One More For The Road

The Nashville Marathon. 

Training: 

I have run four marathons, one every other year and the last one I ran was great.  I finished faster than I expected, beat my co-workers fasted time and I don't think I was in too much pain afterwards, especially because I did not write a blog about it.  I'll spare you the details, you can find them in pre blogs I've written. So I ran marathons 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and then Covid stole 2020.  

In the back of my mind I would train for one in 2020, you never know maybe there will be a Covid cure and all the gates will open again. I did some long runs, on one 16 miler I fell, I fell hard, on my face. I also broke my third finger.  I was a mile away from home and blood pouring down my face.  I'm thinking any person driving by must be calling the police reporting seeing a bloody woman running down the road.  I made it home. Never saw a doctor cause it was Covid so I taped my finger with a Popsicle stick and iced my face to stop the bleeding. Is my nose crooked?  So after that my long runs kinda tapered off. 

 2022 comes around and I'm thinking it's marathon year.  I had done Hartford 3 times but I ran the Half in 2021 and they changed the course.  You didn't run on the street that much, more in a park and down other roads that were out of the city.  I want to run in a city, in the middle of a road in the street.  I want to stop traffic.  That is a run.  So Hartford was off my list.  The NYC Marathon, I always register in the lottery and always loose.  That started in either 2012 or 2013. When you used to be guaranteed an entry if you played the lottery for 3 years.  In my 3rd year they changed it.  So now you can only run it when you do not qualify if you donate a gazillion bucks to charity.  I don't play that game.  I think that game steal spots from poor runners and fucks us over. 

The Halfs were all scheduled, did some long runs of 8's and 10's.  Then someone in August posted on Facebook they were running the Nashville Marathon in November.  Well it's August plenty of training time, my sister just moved there.  I had a ride to the starting line and I could fly there on the weekend to train. I could see the course live.  OK I'm in.  I don't think I ever met the person who posted about it.  I actually thought it was someone else.   When I saw the person I thought it was, she said no, she was not running it.  I also learned the mystery poster was only doing the Half.  Then on race day she cancelled that and ran the 5k instead.  I'm registered  for the Full I gotta train.  I thought I could pull my sister into the mix.  She used to walk a lot and even did the Vancouver Half with me and my aunt one year.   I talk her into running the 5k with a possible upgrade to Half if she trains. 

August 25th I fly to Nashville and I think I have a decent idea of the course.  Bed early, no Nashville bar hopping, I get up pre dawn and I'm off the figure this out.  I get lost... a lot. I run past a bus station that is not on the course route and use their bathroom. I think I am near the race start at Bicentennial Park.  I go straight past it and into what might be a housing project.  There is a large grocery store and I am lost. Marathon courses do not run by major shopping centers.  Even I know that.

I try to find the park we are running in neat Nissan stadium I find a baseball field in the city and I think maybe this is Nissan stadium and I ask a security guard if there is a park nearby she points out a little walk path where some homeless people live. The day starts to warm up the sun comes out.  I've got 10 miles in and go home. Once I look at the race map I was way off.  Next time I'll write directions on a card and I'll be ok.  Now let's drink!

September 2022 still in training for November.   I do my favorite 20k on Labor Day and a Half that next Saturday.  Now solitary running, Sept 17, I do 16 miles and had to walk the last 2.   It was brutal.  A neighbor saw me and praised my efforts.  I thought seriously I'm not that great.  But I hope I will be in a couple months.  Another Half on Sept 24 all mixed in with 5ks the next day, also hill repeats, treadmill intervals during the week.  Oct 1st, 18 miles.  Again brutal.  The last 6 miles were nothing above a 15 min mile pace.  5k the next day faster than I thought I could.  Oct 8th 20 miles I walked the last 2 miles.  

Oct 13.  I fly into Nashville.  Plot the course as best I could since I was so lost last time. Wrote out the turns on a card I'd keep in my shorts pocket.  When my sister picked me up at the airport she brought me the 2 water bottles I asked for, I taped a message on them and we drove to Shelby Bottoms Park to plant them alongside the road.  I put them in two separate spots in case one was found and the message on it that said 'Runner Water Please Leave' was ignored.  The race course indicated we run from Nissan Stadium into the park twice so one water on the way in and one on the way out the second time. Got out there pre dawn and did 24.5 miles.  Pulled a 16.5 min mile overall pace, but anytime you pause it stops the clock.  I stopped to find the water bottles, stopped to read street signs, look at my directions,at crosswalks, plus two bathroom breaks. So overall it was probably much worse than a 16.5 pace.  

 As I started out I'm thinking poo.  I walked into a parking garage thinking there might be a bathroom, or a spot.  The first stop I found to poo was in a parking lot, and found a tree I could lean against.  It was still dark and no one was out but yes right there in an open parking lot in the middle of Nashville, and righton the race course.   After that I walk some way, turn around, take out the little pocket route notes I made, I cross a bridge to Nissan Stadium.  There were tons of porta potties in the parking lot, I thought, maybe I will try and use one just in case. All LOCKED.  I kept running the route and I get stopped by a train crossing the race path.  This better not happen race day. I walk over to a dumper and throw out some empty GU packs and think hmm I could poo here.  I keep going once the train goes by and my cover is blown.  

I find water bottle number one it’s on the side of a tree looking out and smiling at me.  I run what I think might be the route in the park.  My sister and I walked part of it last night and even went into the nature center and we could have made some feeders for woodpeckers if we wanted to.  Wouldn’t that just be a piece of wood?  We walked over a wooden bridge she points out that the rails are raised a bit in some spots so don’t fall when you’re running.  She knows my history.  plus since we are related she falls a lot too.  I find a nice path with an outlook station and then run over the bridge and I make sure I don’t fall.  I run back to Nissan Stadium run around it and go back and do it again.  I find the 2nd bottle I put in a road barrier but I looked for it in the wrong end then remembered oh yes, I have runners head now, I’m confused.  I run back over the bridge and onto Rosa Parks Blvd take a left instead of a right, I think I’m about at mile 20 so there is no making any sense of anything.  I try to map it on my phone, I turn the right way and head back.  I’m getting closer but now I am shot! I am in the Gulch lots of tourists, I gotta find the quickest way home.  When I put in West End myphone wanted me to take me on the highway.  I finally figured out how to indiact I’m waking.  Crossing the intersection when you have lost your mind was a bit of a challenge but I get home.  24.5 done!  Lots of walking but I got the miles in.   

The Day:

 I get up at 5:15.  It's cold in the 30'2s and raining.  This is not a great forecast.  I was kinda ok with the cold, I'd rather it be 40 not 30 but wet cold is an ick.   My sick sister gets up and says she's 'pulling a Joan on me'.  Which means she's my mother (her name was Joan).  She gives me 2 rain coats and a pair of gloves.  I have gloves, but I try on the lite pinky red rain jacket and it's got a hood.  OK I'll use your jacket and not the one I brought which is stuffed with paper towels for my runny nose and to wipe sweat and to use if I need to find a tree.  I eat my peanut butter and bagel, poo twice before I leave and we are off.  She finds a place to drop me off and I figure I can do this in 6:06, hopping to beat the cut off time if I'm lucky.  Hey it might be a good day and I do a 5:50.  We say we will meet in 6.5hrs after race starting time (2:15) at the Farmers Market inside.  I get out and toss my gloves in the car.  I don't need them.  I might have them in the jacket pocket that I plan to toss at the side of the road once we get moving and didn't want to lose them.   So as usual I get there early and go to the no line porta pottty, do poo #3.  I had a Gatorade with me to pre-hydrate drink some of that, walk around, test run so nothing is in the wrong place, it drizzle rain, everyone is wearing warm race jackets, few of us in shorts, don't see any t-shirts, but a lot of people wearing garbage bags.  The porta potty lines are forming so I figure by the time I need to go in I'll bee at the front of the line.  I made it to the front but I don't have to go so I skip the line and find another long one to wait in.  It's getting closer and closer to race time but by the time I get in I think it's maybe 7:05 race doesn't start til 7:15.  The Anthem is being sung as I am wiping my ass,  I come out, I got shit on my hand.  I rub it on the wet leaves and use one of those paper towels to clean it off.  Then the line starts to move up.  Are we starting? Yep I guess maybe I got the time wrong but we were off and I JUST got out of the bathroom.  So we run.  I run well.  In the 12 min mile range for at least 8 miles.  At mile 5 I take off my sweat jacket and tie it around my waste.  It's super cold and I'm not sure I want to throw this away yet.  I am using the paper towels I stashed to wipe my nose, it feels like every 10 mins.  

As we go into a park there is a sign marathon one way half another. I run with maybe 12-15 people ahead of me, then I see a guy running the wrong way, he must have missed the turn he keeps going.  We run and we hit a turn around and as I go back I say to the others the turn around is just ahead.  One girl says what we have to turn around?!  I say no no keep going you'll see it.  I see the guy that was lost coming up with them so I have maybe 5-6 people maybe more in back of me.  OK I'm not last that's good. 

At the water stop I take some water and a little pee comes out.  I am not stopping to pee.  No way I AM way I am wasting any time just to pee.  I will stop to poo but pee will have to come out in my sweat.  I take some Gu and that much pee comes out.  So any time I put anything at all in my mouth I pee a little.  I take a paper town and shove it in my crotch to maybe catch the annoying drizzle.  That's around mile 11.  From 9-14 I maintain 13 min miles pace.  I'm starting to freeze.  I tuck my hands into the jacket sleeve.  I wish I had my gloves.  

15 to 17 I hit 14 min mile pace. We came over the bridge and ran down the side road near train tracks,  if I was scouting out the route prior I would be like 'No way. I must be lost'.  There are big puddles and runners coming at me and I'm trying to gauge the water so we both don't run in it.   Mile 18, 19, was 16 min mile pace,  then 20 hit and it was my worst at a 17 min mile pace.  At mile 20 no one was around, and I just peed my pants.  I reached in grabbed the soaked paper towel and threw it to the side. I grabbed my shorts to tried to squish any piss out. I had the jacket tied along my waist so I figure no one would see my wet shorts.  There was no on one but if there were.  But where are those 5-10  runners I was ahead of.  No one had passed me.  Did they do a DNF?  Did they just quit?

 I pick it up. 16,15 and 14 min miles.   And I think the reason why was I heard a run on my right and he said we're the last ones.  I hear the swag wagon behind up.  She in a golf cart following us.  He has to take walk break, I try to run hard and push past him, he comes up and run in front and we go back and forth until finally we are out of the park and a friend of his meets him and they run together. I can hear him yell in pain.  I looked up his stats and he started out at  a 6 min miles pace,  His leg, knee or shin or something gave out and he wanted to finish it.  So he beats me into the park, I run hard to the finish and get cheers and they pack up all the stuff and leave.  So now I have to find my sister.  I text her thinking she is at the Farmers Market waiting.  I walk er limp over there she texts back saying she 2 mins away.  Then in 2 mins she says she 2 mins away.  I am shaking and freezing.  I finally see her and get in the car.  Marathon 5 done.  I shake for hours and can't walk correctly.  Kinda of a limp drag my leg walk.  This might be the last one.  

Might