Running downhill? Magical. Fucking magical I tell you. It doesn’t matter how slow my run up until then has been. Hell, I could be out there having the worst possible run ever, but as soon as I hit a downhill section I turn into a fucking Olympian. (In my mind, at least.) The wind at my back, I am picking up so much speed and making up for lost time, might as well just hand me that gold medal right now.
Of course, I’m not exactly the most coordinated individual out there and so I have to be careful and not give fully into my capabilities because I would be that clumsy idiot who trips over her feet and doesn’t run down the hill so much as roll down it and that’s not quite the photo finish I’m aiming for here.
At the bottom of the hill, the course turns left to a tenth of a mile stretch of flat road.
When I made that final turn and set my sights on the finish line up ahead, I also noticed the two women standing on the other side of the blue mat. They each held the last few remaining finisher’s medals. I’m talking maybe five total medals between the two of them.
So, here’s the thing with finisher’s medals. Unless it’s a race that sets a registration cap, there’s really no guarantee a runner will get their medal. This is a sad reality that unfairly affects slow runners more than it does faster runners, but it is still a reality for many, many in the back of the pack. While I’ve always been fortunate enough to receive my medal, I’ve heard stories from friends who haven’t been so lucky.
As long as a race allows for same-day registrations, there’s always a chance they will run out. A racing organization has to order medals in advance and while they can use whatever tools they have available to guesstimate how many medals to order, there’s still a chance they’ll underestimate.
Finisher’s medals are first come first serve.
Which is all well and good, except when a bunch of front and middle of the pack runners show up the day of the race and decide to run. They finish first. They get their medals. The more medals they receive, the less that are available to those runners in the back who are still working their way through the course.
That race, I got lucky. As the volunteer handed me my medal, I made a quick count and I knew there were still runners behind me who might not be quite as lucky. It was going to be close for sure. As someone who knows she’ll never win a racing medal for coming in first (or second, or third), the finisher’s medals mean a lot to me, just as they no doubt mean a lot to all of the other runners in the back of the pack. I can’t even imagine how devastating it would be to put in the training, to show up on race day, to complete the race, and then not get a medal just because I was too slow and didn’t get to the finish line fast enough. I mean, hello. Look at everything I did a few months ago just to get that Bernie medal. Finisher’s medals are legit serious business. Don’t be getting between me and my bling.
I finished, but I didn’t finish fast, averaging close to 17-minute miles. I started out way too fast in the beginning and my body just couldn’t keep up. Even if I wasn’t, y’know, slow I don’t know if I’d have been able to keep up with that pace. Then there was that whole hacking up a lung thing and I was pretty much doomed from the start.
Over the next couple of days my cold progressed and my body was starting to feel tired. And not just normal tired. Not the tired that comes with training and early morning runs and late night workouts. This was exhausted. Lethargic. Fatigued. Finally, I sucked it up and went to the doctor who advised me to consider taking a week off from my training.
I was early enough in my training that missing a week’s worth of workouts wouldn’t set me back too far. But, still. A whole week? I mean, what if I take off and my body just, like, forgets how to run?
The other option was to fight through it. To keep going, to push myself through the workouts and the runs, no matter how horrible I felt, no matter how tired and sick my body was.
I decided to listen to my body, and the doctor, and take the week off. If I was later in my training, I don’t know if I would have made the same decision but this particular time it was the right choice.
So now, with three races now done, I was a quarter of the way through my 2015 racing goal. Only one more race stood between me and the half marathon.
15
The Hero’s Journey
For the past couple miles I have had one mantra repeating itself, anxiously increasing in both speed and volume with each loop:
I’m pretty sure I’m lost.
During races, my mind goes a million miles a minute. Some thoughts are good, like when I’m jamming to my running playlist and my power song comes on and I’m just all FUCK YEAH LET’S DO THIS THING. (I want to be all hip and cool and tell you that my power song is something old school like Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” but it’s the Nicki Minaj version of “Anaconda.” #Sorrynotsorry.)
Moments like that are good. But the flip side of that is when I’m a mile into a five-mile run and my brain all of a sudden wakes up and is like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! Why are we running? Why are we out in the [insert: rain, snow, cold, other miscellaneous forms of precipitation] running when we could be inside, warm under the covers? My feet are yelling at me, my body is yelling at me, my brain is yelling at me and I just kind of want to give in and go home but I still have four miles to go and OMG I hate my life.
Those moment are less good. But if there’s one thought I do not, under any circumstance, want to have pass across the fog of my consciousness mid-race, it’s the vague notion that I may very well have drifted off course.
But nevertheless here I was: hot, exhausted, and seven miles into a ten-mile race with absolutely no idea where I was going.
When I first committed to running one race a month for all of 2015, there were certain races that I knew I was going to run no matter what, like last month’s St. Malachi 5 Mile. Other months I was playing by ear, not sure what I’d be running until it got closer and I had a better idea of what my training would be like.
Just as St. Malachi easily fit into the beginning portion of my half marathon training, the April Hermes 10 Miler fit in perfectly near the end of my training.
Named for the Greek god who acts as a messenger between mortals and those on Mount Olympus, the Hermes 10 Miler began in 2005 as a race designed to help those runners training for half and full marathons, including the Cleveland Marathon.
As the name suggests, long runs are, uh, long. When training for a 5K, a long run might not all be that long, but as race distances increase, these runs live up to their name. Like most half marathon training plans, mine tops off at ten miles, which conveniently coincided with the Hermes 10 Miler. Additionally, with the half marathon in May and Hermes in April, I was able to my meet my April race commitment, get in a long run, and get some bling.
When I started my half marathon training in late February, I wasn’t feeling confident or ready to take on the challenges ahead. But as I logged my miles and watched my progress I realized I had an opportunity to PR. So far, all signs pointed to the fact that I’d be able to run a faster half marathon than I did the very first time I tackled the distance back in 2013.
This information was gathered from all my long runs, and the Hermes 10 Miler would be the real test. At ten miles, it was close enough to a half marathon distance that I knew whatever pace and time I pulled out on that day would be a good indicator of how race day would go a couple weeks later.
That morning, I woke up early and headed over to the race site, the familiar Edgewater Park. The race was starting on the upper level, and I managed to get lucky and find a spot in the small lot. Packet pick-up had been at a local running store a few days before so all I needed to do was show up.
I had a few friends running this race but, as always, with so many people it’s difficult to stay organized and find people. The breeze right off the lake made for a chilly morning and I was glad I wore my jacket. The bib was pinned right on the outside.
I found myself in last place as soon as the gun went off and
we all started running. It was going to be a long morning and I had ten miles to cover, so there was no reason to worry about my place or pace right at the very beginning. I started doing my intervals, alternating set periods of running and walking, the little voice embedded in my running app telling me when it was time to run or walk.
The course started at the upper level of Edgewater Park near the pavilion, then looped around the walking path, and then went down towards the main road, which fed into a residential neighborhood.
Waiting at the entrance to the neighborhood was the police escort that would be following me for the majority of the race.
The middle of the pack tends to keep a consistent pace, everyone matching each other stride for stride. In the back it’s more haphazard, everyone running their own race, their own pace. Because of my run-walk intervals, there are times when I’ll surge ahead of someone only to fall behind them when I switch to walking. There was one such woman at the Hermes 10 Miler. For the first few miles, we were constantly trading off on who was in last place. It wasn’t some unspoken thing between the two of us, simply a matter of our own running and walking styles. Eventually, though, with my intervals I managed to pull far enough ahead to secure a spot that was second to last.
Spring weather in Cleveland can be unpredictable and the jacket I had been wearing at the start of the race now left me feeling overheated. It took an awkward few minutes and several run-walk-run rotations to unpin my bib from the front of my jacket so I could re-pin it to the front of my shirt.
The course took us in, out, and around the ritzy neighborhood right on Lake Erie, with gorgeous views of the water and palatial private homes with fences all around the property. Admittedly, I may have used my walking intervals to window-shop the large homes I will never, ever be able to afford, but THEY ARE JUST OH SO PRETTY TO LOOK AT.
At Mile Six, the back of the pack was made up of me, that other woman, and the police escort closely following her. By now there were other police cars out on the road to open up the streets again and we were now told to move to the sidewalk.
Sigh.
Okay.
I may be horrible about reading course maps in advance, but I always read course time limits and I knew that this race specifically said that as long as a runner was below an 18-minute average they could stay on the road. At 16-minute miles, I was well below that, yet they still decided to move us onto the sidewalk, which is y’know, kind of not cool. Oh sure, just let me dodge these suburban residents doing their Saturday morning boutique shopping. I know I’m slow but goddamnit, that day I was not that slow.
This is another one of those challenges that slow runners face that fast runners don’t and I’m always mindful of finish times and course limits; it’s exasperating to go out of my way to sign up for races and keep those time limits, only to have it change on race day. But, whatever.
Things started to get a little complicated around Mile Seven, when the course started to turn back towards Edgewater Park. I know this park pretty well. I’ve covered many, many, many miles there, and have run multiple races that have used the park’s paths as the course. This meant I knew there was no way in hell there was enough ground to get another three miles out of this park.
Enough time had passed since the start of the race that most people were already finished, so the entire park—including the path those of us in the back were still using—was full of runners milling around. People, bright shiny medals hanging around their necks, walked haphazardly, in all directions as they worked their way through the crowd to their parked cars.
Trying to maintain the course at this point was getting increasingly difficult, but I just stayed on the park’s path as best I could and kept an eye out for volunteers and course markers. After going on another loop of the upper level of the park, we were dumped back out onto the street. This particular area of the city has been going through a lot of changes in recent years and I was less familiar with the new landscape. There literally were no other runners around for about a mile in either direction of me.
It was around this point in the race that I legitimately began to worry I was lost. The course wasn’t well marked. Or, well, maybe it was well marked, but it wasn’t well thought out. So I’d be running along a stretch of sidewalk, eyes constantly shifting around trying to find an orange course marker, and my little brain would be saying This can’t be right, this can’t be right over and over again until, finally, that orange course marker appeared. And then I’d be running along that stretch of sidewalk, once again looking for the next marker, once again repeating This can’t be right, this can’t be right.
The course itself was just confusing as hell, and because it’s just me out there and because it’s a Saturday morning and all the non-runners were home sleeping or out brunching (lucky bastards) all I could do was keep running and hope I was running in the right direction.
As I started to run up Detroit Avenue, I knew I had to be closing in on the finish line, or at least closing in on the park. At Mile Nine I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a policeman standing at the entrance to a newly developed neighborhood. In fact, I was so happy to see him I waved and he waved back. Across the street I heard a commotion loud enough to infiltrate my earbuds and when I looked over, I saw an old woman in a wheelchair shouting and cheering me on.
Have I mentioned that I fucking love this city?
As I turned the corner into the neighborhood, the policeman raised his index finger. One mile left. With a grin, I raised mine and kept running.
Here the committee had been a little more generous with the markers, which was good, because the course now consisted of a lot of twists and turns around new apartment buildings and town homes. But eventually the course ran towards the tunnel that would take me underground and back to Edgewater Park.
Exiting the tunnel, I realized I had completely overestimated just how close the tunnel was from the rest of the park. Seeing the finish line flag on the furthest side of the park, I estimated I still had about half a mile left. All I could do was keep running.
The tunnel opened to a long concrete ramp that zigged and zagged down, eventually connecting with Edgewater Park’s walking path. As I followed the curve of the course towards the finish line, I spotted my parents waiting on a picnic bench near the perimeter.
I untied my jacket sleeves from around my waist and tossed it in the general direction of my parents. It landed softly on the grass a few feet in front of them. “Bring it to the finish!” I shouted as I picked up my pace.
(Later, at brunch, my mom told me that when my dad picked it up he said that the jacket was soaking wet with sweat.)
Several yards ahead of me, the big black flag that marked the end waved in the breeze, the words FINISH written in white. Those runners fast enough to finish before me were able to run under an inflatable arch, an arch that was already being taken down by the time that I finished.
Right there, right at the end, I felt this surge in my legs and sprinted for that finish line. All those walking intervals built into my race assisted in preserving my energy and endurance
Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the race workers clapping and cheering my last push of the race and after I crossed the finish line, he came over and gave me a high five. While someone put a finisher’s medal around my neck, he personally brought over a small carton of chocolate milk and banana from the pile of post-race refreshments.
Ten miles, 2 hours, and 41 minutes later, I finished the Hermes 10 Miler with an average mile time of 16:07. For a race of this distance, that was absolutely unheard of for me. This meant that I legitimately had an opportunity to get a Personal Record at my upcoming half marathon.
16
Three Times a Charm?
It was finally here.
May 17, 2015.
Race day. For my third half marathon.
Several months before I had found out I had been selected as a 2015 Cleveland Marathon Ambassador; to say that I was surprised by
this is an understatement. After all, I am slow. So slow that I’ve come in last place at more than one race. I’m also fat. Who the hell wants a slow, fat loser representing them at a major racing event?
The thing about this city is that we love a lovable loser. I mean, hello. Just look at our sports teams. (Well, okay, I mean, except for that whole 2016 NBA Championship thing which was, like, THE. BEST. DAY. EVER. But ignore that and let’s, instead, look at the previous fifty-two years of Cleveland sports.) It turns out I was the perfect person to pick to be an Ambassador.
The Friday before the race was a busy one, with both packet pick-up and a swanky V.I.P. party. After spending the past weeks and months following their training programs—and having them following mine—this was going to be the first time I actually met any of my fellow Ambassadors in person and, to be perfectly honest, I was super nervous. They are all fast and some are triathletes and Iron(wo)men. But they were warm, friendly, and completely accepting of my speed. Like my readers, they had been following my training on my blog and knew that I was aiming for a PR at Sunday’s race. Before leaving for the night we all made a plan to meet before the start of the race.
Sunday morning I was up early and quickly got ready. I’d followed my usual routine of putting my clothes out the night before, so everything was there waiting. This included a bright pink headband that said What I lack in speed I make up for in cute.
ALRIGHT, BITCHES. LET’S DO THIS THING.
Parking can always be a little tricky for big races because many of the roads downtown Cleveland are closed early for the race, so it can be a bit of a scramble just to get into the city, let alone find somewhere to keep your car. My boyfriend, who was not running that day, offered to wake up equally as early and drive me to the start line (or as close as he could get).
He is so totally a keeper.
Since I would be running slow and it was going to take me a few hours to complete the 13.1 miles ahead of me, he would still have plenty of time to get back to my apartment and go back to sleep before coming to get me at the finish line.
Running with a Police Escort Page 19
