Because all forecasts called for lows in the 30s, I arrived at our running club's hotel suite (really more like a huge ballroom than a "suite") in track pants and a sweater over my singlet and shorts. Quite happy that Natalie felt better than the day before, and well-hydrated, I had another Clif Bar and finished my big Nalgene bottle of Cytomax (Mmmm, sports drink).
A couple of weeks ago three guys from my pace group decided that we would aim for a 3:40 marathon. So we planned to run together, averaging something like 8:20/minute miles. I was the only one who'd run a marathon before, and one of the three recently rolled his ankle (twice). Another guy who's joined up with us recently walked to the start area with us, but we lost touch in the throngs.
At the start, feeling great, I threw my long-sleeve t-shirt into the donate-that-unecessary-clothing truck. Gloves, singlet, and shorts seemed like plenty. "Official Race Starter" Sen. Allen gave some over-the-top comment about how patriotic all of us runners were and how we were lucky to be in America, running for freedom.
The big kaboom howitzer fired, and we were off. I was lucky enough to get myself in the first of the two start waves.
During the first two miles, no less than four people fell down within a foot of me. The first was a 200-pound guy who was right off my back; had he caught me, I would have been in serious trouble. Dodged all of them, hoping I wasn't some sort of jinx on those around me. My guys and I avoided weaving too much, the cause of most falling in the first miles of a race.
We paced ourselves just fine for the first two. 9:05 or thereabouts. The downhill of Spout Run, however, was the beginning of our trouble. An accidental 7:45 mile, when we wanted something like 8:45 for the first few, turned out to be bad news.
We fairly well locked ourselves into an 8:00 pace. A couple of times, Kevin, clearly the wisest of the lot, suggested that we ought to slow down. We tried. We really did. But once we found a pace, it was unchangeable, even though we walked for a few seconds during each water stop.
At about 10.5 miles (look to your left and wave to the White House), I realized I had at least one blister on each foot, near where the big toe meets the ball - sort of on the side). I've never had a blister from running; and 10 miles ought not cause that sort of trouble. This was a disconcerting feeling. This is also when Kevin pointed to the error of our ways. An 8:00 pace, by the way, would have bagged us a 3:30:00 marathon.
So. We slowed down a little, and hit an 8:15 mile. Passed the front of the Capitol and headed down the south side of the mall. I turned around, and Kevin was gone. Reinaldo and I looked for him, but decided to keep on going (still a bit too fast). At the half-way point, I still felt good, Reinaldo looked strong.
Huge crowds around Lincoln and West Potomac Park and the Tidal Basin made a huge difference. Honestly, writing "Dave" down both arms with a magic marker can make things happen. Everyone who yells your name becomes your own cheerleader.
Mile 16 is the beginning of the race's trek around desolate Hains Point. No crowds. No buildings. A nice view across the Potomac to the planes taking off from National. Not much else. At mile 16, Reinaldo complained about a leg cramp and said he'd catch up. I slowed down for a minute, but didn't see him again until after the race. Still running 8:00 minute miles, by the way.
At the beginning of the infinite 14th St. bridge, I knew I had a problem. Just past mile 20, I began to feel a bit wobbly. Rubbery legs. A gang from our club - people who'd run Chicago, mainly - was on the bridge, cheering (holding up a blow-up doll in one of our singlets...), handing out PowerAid.
I stopped to walk for the first time on the bridge. On the far side, at mile 22, the Almighty Wall grabbed both of my hamstrings and yanked. Muscle cramps. I stopped to walk several times between the markers for mile 22 and 25. My average pace for the first twenty: 8:10. For the last 6.2: 9:25. I worried that I wouldn't make my goal of 3:40. I worried that I wouldn't beat last year's 3:50. I worried that I wouldn't break 4:00. I worried that I wouldn't finish. When this guy started yelling and pogo-sticking just before mile 25 (I'm guessing he was having muscle spasms of the worst sort), I decided to run, without stopping, until the end. Huge crowds made a big difference.
I had to gulp down the urge to cry a bit going up the last hill (brutal bastards), but made it.
Finished in 3:42. At the finish line, the blisters were screaming, both hamstrings were in open revolt against forward motion, the quads were itching to join the mutiny, and my head felt a bit fuzzy. I walked over to the food tent, grabbed a banana, an orange, and whatever godawful juice they had out. Headed ever so slowly back to the nearby hotel, found a chair near my bag, and sat. Continued to sit until the urge to go have one of those beers got strong enough.
No complaints whatsoever about my finish time (Kevin and Reinaldo both made it in under 4:00, by the way. I'm thrilled to have run with them for so long). But what a miserable way to learn. I kept seeing this guy running in the crowds, wearing a foam approximation of a wall, on which was written, of course "Don't Let the Wall Get You!" I am not a fan of that guy. And yet, I should have listened to him.
UPDATE: I knew these numbers sounded too good. Final results are up.
233rd of 1,747 men 30-34 (13.3%).
1,312d of 11,294 men (11.6%).
1,609th of 19,112 finishers (8.4%).
Still a bit better than last year...
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I beat last year's time by eight minutes.
3:42:20
234th of 1744 30-34 year old fellas (13.4%, relatively).
1311th of 16546 fellas of all ages (7.9%).
1067th of 27891 finishers (5.7%).
But I ran stupid. Much too fast for the first seventeen or eighteen. Started horrid blisters on both feet at mile 10. That's a new experience. Hit the wall around mile 22. Had to walk a number of times between 22 and the end. I'm happy about the fact that I picked it up and actually ran the last 1.2 without any stopping.
Perfectly satisfied with my finish time, but a lame way to get it done.
Just like last year, I'll let Natalie the bada$$ tell her story.
CapitalWeather has this to say in its "Eventcast" for the marathon:
Weather Impact: The morning will start off quite chilly, in the mid 40s, but temperatures will steadily rise to near 60 by noon. Overall, pretty decent running conditions.What to wear: Spectators will be comfortable in layers, starting with a fleece or light jacket. Runners should use their discretion.
Discretion? Yeah. Not much evidence of that among this bunch, who have elected to, you know, run a marathon and all.
Between working on a dissertation that's due in a matter of weeks, reflecting on Sunday morning's 26.2 mile adventure, writing/editing a big project at work, and Fitzmas, I have, at the moment, less ability to focus than one-hour old fruitfly who's just borrowed the keys to the fruitfly car so he can go down to the fruitfly mall to buy some fruitfly records, drink an Orange Julius, hang with Tha Fruitflyz for some petty vandalism, and maybe meet a couple of fruitfly ladies before the fruitfly security guards tell him to get lost.
Revisiting chapters written three years ago makes dissertation fine-tuning a nervewracking business. Honestly.
Fortunately, although the direction and effect of my argument has changed a little, its foundations have been constant. Nevertheless, making these distinct chapters operate as part of a larger position that has progressed has got me frantic. One helpful committee member assures me that I shouldn't sweat it, that books are long-term projects and that this sort of growth is native to the practice. Even still, I find myself making more significant changes than I would have predicted.
The constant part of the dissertation has been my insistence that outlier life writing in which memoirists, biographers, and autobiographers deploy practices that overtly critique the work with which they are complicit (e.g., obvious fictionalization, doubly self-conscious narratives about the relative success or failure of the work's aim to be "honest," mixed genres, and experiments with form) are both pedagogically engaged and symptomatic of all life writing. Pedagogic because they make better readers of nonfiction out of us and symptomatic because they tell on the conditions that inform almost any effort to get between experience, memory, self, and text.
The new direction, latent in the two chapters written before it hit me, notes the fact that my most recent examples (Dave Eggers' memoir, Edmund Morris' Reagan biography, and Maxine Hong Kingston's Fifth Book of Peace) betray a worry about life writing even after they supplement their texts with the sort of knowing critique that ought to purchase them some confidence. They're each anxious for local reasons, but they share real fears about nonfiction's ability to accomplish one of its ostensible aims: reporting what happened. What strikes me about that worry is that it does not exist in three predecessor texts that rely on almost exactly the same principles and practices Eggers, Morris, and Kingston use. Mary McCarthy's Catholic girlhood memoir, Vidal's novel of Abraham Lincoln, and Kingston's own China Men, books to which my contemporary three are very much heirs, enjoy real comfort in their play with representation and in their indeterminate approach to experience and history...
Ooops. I've made this sound like an abstract.
The point is that teasing out an argument so near the surface yet not quite articulated is keeping me up nights.
It is common practice to begin a dissertation defense (mere weeks from now) with a narrative of the project. I'm going to have plenty to say.