In the mountains no one can hear you scream

Do any of you remember how during my taper for Boston I got a little bit overly ambitious on mapmyride.com? On all the Google maps there was this big, green chunk in upstate New York calling out to me, Claaaaaaire, come ride in me! Not one to ignore spooky voices in my head, when I saw that it was going to rain Sunday all over New England I looked at the weather report for upstate New York: Cloudy, but dry. Well that settled it.

I mapped out a loop through the Adirondacks starting in Lake George and winding up along Lake Champlain to Lake Placid. It worked out to be about 160 miles, but whatever, I was sure I could handle it. I would have no choice if I had to get back to my car, right? I mean, there were 3 lakes on my rout, and everyone knows that water settles to the lowest point in any given place. Therefore it would be flat, of course. I ignored the elevation profile, figuring that it would be fiiiiiiiiiiine. And if I got tired before I hit the required distance, too bad. I would still have to get back to my car no matter what. The idea was to go really, really long to make a quick jump to the next level in my cycling fitness anyway, so the more I wore myself down, the better.


Still, I thought it would be wise to keep the total distance of my rout to myself when I told people what my plans were. Diane, at work, reminded me that I would be in the middle of the woods with no one around. "And you know who hangs out in the woods...?" she said. Hikers? Tree huggers? Lumberjacks? Cute, fuzzy animals? I don't know... "Creeps!" she announced. "I don't think you should go."
When I told my parents where I was planning on going my mom asked if I would stay with her aunt who lives somewhere in upstate New York (and must be about a thousand years old). "It's just a 4-hour drive," I said. Driving back from CT at night doesn't bother her, but for some reason driving home from nature seemed like a really long way. My mom has really twisted logic sometimes.
"What if you get lost?" Dad said.
"I'm not going to get lost. There are only like 5 turns on the rout and they're like the ONLY roads there are out there. I can't get lost!" Still, I studied the map for days to make sure I knew where everything was.
"I just think it's a dumb idea," said Dad in his condescending, know-it-all voice that is tailor-made to make you feel stupid. Well that was it. Now I HAD to do it, just to prove that this was NOT a stupid idea, although doubts were creeping in... Not about whether I should do the driving all in one day. Not about creeps hiding in the woods dressed up as tree huggers or cute, fuzzy animals. I was beginning to wonder if 160 miles was really a good idea. And what if I had some mechanical problem? What if I got lost? What if I really got too tired to get back to my car? How's the cell phone reception out there?

The Prologue

So did I take it easy the day before? Don't be silly. I did a ride with the crew from the bike shop. I was the only girl, like I always am, but I held my own alright. We started out easy, and I was getting a little annoyed. What the fuck, I wasn't even pedaling. This wasn't even a workout. Then, as roadies will, they started surging. I still suck at drafting as much as I ever have, especially with a group of guys I don't know. I kept zoning out for a minute, finding myself a few lengths behind, and having to push to catch up. By mile 30 I was out of water, very hungry, and falling behind on the climbs.

The course was by no means hilly, but there were a lot of short rollers that my legs are still not used to after a whole winter on the trainer. They would pull ahead, I would drop back a bit, and then the King of the Bike Geeks (the one who sold me my bike) would put his hand on my back and start pushing. I hate it when people touch me. I really hate it when men touch me, but we're not going to get into that... Then he starts going on and on about how he hasn't trained all winter and he's really into the "death march" now. "Well, maybe you would have more energy if you didn't have to push my fat ass around," I said.
"You're not fat," he said. That wasn't the point. Quit touching me! THAT was the point.
Then we got to a longer, slower climb. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he hooked his fingertips on my spine and dragged me closer to him. There was nothing inappropriate about it, except that our handlebars were touching which made me nervous, but I couldn't get away because I couldn't surge forward (I didn't have the power), I couldn't go left (he was there), I couldn't go right (he had his fingers half way around my spine), and I couldn't drop back (his hand was there). He hung on and stayed there for what felt like an eternity. After the 55-ish mile ride and a stop in the shop to stock up on supplies for tomorrow I got home thoroughly drained and vowing to ride more hills so that no one would ever touch me again!

Like I said, faster in the middle.

The Adirondacks

The drive to Lake George is over 4 hours long, so I got up at 3:45 in order to hit the road early. To avoid toll roads my directions took me a weird rout through northern New Hampshire and Vermont, then through some backwater highways into the park. Driving on one of these rinky-dink 2-lane 55 mph scenic routs I came to Woodstock, VT. I drove by a police cruiser with its lights on. Then I saw that the speed limit had gone down to 25. Good thing I saw that, I thought as I dropped down to 25. The cop car pulled out. What the fuck? Was I getting pulled over?! I hadn’t even been speeding! I pulled into a parking lot and the cop came up behind me. I wasn’t mad or anything, because I KNEW that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was just a speed trap f’chrissake. They all get us some time, it was just my turn. It wasn’t worth getting mad over, but I was still glad that it was raining and she was the one that had to get out of the car, not me. “Do you know why I pulled you over?” she asked. She had puffy hair like only country people have. If you don’t get out of Woodstock, VT much, you might not know that puffy hair hasn’t been in fashion since the 80’s.
“Well, after I saw you I saw a sign that said 25 mph and slowed down,” I said. “Sorry, I’m not familiar with the area.” Stupid country towns, they have nowhere to pull in municipal dollars than to snag a city slicker every weekend. What other explanation was there for her being out here at 7am on a Sunday?
“Well it was the second sign,” she said. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but it still wouldn’t surprise me if she was waiting there at the first sign. “Do you know how fast you were going?”
“Like 50 or 55,” I said, honestly.
“52.” So I WASN’T SPEEDING! She wrote me a ticket saying I’d only been going 35, which was nice, because awful things happen if you’re going twice the speed limit, and I was on my way. I just shoved the ticket in my glove compartment and forgot about it. I was NOT going to let this ruin my day.

My directions were going fine until I came to a T-stop that was not on my directions. North or south? I chose north. If I was right, then great; if I was wrong, then it would cut distance off my ride. It turns out that I was wrong, and wound up cutting Lake George completely off my rout, but that’s okay. I have bad memories of a vacation there when I was in middle school. That vacation is a family joke to this day. It included fish in the toilet and bugs in the beds. I did not need to see Lake George again.

I parked at a Park and Ride, got my shit together, and got ready to go. The only thing I had left to do was find a bathroom. Across the street was this sign: (my birthday's coming up, anyone want to buy me a new camera?) and a flag that said “OPEN”. I had no idea what the sign might mean, but surely they had a bathroom. I went up the walk and found only two trailers and a truck sitting in the mud. The larger of the two trailers had wooden pallets lying in the mud to serve as a walkway. I went up the “walk” gingerly trying not to get my cleats stuck between the wood slats and opened the door. Inside it was set up just like a bakery, only it was a TRAILER. This guy had a whole bakery capable of making bread and pastries set up in a SOLAR POWERED TRAILER. Cool huh? But I had a feeling that his home wasn’t much more than the bakery itself and felt bad asking for a bathroom. “Umm, is that parking lot across the way for all day parking?” I asked instead. Country folk sure do live differently than I do...

It was cloudy and cool as I set out. Where I parked was in a low marshland just south of Lake Champlain, but the rollers didn’t waste one single second. What had looked like flat land on the elevation profile was actually a bunch of tiny, steep hills one after the other. The thought occurred to me, This is going to suck on the way back. But that didn’t register, not really.

After about an hour and a half I found myself climbing a long, steady hill the likes of which I hadn’t seen since Europe, not even in stupid Connecticut. I climbed and climbed and climbed for miles and miles. Sweat started to drip down my face. I was breathing hard and pedaling to the rhythm of my breathing. I sniffed and got sweat up my nose. It felt like I had sea water up my nose and I couldn't make it go away. It sure was beautiful up here, and I couldn’t remember the last time I climbed a real mountain. Next time, I swore, I was going to bring someone up here with me. This was too beautiful to be doing all by myself. The clouds were just overhead, caught on the tops of the mountains around me. I crested the hill and rode down in a tuck: pedals at 3 and 6, hands in the drops, nose practically resting on my handlebars. The wind howled in my ears and my naked eyes watered. I hit 45mph. I got to the bottom and realized I was grinning. Then, just as I pulled up to the T-stop at the bottom of the hill, the sun came out. I stopped to take a couple of pictures, and when a cop stopped and looked at me I smiled and gave him the thumbs up to show that I was holding my phone up to take pictures, not to get reception. Then I rode off. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy.

I stopped and bought batteries for my real camera (I’d checked them last night, but when I took it out this morning they were dead, go figure) and pedaled down the road through tiny little towns with signs that said “Have a safe trip!” as you left, then miles upon miles of nothing. I followed signs for Lake Placid, and was surprised to see that it would only be 50 miles exactly from where I parked.

Then I hit another hill. This one was longer with a few long, steep grades broken up with mellower uphill stretches. The highway followed the river, so the scenery was spectacular with the swollen river roaring away below and the towering mountains to either side of me. I was in such a good mood, that the tone in my head really was as cheezy as the tone in which I’m writing.

Grade vs. Distance for the major uphill chunks on the

way out. I have trouble making sense of these graphs, but
basically anything above the line is uphill. The higher
above the midline it is, the steeper the grade.
Any big colored-in chunk is a long climb.

I turned a corner and sticking out waaay above the trees were the Olympic ski jumping slopes. Hoool-ly SHIT, you guys! Have I mentioned that I’m afraid of heights? Those things were SO tall, and the slopes were so steep and narrow. Ski jumpers must be the most fearless and stupid motherfuckers on this earth!

I knew I was getting close to Lake Placid because kitted-out cyclists were zooming down the road in the other direction huddled low on their aero bars. No one dresses that geeky for a training ride except ironmen. Folks, remind me NEVER TO SIGN UP FOR IRONMAN LAKE PLACID! I know the thought’s going to cross my mind someday, so I’m counting on you all to talk me out of it. That bike course goes up the hill I just described TWICE. FUCK THAT!

I got into the town of Lake Placid around 1 o’clock. What a change from the hick towns I’d been riding through! Everything, but everything had Olympic rings on the side of it and a half dozen flags in front of it, and every store was a bike shop, ski shop, running shop, or clothing shop that would only appeal to athletes (i.e. Life is Good TM). I sat on a bench overlooking the lake sat on a bench to eat a Lära bar. I wasn’t really hungry or tired, so I just bought 2 liters of Gatorade and hit the road again.

Like I said, anyone wanna buy me a new camera?

Coming out of town there was this enormous grade that had me redlining to the top. Once I crested it the most horrible heartburn set in. It felt like I was either having a heart attack or being stabbed in the chest. What happened?! I’d been eating out of the bag of shot blocks, papaya chunks, and candy orange slices in my bento box all day without a problem. I’d had Accelerade in my camelbak all day. But now, every time I put food in my mouth, my chest would ache and burn every time my heartrate went up. I swear, I will never, ever drink Gatorade again for as long as I live. Gatorade makes you have a heart attack.

There was one long-ish grade back to the top of the mountain, and when I rode over it my chest felt AWFUL. I remember thinking, I will never do IMLP because it gives you a miochartial infarction! Some of you who have been with me for awhile might remember that when I’m riding alone, I make noise. I’ll scream and yell and swear and talk to the wind or terrain or cars or whatever, because no one’s around to think I’m nuts. So as my chest ached and burned I screamed and moaned and groaned and yelled and swore out loud, at the top of my lungs when it got bad.

After the shorter, steep climbs out of Lake Placid, I got to ride back down the monster mountain. I practiced my tucking again as I flew down the mountain at a million, billion miles per hour. I experimented with holding my hands on the centers of the handlebars like the pros do instead of the drops. It didn’t feel any faster to me, and it made it harder to steer and took my hands away from the brakes. Still, I looked cool, so now that my confidence was up, I rode like this more and more... when folding up like that didn’t make me feel like I was taking a hot knife to the chest, that is. What the hell, I NEVER get heartburn!

When I got to the bottom of the hill my directions had me turning left, while I had come from the right before. Remember, I was not parked where I’d expected to park when I wrote out the rout, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I decided to follow the rout and set off into the unknown to my right. Oh my god, I was going S L O W. I was on my little chain ring and still couldn’t squeeze the power out of my legs. I knew I had to keep eating, but that gave me more heart attacks, which made me yell and scream more. What’s more, I wasn’t 100% sure of my directions. I was supposed to be following Rte 9, rather than 9N, which I’d taken to get up here, but you know how these country roads are: sometimes they take one name, and you don’t see the other name until they split apart miles later. And I had no idea what direction the road I was on went in. For all I knew it went all the way up to Canada. I’d tried to print up a map, but for some reason Google maps doesn’t like to print. After about 5 miles of doubt, I stopped, ate another bar, and turned back. Oh my God, all this time I’d thought I’d been on a flat, when I was really going up! I coasted easily back up the road from whence I had come into... a gnarley headwind! I swear, this headwind was not here when I came up this way! I don’t know how fast it was blowing, but there are headwinds you can deal with, and then there are what-the-fuck headwinds. This was a what-the-fuck headwind. I was around 80 miles now, getting VERY tired, having heart attacks every few minutes, and this was NOT what I needed right now. Certainly not with the hill I had in front of me. I remembered myself grinning as I’d blown down it this morning, and wished I could have gone back in time and slapped that stupid grin off my own face and screamed, “You DO realize you have to go UP that thing again, you fucking idiot!”
I thought that at least when I turned the corner and went into the mountains the headwind might go away. I was wrong, it was a dead-on what-the-fuck gale and I was riding right into it. Actually, I wound up going so slow that I was kind of thankful that it cooled my face, but still I did despair for a minute or two. Before I started climbing I took a second to regroup. There was no sense in feeling sorry for myself. I just had to suck it up and climb it and that was that. As I started climbing in my easiest gear and heaving for air I just repeated over and over to myself. “Just - get – o – ver – it.” The mantra helped. I switched back and forth between thinking it meant, “Quit complaining and harden the fuck up,” or “Don’t think, just climb.” Every once in awhile I would remind myself, “The-hill-DOES-end. Just-get-o-ver-it.” And I got over it without cracking... for now. As a reward I got another flying descent for several miles.

Just use it for background music for the following section.

But I’d used up everything I had mentally on that hill. I’d told myself I had to “Just get over it,” the “just” meaning “and then that’s it.” But that wasn’t it. I still had some 30 miles to go over rolling terrain. I hadn’t eaten in awhile, so my heart attacks had calmed down, but the what-the-fuck headwinds were just as bad here as they had been in the valley. The trees still didn't have any leaves and there wasn't so much as a plastic bag skittering across the street to give me an indication of how hard the wind was blowing. That really bothered me for some reason. If the wind is really blowing and I can SEE something flapping away, then it seems to validate me. But if there are no weeds, leaves, flags, or papers lying around to be blown in the wind it feels like it's all in my head. If it was all in my head, then that meant that I really was riding only about 10 mph on my little chainring on flat ground. No matter how you sliced it, I felt weak. I kept telling myself that it was good to get the slow rides out in training when you're all by yourself. Telling myself that worked for a few minutes, but I knew I was full of shit.

For some reason I felt like I had something to prove in this workout. It wasn't just all the people who told me I shouldn't do it that I had to prove something to, I was also competing against people who probably have no idea that I've been doing my homework on them. I've admitted that I chase Bob-O's times, but I had other people in my that I wanted to prove something to. Not that I wanted to get in these individuals' faces, I just wanted to post some speedy fast times, and maybe even lie and say "it felt easy." I looked down at my wrist. I'd only gone about 95 miles and 6 hours had come and gone, I think I'd actually passed the 6 1/2 hour mark at that point. What had held me together for miles were thoughts like, If I can just push a little harder I might be able to hit 112 miles in under 6:30. When that one went it was, Push a little harder and you can get a century in in under 6:30. When 6:30 came and went I briefly fixated on getting 112 miles in in under 7 hours. When I saw that that was not going to happen, I cracked.

The other thing spinning around in my mind was that one of the ideas behind this ride was to go over 112 miles, so mentally the distance would seem smaller. I wanted to teach both my mind to push past 112 miles, so that when staring down the barrel of a marathon, I wouldn't feel like I'd already put one max effort into my legs so far today. When I first turned back from Lake Placid I had planned to ride past my car the remaining 10 miles down to Lake George. Then, forever and ever for the rest of my life I could tell myself, "This is nothing, I've ridden 130 miles over mountains before." When the headwinds began, I told myself that I could choose between riding extra and a run-off. When seven hours came and went, like I said, I cracked, lost it, gave up. I spun in whatever gear offered the least resistance, sat up into the headwind, and gave up on the idea of running when I got back to the car.

My legs still actually felt okay. I wasn't sore and the thought never crossed my mind to walk my bike. I wasn't even really hungry. Mentally, though, I was cooked. The last 30 miles had been such a fight, and if I'd felt this bad going 112 miles, then how was I ever going to run after this, let alone run a marathon?! And still fresh in my mind was what a marathon felt like on FRESH legs, and despite doing all the training how it still hurt like hell. It really hit me then: What the fuck have I gotten myself into?! I was scared, but most of all I was disappointed in myself. I've never been fast or talented, but the one thing that I've always prided myself on was endurance, stubbornly barging on where every good reason said that I should quit. If I ever felt again the way that I felt at that very second, I knew I'd quit. It wasn't even that my body was that tired, I just... CRACKED.

I hadn't been quiet all afternoon, but my grunts and moans and screams had just been visceral reactions to how I was feeling. Now I started using words. "Just lighten the fuck up, would you!" I yelled at the wind. I came over a ridge and saw another hill ahead and moaned, "Nooooooooooo." In Spain I could yell "FUCK" when I dropped something, was startled, or hit my head, and even though people would look at me funny and everyone knew what it meant, it didn't really matter because it wasn't their language. I came to the bottom of an incline that was among the steepest of the day (around 15%) and yelled, "FUUUUUCK!" at the top of my lungs. I think some of the townspeople heard me. I think that in an English-speaking country, that might matter. A few minutes later I pushed up another hill and caught myself thinking, Maybe that was the last one. Don't you ever fucking think that, I said out loud. Because it's NEVER the last one. When the next hill rolled around, because there was no one around to see me, I started crying. There were no tears, it was the kind of crying spoiled kids do to get attention when they want out of wherever they are. I just wanted someone to swoop in and get me out of here. This is as close to a religeous experience as I get: Wishing I believed in God so I had someone to beg to get me out of here. And when I finally reached my car, I wasn't relieved, but angry. I felt like when someone's really late picking you up from the airport after a long flight, all you want to do is bitch somebody out.

Final stats:
Distance: 114.71 miles
Time: 7:17:40
Average speed: 15.7 mph
Total elevation gain: 9,335 ft

I packed my stuff into the car, took a short walk to clean out my legs, and started driving. I stopped at the first gas station I saw and bought some pretzels and peanuts even though I was still having chest pains. Maybe it was my heart breaking, maybe that's what it was. I peed for the first time since I left in the morning, and surprisingly it was mostly clear. God knows how that happened. Then I got in the car and made my way back to the highway. I doubled back over the road I had just ridden. I wasn't really thinking about much of anything. I was exhausted and numb. I felt like I'd gone somewhere emotionally that I'd only been once or twice before. Suddenly, out of nowhere I started sobbing. I don't know why, I wasn't sad in the least. I've heard of people who have cried after massages or after doing a max lift. I didn't feel much of anything, it just felt good to release it. It was like watching a good tear-jerker when you're in the right mood. So I drove and cried as I pulled onto the interstate back home.

I'd been driving for about an hour when I passed a sign that said something like, "Pittsburgh 42 miles, Montreal 135 miles." That's funny, I thought, those two cities aren't in the same direction. Then, at the next exit I passed, it didn't just say "EXIT 35", it said "EXIT/SORTIE". Oh shit! That's French! I'm headed towards Canada, and getting close by the looks of it! I snapped out of my self-indulgent funk and pulled off at the next exit. I swear I was paying attention when I got on the highway. It's just, they have the little "North" and "South" signs in such little type, and they both end in TH, have the same number of letters, and have an O in the middle. EaST and weST have similar problems. It's just my opinion, but they should either fix the signs, or fix the English language. Now I had to drive another hour just to get back to where I started, and with gas prices the way they are... Well it doesn't pay to cry and drive.

On the way back they had the big marquis flashing, PREPARE TO STOP AHEAD. I wonder why? I thought. Road work? An accident? When the cars started to slow down I was stupefied to see US border control agents. I had gone through border patrol checkpoints in California, Arizona, and Texas where they asked you questions and peered suspiciously through your car, but in New York? Were there really people sneaking Canadians through the border hidden under tarps in the back seat?

The best part of the day? Stinky Business Septic Pumping and Diner at mile 30. No kidding: diner and pooper services in the same building. The trucks simply said "Stinky" on the front.

I don't really have a conclusion to my tale. I'm not sore in the least. I wasn't ravenously hungry afterwards. I have been very sleepy, but that is probably because I got home way past my bedtime. I'm just a little, well, disappointed. So does anyone want to come with me next time? I promise, I'll do my best not to get too cranky when I get tired.

I'm too sexxxy for my...

...pants!
So sexxxy it hurts

New post coming soon... and I promise, there'll be no half-neked pictures of me this time.

Boston: It never stops hurting

The Day Before

This bandit thing was going to be a real pain in my ass, I could tell. If it was hard to get all the details of what to pack right for a marathon where I was registered, it was going to be even harder to coordinate a point-to-point race where I couldn’t depend on any of the resources provided by the race, nor park at the start or finish. No dropping a bag, no counting on gels or Gatorade along the course. No post-race showers or pre-race busses. So Sunday morning, after a quick 2 mile run with some accelerations, I went into Boston early to drop off a backpack with a change of clothes in my office. My office is across town from the finish, but it was better than nothing. Then I went down to where the Olympic trials were supposed to be going on. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. The map on the USATF web site didn’t have any landmarks labeled or anything, so I just looked at a google map, compared it to the course map, and made my way to the Esplanade next to the Charles river. I could see people running, but they were your regular garden variety slowpokes, not Olympic-caliber precision machines, so I wandered away from the river to the Boston Common.

There were runners EVERYWHERE with their red race pack bags complete with BAA Boston Marathon logos. They were also, inexplicably, all dressed up to run. Tell me, why in the world someone would need to wear a running cap, tech-t-shirt and running tights on the one day of the year that they are almost certainly NOT going for a serious run? I thought for sure that I must be near the expo since every single individual I saw was dressed thus, or already in this year’s supersexxxy jacket, with a race packet slung over their shoulder. How wrong I was, I was miles from the expo. The city of Boston was just overrun with runners. While I sat around on the common drinking juice and waiting for Cranky to turn up I watched jacket after jacket parade by on snooty-looking backs. “¿Qué son esas chaquetas que tiene todo el mundo?” (What are those jackets that everyone has?) Asked a homeless guy to the drug dealer sitting next to him.
“Hay una maratón mañana, ese, una maratón.” (There's a marathon tomorrow, dude, a marathon.
“¿Maratón? ¿Qué es eso?” (Marathon? What's that?)
“Una carrera. No sé.” (Some kind of race. I don't know.)
Even the streetrats had to sit up and take note of the army of snooty runners in their awe-inspiring supersexxxy jackets. It was as if there were tens of thousands of skinny people parading around with signs that said, “I run marathons and I do it faster than you.” I couldn’t believe how tacky it was to be wearing the jacket around the day before the race. If they could break Race Commandment No.1: Thou Shalt Not Wear the Merchandise from a Race that Thou Hast Not Finished Yet, I was thinking it wasn’t so bad to break the 14 millionth commandment: Thou Shalt Not Pay for the Merchandise for a Race for which Thou Didst Not Qualify. I had to have one of those jackets. They were so sexy.

Eventually Cranky and I found each other and he saved me from having to hang out with the abjectly poor and the mentally unstable any longer. We were both brimming with energy and decided to walk to the expo instead of taking the train, even though I joked that every extra block we walked today would probably add an hour to our time tomorrow.

“This is going to be the biggest convention of sharky running geeks in the world,” Cranky told me as we walked into the foyer. Before braving the expo we went to the bathroom. In line I scoped out all the other women. There were a few wives, but mostly it was women with that “runner’s look” about them wearing t-shirts from other marathons and utilitarian ponytails with slick-looking sport watches that looked like they could collect more data than the Space Station. When I came out I complained to Cranky, “Everyone in there’s wearing a marathon t-shirt. Like they’re the only one in this room who’s done a marathon before! I mean, duh, you have to run a marathon to qualify!” These people thought they were so cool. Well, I wanted to make a point of letting someone know that I didn’t think they were all that. I could qualify, I swear, I just don't feel like it.

Cranky picked up his packet and while they were checking his papers and driver’s license with a far more critical eye than anyone ever looked at my fake ID in college, I wondered how easy it would be to just reach into the box and pull out someone else’s number. To avoid temptation I let my gaze wander off and I saw a woman who must have been about 60 who had the most bangin’ body in the room! Her biceps were more well-defined than Cranky’s (who has some fabulous biceps, by the way)! I hated her. Put on a jacket, you showoff! I thought. Then we went into the expo. The first thing we found were racks upon racks upon racks of official BAA gear: singlets, shorts, hats, sweatshirts, water bottles, wet bags, and sweatshirts with dozens and dozens of runners practically climbing on top of each other, all searching for the same size, which had sold out hours ago. Just for your reference: every man in the Boston Marathon wears a men’s medium. If you ever go, show up early for your sexy, snooty gear. There were no jackets at all in the women’s section, and we couldn’t find a jacket that would fit me on the men’s side, so I sullenly bought a top with a mesh strip down the back. It was sexy, but not nearly as sexy as the jackets.

We made our way around the cramped expo, brushing past booths to avoid the crowds. After all Cranky’s tooling on expo whores, he didn’t pause for a second before snatching a sample shot of Gatorade Endurance Formula or peeling his free cold/hot pack out of its package. “Look! It goes in the freezer!” he gushed, holding out the bag of blue goo towards me. We saw a LiveStrong booth and elbowed our way near it to see if Lancey Pants was there. (For someone who lives in New York, Cranky’s a surprising celebrity whore too). “Is that...?! No, it’s not,” he gasped. We walked away joking about how we should pretend to be snooty Europeans and go up to the booth saying, “You are not zee Lance Arm Strong. I spit at you. Puh! (spitting noise).”
There was a table of famous athletes giving a Q&A to runners in one corner. I heard a voice I thought I recognized. “Cranky, is that Ryan Hall?” I asked.
“I don’t know, let’s go look,” he said. We looked at their name tags. It was definitely NOT Ryan Hall. The two names that we saw were Tim DeBoom and Peter Reid.
“THAT’S what Tim DeBoom looks like?! THAT’S Peter Reid?!” I said. These are guys that have been in triathlon for centuries. They’re practically dinosaurs of the sport. Every time you hear about them, you hear about how they’re “getting up there” and how it’s time for the “new generation to step forward.” These guys didn’t look like seasoned veterans with decades of sun damage. Peter Reid looked like the quiet kid who inexplicably joins the army after graduation despite good grades and family money. Tim DeBoom looked like someone who might have been a couple years ahead of me in high school, the kind of guy that everyone knows which girl he took to the prom. I felt old.

We were ready to leave, thoroughly disappointed and disgusted with the expo when we stumbled on a whole other room while trying to exit. There to one side was a whole slu of official BAA merchandise, including JACKETS, and dozens upon dozens of picnic tables manned by helpful volunteers there to sell you the perfect singlet, key ring, baby tee, jacket, or whatever your heart desired... as long as it was in the 2 sizes they had left: Men’s medium (ironically), or extra small. The way I see it, if they wanted only the athletes to wear them, they wouldn't sell them at the expo. And there was nothing dignified about the way that runners, nay customers were crawling all over each other to buy them. I didn’t even take the time to tell Cranky where I was going as I danced up to the picnic tables. “How big is an extra small?” I asked to the first guy whose attention I could get.
“It’s smaller than a small,” he said, rather grouchily.
Thanks a lot dipshit. “Ummmm, well, can I see one?” I asked.
“You want to try one on?” he grumbled, slightly sarcastically.
No, I just want to see it from a distance folded up in a plastic bag. “Well, yeah...” So he stomped off to the back and came back out with a shiny, new Boston Marathon jacket. I slipped it on and zipped it up. The zipper came apart at the bottom. Cranky, who had figured out that I wasn’t behind him and had come back to look for me said, “Uh oh.”
“You broke it!” accused Mr. Personality (credit goes to Cranky for the name).
“I didn’t mean to!” I said.
“Well, do you want it?” asked Mr. Personality, like he was in such a hurry to sell the remaining men's mediums to someone else. I turned to Cranky and asked how I looked. Other than a collar that looked a tad Elizabethan, it fit. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
“Did you want one with a ZIPPER?” he asked, like I was stupid enough to take the one on my back right then. I had kind of assumed he would switch it out anyway.
Cranky made a point of finding a different person to buy his blue and white BAA singlet from, and we finally went back out to the real world Boston toting our red bags that indicated that we, too were among the cool kids.

We spent the rest of the day watching the legions of blue and black jackets parading around the city and talking about marathons: our own experiences and those of others. We agreed that the long run is way more important than the deadlift for marathon success. We agreed that Mindy was an important asset to have in your corner for a marathon. We agreed that he should make sure he can swim more than 50 yards before he attempts a half ironman. And we agreed that we were MUCH cooler than pretty much everyone else in the world, ESPECIALLY those snobs in the jackets. We agreed that the jackets were sexy. Finally, we parted ways and I went home for a bland dinner and a good night’s rest.

The Morning Of

I woke up at 5:00 to begin my pre-race ritual: eat breakfast, figure out how to get to the race, pee as many times as possible, forget half my stuff and have to run back into the house a dozen times, etc. My dad works over near Hopkinton, so he offered to drive me to the start. I followed Mary’s (aka Iron Matron) advice and got an early start to avoid road closures. Dad and I were worried about finding the right place, but when we pulled onto the highway and saw the caravan of yellow schoolbusses stretching as far as the eye could see, we stopped worrying. Dad was amazed. He’d never thought of the logistics of transporting 25,000 people from one place to another. We peered into the busses at the slumbering runners. “Those are some of the best amature marathon runners in the world,” I said to dad.

He looked into the next bus we passed. “They don’t LOOK that special,” he said. Maybe because not many of them were wearing The Jacket.

Traffic crawled up to the exit for Hopkinton and then kept going. Cops had already closed down the exit ramp. By this point my back teeth were swimming and I was ready to jump out and squat in the bushes. Apparently some of the runners on the hour and 45 minute bus trips had the same idea. The lucky ones just had to chase down their busses when they were done. The unlucky ones got warnings from cops. One guy refused to tie it off when the cop warned him, and while he watered the trees, a cop stood behind him writing him a ticket.

Meanwhile, dad and I had pulled off the highway. Cops were standing at the exit ramp directing all cars back onto the highway, screaming at everyone. “Keep MOVING, sir! You can’t stop there! Let the runners out and MOVE ALONG! NO, YOU CAN’T GO DOWN THERE! MOOOVE!” I jumped out of the car as fast as I could and they had me wait at the corner with several other runners until they could flag down a bus to bring us to the start. This experience with the Nazi cops marked the beginning of a trend for the rest of the day: I would actually be less in the way if I went with the flow rather than trying to avoid the amenities intended for those who paid for them. I rode the final mile or two in style in a private coach next to a man from Chicago with coffe breath.

I was running late to meet Cranky, but I had some business to attend to. I found a porta-potty line only about 5 people deep, and did the peepee dance the whole time I was waiting. Women all around me were name-dropping marathons, and I would have given anything to get into the little blue cubicle to get away from them, but of course, the guy in front of me had to poo, and my line ground to a halt. These things ALWAYS happen to me!

When I finally tracked down Cranky at the designated meeting place (albeit a little later than expected), he told me that the "athletes' village" had absolutely no security, so we decided to set up camp in there. The Athletes' Village looked more like a refugee camp than anything else with acres and acres of runners who had staked out their two square yards of space and were lying around, some with pillows and blankets, others nervously stretching. Cranky and I spread out on his Mickey Mouse poncho and settled into some nervous chatter about the race and how much better we were than everyone else here. If security was going to be this loose, maybe I could get in with the first wave and get this thing over with just that much faster.

When they started calling the blue (qualified) bibs to the corals, I went with Cranky, but we parted ways as I got in line to take my third and final potty stop before the race. Hundreds of other runners had the same idea, and although there must have been at least 50 porta-potties in the lot, the lines stretched 20 or 30 people deep. One guy disappeared behind the line of blue huts to relieve himself, closely followed by a cop. I didn't hear what came of it, but a few minutes later I heard one volunteer say to another, (put on your best Boston accent) "Make shuwah that theyuh goin' IN the porta-potties. The cops aah ready to arrest people." I waited my turn, finished my business and wandered off to scope out the corals.

The corals stretched for several blocks and were separated into 15 sections, each with a rope to separate it from the sections to the front and back of it. Volunteers were standing at a break in the gates checking numbers at each coral. Damn. I spotted another guy standing around with his iPhone on his arm, a Red Sox cotton tee, basketball shorts, and street shoes. "Are you a bandit too?" I asked. He was, and this was his fifth marathon: 4 at Boston and one in New York, and he hadn't paid for a single one of them.
"You just have to wait till things get a little hectic, then slip in when they're looking at someone else. Try to stay towards the back, because the farther forward you go, the more security there is." Well that made sense. We were casing coral #14 when the volunteer manning it said, "Do you work for UPS?" I was startled when I realized he was talking to me. I was wearing my UPS sweatshirt with 3 weeks of breakfast dribbled down the front. Damn, and I'd thought I was invisible. Nick (the other bandit) and I quickly moved a couple of corals up to test our luck there. Suddenly, the sun came out.
Then the announcer said, "For those of you who are coming from the bathrooms, we are starting in just a couple of minutes. Please make your way to the nearest coral." And then all hell broke loose. Dozens of runners crowded into the all the small breaks in the gates, and Nick and I mixed ourselves among them. I had just passed the second volunteer and was still standing next to them when a runner said to me, "You're going to roast in that sweatshirt."
I stole a quick glance at the volunteer to either side of me to make sure they hadn't overheard. If I took off my sweatshirt, it would be obvious that I didn't have a number. "Uhhhh, it's okay, I'll throw it out once I start running," I said, and shuffled myself farther away from him in the crowd. Then, far off up ahead the race started to move. I took off my sweatshirt and flung it to the edge, hitting a girl in the face in the process. Lickity-split we were moving, running before we even crossed the line.

The Boston Marathon

Right from the very start there were spectators. Families stood in their driveways holding out orange slices and cheering. I let Fellow Bandit Nick go on ahead and settled into my own pace. Immediately people started passing me. We passed a biker bar with dozens of ZZ Top look-alikes standing by with cigarettes and Budweisers in hand.

By mile 3 the crowd had thinned out around me, and the spectators had thickened up. Any man who hadn't peed by the side of the road yet would have to use a porta-potty from here on out. I fell into step with a mother of 4-month-old twins who had qualified just before getting pregnant. That's the only person I could find running my pace: a woman who'd just come off 2 months of bedrest followed by childbirth. We ran together for several miles, but eventually I had to let her go too. We passed Fellow Bandit Nick around mile 5, already walking. His basketball shoes were not cutting it, he said. By mile 7 I could already feel blisters starting to form in their usual place along my insteps and on my big toe. "These blisters are really going to suck when they come of age in about 10 miles," I told Becky, Mother of Twins.

I let Becky, Mother of Twins go around mile 8 and continued on by myself for awhile. The crowds were tireless, cheering for everybody they could, calling out the names that were written on arms, countries of flags printed on shorts, or names of charities printed on uniforms. It took me forever to figure out that when they were yelling "GO 2008!" they were talking about me! I was wearing my Martha's Vineyard "No Weenies" t-shirt that says 2008 in big green letters on the front. Later in the race a guy would come up behind me. “I’ve been trying to read your shirt. Does it say ‘No Weenies’? That could be taken a couple of ways...” Thanks a lot, Einstein. I couldn’t think of anything clever and sarcastic to say so I just ignored him.

I finished the first 3k in 26:45, about on par with a tempo run, maybe a little bit faster. I crossed the 10k mark at 54:12. I made it to 15k in 1:22:27, just 1:33 over my PR for that distance. That’s okay. You say poor pacing, I say knowing my limitations and taking advantage of them. I already knew that Boston was famously treacherous for being downhill for the first 7 miles or so. People tend to go too fast at the beginning and ruin their legs for the second half of the race. My rationale was that no matter what happened I would lose any say in my pace around mile 20, so it was just a question of getting to 20 miles as fast as possible, and then hang on at whatever pace my body chose for me. By the time I got to mile 12 I was beginning to feel a bit tired, and I was dismayed. I was focused on the 14 miles ahead of me, not the 12 behind me. The miles were ticking away quickly and I guess it just didn’t register that I’d already been running for about 2 hours. I crossed the half marathon point in just under 2 hours, only about a minute off my PR and my butt was cramping up a bit. The downhills had ended, and now we were climbing over rollers. I was running low on liquids, and I was being passed by pink numbers (unqualified runners) from the second wave now. Although temperatures were only in the high 50's, it was about 20 degrees warmer than any temperature I had trained in and I'd had very few opportunities to train in the sun. I was hot. I was also suffering from cramps: not exercise cramps, the other kind of girl cramps. This was the beginning of the end that would last for the rest of the race. I guess 2 hours is where long runs usually catch up to me, but that didn’t register, like I said, I knew I still had a long way to go and let myself get down about it.

Then I hit Wellesley. Here are the things I’d heard about Wellesley College:
~ “You can hear it before you can see it.”
~ “God bless the Wellesley girls.”
~ “I’m sure that no one can talk on the Wellesley campus for weeks after all that screaming.”
In the depths of my self-doubt I started to hear a dull roar coming from over a ridge. Then it got louder. It sounded like a fucking rock concert. When I crested the hill and saw the old buildings and the sign for Wellesley College I knew that this was it. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Half a mile of 18- and 19-year-old girls leaning over the barricades, holding signs like “Free Kisses”, “I Love Runners” and “Hug me, I'm a Wellesley girl” were holding their hands out and screaming their fucking heads off. It was the most thrilling thing that I’ve ever done in my life. I stuck out my hand and had a full minute of high 5’s before I pulled my hand back for a second. Then I stuck it out again and got another minute of high 5's. I wouldn’t be surprised if that stretch was the fastest I ran in the whole race.

Elevation profile. The range goes from about 500' to 0' above sea level

The Wellesley high carried me through mile 14, but by mile 15, going into Newton I was feeling pretty crappy again. The course was really undulating, the weather was getting hotter, and my water bottle was empty. Up ahead, though, I knew I was going to see Mary (Iron Matron) and Tetas.

Mary had said that she would be waiting on the right side of the road around a playground at mile 16. Part way through mile 15 I saw a playground coming up and moved right to find her. And there she was, right where she said she would be, staring up the road behind me. I called out her name, but she didn’t hear me and kept cheering on the runners behind me. Who cared about them, I was here! I stopped right next to her and practically knocked her over trying to get her attention. “You’re early!” she exclaimed, once she figured out who this nut case was that was attacking her.
The thought crossed my mind to lie and say I was surprised, I didn’t know how fast I could actually run. “I left in the earlier group,” I admitted. I met one of the three Mini Marys while the Iron Matron filled up my bottle with sweet, cold Gatorade.
“How are you feeling?” she asked. I let loose with my laundry list of aches and pains: cramps in my butt, cramps in my abdomen, blisters... Then she wished me well and I ran off. I downed about ¾ of the Gatorade in the next ¾ of a mile. I was already starting to feel human again before I found Tetas standing in front of her office building. “TETAS!” I yelled at the top of my lungs (I didn’t want to give her a heart attack like Mary.)
I dumped out the last few ounces of Gatorade to make room for the Accelerade that Tetas was holding for me, and flicked my wrist a little overzelously, spraying a spectator sitting on the curb. Oops, my mistake. Then we loaded me back up with Shot Blocks.
“Oh my God. You just ran 16 miles!” Tetas gushed.
“Oh my God, I’ve still got 10 to go!” I groaned as I shoved the blocks back in my pocket and got ready to go.
“Go Claire!!!!” she screamed after me.
“GO ME!!!!!!!” I yelled back, and pranced off feeling significantly better.

Tessa’s comment made me realize that I really HAD run a long way already, and it was okay that I was feeling a little bit beat up. I managed to hold on to that thought through the first half of mile 18. By this point I was dumping every cup of water that I could find over my head, and I’d drained most of my accelerade and refilled on water from a helpful family that wanted to keep pouring even after I was full. By mile 19 I decided to eat every mile rather than every other mile. I was starting to get tired, and this was a desperate stab at staving off the inevitable death march. Just 2 miles to heartbreak hill, I told myself. You WILL run over heartbreak hill, and then you’ll get 2 miles of downhill, then you’ll get 2 miles of flat, then you’ll be done. Just 7 miles left. Crap, that was a mistake. Seven miles felt like an awfully long way. Just get over heartbreak hill, I repeated over and over again.

In the beginning of mile 20 I hit heartbreak hill, a little earlier than expected. I was actually a little crushed it was so early, since that meant that there was just that much more to talk myself through afterwards. YOU WILL RUN UP HEARTBREAK HILL! I told myself. Things I’d heard about heartbreak hill:
~It’s not that bad.
The surprise: Heartbreak hill is NOT THAT BAD! Actually, after so much downhill running, it actually felt good to be running uphill. My legs felt fresher than they had for miles. I did stop once on Heartbreak Hill to slug back a dixie cup of water, and then I looked down at my Garmin (something I never do). I was only holding 11-minute miles. This will not do! So I tried to pick it up. I pushed over the top of heartbreak hill with a horrible, stabbing pain in my back somewhere between my shoulderblade and my kidney. I must have pulled something in my back heaving for air, and it was sore for the rest of the race, but on top of all the other stuff that was hurting, it hardly seemed to matter.

Okay, 2 miles of downhill, then 2 miles of flat, I told myself. I looked down at my garmin again. I was still going slower than a 10-minute mile, even on the downhill. My body had chosen its finishing pace and there was nothing I could do about it. I kept surging and then looking down at my wrist, sure that I was going at a 9-minute pace this time. Nope, 10:15, 10:34, 11:04, 10:46... So the deathmarch had begun.

Fastest miles: miles 2 and 4 at 8:28, slowest miles: 17 (10:54), 22 and 24 (10:38), and 25 (10:37)

I hit mile 23 and started repeating to myself, Just keep it together for 3 more miles, Claire. And then, Just keep it together for two and a half more miles... Each mile lasted a lifetime. The crowds had thickened and we were running next to the train tracks at this point. We must have already been in Boston. More and more spectators were holding cups, but fewer and fewer of those cups were intended for the runners, more and more were filled with beer. The signs didn’t just say, “Go Uncle Dan!” and “Suzy you’re my hero!” anymore. There were other signs too: “Run with Jesus”, “You’re Crazy!”, and “Better You Then Me!” I wanted to stop and point out the error on the Better You Then Me poster. I wanted to tell her that her sign meant that she was going to follow me to the finish line and that I hope she suffered just as much as I did until then. But I’d already run away by the time I’d thought of something clever to say.

At mile 24 the blister on my left instep popped. I had completely forgotten about my blisters until my foot started to sting. That gave me something to think about for a couple of minutes before I settled back into Keeping It Together for 2 More Miles. We could see the iconic Citgo sign at Fenway Park looming overhead and all the spectators had either just come out of, or were on their way into all the clubs on Landsdown Street. Some were offering free beer. The crowds were getting old, I just wanted peace and quite for a minute so I could concentrate. Just hold it together for a mile and a half, Claire. Around that time I started to hear people calling out my name. I kept hearing people scream, “GO CLAIRE!!!!!” but my name rhymes with everything, so I thought nothing of it. Still, I pretended it was me they were cheering for. Unbeknownst to me, my mom was standing somewhere in there. She didn’t recognize me. She was looking for a ponytail and I was wearing braids. She wasn’t expecting sunglasses (because I never run with sunglasses... at night). Later she would remember me going by, but figured it wasn’t me. The reason she remembered this me-look-alike with braids and sunglasses (me) was because right behind her was a girl with CLAIRE written down her arms. I never saw Claire pass me, so I probably beat her. Serves her right, bitch.

Actually, I was still being passed consistently on all sides. I was passed by a steady stream of people for 26.2 miles and the only people I passed were the pukers and the crampers. I passed the 1-mile-to-go mark and looked at my Garmin: 25.5 miles and just over 4 hours. Shit. I was going to have to run an extra .3 miles! I tried to pick it up for the last mile, but there was nothing I could do to speed up. I was running as hard as I could and still hovering around a 10:00 mile. We were running down Commonwealth Ave and dipped down to go under an underpass and I got a sweet 30 seconds of relative quiet, at the price of the uphill out of the tunnel.

I was checking my wrist every tenth of a mile and clocking in at 25.8 miles when I heard someone yell, “Just around this corner and the finish line’s right there!” FINALLY! I turned the corner, and then another, and there, about 400 yards in front of me was the finish line! As I sprinted at a blistering 9:45/mile pace past the grandstands I was sure that this was the marathon where I was going to cry. I was definitely going to cry for joy. All that training, all that running in the cold, all that... everything... I crossed the finish line in 4:13:49, with more than a minute cushion on my 4:15 goal!

After the Marathon

I did not cry. There was no time for that. There were no catchers at the finish line, and you had no choice but to dive head first into the sea of dazed and confused runners. It was all I could do to stay upright, and negotiating the constantly shifting sea of thousands of runners who were in the same state required all my concentration. Was someone going to do something unexpected? Was I going to have to make a quick move? What was the best rout around the guy in front of me that required the least number of steps. The first stop in the assembly line was medical checks. Volunteers stood in the middle of the crowd shouting something about did anyone need help. I saw runners sitting in wheelchairs in postures that I associated with the decrepitly old. Then, a few minutes down the road they were handing out water. I clearly wasn’t getting out of here any time soon, so I grabbed one. So what? Down the street a few more yards and several more minutes they were handing out space blankets. A volunteer wrapped me in one and it was the closest thing I got to the hug that I really, really wanted. Then, several feet and many minutes later, there were volunteers giving us stickers that served as brooches for our silver capes. Farther along, and after several more minutes we shuffled past people handing out bags of food. Like hell I was passing this one up! Now the exhausted runners shuffled into a bottleneck where the busses were waiting filled with drop bags. I shuffled through the narrowed pass where runners' movements were less and less predictable and where flying silver capes made it even harder to plan out the most direct rout through the crowd. All I wanted to do was sit down. I missed Cranky more than I’d ever missed anyone in my life. The busses were arranged by bib number. Numbers were assigned by qualifying time or projected finishing time, so therefore, all the runners assigned to one bus would show up at once. This sucked. Finally I pushed through to where they were directing us to the family meeting area. Cranky and I had arranged to meet at the farther one. For some reason I had pictured a serene pen filled with no more than 100 docile people taking up about the size of a football field. There would be massages and perhaps Enya would be playing. Instead I found myself in a couple of blocks of mayhem. There were runners and family everywhere screaming into cell phones and whipping arms in the air oblivious to nearby faces pointing out Dad or Buddy or Sally or whoever was coming through. I sat right down in the sun and ate me a power bar before I even thought about trying to find Cranky. When I felt I could get up again I wandered around for about 10 minutes looking for him. Then I sat down again, figuring this was his 20th marathon, he could damn well find me.

When Cranky didn’t come to my rescue after another 10 minutes or so, I started limping towards an exit. I found a big L hanging from a lamp post and figured out that this bedlam was supposed to be alphabetical. Cranky was not waiting for me in the Ls, so I kept limping away to the barricades at the end of the street. They were holding them open to push wheelchairs through, but wouldn’t let runners out that way. I had to turn around and elbow through another 2 blocks to get to the exit, then several more to the subway.

On to plan B. I rode the train back to my office where I would call Cranky. I had written his number in Sharpie on my leg so I wouldn’t lose it. I hobbled out of the T and over to my office which was dark and silent. I sat down and left a loud message on Cranky’s voicemail and then proceeded to change my shirt, bra and all, in my cube. Then, somewhere in the office a phone rang... AND SOMEONE ANSWERED IT! Oh crap! I was not alone. And who of all people should come waltzing down the corridor, but the president of the company himself. “Hi... Todd...” I said. Luckily I was dressed... I changed the rest of my clothes in the bathroom, popped my birthday-balloon-sized blisters with relish, washed my face, and then offered the Lindt chocolate bar from my goodie bag to my boss as a peace offering. Nothing says, “Sorry I turned up sweaty and smelly and half naked in your office” like a sample-sized chocolate bar.

The rest of the afternoon I spent hobbling around Harvard Square with Cranky rehashing our success. He had held back and finished strong. I had run a marathon faster than ever before. We agreed that Heartbreak Hill was a joke, and that the runners took themselves way too seriously. We compared notes about the behavior in our respective parts of the pack. And mostly, we limped. After sitting down for an hour to eat some organic vegetarian pizza, I noticed that Cranky was not just shuffling, but limping a little bit. I sort of felt better, at least I wasn’t the only one. But it was also a horrible lesson. This was the first time I felt like I’d properly trained and been ready for a marathon. I was really hoping it would hurt less. It didn’t hurt less, and judging by the way Cranky was walking it was never GOING to hurt less. The only thing that all that training got me was A) into the finish line 25 minutes earlier, and B) higher functionality while I was hurting like hell. This one hurt every bit as much as the last 3. In fact, now that a couple of days have passed, I may actually be MORE sore this time around than I was for the untrained marathon.

But the up side is that I now own a supersexxxy jacket and everyone keeps asking me if I ran the marathon. Just like I promised, I’ve been telling each and every person that I didn’t qualify, I ran it as a bandit, but they don’t seem to care. And every time I see one of the supersexxxy jackets on the street I think, “You think you’re so cool, but I can do that,” just like I always do, but now I’ve got a jacket to back it up.

So, am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I have been glad I did it without the jacket? Probably not. To have taken part in the whole hype and not have anything to show for it would have been too frustrating. The whole reason I wanted to do it was for the bragging rights. Am I a poseur? Yes. Am I ashamed? Not really. Will I qualify? Who knows. It's not high on my list of things to do right now, but we'll see when my legs feel better and after the season of speed work I'm heading into now that my base phase is over. Should you do it? Definitely. The best part? Beating Princess Angry's time at Disney by 10 minutes and 10 seconds.

Time taken off my previous PR: 27:24 For race reports, see below:
Cape Cod Marathon, October 2007
Barcelona Marathon, March 2007
Big Sur Marathon, April 2005