Eight years ago, this week, I ran my first marathon. Since that time, there have been a LOT of runs. I’m pretty sure I have run 15 marathons. I can’t count the half marathons, 5k’s, mile fun-runs, and everything in between. When you’ve run a bunch, the opportunities for “wow, that’s never happened before” dwindle (warning, sexiness beyond bounds coming next): the first time I ran a mile straight, the first time I had to pause a run because of runner’s trots, the first realization of “the runner’s high”, the first lost toenail, the first sub-ten-minute mile, the first successful snot rocket, the first bloody nipples, the first time you pass someone, the first time you pass someone who had previously passed you, the first realization of chafing between my thighs/armpits/butt cheeks, the first time running through a downpour or snow, the first fall during a run . . . but after this weekend, I can say I’ve experienced the first time I finished first in a race.
As 2018 comes to a close, I have a The Rehoboth Marathon coming in early December. I ran the race last year, and it was just a tremendous race. The things is, with a marathon…you need to train. Well, at least, I need to train 1. When I don’t train properly for a marathon, there are tears. Maybe a tantrum. Angry wailing. Moping. Often, the next week brings the dreaded mancold. Things are not good when I don’t train properly. What do I do to train, though? Well, I run.
At least, I should run, but lately I’ve been allowing myself to take the easy way out. I wake early to walk the dogs…and then, when I should be fitting in a tempo run, I’m sneaking back to bed. Because bed is warm and comfy and offers Coltrane snuggles. Weekends are supposed to be for long runs – somewhere north of 10 miles . . . hopefully working to north of 20 miles. Really, I want to have my body confident enough that it can run 20 miles without falling apart . . . if I can do that, for the last 6.2 miles, I can fly by on autopilot (mainly because, by this point, the brain has stopped processing pain).
In Pennsylvania, lately, though, there has been a LOT of rain. Especially on weekends. My son’s soccer schedule was decimated. And my long run planning has gone to absolute shit. So, as we get close to my next marathon, I turned to a tried & true method for getting my self to run . . . pay for something.
I found a local half-marathon on a Saturday morning that was, otherwise, unscheduled2. The entire week leading to the event? Zombie apocalypse Torrential rains. On Friday afternoon, I checked enrollment for the race: there were six people signed up. Then, Friday night? Temperatures dropped south of freezing.
When I woke Saturday morning, well, let’s just say I was not enthused to run. It was freezing. While the roads were mostly dry, random areas of ice abounded. My bed was really fucking comfortable. And the wind — well, gusts were reaching 50 miles per hour. When you combine the conditions with the light enrollment, I wasn’t sure the race would even be held.
I would not have complained if I saw things were called off.
But by 6am there had been no notice of a cancellation. And I’m not about to skip a race that I’ve paid to run . . . so, I dug out my cold weather running gear (running tights, a tech mock-turtleneck, and a running jacket) to Gifford Pinchot State Park I drove.
Despite the fact that this state park is less than half-an-hour from my house, I’d never been here . . . heck, I don’t know if I’ve even heard of it. But, it’s a lovely park – and one I plan to visit, as it looks like the lake would be great for recreational kayaking. I got to the registration & was handed a bib and a baggie full of rubber bands.
The race director explained that the original plan was to have us run along the lake . . . only they noticed, when they went to mark the path, that several picnic tables, from the picnic area immediately before the lakeshore trail, appeared to be half-submerged in the lake. one appeared to be floating in the middle of the lake. Simply, we have had so much rain that the lake was WAY above it’s normal level. Running along the lake was not an option.
So they went to use another trail . . . only that trail had tremendous water damage – significant ruts and what might amount to “leaping” from one part of the trail to the next.
Eventually, the plan was made to mark half a mile into a single trail, put up cones, and have the runners head back.
Now, I am not a fan of “there and back again” races. One of the ways I distract myself from the fact that I’m running, during a run, is to take in the scenery – look into people’s windows, notice interesting sights/vistas/trees/rocks/flowers. During a standard “there & back again” race, the second half – where I need all of the distraction possible – I’ve already seen everything.
This race? Half a mile uphill, turn around, run back . . . and repeat 13 times. For each lap I completed, I would drop off a rubber band . . . when I was out of rubber bands, the race was over. I was going to get to know a half-mile stretch of trail really well.
I took my stuff and sat back in the car . . . because it was COLD. I dicked around on my phone for a little while . . . but as other runners started arriving, I decided I was being anti-social. I put on two pairs of fleece pajama pants over my running tights. I bundled into an extra hoodie. I talked with the other quasi-sane people assembled.
And quasi-sane doesn’t begin to describe the people assembled. After everyone talked about the common hatred of dreadmills, I learned that three of the runners were training for a 100 mile event. That’s 100 miles, on foot . . . and here I am, using this half marathon to get myself to train for 26.2 miles.
We talk about kids & “bucket list runs” and how bloody cold it is when the wind hits you.
And then it’s just about time to start . . . I strip off my extra layers, begin shivering uncontrollably, and then they start the run.
Only I wasn’t quite prepared — the starting gun goes off & I go to my phone, start my audiobook3 (The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, read by Jim Dale), start up RunKeeper and go.
After about a tenth of a mile along the parking lot, you enter the trail path, and you start going uphill, at a fairly steep climb. At three places along the trail, things were WET. I mean, there was standing water . . . there was no way to keep your feet dry – you had to trudge through standing water and thick mud. The last tenth of a mile flattened out, but then we turned around, ran down the trail (through the muck), and back across the parking lot.
The only time I came close to falling was the very first time up the trail, as I tried to find more-solid parts in the first boggy passage, only to fail in my search. By that point, my feet were SOAKED and I just said “fuck it” and rain straight through the quagmires.
Only have I mentioned how cold it was? I lost feeling in my feet before the first mile was up. I still had twelve miles to run.
By the time lap three or four was over, I had lost feeling in my fingers . . . I ended up having to double and triple check that I was only handing off a single rubber band at the end of each lap.
Randomly, I ran into an old coworker walking her dog on the same trail.
By lap 6, I lapped the first of my co-entrants and I started to realize something . . . I was well ahead of everyone else.
When I dropped off my penultimate rubber band, the race director told me I was on my bell lap, though she had no bell to ring (I was actually a bit surprised, I figured we were on our own honor system, but they were tracking each runner). When I hit the parking lot for the last time, I gave all my legs had in them . . . I managed a half decent sprint to the end.
I won the race.
Now, this event took place the day before the Harrisburg Marathon (in which I could not participate due to a family commitment), so many serious, local runners wouldn’t even think of signing up for a Saturday half-marathon. And the weather likely scared away other distance runners.
But I crossed the finish line before any other entrant. No grand celebration – just a hearty congratulations, they handed me a medal, and invited me to take a miniature pie.
I chit-chatted with the race director and volunteers, mentioning that, in my last trail run, the trail wasn’t nearly as well marked, and several of us participants, all running in a row, nearly got lost when the leader at the time took a wrong turn and everybody else just followed. “How poorly was the course marked that you all made the same mistake?” someone asked. I had to mention that my eyes were more fixated on the other runners than the course itself. When prompted for why that was the case, I had to fess that the race was clothing optional.
I hung around, cheering on finishers until the wind and temperatures started to freeze the sweat still dripping off of me. I made it home; I felt accomplished; I had a shower beer; I realized this may be the first and last time I ever win a race.