2014 Marine Corp Marathon

2014 Marine Corp Marathon

I’m walking the Mile 17 water stop trying to get enough fluid to keep my tongue from sticking to the roof of my mouth and coach passes me like a runaway train.  I take off after him but I’m struggling to close.  He’s running sub-8’s and I’m doing 7:20’s to catch him.  He’s running possessed.

I’m not ready for this.  We were supposed to have a leisurely stroll through the nation’s capital pacing some team members.  Now they’re all gone, and I’m chasing down this crazy old guy with stage 4 prostate cancer.

…

This was the first time in a long time that my wife has traveled to a race with me.  Sometimes people wonder of I’m married because they never see us together.  I had the lady at the dry cleaners ask me one Saturday if I was a widower.  But, alas, I indeed have been married for longer than most of you have been alive. We met when we were 16 when she invited me to her senior prom and were married at 22.

Now, that’s an endurance event!

It was a quick in and out trip.  I was running to collect for Coach who’s trying to raise awareness for Prostate cancer and in general go down fighting.  We flew down Saturday, got a rental and made our way to the Expo at the Armory.

That’s where I decided we should re-name it the “Wait in long lines” marathon.  It’s a wonderful event, but you’d better not be in a hurry.  Took me the better part of 2 hours to get a shirt in a bag.

We headed up to Ann’s house to have dinner with the team.  My wife got to meet all these ‘crazy people’ that I hang out with.

Jeff was planning on pacing some of the ladies to 4:30 finish time so I figured I’d join them and provide some entertainment.  If you’ve ever run a slow marathon with me you know I’m entertaining.  This meant NO Pressure on me to do anything more than just show up.

I ate lots of food, drank beer and didn’t bother to carry any hydration or nutrition.  I figured at that effort level I could just forage as I went during the race.

Getting to the Pentagon in the morning from my hotel in Georgetown was easy because all I had to do was step outside and follow the crowd.  So began another hour and a half of standing in various lines.  At the station, at the security and finally at the Porta-Potties.

Since I had eaten with abandon the night before a great sense of urgency befell me whilst waiting in all these lines.  I was perilously close to a code brown when I finally attained the closet of relief.  Such is a marathoner’s life.

I met Coach and some of the team over by the bag drop and we slotted ourselves way back in the corals.

One interesting thing was having a guy hear my voice and ask me if I was Chris from RunRunLive.  I can’t help but wonder at the abject disappointment of those who’s imagined vision of me is shattered by that physical encounter.  Poor misguided souls.  I’m one of those things that’s better left to the imagination.

No stress, hanging in the back of the corrals with the team.  We watched the marines, including the medal of honor winner, the dude threw himself on a grenade, parachute into the starting line trailing giant American flags.  We had the Osprey flyover.

Marine 1, the president’s helicopter made a pass and I was thinking about our old friend Digger from the RunDiggerRun Podcast who has pod-faded on us and I wondered where the colonel was on this fine morning.

It’s a funny thing about me and long races.  There’s always a song running though my head.  This time it was Armagedion Time by the Clash, and I kept singing the snippet ‘lotta people runnin in the streets tonight…’

We were so far back that we didn’t even know the race started until several minutes after.  The first two miles were packed in tight and we barely managed 11 minute miles.  People were jam-packed into the course and it was hard to run.  There were road blocks – just walls of bodies – I made a joke to coach that I hadn’t been elbowed so much since 5^th grade.

We had a pod of 6 or so runners clustered around the M2EPC shirts and I was having a ball with coach.  We were goofing on people and offering prostate exams and just being randy.  I pulled off in the first couple miles to bless a bush, but had no trouble catching back up.  I dropped the pace to get ahead a couple minutes, pulled off, watered the grass and listened to Coach yelling “Hey, Russell, What are you doing?” as the pod passed.

We lost the first runner early when she peeled off to hit a porta-john.  The rest stayed with us through 10k.  But like a slow sanding down of the edge we lost one after the other through a combination of us being too erratic with our pacing and the density of the crowd.

At one point coach was giving a tutorial on how to shoot snot-rockets and I was singing “Snot rockets, in flight, afternoon delight!”

The weather was awesome.  Sunny, mid-50’s, a nice breeze.  Even so I was feeling super dehydrated.  I felt like I was coming down with a cold and my mouth was dry.  Every water stop I’d pull over and get two cups of water.  Then I’d take two or three and catch back up to the pod and hand them out to the other runners in our group.

They were handing out gels somewhere near the half marathon point but there wasn’t a water stop for another ¼ mile.  The rookies would eat the gels and then get them stuck in their throats and they were yacking them back up.

In the second half of the race there were a lot of folks pulled off to the side with leg cramps.  I think it was the wind.  It stood people up a bit and also masked the fact that they were sweating and the rookies got caught by surprise.

I had a baggie of endurolytes in my pocket and I was sharing them around our little pod.

I pulled off again to water some other bushes just beyond the ‘blue mile’ section where they have a bunch of American flags lining the route.   I couldn’t find Coach when I jumped back on the course.  People were a bit mad with me running hard up through the pack then turning around and running backwards.  Basically I was like an erratic A-hole.

But, I managed to find them.  By Mile 15 we were down to myself, coach, Jason and Christine.  Jason pulled off to use a porta-potty.  Christine pulled off to walk.  She was running injured and we were too erratic for her.

And then it was just me and coach.

I’d lose him at the water stops, because I was so dry I pulled into every one to get two or three cups.  Then I’d find him again when he zoomed by.

No we’re back at mile 18 -19 and he’s running like he’s lost his mind.  Pounding out sub-8’s and focused.  I’m thinking to myself, ‘hold on a second here, I didn’t sign up for this, we were supposed to be having a fun run, right?’  I’m talking to Coach, saying, hey, we’re running sub-8’s here…maybe we could settle down a little?”

He says to me, “I’ll walk the 22 mile water stop.  Keep me focused and let’s bring it in.”  So, I’m like “OK, get behind me we’ll run the tangents and see if we can hold the pace.”  Because we’re still way back in the pack and it’s shoulder to shoulder with walkers and slow runners and we’re ripping through the pack at 1-2 minutes per mile faster than everyone else.

This section of the course has very wide boulevards and rotaries.  I tucked in front of coach and ran the tangents at a reasonable pace.  We’re ducking and weaving up through the pack.  Every so often I’d look back and see if he was still with me.

We kept this going until the long bridge into crystal City at 20-22 miles.

What an ugly section of the course.  It’s this long highway bridge with no support or fans.  It’s got some climbs in it.  It’s industrial and bleak.  Why don’t they put a Marine band out there or something?

All the runners around me were losing hope.  It was like a plague.  As soon as one starting walking all the rest would.  It was mentally exhausting.  I yelled at a group of guys that “This is marathon, not a walkathon! Let’s go!”  It’s brutal.

I lost Coach somewhere on that stretch into Crystal City.  I guess one of his legs went numb from the cancer and he had to walk a bit.

Through the Crystal City turn around I started to notice how bad the roads were.  They were grooved, lumpy and full of holes.  It was still shoulder to shoulder with people stopping and weaving so you had to watch where you put your foot as to not roll your ankle.

I had one lady weave into my path and I had to catch her to keep from bull-dozing her.  I smiled and said “We’ll consider that a hug.”

After the race a lot of folks were complaining about the congestion, but let’s face it, if you choose to run a 30K person race from the back you’ve got to have a sense of humor.

With the wide roads and all the sideways running most people’s Garmins showed at least ½ long. I passed a pace group late in the race and I asked the guy how he was doing.  He said he was pacing perfectly to the mile marks but he thought the course was measured wrong because everyone’s Garmins were off by ½ mile. I told him the course was right.

I got a bit tired in the last couple miles and did some walking but made it to the end, alone and happy to get my medal from a marine.

After I got my bag I made my way a couple blocks up the hill to meet Eric and Dean.  These guys are friends of the podcast and local hash runners and they had a buddy with a condo overlooking the finish line.  It was awesome.  I got a hot shower, breakfast and some nice IPA’s – and they even helped me rescue my wife from DC traffic so I could get back to Regan for the flight home.

All in all it was a good day.  Nobody died.  I got to run with some friends and support Coach.  I’m still married and I was home and up at 7:00 AM the next day for a con call with Europe!

Marathon#46 in the books.

And I was right about the cold.  It got worse through the week and is just clearing up in time for my next adventure.

Cheers,

Chris,