Running with a Police Escort
Page 23
Unfortunately, the night before I started having some stomach issues that left me feeling all kinds of icky. But, it was the very end of November—if I didn’t run this race, I wasn’t going to have another opportunity to race this month and I couldn’t come so close to finishing my goal and failing in the second-to-last month.
The gun was set to go off at 9:30 a.m. and the course was going to be open for two hours after that. Even if I really wasn’t feeling well and decided to walk the entire 5 miles, and even if there were a bunch of other runners, I should still be well ahead of that course closure.
In theory.
In actuality, the race started fifteen minutes late. There we were, all 3,000 runners, warmed up and ready to go, anxiously biding our time on Lakeside Avenue. The weather was on our side and it wasn’t as snowy and cold as prior Turkey Trots had been, but even then I still kept checking my watch every few minutes, impatient to start.
Then, because there were so many runners, and because I was observing the proper race etiquette and situated myself in the back, it took me ten minutes to get to the start line. Add to that the fact that I hadn’t been feeling well that week, so had to walk more than I planned … my pace was behind what I had hoped.
But the real problem was that while the race started late, they—be it the race committee or the city of Cleveland or both—failed to adjust the rest of the schedule and push back the course closure time. Suddenly, I had lost half an hour of viable, necessary running time on an open course before I even started.
Of course, I had no way of knowing that at the time. All I could do was do my intervals and try to keep up my pace as long as I could.
I’ve run this race before in freezing cold and snow. This time around, it was slightly chilly, but the sky was bright blue with few clouds. For a race in late November, there really wasn’t any better weather.
My intervals kept me going for the first two miles, but after that my stomach started to feel icky again and I had to switch to straight walking. I walked my second and third miles, through the quiet streets of Cleveland, then at the start of the last mile I began to do my intervals again.
This was a race that actually had a pretty substantial back of the pack. There was a pocket of us who had been keeping a relatively consistent pace together for the whole race and we were all eager to get to the finish line. The only problem was that we had no idea where we were going. With other races that have lots of turns there are usually little orange cones set up on corners with arrows pointing the course out to runners. If they had been up earlier, then they had already been taken down by the time we got back, and the policemen and guards who, no doubt, had spent the better part of the morning directing the faster runners to the correct turns to end up at the finish, were now busy directing all of the cars moving through the downtown city streets of Cleveland. One of our group had to go so far as to ask another runner who had already finished where we were supposed to turn to get back.
Turning that last corner, I stopped short.
Just a couple hours ago, this place was full of people and sponsors and spectators. It was a ghost town at this point. All barriers had been taken down and the post-race food, drinks, sponsors, had fled. There was nothing, save the blue finish mat and a couple of people from the race committee.
I paid my registration fee. I showed up. I ran my five miles. And I don’t even get a damn banana for my effort?
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?
I don’t begrudge the race or city for being unable to keep a course open indefinitely for those of us in the back of the pack, but when I go out of my way to check course times and only register for races where I feel confident I’ll be able to finish, I do so with the expectation that a race will either (a) start on time or (b) push back the course closure if it starts late. By doing neither of those things, the only people punished are the slow runners who are the very runners that need all the time the race offers.
And I wasn’t even in last place; there were still a couple of people behind me. I have no idea what sort of finish line they encountered.
I don’t think race committees do this on purpose, but sometimes it makes me feel like races aren’t for me because I’m not fast. It’s like myself, and other slow runners like me, are afterthoughts. Or, not even after thoughts because that assumes they are thinking about us at all—it’s like we’re lucky enough to just happen to get whatever’s left over from the race after the fast runners finish.
It’s not all organizations: I’ve run some races that treat last place just as well as first. But other times, I feel … forgotten.
Nobody puts Baby in a corner, dammit.
The back of the pack runners are “real runners,” we just run a little slower than our fast counterparts and—as long as we stick to the course time limits—we deserve as much support and encouragement as the front of the pack. That, right there, is what pissed me off the most about the 2015 Turkey Trot: I stuck to the course time limits. They didn’t. But I was the one who paid the price.
A week later I ran the Christmas Story 10K. It was the race’s third year: I ran the first race in 2013, but had skipped the second, mostly because I was so totally not impressed with the medal.
No shame.
But this year, the theme was “Pink Nightmare” and the finisher’s medal showed a little boy dressed in a pink bunny suit running with some leg lamps.
HERE. TAKE MY MONEY. PLEASE GIVE ME A PRETTY PINK MEDAL.
In 2013, I finished in 1:37:23. In 2015, about forty pounds heavier, I finished in 1:37:58.
Well, damn. I guess you really can’t determine speed or success based on what a person looks like.
As I crossed that finish line and the volunteer put that medal around my neck, I had officially completed the goal I set out to achieve twelve months ago.
And as proud as I was of that, this was just one year, one goal. January 2016 was right around the corner and there were still lots of races to run.
But it was also December. Winter was coming, and I still had one more dragon to slay.
20
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreadmill
Cleveland really does have a thing for lovable losers because this slow runner was asked to come back as an Ambassador for the 2016 Cleveland Marathon races. I weighed the option of running the half for a third year in a row, but I also had to weigh the likelihood of me finally getting that PR against those final four miles. Neither the 2014 nor the 2015 race was particularly kind to me, and I’m not sure I was physically, emotionally, or mentally ready to come so close, only to be crushed by the last couple of miles yet again.
Then there was the fact that I was still so jealous of Dan, the final leg in our relay back in September, getting to cross that finish line in Canal Park and wanting that for myself. The Akron races are at the end of September, putting it seasonally closer to my very first half versus Cleveland’s May schedule. Picking another fall race might just be what I needed to finally get that PR, so as soon as registration opened in early January, I signed up and got the Early Bird pricing. #winning.
(Of course, a couple of weeks later I found out that Stephen King would be appearing at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. that very same weekend. Akron doesn’t allow transfers, deferments, or refunds and I didn’t buy the insurance because I’m an idiot who never buys the insurance. This would be my luck. But my desire to cross that finish line in Canal Park beat out even my love of Stephen King.)
But that meant I still had to pick my race for Cleveland’s 2016 events. This year they introduced something new: a Challenge Series.
Traditionally for Cleveland Marathon Weekend, there is a 5K on a Saturday with the 10K, half, and full marathons on Sunday. Opting to make it more of a weekend event, the organization created some pairings and also included a brand-new 8K race on Saturday morning. If a runner signed up for one of the three Challenge Series options—5K/10K, 8K/half, 8K/full—they’d get extra bling an
d some additional swag in their packet. Any of the distances could be run singularly as well, but this was just an added incentive.
Being that I love me some extra bling, I opted for the 5K/10K Challenge. The training wouldn’t be as time-consuming as, say, a half marathon, but I would have to work on more back-to-back runs and getting used to going out there on tired legs.
This also meant that when training started in early February, it was still too cold and dark outside in the mornings to run outdoors before work.
This meant I only had one option.
I stepped on the treadmill, spreading my legs apart to put my feet on the sides while I got everything set up. My water bottle went in the cup holder on the right while my phone went in the cup holder on the left. In the middle of the dashboard I put my tablet.
This morning I was trying something new.
All the time I see friends post on social media about doing their long runs indoors. I’m talking eight, nine, sometimes even upwards of fifteen, sixteen miles on the treadmill. That’s it, just running on the treadmill for distances equal to or greater than a half-fucking-marathon. Round and round the belt goes for several hours while you stare at a wall or out a window, if you’re lucky. Just running along on a treadmill.
Like, I literally cannot even. (So much so I just keep putting it in italics because that is the only way I can reasonably express my complete and utter shock at this.)
Of course, when it’s a fast runner we’re talking only needing maybe a couple of hours out of the day to knock out a decent set of miles. Even if they’re going to be running a 5- or 6-hour marathon on race day, most training plans stop a few miles short of the final distance, so they won’t need that long on even their longest training run.
Which is exactly why I will never run a marathon. Well, six other reasons as well. Seven hours in total. Based on my half marathon PR, it would take me at least seven hours to complete a full marathon. Which is a problem since many marathon racing organizations cut off the course time at seven hours and my saying it would take me at least that long is probably being far too generous in my own abilities. It would probably take me closer to seven and a half hours, maybe eight depending on weather, course, how my training went, etc.
There are certain things I love enough to dedicate eight hours of my life to complete. These include marathon reading the brand-new book by a favorite author, and marathon watching the latest season of Orange is the New Black the day Netflix releases it. (Which, conveniently, started back up the weekend after I handed in the first draft of this book to my editor. Coincidence? I think not. Instead, it’s almost like Netflix was rewarding me for all my hard work.)
But marathon running for eight hours?
Hahahahahahaha.
So, yeah, while I’m perfectly happy being someone who has completed multiple half marathons, there is no way I will ever, under any circumstances, run a full marathon. I’m not saying that to be flippant or facetious or to have someone come and tell me that I could totally do it.
Could I? Sure. Probably. It’s like anything else, it’s all a matter of how well I train. But do I want to? Hell no. I have a limit on the treadmill. I can only go so long before dying of complete and utter boredom. This is usually in the realm of about five minutes, which, obviously, isn’t ideal for someone training for races while living in a city where the treadmill is a necessity at certain times of the year.
My 5K/10K training was starting and I knew I needed to figure out a way to come to terms with the treadmill. For convenience sake, I tend to use the one in my apartment building, which is in a tiny little room and leaves me feeling all kinds of claustrophobic. When I thought about it, though, I realized that other times on the treadmill, I actually have managed to pull out significant distances and durations without getting bored: the YMCA, hotel gyms, etc. These treadmills had one thing in common: television screens.
Really, it’s a sad state of affairs, but it occurred to me that if I had something to focus my attention on, I could basically zone out the physical part of what I was doing and be blissfully entertained. When I started to actually pay attention to my friends who are running ten or eleven or whatever miles on the treadmill, I realized this was their key to survival as well.
To be honest, I kind of felt like an idiot for taking so long to realize this. I mean, is everyone doing this? Is this, like, a thing? Some secret understanding that runners just don’t talk about? Because, I have to say, in the past I’d use running on the treadmill in the morning as justification for spending my afternoon watching really trashy reality television and now I could do both at the same time?!
So there I was, setting up my tablet on the middle of the console with my show all ready to go. Naturally, I adjusted it so that it was blocking the clock on the treadmill, as I didn’t want that distracting me. I had my Garmin watch, which would buzz with each interval and would be enough to keep an eye on the time. I synced the watch and the treadmill and pushed the bright green start button.
And, just like that, before I knew it I was done.
Granted, I was training for a shorter race, so I didn’t need any ridiculously long distance, so I’m talking maybe only half an hour worth of work, but in the past that would have been about twenty-five minutes of sheer torture after five minutes of minimal torture; this time it wasn’t that bad. In many ways, it reminded me of the very first time I stepped on this treadmill almost exactly four years before. I had some preconceived notions about how I was going to feel during and after, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover I didn’t actually hate it after all.
The weeks of training continued, winter transforming yet again into spring and soon I was able to start heading outside again. March brought the annual St. Malachi. This was my fourth year running it, but this year I chose the 2-Mile race as it fit into my training calendar better than the longer 5-Mile race option did. With the staggered start times, I was done before the 5-Mile race even started and I discovered that St. Malachi has a huge finisher’s festival at the finish line. All sorts of vendors were set up with both food and drink. I had never been able to take part in the past because by the time I finished running the 5-Mile race, they had all already packed up and left.
Along with outdoor races on the weekends, I also had a new job and a new schedule, both of which left me with a little more creativity to fit runs in during the week.
My previous job had me working four 10-hour work days, although with commutes and lunches built in I was gone twelve hours a day. Now, I worked for a company that not only gave me a more traditional 9-5 schedule, but also fully supported healthy living for the staff. Not only do they offer workout classes during the week at lunchtime, but there is a walking trail out back and a warehouse full of free weights and kettlebells of all sizes and weights. And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a locker room with a full set of showers, which means that people like me—the ones that don’t “glow” while working out, but full-on sweat instead—can take a shower and clean up before going back to work for the rest of the afternoon.
BEST. JOB. EVER.
Realizing that I could fit some of my training runs in on my lunch hour was an awe-inspiring moment. The kind of moment that made me sit back and wonder why I hadn’t been utilizing my lunch hour for this reason the whole time I’d been here. I mean it was just so obvious. Silly Jilly. Granted, because I only get an hour and have to build changing times before and after into that, this plan wouldn’t work for very long runs, but with some effort I could get between two and three miles in.
No longer would I have to wake up at some ridiculous hour and run outside in the dark. Also I wouldn’t have to spend all day at work with the “I have to run tonight” dread hanging over me. Running on my lunch hour burned off some pent-up energy created by sitting in my cube all day and then I’d come back after lunch ready to push through the second half of the work day.
On the days I wasn’t running, I’d take advantage of the Zumba and yo
ga classes that were offered, creating a built-in, well-rounded running and cross-training program that worked my body and also let me sleep in slightly.
Best of both worlds, amirite?
April brought me the biggest lifestyle change of them all: after seven years of living in downtown Cleveland, nestled on the banks of the Cuyahoga among the machines of industry, I had moved in with my boyfriend and was now living in the neighboring town of Lakewood.
Lakewood is close enough to downtown to still be considered urban, but has a cozy feel that lends itself to feeling equally suburban. (a.k.a. it is also the best of both worlds.) Suddenly I had sidewalks to run on. Lots of them. Sidewalks that seemed to go on for miles and miles and miles.
The best part of this move was that all the city parks were in walking and, well, now running, distance. Before, even when I chose to run at Edgewater or the Metroparks, I’d still have to drive there. Now, I could run to the park, run in the park, then run home from the park. With this new break in my midday and spring allowing for outdoor weekend runs, I no longer had to rely on the treadmill to get my runs in and while I was certainly grateful for an opportunity to get outside and literally pound the pavement, I also knew that this was a short-lived reprieve. Living in Cleveland means that after fall starts, sundown is wayyy earlier, and I’ll once again have to face that old treadmill. Of course, now that I’ve moved I won’t have to worry about entertaining myself on the one in that small room and can take advantage of the dreadmills at the nearby Y, but either way, now that I have a plan of attack, I feel far less dread when it comes to the dreadmill. We may actually become friends after this.
Well, then again, maybe not. I mean, let’s not go all crazy here or anything.