Oh won’t you come and join us: Baltimore Marathon!

Before I forget all of the events that were my “first marathon,” I have decided to write them down in this humble transcript.

I first conceived of doing the marathon while my summer internship was concretizing. I officially signed up hours before the early registration deadline, thus saving 20 dollars off the ‘at the door’ price. I trained on a 16 week schedule that was for people who had a “running base.” I did not have a running base, but thought spinning classes might count for something.

I probably took over 80 runs throughout Baltimore during training. I took a lot of insults from passersby and even four spills (two within three days of the race!) but persevered.

My friends Dana, Nicole, Meg, and Ryan all had run marathons and they offered excellent support throughout my training.

Nancy, a friend befriended here in Charm City, was kind enough to drive me out to a run shop where my registration papers were redeemable for 15 dollars worth of merchandise. The goal was for us to leave without the running store employees uttering “nip guards.” My body-glide, socks, and GU packets were being rung up when the clerk said, “body-glide…good stuff. Do your nipples get chaffed up? You want some nip-guards? Have you told this lady what nip-guards are and how they guard nipples from chaffing and bleeding? Have you told this lady that you are a runner and that you have needs, calorically, sexually, and nipplely?”

Embarrassing to say the least, but Nancy is going to be a doctor, so she might as well get used to gross and taboo things.

Things really did not get exciting until the week of the race, so let’s start there.

Ryan and Paul graciously offered to come out to Baltimore from Colorado to offer support and see if the reports back home of “women and clubs and steakhouses as far as the eye can see” were true. Strangely enough, Ryan and Paul chose not to fly in together due to irreconcilable differences based on a questionable call in a jai alai match back in ’85.

I told Ryan, quite adamantly and with great repetition, to fly into Baltimore-Washington International airport. BWI. Ryan- not Dulles, not Reagan, B-W-I. I can facilitate a pick up from BWI. B-W-I.

So of course, Ryan flies into Reagan citing “internet dumbness.” Anyway, not too big of a deal since Reagan is plugged into the wonderful metro system of DC, and therefore plugged into the mass transit of Baltimore proper. Ryan arrived in Baltimore on Thursday. He brought a gift for me. A gift that keeps on giving: the remnants of a 25 lb bag of Reese’s Pieces, all orange. This bag and I have history, y’all. Ryan’s parents shop where Sam’s Club shops. They buy bulk of bulk products. 25 lbs of orange confectionaries. Over the years I have made several attempts to put a dent in this bag when visiting Ryan’s home in Thornton, but to no avail.

From a quick stop at my 22nd floor “trash-rise” studio apartment, Ryan received a 3-star tour of Baltimore. I had consulted Dana the night before what I should eat for the carbo- load dinner (which needs to take place two nights out from the race, not the night before). She said since I was not an elite runner, it did not matter. Well, then. I took my non-elite self to Unos Pizzeria (like an Old Chicago’s) and loaded.

It went like this:

Waiter: Hi, what can I get you guys?
Ryan: Uh, clam chowder. The east has good clam chowder, correct?
Waiter: Absolutely, and you sir?
Bruce: Your Chicken Penne dish, please -
Waiter: Very good. I’ll bring that right –
Bruce: And a large pepperoni pizza.
Waiter: Oh-oh-okay.
Bruce: Thanks.

So I pounded it down. A big pasta dish and bread with half of a pepperoni pizza.

Then the waiter had the audacity to drop off the check.

Bruce: You’re not going to ask us if we want dessert?
Waiter: Are you kidding me? I think I know the answer –
Bruce: The answer is “a giant ice cream cookie, two spoons, please.”

Hey, a cookie has carbs, right?

Well, gluttony can be scratched off the weekend’s deadly sin list.

Boston and I slept long and hard, on our separate beds, mind you, and when I finally awoke I had an email from my Japanese Korean friend, Paul. You see, apparently flying into Baltimore is the hardest thing in the world, because mis dos amigos jacked it up right and proper. The email stated that Paul had misinterpreted his flight information and instead of flying out of Denver at 11 AM and landing in Baltimore at 5 PM Friday, he was flying out at 11 PM Friday and landing in Baltimore at 5 AM Saturday, a mere three hours before the gun shot starting the race of my lifetime. Oh well. At least he flew into the correct airport, which is more than what I can say for Ryan.

Friday was low-key, save for a trip to the run-expo at Ravens Stadium. This run expo was brutal. They had three stations for picking up the necessary goods to participate in the run (timing chip, shirt, bibs, etc) and all three were the farthest away from the other as possible. I’m not jesting. It made no sense, except from the standpoint of making everyone walking through the maze of vendors. I finally got to the shirt station and I was bummed to see the UnderArmour shirt type and color the full marathoners were receiving. The 5-K runners got a mean looking red short sleeve shirt. The half marathoners got this slick blue with white highlights short sleeve shirt. The relay runners got the “baddest of them all” black UnderArmour shirt. The full marathoners got a 90% white long sleeve UnderArmour shirt. What a crock. The full marathoners deserve the coolest shirts, and instead we’re all made out to look like a bleeding Moby Dick dressed unflatteringly in white.

I digress.

Ryan and Paul were coming to be spectators, but for a 26.2 mile event, that means being mobile. So I spent an hour or so printing off maps of “meeting points” and approximate times and how to get there using mass transit. The plan was for Ryan and Paul to meet me at these points and have at hand a variety of things I might need during the race. After completing a rather thorough itinerary, it was time for bed.

Ryan, given his unnatural sleep tendencies and the fact he was jet-lagged, did not feel like going to bed at midnight before the race. So, instead he stayed up while I tried to sleep. He filled this awkward time by looking at fight videos on the internet. Some of which are listed below, viewer discretion is advised for the first one, as it contains graphic violence:

http://gprime.net/video.php/completeass

http://www.compfused.com/directlink/227/

The reason why I included these is because as I am attempting sleep and Ryan is watching these amidst the soft glow of a computer screen and via earphones, I hear muffled “ohmigosh” and “oohweeoh”. Sometime around 1:30 AM, his cell phone delighted us with a tonal rendition of “In Da Club” by 50, who, from time to time, rocks New York City.

Ryan apparently went to sleep around 3 AM.

6 AM came quickly. I got up and went immediately to the kitchen to eat some oatmeal, enacting the early morning routine I had done two mornings prior. I was in the shower, singing Toby Keith’s Courtesy of the Red White and Blue, when Paul opened the door and made fun of my warbling. Scared me half to death, but it was good because you want hormones involved pre-race time. I applied body-glide to the problem areas and noticed that I was just about out of it, which surprised me since this was only the third time I was using it. More about body-glide later.

We stopped by a Starbucks so the boys could get some eye-opening liquid, and then went down to Camden Yards where the start line was. I was looking for a group of people known as “pacers,” for my intention was to join the 5 hour pacing group. While waiting, I realized that I had forgotten something in my pre-race early morning routine: deodorant. I voiced this to my colleagues, and they said they would run back to my place before the first meeting point so I would not be super-nasty-cat-corpse ripe but instead only super ripe by the end of the race.

The president of UnderArmour took the microphone 10 minutes out from the race, and yelled, “Good Morning BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALTIMORRRRE!”

During the aforementioned yelling, many people got bored. That’s how long it was. Ryan astutely noted that Marathons do not need intense pumping up – it is an endurance event after all. Yet, Paul disagreed, and insisted on hitting me in the chest to pump me up. He did so, and I took a step back to absorb his force, and stepped on the ankle of a petite lady. Nearly ended her career. She was crying and would not be consoled. She was inconsolable. The medics carried her off and she said I could expect a lawsuit.

I finally spotted the 5:00 hour pacing group, and went over to be with them. I noted a lot of oddly shaped women and octogenarian men. This was probably the first sign that I might not be in the right group.

The gun went off at 8AM sharp, with confetti and a foghorn. I followed the guy holding the 5:00 sign. He was yelling and really jazzed up, kept saying things like “Yeah, 5 hour pace group! Yeah, baby! Wohooo.” Now, people in a particular pace group were noted so with a bib on their backs. So I had a bib on my back that said “5:00 Bruce.” I also received a band on my wrist that listed what time I should be at each mile marker, so I could make sure I stayed on track with my 5 hour goal. I started running real nice and easy, trying not to let the excitement propel me to running sub-5 minute miles. I kept right behind the loud-5:00-pacer-sign-carrier. About two minutes in, he stops, walks to the side, and gets in a car.

I look around me and see no other 5:00 pacers. I figure that I am ahead of them, and that I will keep it that way and amaze my friends with a sub-5 hour time.

As I am running the first mile of this event, some bystanders chime in “Almost there.” One of my fellow racers gave the rejoinder, “That’s not very nice.” And they replied, “Deal with it.” This was pretty funny in retrospect.

I arrive at mile marker 1 and check my watch and the time band. There is a one minute discrepancy in the wrong direction! I am already behind in my goal and it is only mile one. This means that my assumption of being ahead of my 5:00 group was erroneous, and that I had to play catch up. So, I did. I ramped up my speed a little. Around miles 2 and 3 I started passing racers wearing 5:00 pacing bibs, and feeling better about the race in general. There was one guy there that was skipping rope. I think he intended to skip it the whole marathon. That’s incredible. There was also a gentleman in a blue tuxedo (the kind with the ruffled front) running the race.

Now that’s classy.

Mile 6 was the first meet-up with my crew. They intercepted me beautifully, and ran beside me. Ryan asked if I needed anything and I replied, “Deodorant.” I was handed a brand new stick from Wal-greens, because apparently in the pursuit of breakfast, my steadfast crew did not have enough time to snag my stick from my closet. It was probably a humorous scene to see a marathoner being flanked by two gentlemen in street clothes running and handing him deodorant, then the marathoner applying the deodorant, all while without missing a step. Paul noted how great it felt to have all the spectators cheering, and also that he was surprised I could talk having run 6 miles already (thanks for the vote of confidence, my Seoul-mate). I also handed over my gloves and long sleeves shirt for I was fully warmed up by then. Paul and Ryan like a couple of middle-school girls were grossed out by the sweatiness of it, and thusly tossed back and forth between and in doing so lost my gloves. Oh well. Such are the casualties of the war known as “marathon.”

Paul and Ryan asked where my pacing group was, and pointed behind me. Ryan warned me to be careful, and then they departed and told me they would see me at mile 13. From mile 6 to 13, the course ran around Fort McHenry, which is really picturesque and a great place to learn some American history, if you get the chance. It was slightly before Ft. McHenry around mile 8 that I fell in with the 4:45 pacing group and took my first and only bathroom break. While looping around Fort McHenry, I realized that staying with the 4:45ers was cramping my style, so I broke away from the pack. I think the leader saw my 5:00 bib and announced to the group how important it was to stay with your pacing group so you do not run too hard in the beginning and hit the wall around mile 18.

Is this decree foreshadowing future events?

Read on!

So around Mile 10 I turn on the juice. I start thinking about all the times my friends have had while running marathons and thought how cool it would be to beat them. Also around Mile 10, my attitude start changing. A bit of advice that I adhered to, and that I recommend, is to view a marathon as 3 races in 1. The first 10 miles should be light hearted and fun, joking around and talking if you want. The second 10 miles you should be getting more serious in your inner dialogue and thinking like a predator. The last 6.2 miles should be where your psyche and ego and id are each full blown, and you are a pure racing machine. So I started the transformation after looping Ft. McHenry and leaving the 4:45ers in the dust.

Just before mile marker 13 I fell in with a group of ladies wearing pink. They had cute temporary tattoos and their hair was up nonchalantly and all in all this was the most attractive group of the whole race. I thought of staying with them for the whole race, crossing the finish line with them, hugging them and consoling them as they were sobbing with joy at completing such a great feat, treating them to a real good meal of food, dropping the factoid that I had a place with a view, and just seeing where things went from there.

But no.

They were going too slow.

I passed them, and checked my watch at the halfway marker, 13.1 miles: 2 hours, 17 minutes. This was great! I was on pace for a time that was way under 5 hours. I had to stay focused. Strong. Serious.

That’s when Paul and Ryan met with me.

I applied some body-glide to the nips, and was in high spirits. Ryan noted how I was still carrying my Gatorade cup, and that it annoyed him. I told him I was “tending to my juice, sitting on my Hennessy.” I was in high spirits. We sang the Biz Markie lyrics:
“Girl, you got what I need, but you say he’s just a friend, you say he’s just a friend, oh baby you, you got what I need”

for most of mile 13. It was awesome. I was so glad that I had my buddies there to run with me for a little bit, because it propelled me into the “teen” miles of the race. They broke course with me, and said they would see me at mile 18. This would necessitate a metro ride on their part, and 5 miles of running on mine. I was looking forward to seeing them, because mile 18 is where the fabled “Wall” starts to hit marathoners. I would definitely need their boost.

At the mile 15 water station, I picked up a cup of water, a cup of Gatorade, a bag of pretzels, and a bag of chips. I was carrying all these things in one hand at one point (for whatever reason) and one spectator pointed and yelled,

“That guy has a frickin’ buffet!”

This guy is also running a frickin’ marathon, you dolt.

I eventually consumed my “buffet” and was pumped up as I started running through some neighborhoods by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Some people would lackadaisically be clapping and then I would run past them and I would wave my arms like wings with my palms turned upward, much like Ray Lewis, a local murder, would do during NFL contests. This always got a good response and made me feel like a rockstar.

Several people in this neighborhood, angered at traffic being held up, would yell after me, “What’s the cause of all this!” I would just yell back, “Marathon, baby.” I know that is fairly unintelligent, but I did not have time to stop and tell them that I was unsure what charity was receiving what fraction of my race entry fee. Also, through this neighborhood were many hills. I loved the hills. I took a sports conditioning class at CU – Boulder and we ended every class by running up this brutal hill near Folsom Street several times. I was always able to overpower people on the hills - given that the hill was of a moderate length. This training must have engrained that in my head, for I did the same thing during the marathon: I overtook people on the hills like crazy.

I remember leading a pack up this one hill and nearing an intersection where a police officer was holding up traffic. Underestimating my speed, he waved a bus through. I kept my speed and came upon the bus lethargically accelerating through the intersection, so I reared my hand back and spanked it like errant calf during branding season. The portion of the crowd that saw this got quite the rise out of this, and the cop was shamed a little bit by his misjudging of what a fine runner I was.

Enter mile 18. I was excited at the prospect of seeing my friends and getting a re-application of body-glide. I checked my watch and my 5:00 pace wrist band and noted I was over 15 minutes ahead of my ideal pace. I ventured a guess that my friends and I were not going to meet. I kept my eyes peeled, and all I saw was a man on a giant unicycle cheering us and the mile 19 marker. Ryan and Paul could not handle simple metro directions, or I was so far ahead of pace they did not have ample time to make the trip. In either case, I was on my own.

At the mile 19 water station, I grabbed a cup of water and a cup of Gatorade. Now, apparently they had run out of the bottled Gatorade and had to urgently switch to powdered Gatorade. How did I know this? Have you ever decided to see how many teaspoons of Country Time Lemonade you could tolerate in 8 oz. of water? That’s how my swig of Gatorade tasted. I nearly keeled over from glucose induced shock.

By now I am pretty close to being a pure predator. I am powering up hills and I am in the zone. I reach mile 20. I cross mile 20 and I announce, aloud, “Now the race starts,” as if I am some kind of elite runner, which Dana has assured me I am not. That did not matter at that point.

I was a rockstar.

Of course, at the beginning of the “third and final race,” there is a monster incline. I started having really intense inner-dialogue, and some of it spilled over into verbalizations. I kept muttering, “What hill? What Wall? You call this a Wall? Come and get me, Wall!”

I visualized the Wall being some kind of football player trying to wrap up my legs as I was sprinting with the ball to glory, and my stride powering through his futile attempt. In some of the visualizations I would turn around and flip-off the Wall.

I nearly flipped off a lady in real life as well. Just before the mile 21 water station a lady yelled out to me, “Winning time, 2:16.”

Great.

That is just what I want to hear during the hardest part of the marathon: that some guy had finished it before I was even halfway. Put a sock in it lady, you have no class or tact.

I blew through the mile 21 water station, and passed two lovely ladies. One of them voiced out, “You’re way ahead of your pacing group, Bruce.” I told her that I hoped it was not to my detriment. She very convincing encouraged me with a “You got it, baby!” and then I took off. Another hill greeted me around mile 21.5.

This is probably when I noticed some spectators were grimacing at me. Then I looked down at my shirt and noticed why: bloody nips! Son of a gun! My mind raced with “if only’s.”

If only Ryan and Paul had met up with me at mile 18.
If only Nancy hadn’t entered the running store with me making me embarrassed to buy a product with the moniker “nip guards.”
If only I had a brain.

It was then I saw a Red Bull truck. Now, on my longest training run of 20 miles, I was dwindling very quickly with two miles left when a Red Bull truck pulled up beside me. A driver leaned out and asserted I could use some energy and he exited the truck around to the bed, and pulled out a sugar-free Red Bull. I knew it had carbonation, which is supposedly bad for aerobic events, but at that point I did not care. I downed it, and felt so good at mile 20 that I wanted to do 6.2 more just to say that I did it (I restrained myself, as my training log suggested). Upon seeing this truck close to mile 24, I called out to the lady in Red Bull apparel,

“Sugar-free!”

and she slapped a can right in my hand. My plan was to down that sucker a little after mile 25 and zip right in to Glory!

Mile 24 was approaching, and it was the fourth and final meet-up point on Paul and Ryan’s itinerary. I wondered if I would see them, given their absence at mile 18. Luckily, I saw Paul’s eternally youthful face approaching me at mile 24. He asked me what I needed and then called Ryan on his cell phone while running beside me. Eventually we intercepted Ryan, and I told him I need Vaseline. He suggested I go shirtless, and I did, as well as apply the Vaseline.

Paul and Ryan were awesome. They ran beside me for miles 24 and 25. At one point Ryan ran in front of me and slowed me down a bit, and I barked for him to “not slow me down.” I was a rockstar, and I commanded a rockstar’s respect. I was uttering lines that I used to save only for Bradley Van Pelt, such as “Six-two, two-twenty-five, too big, too strong, too fast!” to describe myself. I want it to be clear that I was trucking the last two miles of this race. They might have been, in all reality, the fastest two miles of the race. Paul and Ryan had to disembark from my side at Camden Yards. I ran through the corridor and passed two guys that had this exchange:

“This was your idea.”
“No, it was definitely yours.”
“Okay, okay. It was mine. Let’s agree to never do this again.”
“Agreed.”

I came out of Camden Yards into the parking lot by Ravens Stadium. The course was lined thick with people, all yelling off their heads. I saw the numbers ticking over the finish line off in the distance. I remembered my friends saying how they did not have enough energy for a sprinter’s finish. Now, it might be because I am a manly man, or it may have been the Red Bull, but when I saw those numbers I kicked it into high gear. I was passing plodders left and right. The numbers were zooming in quickly, and the crowd got louder and louder. I raised my right arm and made a lassoing motion with it, and this amped up the crowd even more. I blasted right through the finish line! It was all over, the most exhilarating event of my life!

The end of the race they herd you through like cattle.
I wobbled to collect a heat blanket.
I was given a finishers medal. Given that the 5kers, relayers, and half-marathoners finished on the same finish line (and collected the same glory as that of the full-marathoners, those lampreys!) I sternly asked my medal giver if this was the right one.

He assured me it was.

I numbly wandered over to a table where water was advertised. I asked for some but they said they were dry. What kind of marathon runs out of water at the finisher’s area!?

I put my heat blanket on like a cape and was still shirtless. My medal lied on top of where the corners of my cape/blanket were tied. I felt less like a superhero and more like a kid pretending to be a super hero. I was searching for water. I entered the UnderArmour tent, and was greeted by this ripped muscle head in, of course, a size too small UnderArmour shirt. He was really nice and noticed my medal and asked how it felt to have run the full thing. I said it was the most exhilarating accomplishment of my life to date, and that he should definitely do it. He said the longest he has ever run was 10 miles, and I told him before I trained I hadn’t even ran 7 miles continuously. I just might have inspired someone through my athleticism…me. The most unathletic person I know.

I started feeling more like a superhero.

I eventually found water at a kiosk and drank a good amount. Then Paul, Ryan, and I decided to leave and go meet Drew who was waiting in the lobby of my apartment building. We boarded the light rail and garnered a lot of looks since I was still dressed up like a second rate superhero.

I showered up and then went out on the town with the boys. My gait was awkward and there was a deep fatigue (not soreness) in my quads and hamstrings during the rest of the day. Ryan departed from Penn Station shortly before midnight and Drew left around the same time. Paul and I went back to my place and had a nice slumber. In the morning I conducted a breathtaking and courageous outside monuments tour of Washington DC. The soreness had taken residence in my quads, hamstrings, and calves, and surprisingly in my traps. After Paul left and I was home, I decided to Google “marathon recovery” and came upon a site that warned of depression. As the sun was setting and I was a lone in my trashed apartment (hosting three gentlemen who insist on throwing around 12 lbs of orange Reese’s Pieces will do that), I realized I was depressed. This great driving force in my life had occurred and was now gone. The whole race was a blur. Even this transcript does not do the race justice. I quickly left my apartment and hobbled down to the metro to catch a movie. I saw “A History of Violence,” and “40-year-old Virgin.” On the metro I read a paper on Paired Kidney Donation (for which I am writing a grant proposal) and realized that I have plenty of other goals to serve as driving forces in my life, so depression did not need to claim me.

By the Wednesday after the marathon I was 85% recovered, consciously. I put “consciously” because the soreness was gone, but if I walked for too long or attempted working out I would feel restrained or wholly out of shape. It was as if below a conscious level my body knew it had taken on a great burden a few days prior.

Some people have horror stories about their marathon, which makes me think mine might have been a fluke (or at least I should have run mine faster.) I did not hit the Wall (although I did flip it off), and my recovery did not involve me getting forcibly re-hydrated with 30 lbs of fluid or wearing a soft-boot and using crutches. All in all, I ran a good, well trained race, beat my ideal pace, and collected a medal. The jury’s still out on whether I will do another one. I think an ultra (50 miler) would be cool, as well as a half triathalon (1.2 miles swimming, 13.1 running, 56 biking).

My final time: 4 hours, 36 minutes, and 7 seconds.