Plethora

Marathon: Race day

May 18th, 2009

The race started at 7AM and it was cold and windy. About 40 degrees with about a 15 mph wind in our face. There were apparently 11,000 runners at the starting line and the mayor of Cleveland (liberal) headed us out. Now get this, at about the half mile mark, Bartley goes, “I’ll catch up to you” and runs to the portapotty’s. I literally thought he had to be kidding, but nope. There he went.

So, I’m by myself, no Ipod, no friends, cold, and thinking, I’m in for a very long day. And I was.

The first walker I saw was at mile 3. At mile 10 I was still feeling pretty good, but quickly coming to the realization that I wasn’t even close to being done. At mile 6 heard someone gleefully singing “Ohhhhhh we’re half way there, OHHHHH living on a prayer” and thought, “you will pay for your sins”.

Funniest sign: “Go Cavs, Not Browns.” First, nobody from either team was running the marathon, second, why make a sign cheering on your favorite sports team and then think, well, I have more room so….let’s put down the other home team! Why?
“Nobody ever drowned in sweat”
“Go Morlo” “Go Brian” I saw both of those signs at least 10 times.

Craziest thing I saw: Some dude jumping out of the pack to piss on a building. Two marching bands. A butcher coming out of his store yelling, “Don’t make anybody mad” Wtf? An angry bus driver stopped for us runners yelling at us, “COME ON!!!!” because he was pissed he had to wait in traffic.

So, at mile 25 the first person talked to me since Bartley and I took off. “First marathon?” “yes” “How you feeling?” “Just trying not to die” “Feeling nauseated?” “No. I learned from my 17 mile run you should take gels or guu’s to help” “That doesn’t work, you need ginger for nausea, here” and he handed me a piece of candy. He said there was ginger in it and it’d help. 1. I told him I wasn’t nauseated and 2. It went against everything my parents tried to teach me about candy from strangers. Then things got awkward because 1. He told me to put it in my mouth and suck on it and 2. he got in a fight with pace runner. Background info on #2: A pace runner is someone who so consistently runs marathons they know within a minute or so what they’ll finish a marathon at. So, they carry balloons with that time written on them and also have stickers saying the time on their shirts. So, while running you can try and pace yourself accordingly. The old guy next to me, aside from telling me he was fat because he liked ice cream and that his legs are like machines, felt the pace runner was a bit behind schedule. The convo went like this:

Pace Runner:You’re doing good, you should finish at 3:50
Old Guy:I don’t think so
Pace Runner:Yeah, should be right there
Old Guy:I think you’re a bit off
Pace Runner:I’m the pace runner, so I think we’re good
Old Guy:I think you’re a bit slow
Pace Runner:Well, I guess we’ll see

This is at mile 25. I’m in between these two guys and all the jokes and comments I usually wouldn’t hesitate in saying seemed a million miles from leaving my mouth, one because of the ginger, and two because i was thinking of just dying.

So, finally make the last turn which is the last .3 of the race and more and more people are walking and I hadn’t walked yet. At this point my neck, biceps, shoulders, middle of my feet, hamstrings, quads, and my tibialis anterior are throbbing! I was thinking, dad always told us that we should sprint to the finish of every race. I had always been a good sprinter at the end no matter how tired I felt. And this time, I didn’t. I picked it up a little, but we’re talking 2 decimals faster, not a sprint. I literally felt like I would collapse if I sprinted. I crossed the finish line at 03:51:39, Overall Place 694 / 9526. For more results go here.

Immediately my legs started feeling like someone was drilling into the bone and starting the muscles on fire. I was given my medal, grabbed a water, literally swaying at this point and heard a faint voice get louder and louder, finally I hear “BRYCE!” and it was Lindsey. She grabbed me a banana and I kept pleading with her to let me sit down like Dr House begging for a Vicodin (Spoiler: Or Charlie begging for heroine, ok a spoiler for season 1, but a spoiler nonetheless), and she wouldn’t let me. She finally made me take one bite of the banana before moving along. We still have no idea where Bartley is. So, we start looking around with no luck.

Finally about 30 minutes later, my lips are just finally back to normal after I shivered and turned blue for about 20 minutes, I spoke to dad who looked online and found Bartley hadn’t finished yet. About 20 minutes later Bartley finished with a limp. He seemed in good spirits but we found out he had a knee injury at mile 3 and started walking/limping. He literally limped for 23 miles, he said a lot of people really cheered him on thinking he was a cripple. Tiny Tim without the crutch. He knee was about the size of a softball, but 13 ibuprofen, several beers, and resting it finally seemed to heal it.

Overall, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I was so relieved, proud, pained when I finished that I held back tears since I knew I would be bawling. This part is difficult to explain, the emotion of completing something like this. I am not going to say I can’t wait for the next one, because you kill your body preparing and running these, but I know once I rest up and heal up a little, I’ll be ready to train, 13 miles is such an easy run at this point that training for time will be my next goal and I’d love to break 3:40 with my ultimate goal of 3:30, but we’ll see.

Thanks for reading, the last 2 posts were books, I know.

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