Advertisement
Published: October 31st 2007
Be warned... This one will go on a bit...
And so I sit, one legged but happy, having completed the first (and conceivably only) marathon of my life. Here's a brief rundown.
The great mistake of Dublin is sitting around the hotel with your teammates. You're all a bit tired from the time change. You don't want to go to bed early, but you know you have the breakfast run/marathon/tour of some castle/church/pub/alley tomorrow. So what do you do? You sit there chatting idly, sneakily listening in on the locals around you, chuckling inwardly at the accents and feeling slightly jealous. All of you think the same thing, but nobody wants to be the one to say it. Eventually, somebody (often me) blurts it out, "Well, we could go have a pint. Just one, because as you all know, we have that breakfast run/marathon/tour tomorrow morning" This is followed by everyone pretending to begrudgingly agree. "Yeah... I suppose, I mean it's just one..." "Oh, maybe, but I really don't want to be out..." "I mean, we shouldn't but we are in Dublin..." And so, moments later, having assuaged whatever sense of guilt or obligation you personally harbor, you head out. It will be hours before you return.
So the night before the marathon, we go to the pasta party with Team-in-Training. Eat a bunch of catered food (possibly a mistake if you catch my drift) and for once (and so far, the only time) manage to obey our sharper instincts and not head out. Marathon morning comes, virtually nobody has slept apparently (Not so for me, like I dead guy I was). We all hop up and start our preparations, slather ourselves with body-glide ('cause chafe-age is no man's friend, hop into our over-priced and orthopedically enhanced shoes, tie on our ever so attractive short-shorts and overwhelmingly purple Team-in-Training shirts, slip into our fuel belts, make sure we've got salt packets and goos, and finally feeling more attractive than ever before, head out into the crisp and frigid Dublin air.
Waiting for the start:
You don't want to carry any more than you have to and so the quest to maintain body warmth becomes rather strange. Word had spread that a thin sheen of vaseline serves as a good insulating barrier and proper anti-chafing support, so it was common to find a number of ladies with very shiny legs (and unfortunately and few dudes with grotesquely greased down leg-hair. The rest of us turned in whatever jackets we may have had and huddled inside garbage bags, taking advantage of the thin layer of black plastic and all the warmth it provides. There are porta-potties everywhere and lines for them like nothing I've ever seen. As one teammate, Bill, describes it, it's the Great Nervous Pee. Eventually, you crowd in with 11,000 other people behind the starting line and wait, wondering what the hell made you think this was a good idea in the first place.
The Race:
And you're off, you leap into action at a slow, cattle-like shuffle as you and your 11,000 mates try simultaneously to decompress onto the streets of Dublin. In the beginning, it's a tremendous rush. I and my roommate (also Jared) stayed tight and maneuvered our way through the pack. It feels a bit like I imagine it must feel to be a wolf dodging within a startled herd of antelope, and yes, I do mean to imply that I was feeling predatory. At about mile one, I was convinced we were passing mile two and I believe that was the first moment of heartbreak for me. At this same point, I was introduced to another of the grosser aspects of marathons. Beginning with the men (oh but don't think the ladies don't get in on this) the streets of Dublin become the world's largest public restroom. Every alley, dumpster (and once we entered the parks, every tree) had a crowd of people tucked around it. Bare asses abounded in quantities I've never before seen or imagined.
I was worried about my knee of course, but it'd been fine on the Breakfast Run and that had been at a much faster pace. I wasn't so fooled as to think it wouldn't be an issue, but I was hoping to push through the half-way point before it began to tighten. Imagine then my dismay as we passed the three mile mark and I felt that sharp dart of pain fire up the outside of my right leg. I believe I may have quietly and demurely uttered an epithet of some kind. Luckily, my name-twin had thoughtfully packed a wrap and I was able to quickly bind it. Another mile or so along and we ran into fellow teammate, Tori who provided me with some Ibuprofen. Not too long after that we ran into Sara, another Team-in-Trainer from Atlanta whom Name-mate had met the previous day. She supplied me with candy corn and a small baggy of white cream to rub onto the knee. She was a little hesitant about the cream and at first I suspected it was because she expected to need it herself, so I politely refused. When it became clear that the source of her hesitation actually had more to do with the inherent embarrassment associated with pulling out a tiny, zip-lock baggy filled with white cream, it just became funny and I accepted. We teamed up with Sara and became three. There was a lot of walking (limping in my case) but we still maintained a pretty good pace. Shortly thereafter, we teamed up with a friend of Sara's, Bretaigne (Bretney phonetically) and the foursome was complete.
Team-in-Training:
The coaches and mentors who aren't running (and there are a lot of them) line up along the roadside every few miles and cheer (outrageously) for the runners as we pass. This has tremendous impact on your motivation and even with one leg and one useless club you find yourself running faster. Most of us decorate our shirts and of course write our names on them so that the cheerers can call it out (Go Jared's, you can both do it!) The other Jared had ironed on a bunch of American themed patches (including an eagle and a patch of the car from Pixar's Cars, with the quote "Speed, I am Speed" on it. I, in true testament to my unpreparedness had written my name on mine the night before. True to form, it looked as though the block letters had been scrawled by a third grader and after that was pointed out to me by three or four teammates, I decided to complete the impression by drawing a dinosaur and a race car on the back of my shirt. I should point out that I am, above all, a very classy guy.
The locals were possibly the best part of the marathon. They came out in force and cheered from every curve and corner. All the little bright eyed Irish children wanted to high-five as you came past and hard though it may be to run while hunched over to there wee little heights, I wouldn't have had it any other way. Every few miles or so, we'd run into a coach or mentor from my group and they are all well aware of my knee. Every single one of them would match pace with me and run alongside for a mile or so just to make sure I was okay. Towards the final stretch, coaches Jim and Sara even let me draft off them. Those stretches were by far the easiest, and I could run on that knee for so much longer with that support by my side.
The Finish:
Jared and I really wanted to finish strong, but after 22 miles of limping, not only was my right leg shot, but my left leg was exhausted. We rounded the marker for mile 25 and Jared asked me, "Can you finish this?" and I felt the stiffness in my knee and the aching in my legs and I thought "Not at a run" but I said "Absolutely" because I'm nothing if not stubborn.
And so we ran. And the crowds became thicker and we turned a corner to go around Trinity College. And we ran. Team mates who'd already finished screamed from the sidewalks. And we ran. I got pins and needles in my hands and feet and people leaned over the barricades on the road and shouted "Just a few more turns". And we ran. My vision twisted down to a tunnel and while I could still hear the support, I could no longer acknowledge it. At every step I felt sure I couldn't take another. Jared never stopped talking. "Come on, we're almost there, finish strong, we've got this". His voice was almost hypnotic and it began to affect the other runners as we passed them. One man walking with head bent, looked up and stuttered into a jog as we passed him. And we ran, there were more and more people and while I couldn't see them anymore, I appreciated every voice that reached my ear. We passed the mile marker for 26. "We're down to the point two" yelled Jared. I knew I was at my limit but my feet, now numb, and my knee, moving in spite of itself, kept moving. "Two hundred yards Mate!" came a voice from the sidewalk and curiously, I tried to calculate that. My throat closed, I could hear the air rattling in, but I couldn't take a breath. But we ran. And suddenly there was a curve to the right and I could see the finish line. Without planning to, I growled this weird rasping yell and pushed into the fastest sprint I could manage.
Five hours and forty-five minutes, roughly. No, it's not a record, but it's more than I really thought possible and I don't know that I could be prouder of it. Running with Bretaigne and Jared and Sara, any of whom could've left me behind at any time and run better marathons, but all of whom stuck by me, purely for the sake of a friendship that in most cases was younger than the marathon... It's hard to express how touching that is. The teammates and mentors, the coaches who cheer you along and every local whose commute we interrupted or driveway we blocked who nonetheless, came out to cheer us as we stumbled and limped along the way... At the moment, it's easy to say that I won't run a marathon again, but in the back of my mind, I can already feel a weird desire growing.
By the way, this morning was the first time since the marathon that I've been able to actually lift my right foot off the ground as I walk. It's a good feeling.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.047s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Aunt Janice
non-member comment
WOW!
"Wow" doesn't begin to express how impressed I am. I can't imagine entering a marathon, much less finishing it. And with an injured knee, yet. JARED GO BRAGH!