I’ll say its long - 26.2 miles when you haven’t run more than about 16 all year is way too long! Let me recap my training schedule for the last two months, just in case you haven’t been paying attention (or I haven’t been posting it):

September 6: 60 mile bike ride
September 8: 7 mile run
September 10: 5 mile speedwork
September 13: 10 mile run
September 20: 60 mile bike ride
October 5: Half ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile ride, 13.1 mile run)
October 6-25: Sat on my ass eating queso. Maybe 10 miles total.

October 26: Marine Corps Marathon

Hmm… Am I missing something? No… that’s about it.

So it was obvious that I wasn’t going to be fast. That’s fine. I didn’t even want to be fast, particularly. Just finish and have a good time. The day before I drank 3 beers, ate a plate of bar nachos, and downed a bento box full of fried veggie goodness with another couple of glasses of pinot noir.

Race morning? Downed a powerAde, ate a granola bar, and headed out on the metro to meet Carrie, Shawn, and Amy at their hotel, then walked for a mile or more to hook up with Craig et al for the absolute best pre-race staging possible.

And no, I didn’t have another glass of wine. Although, had it been offered…

Anyway, we walked from there to the start line, and incidentally discovered the holy grail of untouched porta-potty walls (a rarity at any marathon - email me if you want the scoop, I’m not going to post the location here for just anyone to read). Amy, Craig, and Carrie staged early, Shawn (doing his first) and I headed back for the comfortable mid-pack zone.

The gun actually went off before we were in position, but we waited until the 4:30 group came by and hooked in behind them. The plan was to start slow and pick it up later if we felt like it - my plan was to slow Shawn down in case he got frisky, so that he’d have a great first time (and he did - knocked it out of the park) and save something for the post-race party. But first, we had to run.

The course was gorgeous. The Potomac was foggy, and you could see turning leaves across the way, branches extending across the river in welcome. Absolutely beautiful. There were lots of idiots darting around, and I mentioned to Shawn that we’d be seeing a lot of them later, walking (sure enough, we did). We just kept it easy, kept chatting, and had a beautiful running day.

The weather was perfect - low 50s and rising slowly. We ran into Georgetown and turned West, passing the best music on the course; a guy on a bike with a loud radio. He was playing Gloria Gaynor as we passed, and I remember mentioning that we’d need that music at mile 22. The first few miles were hilly, but I stayed easy on them, realizing that I’d need every erg later in the run.

At about mile eight we did a sharp u-turn, and headed up a long grinder of a hill. Shawn took off (or rather he stayed steady) and I dropped back a little. We’d started at about an 11:30 pace and slowly picked it up to more like a 10:00, passing the 4:30 group along the way. I’m very happy to report that, just like the 2007 North Trail Half Marathon, another recovery run for me, that was the last I saw of him until the finish.

From then on I just had fun and chatted with people. I got to run with soldiers, cancer survivors, first time marathoners, and old veterans. I enjoyed the monuments around the quad, and ended up running about a 10 minute pace for the midsection of the run. As we passed the Capitol I started to slow down, and sure enough by the 21 mile point the 4:30 pace group caught back up with me. I thought about picking it up, then realized that there was no point - it was supposed to be a fun run, after all!

From the halfway point on my legs felt heavy. Hardly surprising, considering my lack of training. My cardio, though, was great, something I attribute to the long bike rides - I never felt out of breath or like my pulse was racing. When I got sore, I would think about Bob, my step-father, and the man whose dog-tags I was wearing as a tribute. He spent the last years of his life in pain from a body that had let him down, and I knew that he would have been thrilled to be able to run a marathon, or even a 5K, in as little pain as I was feeling. So I kept running, with a smile on my face, for his sake. Thanks, Bob, I owe you (another) one.

Running through Crystal City I kept my eyes open for Shawn but, while I’m sure we passed each other on the out and back, I never saw him. I did see the beer stop around mile 22-23 and grabbed a cold one at the beginning of the line, toasting my hosts and the crowd around me. I’d finished it by the end of the tables, so I got another one (much to their pleased surprise). Crap beer, but made so much sweeter by the circumstances.

By this point I was enjoying (and walking) the waterstops, cursing their 2-mile apart placement, and still having a blast. At the South end of the course the live band started playing Mickey, and it was great seeing all the mid-packers like me clapping and singing along to the music! Not much to report here - the entrance ramp was a bitch, and mile 25 was long (as always), and I was still enjoying myself.

At the mile 25 point I pulled the dog tags out of my shirt and just let them bounce; I wanted to make sure that my finisher’s photo had them showing. It was grueling, and I was really focussed on my form, trying to balance the abuse that my quads and calves were getting so that neither of them would cramp. Turns out I got it about right. The hill up to the Iwo Jima memorial was just a shitty as everybody said it would be but I dug down deep and kept running anyway - the finish line was in sight!

And that was it. Marathon number five, down the hatch. The fact that I had fun, made some new friends, hung out with old friends, and enjoyed myself made it amazing. I wish that my lovely wife had been able to come out with me, but even without her, it was a pretty great weekend. For future reference, I can also recommend great pizza, Mexican, and bagel joints for anyone else running the race in the future.

And so I leave you. Until the next race, sometime in 2009…

Run with Joy.

(the emotion, not the stripper)

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