Losing, Winning, and Running in the Race - Item Two

This past weekend (May 3-4) saw the annual Frederick Running Festival in colonial-era, antiques-laden Frederick, Maryland. This two-day event included four separate races: marathon, half-marathon, four-person relay, and (for us girlie-men) Saturday evening's Twilight 5K.

Running enthusiast older-brother Sarge participated this year in the half-marathon — he'd been snubbing previous years' events in that nice little Mid-Atlantic town due to a silly kind of twist on the registration fee… so instead you'd be more likely to see him off in Ohio, West Virginia, maybe even in Georgia (let alone points in between) those weekends, saving his money and running just as hard in some other event.

Astute readers with a memory for more-than-useless trivia may recall that yours truly deigned to tool into Frederick himself, last year, to run that Twilight 5K. This year, uh, no; I was still rehydrating after a particularly bad bout of TMI that slugged me late-late Thursday night. I told Sarge I couldn't make it this time for that reason.

"What's TMI?" he asked, annoyed. "Three-Mile Island?" (As kids, back in the early seventies, we'd visited that Pennsylvania site a couple times on daytrips.)

"No," I explained. "Terribly Mushy Intestines." 'Nuff said, folks: let it suffice that there was much resultant fluid loss, and leave it at that. But I did not want to run with a risk of genuine dehydration. Perhaps I was also wimping out.

Or just being cautious. More in a moment; first, here's a shot of our family's half-marathoner about the time he finished (it took him less than two hours). Yes, of course he's a Marine (joined up in '86, fought in Desert Storm, and so on.) Would you believe this guy's pushing fifty? P.S.: Sorry, ladies; he's engaged.

I said I didn't make it to the run in Maryland last weekend. However: two weekends earlier, I did do a repeat of last year's April run in Pennsylvania, where (in 2007) I'd come in just under fifty minutes.

While I'm boring you, let's look at how I've been doing, benchmarking myself with three particular 5K runs over the course of a recent non-calendar year:

July 29, 2006: Pennsylvania — 44:56

April 22, 2007: Pennsylvania — 48:02

May 5, 2007: Maryland — 46:31

… so, obviously a forty-five -minute man, and not likely to cross a half-marathon's finish line the same day I start. (I did manage a nicer 38 minutes in Ocean City — MD, not NJ — back on 9/26/1999… no, wait; that was at BWI Airport outside Baltimore, and that was only my second- or third-ever official run. In any case, I was almost ten years younger then, and certainly a good several pounds lighter.)

Still, this year, as the date for that run in Pennsylvania approached, I felt pretty good about myself. Though I don't run for exercise nearly often enough, I'd found that I'd reached a point where I could run (well, trot, trudge, plod) most of a mile without slowing to a walk a few times: I've consciously worked to employ some particular stretching and breathing exercises that marathon-running neighbor Rose showed me at last year's run in Frederick, Maryland (by nice coincidence, she and her daughter had shown up there themselves, too — as a warmup for the next day's marathon!!).

Two or three days before the PA event this year, I tested myself on the local, neighborhood streets, and managed a full mile before I slowed down. And I'd been slowly losing weight through Weight Watchers (and even before joining up); so I felt ready… or maybe it was the endorphins brainwashing me. It's all part of my, er, track record, you see.

Came the day of the run — Sunday, April 20 — brother Sarge and Choggun-nunim (my sister-in-law-in-law) came by for me, and we hit the road (by car). Where last year's weather had been warm and sunny and beautifully like late Spring, this year it was wet, cold, and fairly yucky out: intermittent downpours, overcast, and so on. And I was supposed to run in this??

Run I did. I had a rain jacket (with hood) over my T-shirt and shorts… and within a couple-dozen yards it was more rain than jacket. Heck with it; I plodded on. And on. Shortly after the start (I hadn't quite reached Drowned Rat status yet), I whipped out my cell phone and called up occasional (i.e., desperate-for-entertainment) blog-reader Spartacus.

Sparks, wisely, was still abed and no doubt just rolling over, with visions of eggs and bacon dancing in his head. (Me, I'd had the usual yogurt and granola bar. I'd still rather have the eggs and bacon.) So I got his answering machine, and, panting (he didn't take that seriously… I hope), I gasped out: "The only thing… stupider… than running in the rain… for fun… and paying for it… is talking… on your cell phone… at the same time!" And I hung up; no doubt Sparkles changed his number as soon as he found the message. He's ex-USAF; I tick him off only long-distance.

The running trail — formerly a railroad line, with rails and crossties removed, and ground leveled — was a fine-textured tiny stones, something between pebbles and grit (sopping wet, of course)… actually a very good surface for just this sort of brave endeavor.

I was really hoping that, even with the lousy weather (it's been ten or more years since I've run in the rain), I might be able to break the forty-minute mark at last: I'd set it as a goal when thinning-down daughter-one Shellie told me just recently she'd beaten that time herself, on the treadmill at the gym. With luck, then, I'd at least be able to brag afterward that I could run like a girl, anyway.

Folks, here's my finish time:

31:49.

Yes, you're reading that right. And, no, the official timekeeper did not kick the clock after I crossed and find it was behind ten or fifteen minutes. And I finished fifth in my age-group — not enough to garner one of those cool, bizarre trophies, of course.

But — yee-hah!

So… what happened? Well, my guess is that through being drenched the whole time, I couldn't overheat, and so felt less need to slow down… and in fact only slowed to a walk at two or three spots, and each more briefly than ever before. (The air had been quite cool; after the run, I found myself giggling at how I actually had steam coming up off me!)

In particular also, I had watched closely how some of the more experienced runners were stretching before we began, and gamely tried a whole new one that one of them was employing — you kiddies try this at home: grab the tip of your left foot in your right hand, and pull. Ah, but do it behind your back… and without screaming, or toppling over. Then switch off. Result for me: no shin splints.

This whole thing really isn't braggery — after all, I'm not one of those lean, keen, stringy types who finished in fifteen minutes, either: the fellow who won did just that; he… could have run it twice, and still crossed the line (the second time) ahead of me by over minute.

Meanwhile, Sarge ran the equivalent of my run three times: he completed the event's official 15K (that's over nine miles), which followed my 5K, in 1:19:33.

I think he figures he did only so-so. Me… I've tried tackling exactly one 10K, and that one I walked. So, 15K? Sure… if I can do it 5K at a time, with at least a couple weeks intervening.

Well, as I say: I don't run to compete — I just want to complete. And you know what was really scary about that Pennsylvania event?

It was fun.