Things you should know

Yes, I've been in hiding again. No, nothing's wrong. I just haven't had much to talk about. I've thought of writing some posts, but none of them ever fully took shape in my mind, so I decided to save the effort. Plus, I've been really productive at work and in other aspects of my life (read: tearing through Law & Order reruns on netflix), so I haven't had much time to sit down and write. Here is a quick list of things that I thought about posting about, but didn't:

1. I finally found a use for my heartrate monitor: to hold my pants up. It may not be appropriate for work's "business casual" dress code, but it'll work in a pinch when I forget my belt at home.

2. I was on my trainer for over 12 hours last weekend, averaging over 235 trainer miles (which are always faster than road miles). I got through the whole Lord of the Rings series (non-director's cut) and half of Beowulf in that time. My legs were fine, but I got some NASTY chafing on my ass that perfectly matched the shape of my chamois. Note to self: invest in some good bike shorts. It hurt to sit down to pee for days.

3. I've decided to run the marathon tomorrow. I wasn't going to. I really, really wasn't going to. I didn't want to. You couldn't make me. Then three things happened:
ONE: Big Red was going, and I thought it'd be fun to hang out with her. Even if it DID mean running. No one could make me run the full distance, though. It's a 2-loop course, I can just quit half way through if I want to. Secretly, that was my plan. I told people I'd keep going if I was feeling good at 13 miles, but that was a lie. I had no intention of running more than 13.1 miles.
TWO: I listened to a sort of "race report" on a podcast. I was only half-listening to a race wrap-up when something cut through my inner monologue and struck me. One of the guys started saying, "I realized that I was already making excuses to have a bad race [before it had even started]. So I just asked myself, What can I do right now to make sure I have the best race I'm capable of today?" He then went on to run a marathon over 15 minutes quicker than he anticipated. The moral of the story (or at least the take-home lesson that I got out of it) was that it's never over until it's over. And you can either decide to rock up and do your best, or make excuses for not doing your best before the race is even over. It wasn't that profound really, but I realized that I was doing the same thing. I was making excuses, telling people that I was burnt out, untrained, didn't really care... I was setting myself up to quit. I had no intention of running a good race. So why even show up if I wasn't going to try? All I had to do was pull it together for one morning and see what I was still capable of. I wouldn't be at my peak, but I haven't exactly been a couch potato either. My VDOT numbers say that I'm within a stone's throw of a qualifying time, if I had the race of a lifetime. I decided to see what I could do if I didn't make any excuses.
THREE: A conversation with Calvin (that's not his real name, but that's what I always want to call him) at the gym. We were talking about burnout, and the possibility of me running my race, or not. At that point, I still wanted a good excuse to get out of it. Then I caught myself saying, "I'm at the point now where I can pull a marathon out of my ass on any given day and know I'm going to finish. It doesn't really matter if I burn myself out hardcore, because I don't plan on running much anyway for the next 6 months. Going for bust might be good for me." I'm trying to learn how to listen to myself.

So I'm running tomorrow. My aim is to run so hard that I'm burnt to a smoky crisp at the finish line. If I manage to pull out a 3:40, I'll be elated. But I'm not going to let myself see a 3:45 or a 3:50 as a failure. Even if I run a 3:55 or slower, at least I will have ended my running block with a bang (the BANG of a tolerance for running blowing sky high).

So keep your eyes peeled. Race report coming soon.

Also, Judi sent me the following interview questions. Some of them weren't really any of anyone's business (or at least nothing concerned with this blog), so I changed them. So here you go:

1. why are you so devilishly handsome?
Breck shampoo and Brill Cream, baby. The ladies love to run their fingers through my hair.

2. when did you finally come out as a Britney Spears fan? how did people react?
I started coming out to selected friends in college, but I haven't gone public with the fact that I very much enjoy Britney Spears until you outted me just now, Judi. Thanks a lot! Alright, it's true. I like Britney Spears! Now you all know. People have reacted with shock, disbelief, and ultimately acceptance. There are more Britney Spears fans out there than you would think.

3. if you - god forbid - broke a body part and couldn't train, what would stop you from drinking again?

The fact that I would eventually heal and I don't want to still be drunk when that happens. If I couldn't heal, then it would be that "put together feeling."  The prospect of losing everything else I have (job, friends, etc.) would work for as long as I felt that way, but I doubt that would last. If I didn't have a job/friends, etc. that I really cared about that much, you'd probably find me crutching myself into the nearest liquor store.  I'd have to go to meetings, I guess.

4. your first triathlon - what kind of affect (sic.) did it have on you?
I wouldn't really say it had an effect on me. I fucked it up, the whole experience sucked, and I spent the whole summer training to get better. I got over it. I hardly ever even think about that race anymore. I would say the longest lasting effect is that I don't want to be the one caught riding a hybrid bike in my running shoes ever again.

5. do you think you suffer from OCD?
No. Type A, maybe.  I get maybe a bit anxious sometimes.  But not OCD. I don't have weird habits with turning out lights or making sure that dials and knobs are just so. I'm not even neat. So no, I am many things, but I am not OCD.

Derry: Freezer Burnout

Note: More pictures coming soon, once Big Red sends them to me. My camera was out of batteries.

The joke with the Boston Prep 16 Miler (or "Derry" as everyone calls it) is that with its dozens of hills and notoriously bad weather, it's "Moderately challenging". Hahaha, get it?? Moderately challenging? It's funny because it's not true. It is a notoriously tough course, often compared in geeky Boston running circles to Stu's 30K, which was possibly the most challenging road race I've ever done.

Here are the reasons I planned to be in Derry, NH this morning, only 2 weeks after my 39.3-miles of racing in Disney World:

1. I was supposed to run it last year, but I was laid up with a vicious case of the flu and a fever of 104º. I had unfinished business with this course.
2. I had planned on running it with Michelle, my "running coach". Also, Gadfly Thom had been pushing this race on me pretty hard for over a year, and Mary and Melissa were going to be there as well.
3. I'm still signed up for the Hyannis Marathon at the end of February. If I'm going to try to qualify for Boston, I was going to have to get back into running pretty quickly.

Here are the reasons I was NOT happy to be in Derry this morning:

1. I had only run twice since Florida, and was not at all in the mood to be slogging through 16 tough miles.
2. Michelle was laid up with the flu, and Melissa's back injury meant she wouldn't be running either.
3. It was zero degrees in Derry when I woke up in the morning, it would still be in single digits when we started, and only reach the teens while we were running. I haven't run outside in the cold since November. I also haven't trained on hills since... I last ran outside!
   

Big Red took over Michelle's number, so at least I had company on the ride up to Derry, with the added bonus that Big Red's car had heated seats. We stopped by Starbucks, and by the time we pulled in to the race parking lot I was so buzzed that my hands were shaking and I was talking a mile a minute. Coffee's pretty much the only buzz I get anymore, so I was living it up (goodness knows I've never experienced the "runner's high"). We spotted Mary (who expressed mild concern about my "excitement level" and trembling hands) right away, and after nearly knocking her over with a bear hug, I got to meet some of the members of her running club.

"And this is María," Mary said. "She reads your blog sometimes." I froze (except for the mild vibrations in my limbs from the coffee). I'm always nervous meeting people who read my blog. My first thought is, This person knows I pee my pants. My second thought is, This person must think I'm an asshole!!! (I've been told that I'm different in person from my blog persona, thank god.) But when María didn't call me an arrogant jerk, or kick me in the shins, I settled down a bit. I tried to get used to the idea that every single one of these people would be faster than me so that I wouldn't be disappointed later.

I spotted Gadfly Thom, and after he told me more than I wanted to know about the hills, I said, "I'm going to kill you for getting me into this." I'd told him this before, and meant it.

"I've never met a triathlete that hates running," he said. He doesn't believe me, I guess.

"Well you know me!" I said. "But I'm not a triathlete. Don't call me that. I'm just someone who does triathlons sometimes."

Mary went for one last bathroom run, and Big Red and I decided to skip the line and just head to the starting line. That was a big mistake. I would wind up feeling pretty uncomfortable for the first few miles until my body began to "reabsorb." We tried to look for a big bush or tree or something on the way to the start, but with waist-deep snow on either side of the road, popping a squat was out of the question. So we held it.

Standing around at the starting line was miserably cold, but once we started running, many people complained about being overdressed. Mary was off like a shot, darting through the crowd before we had even crossed the starting line, and Big Red had given me strict instructions not to run with her because she didn't want to get too competitive and wind up running too hard and injuring herself. If she threw caution to the wind and ran the whole course, 16 miles would be the longest she'd ever run. If not, I was supposed to hop in the car at the finish and drive the course backwards looking for her. So I had resigned myself to running alone when a tiny creature with every inch of skin covered came up next to me. "Hi Claire, it's María!" Thank goodness! Company! I hung with María for a precious few minutes before she sprung on ahead, leaving me with a man that I nicknamed "The Porn Star".

"The Porn Star" (I never did find out his real name) was a 65-year-old man with a big, bushy mustache, who grunted, groaned, sighed, and moaned as he ran. Despite sounding like he was either in ecstasy or agony every 30 seconds, The Porn Star was a very nice man, running at roughly my pace, and an easy talker, so I buddied up with him right away. I really needed someone to distract me from what I was doing, since I'd started to count down the miles before we even hit the first mile marker.

While I was running easily with The Porn Star, Big Red swooped right past me on a downhill. This summer that would have made me furious, but I couldn't have made myself care if I tried today. Red has made such freakish progress this year, and has been so kind and helpful to me outside of training that all I could do was wish her the best. I knew she was going to finish this race today, and that probably her performance was going to be stellar. Also, running hard in this bitter cold and up these hills sounded like hell. I let her go and continued talking about running with The Porn Star until my shoe came untied around mile 3 and I had to let Big Red and The Porn Star put about a minute into me.

Before you make any assumptions about miles 10-13, read on... and remember the elevation profile!

I ran alone for several more miles, and was astounded to find that once my shoe was tied, I was actually passing people. Like people who run. It was slow going, but eventually I picked people off until I was back where I started. I found my way back to Big Red, and passed her at the top of a long hill near the 5-mile mark. Soon after, I found The Porn Star again, and we picked up our conversation right where we left off. He had run a 2:45 marathon back in his day, and it was flattering to hear that I was "looking strong" from someone like that. He asked about a few of my times at different distances, and I explained that in the past year – and especially the past 4 months – I had been really focusing on improving my running. "I've been amazed at the improvement I've been able to make," I said. "I'm still setting PR's at every race, even the bad ones. I used to think that I just had no talent for the sport. I still think I have no talent, but now I see that other people are just willing to work a lot harder at it than I am."

"Well I think you'll continue to make more and more progress," The Porn Star said. "If you've only been running competitively for a couple of years, you still have so much more room to grow."

"I don't think so," I said. "I'm quitting." He laughed at that one. I love it when I find a stranger I'm able to talk honestly with, who takes what I say at face value. (If you haven't figured it out, I'm boring you with our conversation about it, because it's just a way to tell you guys my current thoughts about running. There will be a big decision at the end. See there is a point to my rambling posts!) "I couldn't let myself quit running if I'd never really tried at it," I said. "Now I have, I've seen improvement, and I still don't like it."

"Five marathons is a lot to run for someone who doesn't like to run," he pointed out.

"Marathons used to scare me," I said. "So I just ran them until I felt like I could run one without really stressing out about it. Now I'm not scared of marathons anymore, but I still don't like running them. And anyway, running doesn't agree with my body..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't remember the last race I finished where I didn't feel like I was going to puke at the end. If it's not one end, it's the other... or both. I think it's time to explore things that I find more enjoyable." Do you ever have those moments where you're explaining something to someone, and then suddenly all the pieces fall into place in your head, and suddenly you understand a big question you've been struggling with for a long time? That's often why I write, and that's exactly what happened while I was talking with The Porn Star this morning. I had no reason to run anymore! The problem was, my epiphany came about 7 miles too soon.


Gadfly Thom had warned me that the most brutal hills in Derry were between miles 9 and 12. No one had talked about anything else all morning. We passed the 9-mile marker, and then the road threw itself skyward. I told The Porn Star that this was probably where he was going to drop me, but to my surprise when the grade went above 10% (even getting as high as 20% for a long moment), he was the one who dropped back, never to be seen again. I had been feeling good on the rolling hills up until this point, but as much as I know I should, I never train on hills and I could really feel it. There was a miserable never-ending hill from miles 10.5 to 12 that chewed me up and spit me out. I tried to run a very slow pace so that I wouldn't have to walk, but the hill was mightier than my anaerobic threshold, and there were chunks that I simply had to walk or I would have collapsed gasping into a snow bank.

When the hills were through with me, I was toast. I had brought Starburst as my nutrition for the day, but I found the wrappers hard to peel off with my freezing fingers, then the candies were frozen solid, and there simply wasn't a section on the course flat enough to take the time to unwrap them. I hadn't started eating until about mile 10, and in the cold, my Accelerade hadn't been too appetizing either. Now my glutes and hamstrings were giving out in a way that I hadn't felt since last spring (Angry, I don't want to hear ANY comments about deadlifts, because you know I do them more often than I want to already).

I was surprised that I hit the 13.1-mile mark in less than 2 hours. My god, a year ago I ran a half marathon in a slower time than this on a flat course, and it was my PR! I thought. It didn't do much for the fact that I felt like hell though. I kept looking for an uphill that I could use for an excuse to walk, but it was just my luck that suddenly the hills had gone away. I hit my accelerade hard, but it was too little too late. It was beginning to freeze in the bottle anyway. Come on, Claire. It's just 2 more miles. You have hurt way more than this, and kept running longer and harder before. Instead, all I could think about was the aging effects of extremely cold temperatures on the skin, wondering whether your spit could freeze in your mouth, and how I couldn't get my head around running another marathon in weather like this. My head was swimming and my muscles were sore, but this wasn't the worst I had ever felt in my life. What was wrong with me? I knew I could hold it together for the rest of the race without eating... I only had a mile and a half to go... I just couldn't make myself do it. And then one of those kooky phrases that pops into your head when you're delirious from fatigue dawned on me. This must be what old ice cream feels like when it's been sitting in the back of the freezer for months, I thought. I think I have freezer burn.

Right before the 15-mile mark I stopped to walk and unwrap a couple more Starburst. I worked those candies for the next half a mile before I was able to swallow them, and just as I was cleaning the last of the sticky goo off my molars I heard a familiar voice behind me: "You were supposed to come get me with the car!"

Big Red! We were less than half a mile from the end, and the thought flickered through my mind for a second to try and keep up with her, but I just couldn't deal with the idea. "My ass hurts like hell and I think I'm bonking," I told her.

"Sub-9's or bust, baby!" Big Red called over her shoulder as she ran away.

"Yeah, you have fun with that!" I called after her. That's just how she rolls. She pulls these amazing feats of strength out of her ass and stymies those of us that have to actually work for it. That's okay, I was winding down from my marathon season and she was gearing up for her first. I didn't mind passing on the torch. I managed to stay about 25 to 50 yards behind Big Red for the rest of the race, but made no special effort to keep up with her. Running up the final incline into the parking lot there was a photographer. I held up my hand in front of my face and yelled, "No pictures! No pictures!" Of course he took 2 just to mess with me.

I crossed the finish line in about 2:22:10 about a minute behind Big Red, and for the first time in a long time I didn't think I was going to puke. I was in rougher shape than she was, though. Her only complaint after her longest run ever, was that the balls of her feet hurt. After my first 16 mile run I don't think I got out of bed for 3 days! On the way back to the school, Big Red said to me, "You know, you looked really good when you passed me. You've really got the lean thing down."

"What 'lean thing?'"

"Pose, or Chi, or whatever it is." Really?! I had only done the Silly Walks (not Chi or Pose, Striding On!, but whatever) for about 3 weeks before snow had covered the track where I did my drills. The rest had just been a lot of speed work which seems to iron out wrinkles in your running form.

My turn for ugly hair. I think my face was puffy from the cold.

Inside we caught up with Mary, who'd had some Claire-like stomach problems and had still kicked my butt by about 15 minutes. María looked happy with her 2:12 finish. I was just happy to get some pizza. Too happy, I guess, because a volunteer yelled at me for trying to take more than one piece. I would find out later that I came in something like 46th out of 49 in my age group, running roughly 9:00 miles on an extremely hilly course. I hate running in Boston, running here is so competitive! (Side note: As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Anne and I saw Grandpa coming in to the finish line. We'd been finished for at least 45 minutes. "Red," I said. "A little over a year ago that guy beat me in a race. Can you believe that?!" You've come a long way, baby, I thought.)

As I shoved my second piece of pizza in my mouth (I did manage to scam one more piece), I told Mary, "I don't think I can do Hyannis. I'm too burnt out."

"You say that now, but I know you. You'll complain the whole way, but you'll be on the starting line." I honestly hoped she was wrong. The idea of even continuing to run through the rest of the winter just made me want to crawl into a hole and die, let alone trying to pull the race of my life out of my ass on a cold day. There will be another chance in the fall to fulfil my New Year's Resolution and try to pull out a Boston qualification before 2009 is out. Hopefully I'll be fresher by then. In the meantime, I'm ready to throw in the towel. I've already got a lot of really exciting bike stuff ramping up, that has me really fired up. Running has me burnt out rather than fired up.

I'm facing off with CoaPB again soon. I've got a fixed gear that I can't wait to ride. I'm spending a lot of time with a hott new bike mechanic and track bike geek who has promised to take me to a track to give it a try. I've just got my Randonneurs USA literature and am fleshing out my summer training plan. It's time to turn the page and move on to the next adventure. I'm satisfied enough with what I've done so far. For now anyway...

"Mindy thinks I have questionable morals"

First of all, I would like to apologize to anyone who's been suffering through my blogs of late. I've been feeling a little blah lately, and I feel like it's come through in my posts. I've been boring myself to death writing them, so I imagine that they can't be much fun to read either. I make no promises about this post either. But a race has been done, and a race report must be written.

Today, in the last push before a rest week (and the beginning of my "taper" for Boston), I was signed up for the Eastern States 20 Miler, which starts in Maine, goes along the New Hampshire coast (the state with the shortest coastline, in case you were wondering), and finishes up in Massachusetts... just barely. I had been really excited for this one when I signed up because I'm a sucker for things like running through 3 states in one day. It also promised to be a lot of fun because fellow munchkin, Mindy would be there, along with GRANDPA! But after a bad night's sleep I woke up feeling blah: Bored, Lazy, Apathetic, and Half-hearted, BLAH.

This would be my second week in a row training over 20 hours, which is why I was probably fried. My plan was to recover on Friday, but Friday night I lifted weights. Really, I should know better. I'd spoken to Angry earlier in the day and asked him for something that would work my legs but wouldn't make me sore. He suggested something that seemed like it would make me fall over (one-legged squats), and then something that seemed like it would make me fall over from a great hight (one-legged squats standing on a bench), so I decided just to do my fallback deadlifts and one-legged leg presses. You know, the same ones that had me feeling wrecked for a week after the last time I did them. Then, on Saturday I rode for a combined 3 1/2 hours. I was in a bit of a "go hard or go home" mood, and rode a little harder than was probably prudent for someone who had a 20 miler the next day. But I ate food that was good for me afterwards, so I figured everything was going to be okay. Right?

Well, after a lousy night's sleep I woke up and, as I believe I've mentioned, I felt blah. I made myself the SAME breakfast I make every day. It was below freezing just like it always is, so I picked out one of the same three outfits I wear to every race. All my long-sleeved shirts were in the wash, so I figured okay with a short-sleeve shirt under my compression top. Then I drove up to the SAME Hampton Beach I'd run at before, parked in the SAME parking lot, and caught a yellow bus to the start, just like all the other yellow school buses I've ridden at other races. The race organizers had sent us threatening emails about showing up at the start early, so at 8:45 I was already sitting in a high school gym just like all the other high school gyms, talking to the same people (Thom, 'arry, etc.) and waiting for the 11:00 start. And you know who never showed up? Grandpa. Now I really didn't have a reason to push. Team Hoyt was there (Mindy was standing in line behind Dick to pick up her t-shirt). I couldn't have cared less. I was acutely aware that this was going to be a very long and painful day if I didn't snap out of it and get at least a little bit excited.

Plus my butt hurt. Stupid Angry and his stupid deadlifts. I was very sore and stiff up where the hamstring tucks under the butt. I could stretch all I wanted (and I did, quite a bit), but my butt just wouldn't loosen up. Great, just fucking excellent.

Finally, Mindy and Maine Runner turned up and I got to wait some more, but at least the company was good. On the walk to the starting line, the subject of me running Boston as a bandit came up. I don't remember how the topic came up, or what lead into it, but Mindy said something like, "Don't get me started on bandits." She was clearly holding her tongue so as not to offend me. I respect Mindy's opinions, especially since she is of the opinion that I am "a trooper" and "the badassest of them all". I wanted to know her opinion on bandits, already knowing what it would be. "Not directed at you, I just don't like bandits," she said. "I think that you should only run Boston if you've qualified. That's the way it was set up to be, and I don't like that just anyone should run it," she practically spat. (I hope Mindy won't mind me trying inaccurately to re-create what she said. I hope I'm true to her opinions, if not her original words.)
"Well, what about Team in Training people and people like that who do it for charity?" I asked.
"I don't think they should do it either. I think it should just be for people who qualify." If you can't guess already, Mindy has qualified in the past. Unlike me, Mindy is a superstar.
"Well, it's my hometown race, and I don't think it's fair that I can't run it. I've thought about signing up for the Providence marathon the following weekend, but it just wouldn't be the same. And anyway, I can't be paying for a marathon, I just bought a bike." (I'll tell you about that soon) "What if I were to run it in a t-shirt that says Mindy thinks I'm a loser?" I suggested.
"I don't think you're a loser," she said.
"How about Mindy thinks I have questionable morals?" offered Maine Runner.
"Well, what about people who can't qualify, like me?" I asked. "Do you think they should never get the opportunity to run it?"
"You can qualify," she said flatly. Then, for reasons having nothing to do with the content of our conversation, it ended there as I made my way to the back of the pack while Mindy and Maine Runner lined up with the real runners more towards the front. Mindy meant no malice by these comments, and I certainly was not offended. Now I definitely had something to think about for the next 20 miles.

The race started with minimal hooplah, and I found myself running with Thom on my left and Mindy on my right for about half a mile. I introduced them quickly, before letting everyone go on ahead and falling back to listen to my own thoughts for the next 19.5 miles. One mile in we ran over a drawbridge that had that wire grating through which you could see the water below. The metal pieces were far apart, which made for some awkward running, and also gave a relatively unobstructed view of the water below. Deep inside, the part of me that is afraid of heights and open water had a private heart attack. On the other side, Santa Claus (who apparently was a sub-six-minute mile runner in his day) was calling out splits. Ten thirty-eight, ten thirty-nine... that couldn't possibly be right. I wasn't running THAT slow.

After that I found a rhythm, and as the terrain or scenery didn't change much, I was able to think. Mindy thinks I have questionable morals. Of course I knew that she was totally right. While I'm not opposed to lottery slots at Kona, the thought of taking one myself appalls me. I would even think twice about taking a roll-down slot. And while I'm sure the qualifying policy at Kona sucks for a Hawaiian stuck out there in the middle of the Pacific, miles from the nearest Ironman, I think it would be lame for Joe Kona to just turn up for the race. I guess it's the same with real marathoners and Boston.

The problem is, I don't take marathons seriously. I can't. Once I figured out that I could do the distance, it just didn't seem big enough to make a big deal of anymore. And I simply am not a strong enough runner to race a whole, entire marathon. That's my biggest long-term goal of this year, to get stronger so that I can race a whole marathon. But I can't take myself seriously yet. At the times that I come in at, it would just be silly. Hell, even if I ran my personal best ever 15k pace for a whole, entire marathon, I would still be 25 minutes off from qualifying. I have to take it as a joke, because if I didn't, I'd just throw in the towel and never run again. I've even thought of running the whole thing in a zorro mask because, in my head, that's what bandits wear. "You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't."

And yeah, I COULD run Providence the following weekend, but how is that different from the shorter races I've been doing all winter? I've run 3 second-rate marathons in my life already. What excites me about Boston is the crowds and the hubbub. I've never run a BIG marathon before. Before I've always burnt out half way through my training and couldn't care less when the stupid marathon rolls around. I know I'm on par for a PR, since this is the only time I've ever seen a full training season through, but what's the point if it's not special? I want the crowds and the prestige, dammit! Yeah, I'm doing a shitty thing, and I do have questionable morals, but I'm going to run Boston anyway. For me. No one has to know my time. No one has to cheer for me. No one has to recognize me as a Boston finisher. But I'm running it anyway.

By the time I hit mile 13, I'd sorted most of this thought process out, and felt like a real dipshit. My body still felt good, which was a damn good thing, because I was so over this race now that I'd come to the conclusion that I was essentially training to cheat. How fitting that the guys behind me on the bus this morning had been talking about Rosie Ruiz. It was like I was Rosie Ruiz sitting there studying T (subway) maps. Meanwhile, we were well into New Hampshire and the temperature had raised considerably. From mile 1 I knew I was irrevocably overdressed, and every time I reached down to massage a kink out of my butt, I drew my hand back in disgust. My entire back end was drenched in sweat. I'd already drank twice the water I usually do for a half marathon and was getting those nasty Gatorade burps that burn your throat.

Astoundingly, though, I felt good. In addition to buckets of Accelerade, and then Gatorade, I was eating every 2 miles, trying to mix up Shot Blocks, and a new experiment I was trying: dried papaya chunks. In a later post I'll go into why I'm trying to find a more natural alternative to blocks, but my main fear was that using dried fruit would make me have to poop. And the nutrition plan worked until about mile 17. Around mile 15 I started to have to pee, but since I've never once stopped to pee in a race, now seemed like a lousy time to start. I gladly laid a bit off the Gatorade and sailed past the last porta-potty. Based on how I felt, I thought I might even be able to push the last 3 miles if all went well. These papaya chunks were working like magic. Then, at mile 17, I passed up my last chance for Gatorade. I still had some nasty fruit punch in my bottle, and god knows I was in no hurry to touch that. And then, after about half a mile, it happened: the papayas started to work their other magic. And perhaps it is not completely unrelated that around then is when fatigue set in, nearly all at once, and my glutes started seizing up.

I dealt with the thunk, thunk feeling in my intestines as I bounced through mile 18, but right around the 19-mile mark I had to walk a bit in order to get my large intestine under control. I'm sure the clamping shut wasn't helping my butt cramps either. I'm sure I could have pushed through it. I certainly hadn't lost any control, as it were... but my head just wasn't in the game. All I could think about was how nice it would feel to STOP running, and get a huge bottle of plain old water.


I pulled into the finish in 3:13:27, managing to get a little kick out of my legs for the last few hundred yards. All I wanted was some fresh water. I walked up to the coolers at the end of the chute. "Vitamin water? Vitamin water?" the girls were asking, holding out fistfulls of technicolor bottles.
"Don't you have any regular water?" I asked, I begged, I pleaded.
"No, just vitamin water," the girl said, handing me a bottle that might have been blackberry. I gagged on the first sip.

After I stopped running, I stopped having to go number two, but I still had to pee a little bit. I went over to the porta-potties, left my bottle outside, and wasted my time in the little blue cubicle for about a minute (I guess I didn't have to pee after all... not anymore anyway). I guess I was more dehydrated than I thought. When I came out, there... on the ground... right next to my running bottle, was a full bottle crystal clear of Smart Water. I looked both ways. No one was standing near it. I looked at the other porta-pottie, it was unoccupied. I picked up the bottle as nonchalantly as I could and inspected it, its seals were still intact. So I walked away with it and downed half of it before I'd picked up my backpack. It still tasted nastier than regular water, but at least it didn't have any syrupy flavors. It was wonderful.

I decided to get off the bus at my car (in New Hampshire), rather than go all the way back to Maine for food. On the way home I stopped for gas, and bought myself some Triscuits for the ride home. "Where was the race?" the gas station attendant asked me as I walked in the door. I told him. "I've done a couple of those running races. There's a 10-miler they do around here every year, and I've done it 3 times. Each time I trained less and less, and each time I went faster and faster. I kept saying, if I just quit training altogether, I could win the darned thing. Thing is, the finish was just a couple doors down from my house, so I would go balls out right at the end, and then go to my house and collapse where no one could see me."
"Wow, that's great!" I said (not about the collapsing part). And it was great. Here was this guy who worked at a gas station, was not a runner, and still dragged his ass out every year and ran 10 whole miles on a whim. How many people can say that? There are runners who don't run 10-mile races. It's quite commendable. But still, you can't help but feel condescending, just a little bit, in your head. I mean, that guy's not a REAL runner. It wasn't until I got back in the car that I realized: that guy was me. At a marathon, I'm the gas station attendant. I'm the one who showed up, only doing half the work, and I go home happy with whatever I get and don't even think about training again until it's time to come out and run again next year.

So the real question is, does the feckless, half-assed bandit get to buy a t-shirt at the expo?