got to a dead end with the ocean on all sides.
"Well what do you suppose we should do now?" asked 'arry. "I think we're supposed to be over there," he pointed far, far across the water to a town on the other side. I couldn't make out a bridge anywhere in sight. I was pretty sure he was wrong, but I knew we were going to have to keep going over that last awful hill again, no matter what. We doubled back and just as we had begun running a pickup came along with a ZZ-Top look-alike inside. "Do you know 'ow to get back to Jamestown?" 'arry asked.
"Just follow the yellow brick road," said ZZ. Was that supposed to be cute? I MUST have been hypoxic, because I actually checked the color of the pavement. Yep, dark grey, just like I'd remembered it. "Go straight on until you hit the rotary, then bear right. That'll take you right back into town."
"I think 'e means for us to go back over that big 'ill again," 'arry told me. He was right. Over the hill and about 3/4 of a mile we were at another t-stop. Was this supposed to be a rotary? People will call anything a rotary around here. Well, at least ZZ top hadn't led us astray, and we found our way back to town in exactly 1 hour and 43 minutes. That's 9:11 minute miles. And may I remind you I ran 17 miles on Thursday. I felt... a bit like I was going to hurl.