2 Birthdays and a Half Marathon

No, this is not an announcement for the long anticipated sequel to Four Weddings And A Funeral, but it does describe, quite succinctly, my day yesterday...in reverse.

The night before the race (Fri) I stuck both feet in a bucket of ice for 20 minutes and tied ice bags to my knees just before going to bed. I think that I perhaps peaked a bit early in my training for the half marathon. The balls of my feet and my right knee were beginning to tell me they needed some time off. I was concerned that they would not be able to withstand the 13.1 miles that would be asked of them the following morning.

The day began at 3:45 am when the alarm clock sounded. Time to suit up. I was 'that guy' who wore the shirt provided by the marathon organizers...for free! It's awesome how much free stuff you get when pay $85 just to run at the same time as 25,000 other people. Add the shirt to some high riser soccer shorts, and I was a vision in blue and pasty white (the shirt and shorts were not pasty white). Last but not least, I doubled up on the band-aids over the nips to prevent chafing/bleeding. It was at this time when I reviewed the long distance race business model in my mind. I wish I were involved in the brainstorming session where the first marathon EVER was discussed. I imagine it went something like this:

Dummy1: We need to think outside the box. How can we get thousands of people to give us money for something that they could really do on their own if they really wanted?

Dummy2: Ooh, I know, we can create a machine/robot that punches people in the face. They'll flock from all over and pay us money so they can prove to themselves that they can take a punch. They'll even train at home. We'll attract sponsors from all walks of life because our crowds will be so huge.

Dummy1: Nah, that'll never work.

Dummy3: I've got it! Organized fitness. We'll charge people to run with other people. And I'm not just talkin' short 5 or 10K jobs. I'm talkin' 26.2 miles, baby, and perhaps half that for people with less mental toughness. They'll train for months. They'll fly in from the nether regions of the world just to say they've run the race in a specific location. We'll provide a shirt, and perhaps a bottle of water and a granola bar at the end of the race, but our margins will be ridonculous. That's BEFORE the sponsors! We'll attract advertisers in droves due to the sheer size and diversity of our demographic. I'm tellin' ya people, this is our Mona Lisa!

Dummy1&2: By George, he's got it!

I am no longer guiltless. I fell victim to the ploy. Perhaps it was my unwillingness to give in to age and a slower metabolism. Perhaps it was to prove to myself that I could do something I neither wanted to nor thought I could ever do. Perhaps there was a part of me that wanted to catch a glimpse of what it's like to live in my wife's shoes. Somehow a combination of the 3 found me leaving the house at 4:15 am Saturday morning driving to Seattle for the inaugural Seattle Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon.

I carpooled with my neighbor. He's the one that dared me to register for the race in the first place. We parked at the Qwest Field parking garage and caught a shuttle ('shuttle' is a fancy name for School Bus) to the Starters Village in Tukwila (south of Seattle). In reality, the only thing about the 'Starters Village' that resembled a true village were the miles of outhouses as far as the eye could see. I believe you modernists call them 'port-a-potties'. Evidently the thought of running that far scared the pooh out of more than just me!

It was a gorgeous day. I'm generally not that generous with my praise of the Seattle climate, but this was truly a beautiful morning. I was prepared for cloud cover, in that even on sunny days here it doesn't get truly sunny until later in the morning, but just before the start of the race it was relatively warm and I decided to shed my long sleeve shirt and started with short sleeves.

After some final stretches, the celebrity race starter got on the microphone. It was UW Football Head Coach, and former BYU Quarterback Steve Sarkisian. Once I crossed the starting line, I hit Play on the Zune 8GB and the voice of Duke from Rocky IV filled my head, "You're gonna have to go through hell, more than any nightmare you've ever dreamed. But in the end, I know you're gonna be the last one standin'....you know what you gotta do....do it...DO IT." I enjoyed putting my playlist together for the race. I was really looking forward to running if, for no other reason, I got to listen to ~2hrs of my favorite music. I mean, I'm talkin' Kris Kross 'Jump', Van Halen 'Jump', House of Pain 'Jump Around'. Who can listen to that stuff and not be pumped up?

I underestimated what 25,000 people meant. Claustrophobia set in at the starting line. I didn't feel like I could really hit my stride until close to Mile 3. I had to fight the urge to burst out of the gate and start passing people. I think that's why I have such a hard time with the concept of running just to run. I consider myself very competitive, but I have absolutely no interest in simply beating myself. Since everyone knows the only way to truly feel good about yourself is to make others feel bad, I started keeping a +/- total of how many people I passed vs. how many people passed me.

I saw a sign at Mile 1 that read 'only 12.1 to go!' At first I interpreted the sign as a daunting reminder of how much ground I still had left ahead of me, but then I thought to myself 'that's 1 mile I never have to accomplish again on my quest to say that I've completed a half-marathon'.

The stretch between miles 4 and 5 miles was mostly uphill, but my neighbor and I matched stride for stride. Well, that can't be quite right in that he's just a tad shorter, so perhaps his stride was a hair quicker than mine, but I digress.

It was at Mile 6 that Randy (neighbor) and I were separated. He had been running at a slightly faster pace than that for which he had trained, so he decided to fall back a bit. Miles 6-9 was a beautiful stretch overlooking Lake Washington. Again, gorgeous day. The furthest I had ever run in one outing prior to race day was 10 miles, so I was bit nervous about how the body would respond to miles 10-13. At 9.2 miles the pack hooked a left onto the I-90 tunnel. It had not occurred to me that my GPS watch would not work in the tunnel, so I had to go approximately 3/4 miles without knowing how far I had gone or how fast I had gotten there. Oh, the perils of this generation. I'm fairly certain my ancestors just planned a flat tire on my way to work tomorrow as a result of that last complaint. In my defense, however, I'm an analytics geek. I prefer to run on a treadmill rather than consume all that fresh air and scenic views because, well, I'm a numbers nerd. I need to know how many calories I've burned, what pace I'm at, how far I've gone, how far I've got left, the square root 1,349, etc. Anyhow, the fortunate part of my 'wardrobe malfunction' was that I was pleasant surprised to learn, once I emerged from the tunnel, that I was at the 10 Mile mark and that I only had a 5K left. That seemed to be doable. I was boldly going where my body had never gone before, but I was feeling good. Miles 10-12 I found my 4th or 5th wind (I couldn't keep track of 'winds' AND keep a running total of passed vs. got passed at the same time!) and started to get a glimmer of that elusive 'runner's high'. I've always equated 'runner's high' with likes of Big Foot, the Lachness Monster, or right-winged media. Ya know, things that you'd like to see but pretty sure don't exist. I also once thought that 'runner's high' meant the runner was high for wanting to run in the first place, but it turns out it's something entirely different. I couldn't feel the pain in my feet or knees anymore and honestly (because everything written previous to this line is sketchy, at best) I didn't even feel like I was moving my legs and arms forward anymore. It was like I had been doing this for so long that my body just kind of took over and switched to autopilot. That was until Mile 12.

Mile 12 to Mile 13 was difficult. I definitely incurred a deficit on that leg of the race from a pass-or-get-passed perspective. I hit a wall of fatigue. I kept running, though. I never walked. I saw a sign that read 'Pain is Temporary, Quitting is Forever!!' I certainly had no intention of quitting, ever, but realizing that pain and exhaustion were temporary helped me to Mile 13. I could see the finish line. More importantly, I could see someone I knew from church about 50 feet in front of me. I zeroed in on him as my last goal of the race. I ran as fast as my legs would take me at that point and willed myself to the Finish Line ahead of him at 1hr 54 min 07 sec, crushing my goal of 2 hrs. Just 3 minutes later my friend/neighbor Randy crossed the line, beating his goal time as well. What a great feeling. I overcame my own doubts and lack of desire to accomplish something of which I am proud. I've gained a renewed respect for those that train for and complete full marathons. Having done a half, I'm pretty sure that with enough training, the body could take the punishment and bounce back, but I just don't think that I'm mentally strong enough to pound out 26.2 miles. As it is, there's not a second that goes by while running when the voices in my head aren't reminding me of how much I can't stand running. And that's just how the nice voices say it. I can't even write what the angry voices say, after all, this is a family friendly blog!

Anyhow, the rest of the day was spent at a 6-yr old's birthday party a la Chuck E Cheese and a 30 something's birthday party later that night. Before sundown I had eaten nearly half of a pizza, and two burgers piled high with a supporting cast of chips, soda, and chocolate cake, because...well...I earned it baby!