The Buffalo Marathon

“Theatrically, the mile is just the right length… beginning, middle, end… a story unfolding.” – Sebastian Coe.

Man, they will give these things away to anyone.

So, when I was in elementary school, we all had to take the Physical Fitness Test.  I’m pretty sure it’s still done, but it was year after year, a week of weeding out the weak so kids could learn to point a finger at an early age.  There was a certain amount of this you should do, a certain amount of fast you should run… I was the middle of the road kid – average clear across the board in the gym, except for one thing… fucking chin-ups.  From 1st to 4th grade I could not for the life of me pull myself up and stick my chin over that goddamn bar.  The only other kids that couldn’t do that in my gym class were the fat girls (I was not fat back then, btw, nor was I a girl, I was a lean little kid).

Witnessing this, my elementary brethren were just relentless, the little bastards.  I got picked on for it, for not being able to do a chin-up for chrissake.  The 5th grade douche bag bully caught wind of this and hung me from the big kid monkey bars, knowing I couldn’t pull myself up and hoping that if I dropped the 5 or 6 feet to the ground I’d probably break an ankle.  Yeah, Eric, that’s cool, mock my upper body strength – never mind that your mom is an alcoholic who showed up to the last open house and promptly passed out at your little desk.

Along comes 5th grade and along comes another goddamn Physical Fitness Test.  I’m sure I played sick to try and get out of it, but when you did that, you got to take the tests by yourself while the rest of the class rocked out some Dodgeball, or as Mr. Foster used to call it – Bombardment.  So there I am again, hanging there like a cheap blouse at TJ Maxx trying like hell to at least get my elbows to bend while everyone else is having a blast hurling over-sized rubber balls at each other’s faces.  Mr. Foster comes over and gets right in front of me and says, “Come on, Danny, you can do this, come on!” and no, I can’t.  “Try harder,” he says.  And suddenly I’m up at the bar.  I glance down and he has ahold of my foot.  He had pushed me up.  “Now,” he says, letting me back down, “you do it.”

And so I did.

The feeling I got this past Sunday as I saw the 10k marker at the Buffalo Marathon up ahead of me was like that – this elation I had felt as a kid doing something I had never been able to do before.

My calves hurt like hell yesterday, and they still smart today – but it reminds me that I did that.  Something I’d never tried to do,  something I’d never pushed myself to do.   And even though it hurts to stand up, it feels really really good.

Oh yeah, 69th place, but still…

Almost missed the start because of a line to the bathroom in the Hyatt.  Hodge and I stepped out the door just as the starting shot went off.  We ran along and he told me to just take it slow and easy.  The back of the pack hadn’t even started moving yet and I got in line behind a couple of women who were wondering if it’s rude to just step into the race from the side like we were.  “Fuck ‘em,” one of them said, and we were off.

Between the people standing along the sides, and the 4000 others around me, the first mile was just a blur.  I was shocked to see the 1 mile marker so soon.  Right after that we took a turn onto Niagara St., which is pretty vacant even when it isn’t closed to traffic, and already I saw people shooting off into Tops and McDonalds… the siren song of the toilet is a strong one so soon, but I was really hoping to see someone come out running with some McNuggets.

Niagara St. starts to slope up for quite a ways, and I started to wonder how it was they could say this was the flattest course they’d ever had.  There were some hills, Lara had a few in the second leg, and it was only after I got home and looked at the map that came with the goody bag (is that what you call it?) that I saw they had changed the whole second leg for some reason.

So then it was off into the park and running along the water.  It was really quiet through there, and nice.  I started noticing some things with the folks around me… the guy who was just running along and stopping to walk and chat with whoever he saw who had slowed down to walk, who then cheered them all on by name when we got to a point where we doubled back and ran by each other… the woman who was wearing a belt pack with about eight bottles of water on it, who had drank seven of them by the time we reached the 4th mile… the couple who ran at almost exactly my pace and carried on a happy conversation the whole time as if they were sitting on a sofa with a couple glasses of wine (they weren’t even gasping, what the hell?)… it was nice, actually – in an odd way, you sort of get to know these people in the minuscule amount of time you spend with them.

At the 3rd mile marker was the first drink station – people handing out water with both hands.  I had to slow down to even get a hand on one.  This was followed by people handing out Gatorade, which made everyone huck their water away, drenching them, because come on… free Gatorade.  I grabbed one too and took a sip but didn’t want to chug, so I tossed the cup away…  right out in front of me for some reason… where I promptly kicked it and shot it up at my crotch, soaking myself in electrolytes.

Immediately after the 3 mile marker was the 5k marker, which felt pretty good to see.  This was followed by my MP3 player shuffling to Burl Ives singing “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.”  I thought I dumped all the Christmas tunes…

The last stretch of my leg was out a long pathway that doubled back along itself for the final stretch.  This was where that guy who had stopped to chat with the walkers was now coming back down, running by everyone saying, “Come on, Joy…  you got this, Tim…  alright, Alice, way to go…”  He remembered all of them.  I usually knock strangers being supportive, Hell, I knock just about any kind of being supportive.  I just have a hard time believing there’s anything behind it.  People are shit.  But that guy meant it.  The guy I ran by who held his 3 or 4 year old daughter out to high five everyone that ran by meant it too.  All these runners supporting each other and wishing each other well all really seemed to mean it, and that was pretty cool.

And so I came up on the 10k marker and even though I was feeling beat I just took off for it, and there were the rest of Team “He’s Touching Me” and Kasey, Sue, and Cooper cheering me in, and they meant it too.  And I’d done it.  And there was that feeling that I hadn’t felt since I was that kid hanging from the chin-up bar.  And Cooper came and took my hand and helped me walk it all off, and that was that.

Later on, waiting for Hodge on the last leg to come in, we watched people finish out the whole damn thing.  I have nothing but respect for these people that can push their bodies that hard.  I really don’t think I could ever go that far.  But a seed has been planted somewhere in my head that just may blossom into a half marathon one day, and really, who knows?

Walk it off, Daddy

I ran the whole leg, Lara ran hers too, Kevin’s back didn’t act up, and Hodge’s knee was OK.  I can’t say much for our digestive health as it was off to Outback Steakhouse after that where a goddamn Bloomin’ Onion was ordered, but hey… we just ran in a marathon, what the hell did you do?

Speaking of which, it’ll be back to food and weight loss blogging now that the run has wrapped up.  Have you noticed Breyer’s Fruit on the Bottom Yogurt’s new label says “Now with More Fruit!” ?  Which is funny, because they don’t bother to announce that it’s now a 6 ounce cup instead of the 8 ounces it used to be… and it should actually read “Now with Less Yogurt!” which is what it is, with the same amoount of fruit as before.. which technically is more now, but…

Yeah…  total fuckers.

~ by Dan on May 26, 2009.