Tag: marathon

Things. Too many things.

I don’t really have much to post right now, I’m just posting to post.

Last night I got a call back from Jane, the old friend calling me about the Morrissey concert. (I knew that’s why she was calling! Call me Pam, PI.) So I told her I couldn’t go because of work and money, and then after I got off the phone with her, I got all excited and thought to myself, “screw the iPod, go see Morrissey” and so I tried to call her back and there was no answer and now I’m ambivalent about it again but in four days maybe she’ll call me back and I’ll say “naaah, I can’t go” again and then the whole cycle will go on and on and on.

Maybe I should just spend the money on stuff for the house. The clutter is really getting to me, and we’re going to have visitors in a few weeks. I wish I could build shelves, I wish I knew how, I would be a shelf-building tornado right now. Unfortunately, I have a feeling they’d look exactly like shelves built by someone without a clue (or power tools) so I should give up on that idea for now. If I could just get stuff into closets, then I’ll feel better.

The other day, I got a cute shelf from Target for under $8 that I was going to put the shadowbox thing I made with my London marathon stuff. I was going to put the shelf up, put the shadowbox on it along with my two marathon pint glasses and from the hooks below the shelf, I was going to hang all of my medals. But as George and I were attempting to put it up, we discovered the sheetrock in the bedroom is quite thin, and not up to supporting a shelf. So instead of a shelf, there is a nickel-sized hole. At least I had a picture to cover it. Sigh. So now shelf is sitting in corner, as I am sure it will remain for quite a while.

The whole point of this shelf was to clear things (i.e., shadowbox) off wire rack in bedroom so I could take said wire rack downstairs and utilize more effectively in closet area by back door. But nooooooo.

Sigh. After work tonight, and before dance class, I’m going to do something drastic. We have too much crap!!!

Speaking of dance class, and the shimmy, it’s a shoulder shimmy. A booby-shaking shimmy. Must wear good sports bra to dance class tonight. Fortunately, we’re going to be doing more tap tonight,
so the shimmy might not be an issue. Might have more time to practice shaking my shoulders.

Symphony Run 5K

Last night at the 5K Symphony Run race:

Cool picture, eh? I actually look like I’m running! I mean, I was running. Fast. For me. Finished the race in 34:59. Not a PR for me, but I’m pretty damn proud of that, seeing as the only running I’ve really done since May was last weekend at the bridge race.

And I ran (har har not literally) into Emily, one of the women I trained for the Marine Corps Marathon with. Although she didn’t get to do it. But that’s another story.

So I’m starting Core today. Went to the store after the race and bought a bunch of fruits and vegs and some soups. So I’ll try it for a week and a half (until next Wednesday’s weigh in, the one next week) and see how it goes.

Marine Corps Marathon Race Report

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Overall time: 5:49:33, PR of 8:03

So here’s how the whole weekend went…

I had planned to work until noon on Thursday, as our flight didn’t leave until nearly four. I switched shifts with Janice, one of my colleagues, and was to go in at 7:30 a.m. instead of my customary 9:30 or 10:30 start. But by the time everyone got into the office by 10:30, I was too excited to sit in my chair and do any work whatsoever. So my boss Irene said I could leave early. We had a group hug (a silly group hug, not a cheesy group hug) and I left at around 11. I had packed the night before, but I repacked that morning, just to make sure I wasn’t bringing too much stuff, and to make sure I brought the right stuff. Fortunately, I didn’t have any problems forgetting anything vital. And I still had plenty of room to pack my IKEA purchases.

Lindsay drove George and me to the airport, my mom and Alice met us there. Checked in, blah blah blah, nothing exciting to say about our journey to DC. Kristina and Anne picked up George and me and Jenny (my sister) picked up Mom and Alice. George and I stayed at Kristina’s that night (I’d say “slept there” but Kristina’s cat is pretty erm, energetic, so sleep wasn’t really an option.) The next morning, we went with Kristina to her office, then George and I met Jenny, Mom, and Alice at Jenny’s office to go on a Capital tour. Nothing terribly exciting about that, either. Pretty building. Blah blah.

George and I went to the Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian) after lunch but didn’t stay too too long as we were both exhausted from lack of sleep. Made it to the Hyatt, where I was staying, and checked in, rested, went to the expo. Got my number. Yay!

Met everyone for dinner at an Asian restaurant in Cleveland Park, wherever that is. Somewhere near where Kristina lives, which is near Georgetown. Whatever. Kristina brought me to my hotel while everyone else went to an Irish pub across the street. Slept reasonably well that night.

Saturday morning, Peggy and I got up early for a meeting with our TNT people and a short group run. Naturally, Peggy and I were the slowest of the bunch, but the run went well. My ankle barely hurt, and the run really helped my confidence. The weather was nice and cool, which I hoped would hold for the marathon. After that, we went back to the expo, I got a few running shirts (courtesy of my mom) and then we had a TNT pasta lunch. The Penguin guy was the speaker. He was funny. The food was fine, ate some pasta, ate some bread, drank lots of water.

After lunch, Kristina came and picked me up for a trip to Woodbridge to see a friend, and then to IKEA. Yeah! Bought lots of cool stuff, for like 20 bucks, total. It’s now in my suitcase, hopefully making its merry way to my house. Afterwards, Kristina and I went to my sister and her boyfriend Rob’s house in Fairfax for dinner. Everyone else was quite buzzed on wine, which is always entertaining as the sole sober person (except for Kristina, because she had to drive me back to the hotel.) It was a pretty calm evening, and afterwards Kristina drove me back to the hotel. The clocks went back an hour that night, which was great because we were able to get plenty of sleep. Well, it wasn’t perfect sleep, there was a bit of tossing and turning, no surprise there.

Got up at 5:15, got dressed and went downstairs to catch the TNT shuttle. The temperature was already around 60 degrees. Faaaaaaaantastic. I think it was probably cooler in New Orleans. Sheesh. I was profoundly irritated at my luck. Never again will I make the mistake of thinking that Washington DC will be cold in late October. Grrr. Yeah. Just because it was 48 degrees on Friday…why in the world wouldn’t it be 60 degrees with 90% humidity?

Made it to the start around 6:45. Dropped off baggage. Found Ren! Went to the bathroom. I tried to time it so I wouldn’t have to pee when the race started, but of course I did. Thank goodness the people in our 5:30-5:59 corral didn’t move for 20 minutes, so I was able to pee one last time before we started. Peggy and I positioned ourselves with the 5:30 Galloway pace group. I thought we could stay with them, they were doing a 3:1 run/walk, and we’d done 6:1 in training, but as it turns out we lost them almost immediately. Not sure how we got ahead of them, but I don’t trust those Galloway people anymore! (But I’ll still run and walk, don’t get me wrong.)

Now I’m going to try to remember every mile…Keep in mind, to run at 5:30, our pace should have been 12:36 per mile.

Mile 1 (12:10) Ooops, too fast. Where is the Galloway pacer?

Mile 2 (13:13) Maybe if we slow down a little we’ll find him. Here we meet Jane and Kay, two older and very cool ladies who were also trying to stick with the 5:30 pace group. We managed to stick together for quite a while. Jane is a breast cancer survivor – she had it last year! We lost her about ten miles into the race, but I was pleased to find that she did finish, right around when Peggy finished. Kay finished a bit later, I’m also pleased to see from the results. I was a little worried about her because we caught up to her during the Rock Creek Park stretch, but then lost her again.

Mile 3 (12:32) Well, on a better pace, at least. Whose idea was it to run around the Pentagon? Ah well, at least I got to see it.

Mile 4 (13:08) First water stop, plus it’s uphill to get to it. Cruel!

Mile 5 (11:44) Oooh, here’s the downhill, plus a little extra running to try to catch that dang pacer.

Mile 6 (12:29) Better pace. Probably a downhill here too.

Mile 7 (13:19) Saw Mom, Jenny, and George here. And they took a picture. Look how fresh I am!
mile7
Lots of spectators here because it passes right by the start/finish area.

Mile 8 (13:19) Used the restroom here. Right before we saw Kristina and Anne and Rachel for the first time. That was awesome. (Both finding a free portalet *and* seeing friends.) The girls were holding up a sign provided by Tylenol that they had written “Go Pam and Peggy” on, and were photographed by the Tylenol people holding it. Maybe we’ll all be famous!

Mile 9 (12:08) Up into Rock Creek Park. It was gorgeous here, lots of red and yellow leaves fluttering through the air. I spent part of the time trying to catch a leaf. Got one, and was going to save it, but accidentally crumpled it later. Oops.

Mile 10 (13:16) Rock Creek Park…Kay (the woman from Oklahoma City we met at the beginning) caught up with us here (or vice-versa, I can’t remember) while running with her son. What a great guy – he was way ahead of her when he saw her on the out-and-back part, but stopped to run with her, losing a lot of time in the process. Lovely. He just wanted his mom to do well.

Mile 11 (12:44) Turn around (and a mini-downhill) at this point. Was hoping I’d see Devra (a friend) here, as she lives nearby. But I was so stressed and busy in the days before the race that I neglected to call her and see if she was going to come out. So any disappointment I felt was my own fault. But at least the scenery was gorgeous here, that always helps. Also looking for Ren behind me, as we were now on the back part of the out-and-back. Don’t see her, so I’m worried. But I needn’t have been, because here she is when my sister saw her. Doesn’t she look cheerful? Well, appearances can be deceiving because this is when she was cursing me.
renny

Mile 12 (12:36) Saw Kristina and Anne and Rachel again at the end of this mile, as we were leaving Rock Creek Park. Yay!

Mile 13 (13:36) Kind of a boring part. Goes by the Potomac, which was pretty, but not much support here. I think this is where Peggy started to feel nauseous. Or at least where she admitted it to me. There was a pretty strong headwind here, too, which didn’t help.

Mile 13.1 – overall time 2:47. Pretty well on pace for 5:30 race. Also when the sun comes out and Peggy starts to slow down. But let me say here, I may complain now that we walked too much, but I never really complain at the time about walking. I am fundamentally very lazy, and I like to walk. So when she said “can we walk?” I almost always said “yes” because that’s easier! However, had I been running alone, I probably would have tried harder to stick with the 3:1. Or at least not gone out too fast. I hope. The halfway point came right as we turned onto Constitution Avenue, a long stretch with nice scenery, spotty support, and most torturously of all, trucks lining the street selling hot dogs and hamburgers. I was hungry.

Mile 14 (13:14) Stuck my tongue out at the White House. Blew GW a raspberry.

Mile 15 (14:52) Going up to the Capital. Sun was out. Hot.

Mile 16 (14:36) Up Capitol Hill. Enough said.

Mile 17 (14:28) Down Capitol Hill. Much better. (In feeling, anyway. Time was only marginally better.)

Mile 18 (13:40) I remarked to Peggy that mile 18 feels like a landmark, even though it really isn’t. She grimaced at me, I suppose to stop herself from vomiting all over me. Kristina, Anne, and Rachel were here, and a bit further down, George. Yay! They gave us water bottles whenever we saw them, which was great. Not so much for drinking, more for pouring on our arms, legs, and head. Refreshing.

Mile 19 (13:16) Someone hands me a Starburst sucker. I love this person. We go over a few little bridges now and run around the Tidal Basin, whatever that is. The 14th Street bridge is tantalizingly in view, and though there was no question about making it in time, now that we can see it, it’s a bit more real. More strong headwind here. Evil! Go over some small bridges.

Mile 20 (13:04) I loved this part. Mile 20! The teens are done with! The road narrows here, we catch a high-five from some supporters. Always nice.

Mile 21 (14:36) The evil 14th Street Bridge. The one the slowpokes like myself worry about. But we made it in plenty of time. However, it’s long, dull, and had a vicious headwind. We walked a lot of this mile, and of…

Mile 22 (14:31), still the bridge. Evil! Evil! The flabby, soft underside of my arms is chafing. Ow. Stop to ask everyone on the side (aid & rescue people) for vaseline, no one has any. One aid guy says “wow, next time I’ll know to bring vaseline and nail clippers…” and goes on to list more seemingly obvious things. What did he have? A bunch of band-aids? Yeesh.

Mile 23 (14:21) My last mile with Peggy. We got chocolate chip cookies during this mile. Mmmmm! Soft, chewy, delicious Nestle Tollhouse cookies. Like manna from heaven, they were. Gorgeous. Peggy wasn’t feeling too hot after the cookie break, so she insisted I go on without her. I briefly grappled with my conscience, but ran on ahead. She said she didn’t think she’d be able to run much more.

Mile 24 (13:34) A cruelly dull portion of the race, just when you need support. Through the parking lots of the Pentagon. Who thought of this? I manage to get back on the 3:1 ratio again here, though I’m tiring.

Mile 25 (13:11) Water stop here, more dull dull scenery. Until the last half of the mile, when you start to see people again. A great pick-me-up. This is when my stomach gets butterflies. When I start to gasp and nearly sob. Everyone’s calling my name. Try to at least do 2:1 here. Maybe 1:1. Hard to run while gasping for breath and tummy is in knots.

Mile 26 (13:26) Allllmooooosssst there….still struggling with emotions, until I hit the evil hill at, oh, around 25.8. I really couldn’t believe it. It’s very wrong. My emotions turned from excitement to anger at the jerk who designed this racecourse. My energy is nearly sapped. But I know there isn’t much further to go. I see Denise, a TNT runner that we did our 20 miler with. I see Kristina, Anne, and Rachel.

Mile 26.2 (2:18) Sooooo close….I can see the finish line. Just as I’m approaching it, I hear my name being screamed by my mom, Jenny, George, Alice, Rob…and I turn to them and turn into monster lady. I yell “JUST LET ME FINISH!!!” and then turn and smile big for the camera as I cross the line. I was able to give a strong kick at the end, no thanks to evil hill. I apologize later for my annoyance at my supporters. They love me, they understand.

Get my medal, picture taken, blanket, etc, etc. Bananas and bagels and not much else in the finisher’s tent. Hmmph. Pick up my baggage and find my family. Yay! Go to the TNT tent, then the VIP tent to have a yummy sandwich and to attempt to see Peggy cross the finish line. I check the results on the handy-dandy computer there in the VIP tent and find that she’s already finished, 7 minutes after me.

About an hour later, finally see Ren cross the finish line. I was very worried that she wouldn’t make it. Apparently when Kristina and Anne saw her at mile 8 (and then later at 18), she was cursing Gary and I strongly. When we found her after the race, she was sobbing, partially out of happiness…she said “I’m so glad I never have to run again!”

Am pleased that I didn’t hit the wall. Glad I didn’t get blisters. My toenails are a-okay. I came through this marathon unscathed, except for a little chafing on my tummy where the pouch I was wearing clipped on to my shorts. (Boy was that pouch annoying. I didn’t train with it, duh… I was able to give it to Anne after 12 miles, at least.) My ankle stopped hurting during the marathon (thanks to the anti-inflammatory I popped like M&Ms) and hasn’t hurt since. Figures.

On the other hand, I wish I had insisted to Peggy that we slow down at the beginning. I knew we were going too fast. But I didn’t slow us down. I didn’t say anything. I wanted to find those dang Galloway pacers too! How disorganized of them to be *behind* us. How in the world did we pass them? Why are they only at the beginning of the pace group? Why not sprinkled throughout? There were a lot of people wearing the 5:30 pace tags on their backs, most of them had lost the leaders.

Next marathon? Maybe a spring 2005 marathon. For now, though, I think I’ll concentrate on 1. losing weight, 2. getting faster at shorter races. Hey, I think if you look at my post race report for London, I probably said the same stuff. Ha ha!

Final Stats:

10K – 1:17:56

Half – 2:47:35

21M – 4:38:09

Pace – 13:20

ClockTime – 06:08:30

ChipTime – 05:49:33

OverAll – 14115

OverSex – 5144

OverDiv – 1098

Two down…

I did it! I did it! Marathon #2!

Final time: 5:49:33. Not the improvement I had hoped, but better than London, at least.

Will be writing up full race report later. After I have some beers to celebrate…

Six days until the marathon

Six days until the marathon…

Was supposed to run 10 miles this weekend. My ankle is bothering me. This is not good. So I ran 2, went to gym, cycled 10, walked 1.5. At least I got the blood flowing. Yeesh. Talked to Ren, though. She got us some kind of anti-inflammatory medicine from her stepdad that should at least get us through the marathon. (Her knee is her problem.) Well, it’s not a terrible pain, just a niggling ache. But 26 miles of a niggling ache isn’t fun. Whatever.

The best part of the weekend, though, was that Kristie came in. We went to our old college friend Marcie’s wedding. I wasn’t really invited, but Kristie took me as her date. It was okay. I only knew Kristie and Anne and Herpreet, another old college friend, but it was basically a high school reunion for most of the guests. I did not go to high school with them, so you can imagine how fun it was. But the food was good, and it was nice to see people I haven’t seen in a while. Harry Anderson, of Night Court fame, was supposed to be there, he’s married to one of Marcie’s friends. (Yes, he married a hot young twenty-something.) But he didn’t show. Dang!

After the wedding, Kristie and I hung out at the pub, reminisced, that sort of thing. Yesterday I cleaned the house a bit. Just enough so that when I get back I’m not depressed by my messy house.

Tomorrow night is dinner at Jacque-Imo’s with the pub gang and Vince (yay!), as long as I can reschedule my dinner with Peggy and Emily for Wednesday night.

Before I go to work today, I need to call a guy named Squirrel who hangs out at the pub to fix my breaks. Don’t you just love his name? I’m sure it’s not the one his mom gave him, though.

10/16/03

I feel kind of like a fraud while training for this marathon. I haven’t been keeping up with my midweek runs, so while I’m in my “taper” now, I’m not running any less (or more) than I was three or four weeks ago. I don’t feel like my lack of midweek runs has hindered my long weekend runs (but then, how would I know, really? Perhaps I could be doing so much better?) so I don’t feel all that bad about them, but still. My left leg was really bothering me this morning while I tried to run on the treadmill. I had to give up and end up doing elliptical trainer work instead. It has hurt, though, at the beginning of my long runs, and I do get over it, so I’m not that concerned about race day, I just don’t want it to get worse.

Can’t believe it’s Thursday already. This week has gone by fast. Monday I’ll be full-time! Parking in the employee lot…a badge…health insurance beginning Dec 1…accruing vacation time (three hours every two weeks – that means 2 weeks of vacation a year! Woo!) and all the other good stuff that goes along with full-time permanent employment. Yay!

Am a bit stressed about this weekend. So much I want to do, so much I need to do…Friends I want to see, friends I won’t be able to see…ugh. I hate this. So I’ve made an executive decision to follow the following schedule this weekend:

Friday evening…hang out at pub, see Vince (who I haven’t seen in well over a year and is in town for only a week.)

Saturday morning…run 10-12 miles at Lafreniere Park

Saturday afternoon…clean my house! Do laundry! Whatever!

Saturday night…hang out with Kristie. She’s going to a wedding Saturday afternoon in N.O., I hardly ever get to see her, since she lives in Boston.

Sunday…what…ev….errrrr

Could run on Sunday morning instead, and see Polly play soccer, but I’d rather get it over with on Saturday and really enjoy myself Saturday night with Kristie. Yes, that sounds good. Because next week is going to be too crazy to get much done, I have to do it this weekend. Tuesday night I’m having dinner with Peggy & Emily; Wednesday night Dawn is coming home and I want to say hi and bye before I go to bed early because; Thursday I’m working at 7:30 am until 1, so I can leave to catch a flight at 3:50. Whew!

Training – long run

Long run was yesterday. Went really well. Met Peggy and Denise (the other girl doing MCM with TNT, but we never run with her because she’s faster) at Lakeside Mall at 5:15 a.m., then Peggy drove us across the Causeway to the Tammany Trace trailhead in Mandeville. It was pitch black when we got there shortly after 6. We got started, and not long after, it got light. It was foggy and misty, kind of cool but overcast, great running weather. Of course, cooler would have been nice, but alas.

We decided to do 10 miles out and back, and Chris was going to rollerblade out to us. He ended up catching up with us about 9 miles out, with much needed water. There’s a trailhead with bathrooms and a market about 5 miles out, but that’s the only place to stop and refill water bottles, so it was a good thing he met us when he did. He rollerbladed alongside us for a while and then headed back to the car for us to pick up GUs and more water. All in all, he did about 30 miles – what a friend!

Things got tough for Peggy and Denise (pains in calf and knee, respectively) at about 15 miles, and I ran with Chris rollerblading alongside me the rest of the way. I managed to keep up 6/1 and 5/1 pretty much the whole way. Peggy and Denise finished about 15 minutes after me. I had an exactly even split, the ten miles out and the ten miles back each took 2:25. Not the greatest time, but there were some stops in there. So I’m fine with it. We decided to try to hang out with the Galloway pacing group for a 5:30 finish at the marathon. They do 5/1 run/walk ratio, which I think we can handle. We’ll see.

We were late getting back to New Orleans, and Anne Comarda’s wedding started at 2, in Lafitte (which is about 35 minutes from my house) so I had exactly 15 minutes to shower my salt and sweat encrusted body, change, fix my hair, etc. Managed to do it! Yeah! Put my makeup on in the car (George drove) and made it there at 2:01 or something. Fortunately, the wedding didn’t start until 2:15 or so, so there was no embarrassing late entry (like when Ren and I got to our friend Nicole’s wedding, and she was about to walk down the aisle). Anne and Bill were there, thank goodness, as they were the only people we knew there (except for the bride, of course.)

Lovely wedding, very them, reminded me a lot of Nick and Annie’s wedding. I know I must have talked about the Piepers incessantly, probably sound obsessed. (I’m not!) Anne and Jay (not to be confused with Ann and Jay, whose wedding I went to in Baton Rouge in May. Same wedding planner, even.) sailed off on a sailboat from the B&B’s dock, while guests waved hankies and the band played. Lovely.

Anne and Bill came to the pub afterwards, Bill made friends with Colin (they bonded over baseball) and then Anne, Bill, and I went to the east bank. We were going to go meet the wedding people out, but we were all so tired (A & B had got in from the night before at about the same time I was waking up) that we just ate dinner and went our separate ways. At least I’ll see them again in two weeks!

I feel pretty decent today. A bit sore, naturally, but I had frozen a bunch of small water bottles and brought them to the Trace. By the time we had finished, they were somewhat thawed, so I poured the ice-cold water over my legs. Ahh, bliss! I think that had a lot to do with how I felt yesterday (fine) and today.

This week I figure I’ll do a few short runs, and 10-12 next weekend. Taper time! Yeah!

Zzzzz…

Am sleepy. Verrry sleeepy.

Spent Friday evening at Terry’s house, watching TV. Cable! Yeah! Got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning for my long run. 18 miles. Got to the park, where several buses were disgorging groups of runners with numbers. But oddly, there were no cars. It was pitch-black outside. It was surreal, but I found out a little while later that it was a private race for a bunch of convention attendees.

Got through my 18 miles in just under 4 hours, including stops to stretch (my knee, worryingly, really hurt at the beginning, but I guess I either stretched the pain away or, more likely, slaughtered it with several Advil. Several times.) Am happy with the time, at this rate, I won’t have any problem beating my London time.

The temperature, unfortunately, has warmed back up, so even though my run started off in cool weather, it ended up in full sun. To be fair, though, it wasn’t quite as hot as usual.

After the run, I went shopping with Terry and her friends (and George’s neighbors) Jen and Drew. Fun, but exhausting. Got some new sheets for very cheap. Yay! Love new sheets!

After that, I was able to rest for a few minutes before we went to dinner with Nick and Annie in Lafitte. Yummy dinner, great company, went to the pub afterwards, overall great night even though I drank too many beers and was absolutely exhausted. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through next Saturday. Set off the alarm at George’s house afterwards. Oops!

This afternoon, George and I rode our bikes (!!! George rode his bike!!!! it was sunny!!!!) to the Gretna Heritage Fest, about 5 miles away. Ate ice cream, listened to bands, walked around, rode the Spider. Felt nauseous. I’m getting old. I used to love those rides!

Am now very very tired. Must go to sleeeeeep.

Shooot. Just reread a bit of my London Marathon training journal, and I have clearly gotten very lazy when it comes to writing in my blog. Dang, I wrote much more interesting things before! Must…try…to…get…more…interesting…

Month of change

Whew! Who knew your entire life could change in a week or so? I suppose I should say month. April has been a month of change for me, that’s for sure. Run a marathon. Change careers. And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceburg. So yes, yesterday Sarah and I amicably decided to part ways. Best for everyone. The company, particularly. The wine side of things is taking off more than MardiGrasStore.com ever can (well, it’s not like wine is seasonal) so my job has become a bit less important. Which I’m perfectly fine with. I’m excited about exploring new career possibilities. (wow. how cliche’d can i get?) Anyway, that’s my big news now. Wish I could say I’ve been running since Saturday, but I have not. Yesterday was kind of hectic, and tonight I’m cooking dinner for Ren and Gary and Kristina and George. So maybe tomorrow. Oh yeah, and the tenth is my last day, and since Kristina will be free the following week (the week before graduation) I’m not going to have a mini-vacation that week. Woo! Well, I do have a dentist’s appointment on that Tuesday, so it’s probably for the best that I won’t be going to work all drooly and numb and spitting blood like I did last week. Ew. And I can interview at some temp agencies, which is what I think I’m going to do for the summer. After all, this may be my last summer to do something like this. Wish I had lots of money saved up. Then I’d go back to London. Sigh.

2002 London Marathon Race Report

(Apologies if anyone is reading this in the future, specifically September 24, 2013. What’s the future like? Are there flying cars? Is everyone wearing silver jumpsuits?)

Getting to London
Thursday, 11 April 2002 – Friday, 12 April 2002

In order to prevent jet lag, I had this brilliant idea of going to sleep at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night (that’s 1 a.m. London time), waking at 3 a.m. (that’s 9 a.m. in London) and then pretending like it was the beginning of the day, so that when I got on my flight from Detroit to Amsterdam, it’d be “bedtime” and I could fall right asleep.

Well, everything went to plan, except for the “falling right asleep” part. Of course I didn’t sleep on the plane. I never have, and extreme tiredness (not to mention a tylenol pm and half a mini bottle of wine) didn’t guarantee it this time either. Oh well. Actually, that’s not right. I did manage to grab about 90 minutes worth of fitful snoozing. Not helped by the flight attendant coming on the intercom, yelling about someone smoking in the lavatory. They didn’t catch whoever it was, I don’t think.

Anyway, I arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30 a.m., and my flight was to leave for London at 7:30 or so. Now, I’m sure Schipol is nice if a) there’s anything open b) you have euros to spend c) you’ve slept at least a little in the past 24 hours but as none of those applied to me, I found it hellish. And I wasn’t any happier when I found out my flight was delayed a further 2 hours. So I was hungry, tired, and had nothing to read, as I’d already finished all three books I’d brought with me.

Finally, finally, finally, our plane left Amsterdam and I arrived at Stansted. I still had about 2 hours of journey time ahead of me, but the home stretch! Fantastic! Grabbed the bus into London and watched the city go by. God, I love London! Every little bit of it. The suburbs, the parks, the grafitti, the traffic, the high streets, the pedestrians, everything. I get to the hotel, struggle up the steps with my huge suitcase, and nearly get jammed in the too-small revolving door. (Hey, this is a fancy hotel. Why isn’t there an easier way? Bizarre.) A bellhop takes my suitcase, and I check in. Get my key, go upstairs. Chris and Rebecca and Julie are already there. Okay, so I’m 3 hours late. They don’t mind. I take a shower (whew! I stunk!) and Chris and I head out to the expo.

We take the train to the expo. I point out some of the sights to Chris, and we see some of the race course. The expo is huge. We get our numbers and chips and are disappointed to note that we haven’t gotten a free t-shirt. What’s up with that? But we stop at the huge merchandise area, and I buy two t-shirts and a Flora London Marathon pint glass. (God, I love England. I must’ve missed the marathon-themed cigarettes, but surely they were there somewhere.)

We head down to the main area of the expo, and wander around a bit. We buy some Lucozade Sport so we can try it out, if not in training, at least we’ll know what it tastes like. Very sweet, as it happens. They’re also giving out samples of different flavors. The mixed berry flavor is quite nice, but unfortunately, it’s the orange they’ll be giving out at the race. We see the Runner’s World booth, and the Penguin was there. I was excited about that, but too nervous to say anything. We picked up an information sheet about the “Get you around” pacer (the Penguin, as it happened) but the time for that group was 5:30, a bit faster than my anticipated pace. No matter.

We only stayed at the expo for a little while. We were both tired and jetlagged, and a bit punch-drunk, so we left. On the way back, I decided we should get out of the tube at Westminster, so I could see Big Ben. It’s my favorite symbol of London, and I wanted Chris to see it. We wandered around that area a bit, and caught a bus back to Victoria. I couldn’t help peeking into the Waterstone’s in Trafalgar Square, but I paced myself – didn’t buy any books that day. Although I really wanted to.

Made it back to the hotel, where Chris and I soaked our feet and rested our weary legs. A little while later, we headed off to another hotel for our tour company’s welcome reception. Although it was only a maybe 10 minute walk there, I got us lost and it took closer to thirty. Ah well, at least we got to see Buckingham Palace and the finish line. So we found the reception, and got a glass of wine and basically stood in the middle of the room, awkwardly. We’re both sort of shy, so we decided to wait until someone came and talked to us. Fortunately, someone did, a woman named Pam (“I like your name,” she said. We had nametags on.) from Minneapolis. She was very friendly, and was with a group who had done the Paris Marathon the week before. Crazy!

After attempting to look friendly after Pam left, but not reeling in any more people, we decided to leave, and head back to the hotel. One would assume since we got so lost getting there, that we’d be more careful heading back. But no, this time I got us even more lost. God only knows where we went, but we got a nice little tour of Victoria and its surrounding areas. Marianne met us at the hotel, and the five of us went to have fish and chips at a pub where Anne used to work. After dinner, we exhaustedly made our way back to the hotel, where Marianne and I caught a cab back to Islington. Best £10 I ever spent. But before we got in the cab, we were chatted up by some smooth East End gangster-types. Maybe I watch too many movies. Our cabdriver, as it turned out, ran the marathon himself eleven years ago. He gave me a few tips but said he’d never do it again. Very reassuring. One of the things I love about London is the cabdrivers. You never know what you’ll end up in an in-depth conversation about.

Made it to Marianne’s flat. Very nice. She shares a house with three other trainee lawyers, and I had my own room and half-bathroom. After making small talk with one of Marianne’s flatmates, who was also running the marathon, I went to sleep and slept for a good twelve hours. Zzzzzzz….nice!

In and around London
Saturday, 13 April 2002

I woke up on Saturday morning refreshed. Marianne and I made our way to the hotel, where we were going to meet the rest of the group for an open-topped bus tour. Michael, Marianne’s boyfriend, met us at the hotel and we set off for the bus stop. Got our tickets, and though it was cold and overcast, we sat on the top level. Well, you have to, don’t you? You can’t take an open-topped bus tour and sit on the bottom! So, freezing, we made our way around the tourist areas of London. Much of the tour went along or near the marathon route, so that gave Chris a chance to see parts of the city that’s we’d “tour” on Sunday.

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When the cold got to be unbearable, we got off for lunch. Had bangers and mash (my absolute favorite British dish and perfect for such a day) at a warm pub on the south bank of the river. I was getting nervous because we were meeting some people for dinner that evening, and I always get nervous meeting new people. Not that they were new, really. It was Mike and Ian and Uli (and their respective partners), other runners who also had websites about their training, and we’d been swapping tips and stories for months, throughout our training. I was excited to be meeting them after all this time, but still nervous.

After lunch, we got back on the bus, and froze again until we got to Embankment, where we disembarked to go on a river cruise. I’d never done that before. It was fun, we went all the way to Tower Bridge and back. Nice to see the city from a different perspective. Plus, it was warm inside the boat. 🙂 After we were nicely thawed, we got back on the bus, with the plan to ride up to Marble Arch and walk down Oxford Street to the restaurant where we had dinner reservations. We got a waylayed at Trafalgar Square, where there was a huge (but thankfully peaceful) Palestinian demonstration.

At a hotel giftshop near Marble Arch (one of the areas, incidentally, where Marianne, Kristina, Anne and I lived for a while) Marianne bought me a London Underground game. A “running the marathon” present. Tee hee! I love the Underground. We played it later that night. 🙂

We made our way down Oxford Street (foot traffic, miraculously, wasn’t too bad for a Saturday afternoon) to Regent Street and went in Hamleys, a huge toy store where Chris and Rebecca bought a gift for a friend’s baby. We almost lost some of the group in there, off playing with the toys.

We got to the restaurant at 5:00 on the dot, and Ian and his wife, Jacqui and Mike and his wife Ruth and his son Thomas were already there. I made Chris walk in first. 🙂 Everyone was, of course, really nice, and soon Vicky and her husband showed up, as well as Uli and his partner and another pair of runners, whose names I never caught. (Well, they were at the other end of the table.) Everyone got along well, even though the runners were all pretty nervous. Vicky wasn’t running the marathon, but she had done the Dublin Marathon, so she was able to give us first-time marathoners some advice.

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Yummy food was eaten, but wine was not. Too bad, it smelled really good. I’m not even a big wine drinker, I guess it’s only because I couldn’t have any. Ha ha. So after a few hours of chatting, eating, and having a grand old time, we all headed off, back to our respective beds to get ready for the big day ahead of us.

The Big Day. The Race. 26.2 Miles.
Sunday, 14 April 2002

After tossing and turning for several hours the night before, I finally managed to sleep for about two hours, before my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 5:00 a.m. I needed to be at Chris’s hotel at 6:30 so we could get on the bus to the start that was arranged by our tour agency. So I showered, attempted to eat some toast, had some tea, and set off for the rather long walk to the tube station. I got mildly lost on the way, which panicked me slightly, but that was nothing compared to the shock I received when I finally did get there.

There were no Underground trains running until 6:59 a.m.

What did I do? Panicked, of course! Tried to find a taxi. No luck. Looked for a bus. No luck. They didn’t start running until 7:00. Finally, I got myself together enough to find a phone box and call Chris (naturally, I didn’t have the number with me, so I had to call information first. All this is making me panic even more.) I got through to him, and he assured me that we had plenty of time to take the train to Greenwich with all of the other runners. Besides, he reasoned, it’d be more in the spirit of things to have to go alongside everyone else. Good point. While I was waiting for the Underground station to open, another runner came by and talked to me. He seemed calm enough, which helped.

Finally, I made it to the hotel and met up with Chris. We got on the tube, and made our way to Waterloo to get on the train to Greenwich. There were tons of runners (duh) and we had to wait for the second train that came by to get on. A good idea, since we actually got to sit.

When we made it to the Greenwich station, we followed the mass of people and the signs to the red start. I’m not exactly sure what the significance of the different starts was, but I think overseas runners and charity runners were at the red start. Immediately we got in line for the bathroom, with about 50 minutes until the race was to start. Naturally, Chris, being a boy, was done in about 5 minutes, but I had to wait about half an hour. After that was taken care of, I put my number on and got my stuff together while Chris went again. That boy has the bladder the size of a pea, as we’ll see later. So then we dropped our kit bags off at the baggage truck and got back in line for the bathroom. This time, we only had about 10 minutes until the race started, and we barely made it in time to jog to the correct pen.

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There was a moment of silence for the Queen Mum, and then the starting noisy thing (I don’t know what it was) went off to signal the start. Woo hoo!

Naturally, there wasn’t any movement, just a slow walk, for a while. We checked out the costumes around us, including my favorites, Tick and Tock. They were two wristwatches (Timex, as it turned out) who were clearly not too hindered by their costumes, as we didn’t see then again for the rest of the day. Sometime around now, we were caught on camera by the BBC. Michael taped it for us and Marianne and I watched it later. Woo hoo! Good thing we wore those orange shirts!

So approximately 17 minutes after the gun went off, we crossed the start line. There were crowds lining either side of the road, and the huge smile that resulted didn’t leave my face for the next, oh, 24 miles or so.

The costumes we saw at the beginning were incredible. Rhinos, a huge cell-phone (who, judging by the shouts at the start, probably had to endure five plus hours of “ring ring” and “hey, turn that off and run!”), a red telephone named Dave (who we were with the whole time), a snail named Brian, Superman, two Batmans and Robins, a big furry creature called, I think, a Womble, some Teletubbies with buckets of money on their backs, and lots of others.

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It didn’t take too long for the crowds to thin out. Or, shall I say, for them to leave us behind. At around mile three, the Penguin’s 5:30 pacer group passed us. We were going to keep with them, but their walk breaks were at odds with ours. Plus, as I said before, they were going faster than us. Sigh. Anyway, I think it was better that we were at the back of the pack, because there really weren’t that many of us, relatively speaking. Therefore, we always heard our names being yelled. It was fantastic. There were little kids lining the routes, wanting us to slap their hands as we ran by. We obliged as much as we could.

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I sincerely thought that I’d remember every little thing about the race, every mile, but let’s face it, the first 8 miles or so really just blended together. Actually, the first 14. Make that 24. Well, I remember snippets of things, which I wrote down right after the race. I don’t necessarily remember when they happened, but I’ll try…

But first, the splits:

Mile 1: 12:21.57
Mile 2: 13:54.71
Mile 3: 13:24.54
Mile 4: 12:36.50
Mile 5: 12:33.37
Mile 6: 13:14.15
Mile 7: 16:57.12 (ahh, that’d be Chris’s first bathroom break)
Mile 8: 12:35.67
Mile 9: 12:40.16
Mile 10: 13:03.55
Mile 11: 15:17.70 (ahh, that’d be the second!)
Mile 12: 13:01.12
Mile 13: 13:04.87
Halfway:
Mile 14: 12:18.53
Mile 15: 13:24.79
Mile 16: 15:49.15 (bathroom break again, plus I forgot to hit my split button, as you can see from Mile 17. At this point, we decided it’d be wiser for me to walk on ahead while Chris used the bathroom, and then he’d run and catch up with me. That way, we didn’t lose as much time.)
Mile 17: 11:45.79
Mile 18: 14:02.31 (couldn’t possibly be another bathroom break could it? very possibly)
Mile 19: 17:01.50 (excrutiating blister popped. see below for story)
Mile 20: 14:20.48 (Had to walk because of the blister.)
Mile 21: 13:43.73
Mile 22: 12:47.31 (woah. speed demons!)
Mile 23: 14:38.24 (I think this was the cobblestones. I’ll have to check the map. Or a bathroom break.)
Mile 24: 13:28.77
Mile 25: 13:35.50 (digging deep. concentrating. sobbing.)
Mile 26.2: 15:57.01 Finished!!!

Total time: 5:57:38 by my watch, 5:57:36 chip time. Fantastic!

Splits as recorded by chip:
KM10: 0:00:00 (I didn’t think it beeped as we ran over it. Hmmm)
KM20: 2:47:37
HALF: 2:55:59 Ê
KM30: 4:14:49
KM40: 5:40:00 Ê
FINISH: 5:57:36

So that means the average mile time for the first half was 13:26.1, and for the second half: 13:51.2 for the second half. Not bad. But positive splits. Curses to the blister! I’ll blame that.

My memories of the race, not necessarily in order:

– After about seven or eight miles, another runner on her cell phone informed us that Paula Radcliffe had won, and that the world record had been set. Hmmm…that makes two races Chris and I had run in where world records had been set. I’ll bet we were the only two people there that were at both the Crescent City Classic and the London Marathon. Hmmm. Perhaps I should look into this, hire myself out as a good luck charm or something.

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– Marianne, Michael, Rebecca, and Julie planned to see us at miles 14 and 21. These points in the course were only a five minute walk apart (for them!) and they were going to hang out with Vicky from dinner. (I don’t think they found her. I think her friends passed by much earlier.) Anyway, we saw them at mile 14. Along with those guys was one of Marianne’s flatmates and her boyfriend and a couple of his friends. They were stationed outside of a pub (naturally) and boy, did they yell when we ran by! We had planned to stop and take a picture with them and say hello, but their yelling spurred us on to run by, victoriously, instead. It was a great feeling to see them, and that pumped us up for a few miles.

– There was a couple from New Zealand, Polly and Ron, who we stuck with for much of the race. And Dave the Telephone. And Brian the Snail. And Superman. We had our own little crowd.

– They gave out sponges intermittently, but they were always gone by the time we got there. We never got a sponge. Ah well. There were mist showers to run through a few times, though. That was nice and very refreshing. Especially since my quads were burning, the cool water really helped. It was actually much warmer that I’d expected. I never felt overheated or anything, but never cold either. The sun was out at the beginning of the race, which was nice, but there was cloud cover for most of the race, which is even better.

– I took a total of 6 gels throughout the race, and one packet of electrolytes. I usually took some of the Lucozade if there was any, and drank a little of it. I never had any stomach problems or anything. No dehydration, nothing. Chris, on the other hand, insisted that it was the Lucozade that made him have to pee five (that’s right FIVE) times during the race (compare that to my ONE, thank you) but he nevertheless picked up a packet of it every time it was offered. Men. Sheesh. And then had to pee five minutes later. (I should say, though, this didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I secretly looked forward to Chris’s bathroom breaks so I could walk extra.)

– Sometime after we passed the mile 18 line, Chris and I were running along, and I felt a very distinct “pop” in my left shoe. Sure enough, one of the blisters that I had picked up while walking around in the days before decided to commit suicide inside my shoe. Blech. It was the most disgusting feeling, and immediately, I was in excrutiating pain. Fortunately, immediately beside us were some (as you can see, very friendly) paramedics. They sat me down and took care of me (well, but a bandage on my toe, what else could they do? Chopping off the toe seemed like a good option to me at the time) and I was really, really worried that I’d either have to give up (no question) or limp to the finish line. Fortunately, I was able to ignore the pain after a little while, and soon enough, it went away completely. Who knows how. I was expecting to take my shoes off afterwards and find a lake of blood inside my shoe, but there was never any. Whew! I hate blood!

– When we got to the infamous cobbles at mile 23, the carpet was gone! Apparently, they lay down a carpet to shield you from the cobblestones in front of the Tower of London. By the time we got there, it was rolled up and off to the side. I thought that was appalling. The fact that many of the water stops were out of water, that I could understand. At least it was only every other water stop. But the fact that they rolled up the carpets and just put them off to the side really made me mad. Why would they do this? Mean. We had to walk through much of this stage, because running on the uneven stones would have either meant hurting my blister or tripping. Either one would be bad. There was also a part at this stage of the race where there were more tourists around than runners, and we had to dodge them. It was like a dream I had before the race, where I lost my way. I literally could not tell for a little bit of time where the race went. Found it eventually. 😛

– I don’t know if Starburst (formerly Opal Fruits in the UK) had some minor sponsorship going on, but almost every piece of candy that was given out throughout the race (and there was a lot) was Starburst. Strange. But good. I also got some gum drops at one point and a mini Mars bar later on. Yum.

– At mile 20 or so, there was a tunnel to go through. At the entrance to the tunnel, there was a huge sign that looked like a brick wall (surrounding the tunnel) that said “What Wall?” Indeed. We never hit the wall. Amazingly enough. I loved that sign.

– Sometime around mile 15, we met Superman. He was running his 209th marathon, and he’d raised over £26,000 for charity. Wow.

– We took two minute walking breaks every mile. And sometimes on the uphills. But we made up for it on the downhills. Who said London was flat? Liar! It was most certainly not flat. Okay, I’m sure compared to other courses it’s flat, but to just say it’s flat, well, that’s not true. To be fair, none of the uphills were steep, but it was definitely a gently rolling course. That didn’t upset me too much, I liked the downhills. Everytime we got to a downhill, I’d hear Cilla telling me about the runners who do everything to maintain an even pace, even though that means slowing down on the downhills. Nutty! So I took her advice and cruised down those downhills, enjoying the speed.

The Finish

Throughout the race, I smiled. It was hard not to, with all of the cheering, the spectators, our names being yelled out. But I was a little concerned about the emotion, or lack thereof. I just wasn’t feeling any strong emotions. Fortunately (for my mental well-being) around mile 24-25, Big Ben came looming ahead of us. At this stage, I was already feeling tired. For the last mile or so, I’d been digging down deep to keep going. It wasn’t that I’d hit the wall or anything, I just needed to concentrate. So I’d pick a spot about 10 feet in front of me, run to it, pick another one, and on and on. It worked really well for me, even though I had to tune out the crowds and Chris, who uses an altogether more vocal method to keep himself going. Nothing wrong with that, it didn’t annoy me or anything, just a different style. So when Big Ben came up in front of us, and I was cruising along comfortably, I lost it. Not badly, but it hit me where we were, and how far we’d come, and I started gasping. If I hadn’t been running, I’d have been crying. Sobbing. But it’s hard to breathe and run and cry at the same time. So I just gasped and tried to keep myself together so I wouldn’t have to stop. It was all very happy and emotional, and my frown was one of pure joy. Snot was running down my face, too, but what could I do?

After we turned the corner heading up towards Buckingham Palace, I stopped sobbing. I was able to enjoy the crowds again. I passed someone I recognized (well, his name, anyway, from his website) but didn’t want to stop and say hello. As we ran down Birdcage Walk, along St. James’s Park, the crowds got thicker. There was a sign ahead that said “800 meters to go.” Hmmm. That seemed reasonable, until I realized that’s half a mile. Not that half a mile is far normally, but at the end of a marathon, it’s an eternity. And because I wanted to be able to run strong at the finish, I told Chris I wanted to walk a little, so that when we turned the corner on to the Mall at Buckingham Palace, we’d be running. So he obliged.

Then we took it home. We missed our group of spectators at mile 21, probably because of my blister, so we were hoping they made it to the finish.

Didn’t see them, didn’t see them, didn’t see them…oh there they were, at the very end, on the left side! Screaming our names, videotaping, taking photos. Unfortunately, I was overcome once more by tears at this last stretch, so that’s all caught on video.

As we crossed the finish line, Chris and I grabbed each other’s hand and raised it high in the air. And smiled.

After we crossed the finish line, a medal was placed around our neck. Our chips were removed. And a photographer took a picture of us. We got our silver blankets and goody bags. T-shirts! Yay! So the London Marathon came through with free (?) shirts, after all. Goody bags were fun. Apple, sandwich, fruit bar, Lucozade Sport (no thanks, never again!) and some other stuff.

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Chris and I went to the Overseas Repatriation area and waited for everyone. They showed up after a few minutes and Marianne broke out the champagne she’d brought. Yay! We hugged everyone and they told us that they’d nearly missed us. They only made it to the finish line literally two minutes before we turned the corner. Whew!

Exhaustedly, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel, where Chris and I soaked our legs in a tub full of cold water and Epson salts. And then we showered. I called my mom and Kristina.

Then we headed to a pub near our old flat in Kensington and had a pint there. I was barely able to drink it, I was feeling pretty out of it, so we went to the Indian restaurant next door and got a table full of food and refueled. Yummy! I only wish I hadn’t been feeling so weird, because I wasn’t able to enjoy my lamb pasanda as much as I usually would. Mmmmm. Love curry.

After dinner, made it back to Marianne’s (no idea how) and went to sleep. Slept like the dead. Wonderful.

The aftermath…

Sore on Monday. Stairs difficult. No black toenails, thank goodness. Blisters on right toes. Make left leg sore. Ah well. All is gone by today, Thursday.

Thinking…maybe again next year? yeah!

4/8/02

Oooohhhhh….getting closer! Now the marathon is less than a week away! I really never thought this day would come. Yeeeeeps! I think I’ve got everything I need, now I just need to pack it in my suitcase. I’m determined to only bring one there, but I’ll pack an empty one for all my books I’m bringing back. As usual.

Ran 8 miles on Saturday. Weather was gorgeous, just a beautiful day for a run. The park was full of family reunions, picnics, etc, so every quarter mile or so, I’d pass a big group of people barbecuing, and the smell would be torturously good. Then a while later…a crawfish boil. Then another barbecue. Yummmmy.

Anyway, even though it was a relatively short run, it was my long run for the week, so I practiced the walking 2 minutes every mile, and I felt great at the end. I think it’s really going to work well for me. Woo hoo!