Sorry if the image sizes and placings are all fucked up, folks. My browser's still all jacked up, and I can't do a lot of things like resize or replace photos. Please bear with me!
Last year on Thanksgiving I decided that it was time to get serious and try to run hard. I set myself the goal of breaking 45 minutes at the Salem Wild Turkey 5 Mile Road Race (follow the link to read the race report). I pushed myself to a new level of suffering, and crossed the finish line in 44:33. I narrowly missed getting puked all over in the finishing chute (my favorite part of that particular race report), and almost yacked myself. But in the end, all was well and good. That I can remember, I haven't run another 5-mile race before or since, so I suppose that that race was a PR.
This year my goals were similar: Run full-throttle, set a PR. I hoped that this time I would average a pace a little more impressive than 8:55's, though. I got to the start in downtown Salem early and found a parking spot right across the street, in front of a psychic's shop. This place looked more like a bed and breakfast than a psychic's, but I guess if you're into the occult you do it up big in Salem.
The gym was almost empty when I got in, and I walked right up to the table. I'd already made eye contact with one of the volunteers when I was about 10 feet away, and she asked me my name. I turned bright red. I'd registered for the race as Blair Badass Mofo, and it had never occurred to me that I might have to say it out loud. I walked the rest of the way up to the table so I wouldn't have to yell and let out a nervous laugh, "Ummmm, I used a fake name but now I'm too embarrassed to say it..."
"Well what was it?"
"I mumbled it as fast as I could. blairbadassmofo..."
"Whaaaaa?" she asked. "Can you speak up?"
"It starts with Badass," I said sheepishly. She looked through the list. "Bavas?" she asked.
"Maybe it's under my real name," I tried. And then I spelled it for her, all 9 letters. Then I spelled it again, because people get confused when I spell my last name. No idea why, it's spelled like it sounds. My real name wasn't there either. We checked over and over. We checked similar spellings. I simply wasn't on the list. I knew I'd signed up because I'd been getting the emails and reminders from active.com, but I just wasn't there.
Meanwhile another girl had come up next to me. "What are the age groups?" she asked. "I came here to win." Who SAYS that?! She didn't look fast, but I guess that means nothing. I tried to get a good look at her or hear her name so that I could check the results and see how she finished, but I was trying to figure out my own identity and all I saw was light blue eyes and that she was about a head taller than me. "It used to be easy when I was in the 15-20 age group," she went on, "because almost no one showed up..." There were over 1,000 people here. If she was counting on winning by default, she was going to be sorely disappointed. I hoped she was sorely disappointed.
The race director answered The Champion's questions about age groups and then came over to me. "We miss a couple every year," he said. "Send me an email when you get home and I'll make sure you get a t-shirt. All we have left are Mediums and Larges, though. I take it you'll want a medium?" A medium would come down to my knees.
"No problem," I said.
I made a new friend and chatted for about half an hour, went to the bathroom, chatted some more, went outside, tried to look like I knew what I was doing... It was cold outside, just above freezing, so I trotted back and forth to keep warm and then went inside to check on the bathroom line again. No. Way. I kind of had to pee, but holding it was better than missing the start. (Y'all know what's coming, don't you?)
While I was waiting at the start, doing half-assed drills and trying to put on my invisible cap so that no one would talk to me, I saw a ruddy-looking woman decked out to the teeth in Red Socks gear yelling at a little boy on a bike, "Well if you're not running you're going to have to get out of the road!" She had the sanguine, wind-burnt looking complexion of a 60-year-old man who drinks too much. At first I thought it was the kid's mom, but as the kid slunk off it was clear that they were not together. She was just a bitch. I mean, the race wouldn't start for another 10 minutes or so. No one had even lined up yet. What was her beef? I decided that SHE would be my nemesis for today.
I tried to work my way to the front at the starting line, but it was hard to tell where the starting line was. I mean, I knew where it was because I'd done this race before. It was the crosswalk right in the MIDDLE of the crowd of people, but they didn't know where it was. When they made people squish back I tried to stand still and let the river of people flow behind me, thus moving up, but eventually I got pushed back too.
We started and I did the usual jig to get around people. As usual, I felt like I was going at a snail's pace and when I finally got a chance to check my pace I couldn't believe I was running in the mid-7's. Well this won't last, I thought. Once it opens up and I can run my own pace I'm sure I'll slow down.
So I ran, trying to focus on my rhythm: breathe, thunk, in, thunk, breathe, thunk, out, thunk... I heard the staticky sound of people's headphones, the wheezy sound of people's breathing, and the thunk, thunk thunk of dozens of feet around me. breathe, thunk, in, thunk, breathe, thunk, out, thunk. I had my watch set to beep when I was going slower than 8:00 pace and faster than 7:30 pace and it was beeping constantly (I'm sure I annoyed several people around me, but not as much as the people with their headphones who wouldn't get out of the way). I was sure that I was running slower than 8:00, but each time I looked down I was in the low 7's. This was the fast pace alarm. We were halfway through the second mile, and some people were already pulling off to the side to stop and catch their breath. You know the types: the 13-year-old jackrabbit in oversized basketball shorts and a Red Sox t-shirt who thought he could sprint the whole thing, the 30-year-old jackass in basketball shorts that are a bit too small and a Patriots sweatshirt that thought he could sprint the whole thing... That'll be me soon, I thought, but my breathing was still regular. For feeling like hell, I was still feeling pretty good.
We ran in and out of Winter Island, which wasn't an island at all but a parking lot at the end of a tiny peninsula, and then we ran around The Willows, which was just a neighborhood. Just like last year families had come out to cheer us on from their porches and driveways. Several of them were morbidly obese and I thought about how for me this race was just a short run, while for them it might as well be a marathon. Thank god for locals along the course, though. To them, we were like elite competitors. They couldn't have been more excited if the Olympics were being held in their own back yards. This was my fastest mile. Coming out of the Willows, a family was playing the theme from Chariots of Fire, and going past their house we were going slightly downhill. I picked up my pace and smiled. I was having a good time... RUNNING! It was a Christmas... er... Thanksgiving miracle!
I was passing people more slowly now, but still passing people. What? Me?! Passing people?! I was passing the obnoxious 5th grader types, and the girl who was running with her dad and had never run a road race before. These are the people who usually infuriate me when they pass me!
Then the other shoe dropped.
I came up alongside a guy I'd been trailing for the whole race and he said, "You're doing great. How you feeling?"
"Like I'm going to poop my pants. And you?"
"Not quite there yet..." he chuckled and pulled on ahead again. I had the familiar sensation in my lower GI tract that my insides were rotting out. I eased off the pace ever so slightly and started hanging with people for about 5 seconds before I passed them. I did NOT want to blow up, not now. Not here, just a mile from the finish.
As I covered the last half mile I could tell that I was red-lining it. If I tried to push the pace ever so slightly I could add nausea to my list of discomforts. People started kicking, and I let them go, knowing that I was running as fast as I could. If they were kicking now, then they hadn't run the last 4.75 miles as hard as I had. About a block from the finish, though, a woman passed me... It was the bitch from the start: Number 1 Red Sox Fan!!! Like hell you're passing me! I thought. I still had a lot more speed in me, and I was going to use it, I was going to beat her, and then I was going to puke all over her at the finish. I kicked it in and passed her ever so slightly. She looked over and kicked back. We were sprinting now, and there was a guy that was going to be in my way. I could out-run her if I could just get around him... I moved in closer to her to try to get around him, and she elbowed me in the ribs. My choices were either to push her over, run smack into this guy's back, or ease off ever so slightly. Bitch was tough, and I knew that if I pushed her she would certainly get violent, so I finished about an inch behind her. She won by a nose. If that guy hadn't been there, or if I'd had 10 more yards she would have been toast.
Whatever, she's fat and ugly and I'm not.
They funneled us into the chute and from running all out, suddenly we had to stand still. "Oh shit!" I said, and grabbed my knees. I had the choice whether to puke on Number 1 Fan's Champions 2008 t-shirt or turn to the side. Like I said, bitch looked violent. But she had fat cheeks and looked like a tomato, so I was scared of her, but I scorned her too. Had she been pretty I might have puked on her, but since she was ass ugly I decided that that was solace enough and I didn't need to vomit on her too. I turned to the side, got ready to hurl, and the feeling passed. No barf this year either! I win!
I checked my pace and time. 5.05 miles in 38:02, that's 7:32 minute/miles!!! I was 7th out of 94 in my age group (7%), 42 of 521 women (8%), and 186th out of 995 overall (19%). I've been working really hard on speed work all fall, and finally it seems to be paying off! You all know I've been working hard, so Judi, if you say that you hate me I'll say something mean about you in my next post.
I wandered around the finish looking for water. I realized that I had a pee stain again and took my sweatshirt off to tie it around my waist, but it was cold in just a short sleeved t-shirt so I got some water and went right back to the car. Why do I always pee my fucking pants?! I wondered as I drove home. I realized that I wouldn't have the decency to leave it out of my race report and realize that people think that I have some kind of bladder control issue. Maybe I do. Maybe I drink too much water. While I was running, droplets were escaping because I was running hard. I was running so hard (for me) that I had to relax my non-running muscles. Has a fart ever escaped you in yoga class, or while you're doing a heavy lift in the weight room? You just can't have ALL your muscles holding everything right all the time. If you've never worked so hard that you've let a fart go, or an involuntary grunt, or maybe a little pee, then maybe you're just not working hard enough.
And with that, folks, I'll wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!
