I hate it when marathons get off to a bad start, and this one was shaping up to be one of the worst I’ve experienced. Sure, I’ve missed flights and lost my running gear before… but those things are to be expected when traveling across the country. This race was in my backyard, things are supposed to unfold smoothly.
My mis-adventure started Friday around noon. After getting my son off to camp (his ride was late), I jumped in the car and hit the freeway, or rather something on the freeway. My car pitched strongly to one side and my flat tire light came on. Someone had lost a box full of tools and one had ripped out my sidewall. Three hours later, $300 poorer, I was on the road again. I kept a nervous eye on the clock as traffic became more congested. My 1 hour drive to Seattle was verging on 5 hours (“gee it took you 5 hours to get to Seattle? I can run a marathon faster than that”) and the expo was nearing it’s close. I finally reached Quest Field, pulled into the garage and was promptly asked for $10… the advertised $5 parking fee was wrong, and I was in no mood to fork out yet more money, but I gave in. I rushed to get my number, ignored all the vendors hawking items I’m sure I needed, and went in search of “The House”. I drove right to it… finally a signal that the weekend may turn out o.k. Upon entering I was greeted by the familiar faces of Erika, Peter, Holly, Amy, Tammy and Nancy. I was also introduced to new friends: Tim, Francesca and Laura. I couple of good hugs and a glass of wine, suddenly all was right with the world.
The next morning Holly and I were up before the alarm, making coffee, eating breakfast and mentally preparing for the task at hand. Soon everyone else was up too, and dressed to run. I thought it was fun that all the Maniacs chose yellow singlets and black skirts (except for Amy, but her Race Ready shorts almost looked like a skirt).
At 6:00 am we piled into two cars and headed for the start, thinking we would have plenty of time. Wrong! The freeway was a parking lot, many runners were bailing out of cars to run to the start when it became apparent that we would miss the gun. We still had several miles to go so the group made a decision to just stay in the car and hope we reached the start before the timing mats were rolled up. Our car remained relaxed about the whole thing….we were experienced marathoners and knew we would live to race another day… no big deal. We did wonder how the car full of first timers was holding up, though. By the time we reached the start line it was 7:41, we were 41 minutes late and as a result stuck behind all the runners and walkers of both the full and half marathon. Nancy and I lined up together even though we had different goals for our marathon execution: Nancy wanted to go out fast and see how long she could hold it. I planned on starting out slow, pick it up in the second half and run a fast final few miles.
After the extremely crowded opening miles, I decided that I was running too fast for my plan, so told Nancy to go ahead and run her own race. She surge ahead, I dropped back and we both continued to dodge and weave through the crowds. Our separation lasted maybe a mile. The crowds were slowing Nancy down and the frustration was speeding me up. We rejoined, had a quick conversation and completely changed our race strategy. We decided to just have as much fun as possible. After all, this was the Rock and Roll marathon and that is exactly what we should do! So from that point on, every time we passed a band, we would stop and dance. Sometimes separately, sometimes arm and arm, occasionally hugging each other tight. What a sight we must have been: two skirted Maniacs, laughing and shouting, high fiving the spectators, greeting the other Maniacs, basically having more fun than one could ever expect while running 26.2. In fact there were many points along the course that I forgot we were running a race of significant distance.
At mile 21 I asked Nancy if she had anything left in legs, she responded “yes” so we took off, putting in an 8:14 mile before stopping to dance again. It felt so good to have that kind of energy so late in a marathon. That dance at mile 22 was pure celebration: of running, and friendship, and spontaneous decisions. We joyously continued along, churning out the final few miles and concluding with a sprint to the finish. Our legs and hearts didn’t want to quite, though and we caught ourselves still running after donning our medals, and dancing again at the finish line band.
We looked at our Garmin’s and realized we had put in almost perfectly even splits which included 4:17 of running and 11 minutes of dancing. Textbook execution of a very complicated race.
So to you, our friends, we raise our glasses and celebrate the true Spirit of the Marathon.The same true Spirit which allowed our wings to fly.
Thanks for reading and thanks to our coaches who have to put our training aside so often while we go to visit the "wild" side.
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