There was light frost on the car window as I started
out. It was going to be a cold
morning. Not a cloud in the sky,
however, so the weather would warm up towards noon. Cresting the hill on the approach to
Cambridge, the sun dawned through the trees across the Grand-River valley.
The principle reason for choosing this marathon course was
its proximity. Less than an hour away, I
could forgo the overnight hotel stay that was needed for Toronto events. For the frugal runner, this was the bargain
of all the marathons, at a mere $55.
I’ve read that it costs them $400 a person to put on the New York City
marathon. Of course, it isn’t a city
tour like most. They start at the edge
of town and head out for a loop through the countryside towards Conestogo.
I arrived plenty early at 6:40, being one of the first
there. The line of porta-potties was
still being set up. Packet-pick-up was
in an indoor soccer arena. I’ve never
seen that before. The artificial grass
was soft and lumpy, like actual turf. It
looked like grass as well, not a smooth mat.
Unheated, it was plenty cold in there too. I chucked the literature into a recycling bin
and sat to eat my second bagel.
The race shirt is short sleeves. That seems like a joke on a cold day like
this. I am bib number 5. Doesn’t anyone else plan this in
advance? Race winners were #104 and
#90. That’s out of 106 entrants. Makes it look like they decided just that morning,”
ya know, maybe I’ll mosey over to Waterloo today for the race”. Showed up and paid the fee at the door. If it rained were they going to skip?
Time to get dressed. I
went back to the car, well, actually it’s a minivan, and put on the
tights. The car next over was
idling. He must be trying to stay
warm. The fumes had settled all around
the minivan, and were making me nauseous.
I grabbed my pack and went to a nearby picnic table to finish. I already had my long-sleeve running shirt
on, so I put the jacket over that. Then
came the question of what to do with the number-bib. I didn’t want to pin it to the jacket. My jacket was too expensive. Besides, I was likely to take off the jacket
later. I could wear it under the jacket,
but then the marshalls wouldn’t be able to see it. The right thing to do was bring my race belt
and clip it to that, but I hadn’t brought that today. This
is what they make them for. I try the
water belt, and pinned my number very effectively to the bottle holders. The cold wind had whistled right through the
mesh material of the running shirt, so I decided to change to the fleecy
undershirt I had brought. Off went the
jacket and the shirt; on with the other
shirt, and the jacket. Showtime. The pack and all went into the car. My keys I would carry in my hand for the
entire trip. That’s what I used to do when
I was single and had to carry my keys every night.
A third stop in a porta-pottie was cutting it close
time-wise, but I’ve been in there before when the starting gun went off, so
what the heck. I got to the line as he
was announcing one minute to go. There
didn’t seem to be more than a hundred of us. (I see now it’s listed as 106 entrants).
We were off into the sun.
The gloaming was dim enough to not need the sunglasses earlier, so I
wasn’t wearing them. That turned out
okay. I never missed them. I brought only two water bottles in the belt,
and now noticed that they were empty.
The intention was to fill them as needed, so that was okay too. I had my 8 energy gels; no deep-fried turkey.
The road was closed for us for the couple kilometers to the
first corner, then we were sharing it with traffic. The police presence was heavy through here,
so the cars were all driving slowly. We
headed through Bridgeport, across the bridge, then out of town. Around 10 km we came to the hamlet of
Bloomingdale. The half-marathon
started half-hour after us, so I had
some concern that I would be caught by their leaders before the turn-off which
takes the marathoners on the longer loop.
My speed is about an hour for 10km, so there was some non-zero
likelihood of that happening before the Bloomingdale corner. No sign of them yet as we were directed across
the road in front of the waiting traffic and away.
That's when the migraine hit.
Like the glowing
afterimage of dozens of flashbulbs going off in front of me, a sparkly haze
suffused itself over my vision. A couple
years ago I went to the local eye doctor
to find out what was going on. She
called this experience an optical
migraine. Many migraine sufferers
will have this happen, and get a piercing headache a few minutes later. Me, I just get the light show, without the
headache. So a kilometer later, my left
eye had almost entirely clouded over with a veil of static rather like what you
get trying to pick up a TV station through the antenna, but with it too far
away to get a good picture. There’s
shapes and colours, but mostly random static.
The right eye wasn’t so bad, with just a few crackles. I carried on running.
The 10 km – 20 km leg is the fun part of a marathon. Jacked up on adrenaline and endorphins, I was
giddy with runners high. Smiling
steadily, I waved at bystanders and gave a super-cheerful greeting to the
support staff at the water stations and intersections – and skipped lightly
around the horse poop. A Mennonite buggy
passed by on their way to church. Theirs
wasn’t the only horse, because the road was well-littered with droppings. It doesn’t bring down the joy of this section
of the run one bit. There’s still no
clouds at all, and the countryside is beautiful. It’s rolling hills, mostly taken up as
farmland, but with plenty of wooded areas, especially along the river which we
were staying near to.
At the turn onto a local dirt road, the migraine went away
as quickly as it had come. It was a great
day. My standard long run (20 km) is out
of town on dirt roads like this, so I felt right at home. I was playing my customary music set too, so
it felt like a regular Sunday morning.
The runners were stretched out with 20-40 meters between us now. In the valleys I was all alone, with no one
to be seen ahead or behind. The valleys
and trees blocked the wind enough that I took off the jacket.
The water stations are frequent. At every 3 km, this is more water than any
other race I’ve done. That’s why I
brought the water bottles. I keep
rigidly to my 6 km schedule for consuming Gu.
Having my own water, even in a race, is essential for this. Today, it would have worked well enough to use
the on-course water. The cups are full,
which I can’t always tolerate. Oh well, Gatorade
into the grass. It’s got what plants
crave.
Just past half way I came to the red covered bridge that
they have on the home page. I’m all
alone on the bridge too. After the
bridge, it felt proper to turn back to home.
It was roughly half-way after all.
The marshalls directed us further from home. I pointed the other way, “but my stuff is
back that way”. She laughed. Maybe I was the first one to say that, or
perhaps she was just humouring me. The
breeze along this stretch was stronger, and let me know right away that it was
still cold out. The fleecy shirt has a
zipper at the collar, which I was moving up or down depending on conditions.
The race winner would be finishing about now. Let’s be clear about this. I’m not very fast. I don’t carry a watch. My only pacing technique is to remind myself
regularly to take it easy – there’s a long ways further to go. Therefore I have only a rough idea based on
how long it normally takes me to cover this distance. I’ve done marathon before, and several 30 km
runs this winter, so my pace is consistent.
Coming around the furthest corner, with the wind at my back,
I rolled up the sleeves. This was the
home stretch. With 10 km still to go, I
was pleased to still have some gas in the tank.
Any time previously I’ve been completely trashed by now, like some of
the human wreckage I pass in the next hour.
My quadriceps felt like they’d been stabbed, which I can put up
with. In the essentials I was still good
-- energy to continue, knees okay,
ankles fine, no problems in my right hip which had been sore the last couple of
days. It reminded me of what Sara Conner
said in Terminator 2 about how the
future was now an empty highway; we were making things up as we went
along. This was a new experience.
I turned the volume up on the music player, and skipped
ahead to some of the phat bass tracks that I had loaded. That helped a lot. I shut out the world and went into my only
little dream zone where I could ignore the pain. The trouble was the cars and trucks whizzing
past at 80 km/h. For this section of the
race we were running along the edge of the highway, with light traffic going
by. Couldn’t they put some cones along
the white line to better separate us from the cars? Couldn’t they post it with a temporary speed
reduction? Sometimes I dropped down into
the gravel, but damnit, I paid for this race, and felt entitled to my 18 inches
of pavement.
The rolling hills were more difficult now, but manageable,
except for that one at 40 km which reduced me to a walk. Crossing the finish I was very happy. 4:07.
An attendant asked if I was okay.
I don’t know if she asked everyone that, or if I looked particularly
poor. No, I’m not okay -- my legs felt
awful. I’m very proud of myself.
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