Change of Pace

After an easy flight into Louisville, my sweetie met me at the airport and we got ourselves situated at the hotel. There was plenty of time to pick up my race number and check out the small Expo at a leisurely pace. A woman selling acai juice informed us that you now have to eat 54 peaches to get the nutritional value of one 1950's era peach and I discovered that the Columbus marathon promotional photo book features a few neat photos of me in the race two years ago. Oddly, the photo book featuring images from the 2007 race was opened to a page showing a woman Jack knew in the finish chute, the wife of an old colleague of his. Weird coincidence.

We returned to the convention center for the pasta dinner and chatted with three Kenyans before a dorky marathon pace leader took the stage to give obvious race advice for first-time marathoners and our three quiet, serious tablemates quickly departed. One of these guys ended up finishing second, but the others must have dropped out. It's an interesting alternate culture behind the marathon scene, these runners who make a living off of winning and placing in second (or third) tier races. I guess it makes sense for these athletes, if they feel they are unlikely to place, they simply drop out and hold out for another race on another day. In the men's race these anonymous professionals are usually Africans, but in the women's competitions, they are more likely to be Russian. I kept my fingers crossed at this point that I wouldn't be seeing any Russians at the start line.

The morning started off as marathon mornings often do...very, very early. Stumbling in the dark, fumbling with the coffee maker, trying to collect all the essentials with one eye on the clock, scarfing down oatmeal, bodygliding the essential sensitive bits, pinning on the number, grabbing gels, banana, gross carbo-drink concoction, donning a plastic bag poncho and jogging through the dark, wet streets to the long line of groggy, half-awake runners waiting for shuttle buses to the start.

The rain stopped by the time we arrive and the damp chill felt like a weight off my shoulders as the worry of hot weather got checked off my list of race day paranoias. A hot tip from my seatmate on the bus led me to the back door of an elementary school near the start where in-the-know runners gathered to chat and doze on cushioned mats in the small, cozy gymnasium. I sat quietly gathering my thoughts for about half an hour before one of my teammates from New York came up to say hello and I followed her and her friend back outside towards the start.

Most of the runners were participating in the half marathon, so I tried to spot the women with the red full marathon numbers who were most likely to be near me during the race. The elites were assembling up in the front, so I couldn't really see them very well, but I was disappointed to see a few red bibs up there. Last year there wasn't a lot of competition, but I'm not sure if there was money on the line then. This year they were giving out $3K for 1st, $2K for 2nd, $1K for 3rd and $500 for 4th. Win, place, show and "in the money" they called it, appropriately for the Derby Festival Marathon.

I hit up Meghan for some Swahili tips in case I saw our friends from the night before at the starting line, but they never got close enough for me to call out "Mambo Vipi!" and wish them "Bahati njema!". So that's actually one of my gripes with the race, in addition to it being tough to tell who was running the half vs. the full. They also kept us so far back from the "elites" that it was tough for me to tell whether I should be trying to run with them, or to just let them go and focus on my own race.

The smart, rational answer to that last question is of course, that I should never even be considering running anything but my own race and I really did convince myself that I took off at the gun at a nice, sensible, 6:50ish sort of pace. When the first mile clicked by at 6:10, I knew I was up to my old rabbit tricks again and if I had any intentions of going under 3 again, I had better start controlling my pace.

By the time we entered the second hilly park section of the race around mile 15, the little pack had dissolved and the I found myself in a Texan sandwich with the Latino girl (Debbie, I gathered, from her supporters) and the non-African, Patricia, about 10 seconds ahead and behind me.

The park hills kicked my tired ass pretty thoroughly at this point as this is when my splits really started to degrade, but I must not have been alone in this boat as by the time we exited the park Patricia was no where to be seen and Debbie was smack dab in front of me.

Although I was unaware of it, there was another little drama going on at the same time amidst the runner support crews. I started the race with two energy gels in hand, but somewhere around the 10 mile point, Jack had handed me another one. I saw a van stop up ahead of us when we were back in the woods and a man ran out and set out a bottle of red gatorade looking stuff on the curb for Debbie to pick up. Apparently it was NOT what she was looking for at that point and I heard her ask him, where's the Gu?"

Feeling charitable and flush with the camaraderie of competition, I told her that I'd packed an extra and she could have it the next time Jack rode by. She thanked me and said that would be really cool.

When Jack DID come by next to hand me my little packet, I asked for the last one as well and he stopped to get that. It seemed like forever before he finally pulled up next to me again and told me that he'd been told that he couldn't give me any more energy gels or else I might be disqualified. No biggie, I told him, since it was for Debbie (now about 5-10 seconds ahead of me) anyway, so he took off and gave it to her.

We're really not sure who complained about me getting help on the course, but we figured that if it was Debbie's person, this ought to keep him happy. Jack only cheered from that point on, so I think that issue isn't likely to come up again. If they'd actually had energy gels on the course, I wouldn't have asked him to have them ready for me and if I'd thought it was illegal for him to give them to me, I would have just carried four of them from the beginning.

It was around mile 20 that I started hearing spectators telling me that I was the fifth woman, which surprised me since Jack's reports had me thinking that it was the two Russians, Debbie, then me. I remembered seeing a very stocky, masculine woman go by me early in the race, but I thought at the time that she was in the half. Now I started to wonder if she actually was up ahead of me and perhaps Jack had just mistaken her for a man. I was a little bummed to hear it, but it gave me the juice to go after Debbie one more time in hopes of scoring that fourth place moolah.

The last section of the race took us over the Ohio River for a quick loop in Indiana and it gave me a chance to check out my competition on their return trip into Kentucky. I was hurting pretty badly at this point (maybe should have held on to that extra energy gel...?), but the wind on the bridge was refreshing and the riverboats below were playing music that echoed across the water in a way that was both uplifting and soothing. I saw the masculine woman fly by with her long, curly hair and earrings and a couple of minutes later the two Russians followed. Damn, I WAS fifth, and Debbie was starting to gain some ground.

By the time I started back up the slope of the bridge towards the finish, I was really ready to be done. My legs were feeling terribly beat up and I'd just run out of steam. Debbie had a good half a minute lead and I resigned myself to just concentrating on my form and finding satisfaction in an almost guaranteed PR. The 25 mile mark was just beyond the Louisville foot of the bridge and I kept telling myself, "one mile. one mile is NOTHING."

I underestimated the challenge of running that last mile while trying to weave in and out of the crowds completing their 3-hour HALF marathon races, but I can't imagine that really slowed me down that much. It just seemed like poor planning on the race organizers part and they really should be embarrassed that the men's marathon winner didn't even get to break the finish tape because they didn't see him coming amidst all the finishing half marathoners!

As soon as I crossed the line, I saw Debbie up ahead of me, puking her poor heart out. I gave her a second to compose herself and then teased her about THIS being the way she showed her appreciation for that Gu I gave her. She laughed, sort of, and then gave me a quick hug before getting back to her puking. Hey, if someone's got to beat you, at least you can take some comfort in knowing they had to HURT to do it!

And finally, to finish up, although I was totally happy finishing out of the money and getting a PR, it turns out that Jack actually KNEW the "masculine looking woman" out in front and HE is from St. Louis. No wonder she was so masculine looking! He just happens to have longish, curly hair and an earring, and chose to wear a snug fitting triathlon-looking top that managed to confuse me and apparently a bunch of the spectators. So I DID finish fourth after all and while the winnings don't actually cover my race expenses, it's still a hugely gratifying thing to be recognized in such a tangible way.

And not only that....after getting ice-bathed and cleaned up, Jack and I went BACK to Churchill Downs and bet on the winner of the featured opening day race, so good job Macho Again!