Pacing the Oakland Marathon was fun! Enough observations worth reading--coming soon. Not sure if the following is too, but I felt the urge to write it down a couple of days ago so...
Looking for my plastic crates I was going to use as drop bags at the Kettle Moraine 100 mile, but they are all over the house, being used to store my kids toys, old clothes, food. I rapidly empty them of the offending non-running items, stuff them with my race supplies, then carry them out to the race start, tables lining lush wet grass. Co-RD Timo's wife, Ann Heaslett is out on the table, all smiles,
tells me the race started at 8 so I had 30 minutes. Then I notice that I didn't have my running shoes. Where were they? I start walking out of the crowd to look, then RD Timo (Tim Yanacheck) announces the race is going to start in a few minutes. Shit! It's not even 8. I don't know where my shoes are! Then my phone rings and one my coworkers informs me that someone called in sick, and I'm on call, so I have to work the 8-5 ED shift. Fuck me! I work the shift (only in a dream does it go by so quickly), and ask Timo if I can get credit for starting so late. He just smiles--not sure what that means. Whatever, I want to get going. I'm still barefoot, and am EXTREMELY anxious to start running, given that I am at least 5-6 hours behind the next-to-last runner. As I do multiple times during my ED shifts, I have to make a quick, crucial decision. I decide to run the race barefoot-- isn't that the trendy thing to do now? Luckily, it had been raining for a few days, so the ground is muddy and soft. Before I'm out of the start area, I see last year's winner and new course record holder Zach Gingerich (with whom I tried to chat two years ago at around mile 70, but he was not having a great day then). He is heading back in at mile 62. I ask him if the trail was soft and smotth, or bumpy and hard, but he is in the zone, running too hard, to answer as we pass each other. Luckily not too many rocks, so no bleeding, but around mile 30 or 40 I get REALLY sleepy, and despite my desire to catch up with the slowest runner, I have to find a place to sleep. There's a small house in Athens I stayed at while travelling with this random woman I hooked up with in Turkey 18 years ago and I fondly reminisce about our short time together until we parted ways in Greece, while simultaneously feeling stressed about delaying my catch-up with everyone else, but face down in a slightly musty pillow, I soon fall asleep...
only to wake up to my radio alarm at 4:55. I change into a long sleeve tech race shwag shirt, shorts, use the bathroom, throw on my pack with my work scrubs, lunch, magazine and other supplies (the thing somedays weighs almost 5 pounds. I head out of the house, noticing a light sprinkle, but soon realize it's not just drizzling, it's raining and I'm soaked, stupid for actually looking at Yahoo weather the night before--has no connection with the real weather forecast. I had planned on running a 7:40 minutes mile pace as feel for the marathon this Sunday, but I'm too cold to want to hold back. I'm completely drenched 27 minutes later bounding up the stairs to barely catch the earlier train. Luckily I don't freeze on the BART. The 6 a.m. doc was lucky, had only seen one patient, and I jinx the whole place and we are running around working our asses way behind all shift. I leave 75 minutes late, run home, finally do that 7:40 minute-mile pacing practice run. When I upload the run from my Garmin Forerunner, it mysteriously malfunctions, so like a dream and my fuzzy mental state, I wonder if it ever happened.
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