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| Collection of Race Emails. | ||
I got 2 big blisters from running in the rain, so after the shower I did lance them.
I started looking for real at the race website and here's what I (should have known already and now finally) discovered:
Well, I didn't want to wake up before 2am so I resolved to do things fast in the morning. I wanted to go to sleep around 8pm but life got in the way and it was closer to 10pm. Oh well.
Before I went to sleep tho, I again examined my feet. My feet should have felt much much better after using the needle and I didn't understand why they weren't.
Have you ever heard the expression "2 is better than 1"? You did... Right? Well, only thing better than 2 blisters is 10 blisters and that's what happened. First, the 2 that I did lance managed to close up without giving up all their juice. Had to re-lance them. There were also 8 others. One of them was so fierce that as soon as I touched it with a needle, popped like a huge zit or a fountain and sprayed me in the face and on my wrist and watch. Jeez...Really felt better after that.
Settled down to sleep and the alarm clock goes off immediatly. It's 2am. Wonderful. Went downstairs to repeat yesterday's routine. Re-examined my feet. Some of my friends sealed up and again started causing trouble. Went to work on them again. Again, one of them blew like old faithful and I got sprayed.
The timing had me worried and I was hoping to perhaps leave the house at 3:30. I got my handwashed clothes together and I noticed 2 things immediatly:
I started scrambling. For some things, I have doubles and that wasn't a big deal. For others, I don't. This sucks. If only the washing machine would have worked not only it would have dealt with the stench but it also would have spun the clothes which would have helped to take extra moisture out so maybe just maybe they would be dry.
Well, the running around trying to find doubles and dealing with this cost me. Leaving at 3:30 just wasn't happening. I was in the car by 3:50 but getting comfortable and getting the GPS ready meant that I was leaving the driveway at 4. I guess this is better than going out at 4 and leaving at 4:10 but still.
OK - driving there. Making good timing. Can't afford a single mistake or anything really. I was hoping mapquest was wrong but GPS says 6:22. Not good. Then I started thinking and thinking and not the thing you want to do right then and then. Here's what the convulted mind had going.
I'm (assuming no issues) gonna get there at 6:22. Hopefully the city wouldn't be car jammed like Hartford was yesterday. I need to find parking, perhaps a port-a-pottie because I really need to go, find the busses, get on the bus and get to race site. Last bus at 6:45 and things are tight but perhaps doable... Then the real confusion started...Ever since the bombing at the Boston Marathon, organizers got security conscious. Why does Steamtown with it's 500 runners need to be so security conscious I have no idea but basically they said you can't take bags with you on the bus and anything you check in must be in clear see through bags. Hm...OK - I made a mistake about not allowed to take anything on the bus but I didn't realize it till later. Still, assuming I was right about must be using see through bags, maybe packet pickup, which they allow on race day though they discourage, must be at race finish? But where is then bag checkin? Doesn't make sense to have runners strip at the finish only to endure a bus ride and wait freezing at the start... All these thoughts...I really should have known al these answers and if I wasn't in such a crazy rush maybe would have been obvious but I was starting to freak out.
Options...? OK - I know there is 1, Johnathon Pittinsky, runner for sure from JRunners doing this race and one runner, Paul Kentor, who was a definite maybe/maybe not. I have Paul's number but I still have no idea if he's here or not. Johnaton I know, met at the relay, friended on Facebook but I don't have his phone number. I realized I should have contacted him a few days before. Perhaps even offered to pick him from Jersey and gone together but with all the Jewish Holidays I missed that boat. He was not available to talk from Wednesday evening to Saturday (last night) evening... So how the hell am I reaching out to him. Deep breath... Ha! Mordi Bodek... I can text him. It's 5am. Do I dare? How early isn't rude? Wait!!! Hold the presses... He's a runner and Sunday is long run Sunday and he's gotta be up...OK...Send an urgent text: "Good morning. I'm driving. I'm starting to freak out. Can you have Johnathon Pitinsky call me?". Less than 20 seconds later I get a "no problem. I'm up. Will do" text. Awesome... He calls and calms me down. Park at the finish. Board bus. Packet pickup at the Start. Bag check is at the start and will be transported to finish. Cool. He left super early and is way ahead of me with an arrival of 5:30-5:45. Still, he's not planing on boarding bus till 6:30. Maybe we will see each other. I asked him to call me when he goes to bus. Maybe hold last bus for me? While talking to him, I suddenly drive into horrible fog. Can't see a thing. Yup - he went through that too. It's a short area. Not good.
Driving. Making good time. GPS changes her mind. New ETA is now 6:15. Cool... I'm close. Then I hear strange sounds and I start thinking flat tire. I pay attention but finally decide it's the road. Can you imagine having to start with a flat?
I'm in the area with no radio reception and either my phone or headphones due to all the rain yesterday goes berserk. I put music on and she decides to raise the volume until it's blaring. Sucks...
Johnaton calls me up just as I get off the highway and enter the city. I see the busses. Where the hell do I go?!? He guides me. He is parked near Paul and there is plenty of parking. Go straight 2 blocks, left turn, straight and I see him in the middle of the street waving at me. Awesome. I'm parked on Penn street between Luxawacken (spelling?) which is the mall and Spruce street. Plenty of free parking and the best part apparently is that we are near the city exit. Once we leave, we won't have to deal with going around the Marathon course. I'm not sure what he means but that's ok. Figure it out later...
I park and get my things together. I stink. I go toward Johnathon and Paul and I see they are davening or praying. They are either in their car or right outside their car with their tefillin on and praying. Cool. I get in to Johnathons car as he has heat on and I shiver. They finish and I go to Pee near a dumpster. I'm considering a longer stay there near the dumpster but decide not to. Mistake? I don't know yet. We go toward the busses and talk. We board a bus and there's heat. Paul thinks I'm funny shivering and we talk about Beast of Burden and what will I do with the cold. I tell him my plan. Paul thinks I should stop with the Ultras and multiple Marathon weekends and run my best. He thinks I can do a 3:30-3:45. I think he's nuts. We ran 6 miles together once. He ran easy while I ran hard. Those 6 miles hurt. I needed that and probably should do more of that with him but that's a different conversation.
I'm wired up and also tired and doze a little. I soon wake up to find that our bus driver made a booboo and she now needs to make a U-turn. My stomach isn't happy with her.
We get to the start. Paul makes a beeline for the trees to pee and from there he plans on packet pickup. I ask Johnathon to pick mine up as I gotta go to the port-a-potties. He agrees and I head there pronto. I realize there are stickers on the potties that either say "Men" or "Women" and that I am on the Woman line. I don't care. Feels awesome. Now to find Johnathon and there is no cellphone reception. Wonderful. I start walking around and around and I don't know how but I find him. He's on line waiting for indoor plumbing. I get my stuff, thank him profusly, and go get ready when I hear that the race will start in 10 minutes and this is it for bag checkin. I get my bag ready and hand it off to the truck. I head of to the start.
They actually start the race with a cannon. Cool. Off we go. Some people are dressed in shorts. I am not of those people. I got compression shorts, calf sleeves, tights and shorts on. I have sleevies, long sleeve shirt, windbreaker and my MM singlet on. I have a cold weather beanie on and my winter gloves with hand warmers. I don't care!
We start and I am assassing myself. Not 100 % but ok. Felt better last year at the Wisconsin/Michigin B2B but doing ok. I hear heavy footsteps to my left and it's Johnathon. I go to him. Real suprised he's here with me. I wait for him while he gets rid of a layer and we run together. He's here with me because he's coming of an injury and isn't Marathon ready. Haha... OK - I guess I should give his background. Dude lost a gazillion (I think the number I heard during the relay was a 100) lbs. Found he could run and run fast. He's another one of those who have done what I can't which is a sub 4 Marathon. Cool. Paul is no where to be seen ahead. Still, Johnathon and I run and talk and the first 10 miles are great.
This completly downhill course except for mile 25 isn't exactly an all downhill course. There are some hills as it is a "net downhill course". Whatever. Not appreciating the hills right now but having fun with Johnathon. Still, at around mile 10, I know I need to slow down a little and I send him off. Sucks to do it but is the right thing to do. I walk a little. I call Hammad and we talk for about 2 miles or so. I was worried about him. He tells me about his race and basically distracts me. My pace goes from 9's to about 11-12 minute miles. That's ok.
I cross the 13.1 marker at 2:10 only 4 minutes slower than the day before. Mind you, yesterday included a port-a-pottie stop but still, I am quite amazed.
After that, I pick up Amy and we talk. She desperatly wants her first Marathon to be under 5. She's suffering and I distract. We talk.
I realize that I am basically treating this race or rather this weekend as an ultra. I grab a half power bar and orange slices everywhere I can. I also drink water. I even grab what I think is M&M's but is a sour candy. Still good tho. Amy and I talk. Her right knee has a brace or wrap on it but her left is hurting. I tell her she probably favored the right one and put more pressure on her left. We meet up with her husband who gives her sour candy or something. She's happy.
We get to the 2 miles in the non-technical trail section. There's a photographer and we hear the guy in back of us saying that he's flexing for the camera. As he passes us, we have a little dialog going on...
All of us are laughing. We are all having a good time. Cool.
Amy and I continue. Initially she needed me. Now, not so much and I feel like I am slowing her down. I let her go. Kinda funny that way but that's ok. No grudges. I enable people.
I'm not sure anymore when that was. I think it was close to 20. That's ok.
I walk a little here and there but basically doing 11ish minute miles. I start talking to this dude. I don't remember where he's from now but originally he's from Coney Island, Brooklyn. We talk. Cool. Eventually, I let him go too. On a main street and there are 2 women in front of me and one of them gets hot and takes her shirt off so that she can run with just her sports bra. It's hillarious as I am wearing sleevies, long sleeve shirt and a windbreaker. I did take my winter gloves off. Still, my wiseguy nature takes over and as she takes the shirt off during the run we have a little exchange:
There's a family sitting on their lawn spectating on the other side of the street. It's raised up so that you need to climb stairs to get to them. I got nothing to lose here so I yell out asking if they have a soda. They answer YES! Awesome. Their teenage daughter comes running down the stairs with a Diet Coke and an apology that it's diet. Funny. Very thankful to them. By the way, I would have been just as happy if they threw it at me...
Continuuing along. All is good. All systems are a go. No issues. On and off I am either warm or a little cold. I had already taken my snow gloves off and put them in my wind breaker pouch. I know it looks like I have a huge belly. I know I also look really stupid. I really don't care.
I'm now leapfrogging with this kid. I think he's 19-20. His father is up ahead somewhere and his mother is somewhere behind. This is his first. I heard there is a beer station but I thought they were just joking. We turned a corner and got to the Whiskey aid station. They had Whiskey and Jello Shots. They didn't have any coke or pepsi for me but it's still a pretty cool thing to talk about later. So far, in my running career, I have seen Beer Gardens and Bacon Stations but never a Whiskey Station. Ok... I know there is a major hill coming at 25. Can't wait.
Nathan and I are together. Another turn and the big hill is here. It's really not a terrible hill and I could have just gone hard on it but it's not all that it seems. What it is is a 6 block block party. Kids all around, sprinklers on the course, music on the course, everyone drinking beer and of course any runner who wants a cold one gets a cold one. I score another soda. Diet Pepsi this time. What's with the diet stuff when you are eating and drinking all sort of garbage?!? Still, that's ok... Love the stuff. I drink and again we go. Nathan is starting to visibly lose it. He's running looking down and I tell him not too. The finish line is allegdly up ahead. Gotta clear one more hill and it's right there. Unfortunatly, I can't believe it. I don't see it and I am not sure. We crest the hill and the finish is (finally) about 3 blocks away. I would normally take off but I don't want to drop Nathan. Then I see Amy up ahead. Hm... I can't help it. I tell Nathan we need to catch up to her. I let him take a deep breath and I tell him that I will wait for him at the finish. We take off and I definitly do. I pass Amy, screaming hello. I cross the finish line and wait and to my surprise, Nathan stepped up and while he was behind me, managed to pass her too. Awesome.
I say my goodbyes and goto the food tent.
During the last mile or so, I see 2 runners, guy and girl, and their shirts are funny. His says "She made me do it..." while hers says "I'm not sorry!". Now, on line for the food and I can't help myself. I ask what it is that she made him do and he says run my first marathon ; this one! Wow... Apparently, for his birthday, without asking him, she signed him up for it. How cool is that?
Food tent was good. Some bars - ok, small Sicilian pizza squares - Great, took 2, Mac with cheese - not a fan, Perogies - Hm... I took 2 containers and ate them on the way to the car. They were potato filled and they were great. Should have taken more than 2. They were just right. By the way, I almost forgot my checked in bag because I never check in a bag but I remembered. Went to the car and as I get there, Johnathon is there too. He didn't finish his morning prayers so he finished them now. I changed near the car as I didn't want a 2:20ish hour drive in wet clothes.
I couldn't find my socks so I didn't change socks but I was kinda happy about that. I knew the blisters came back and I didn't want to deal with them yet.
Clothes I did change and I knew I got chafed badly. I just didn't realize how bad.
Chafe report:
I guess I really should go further into the chafes. It's a sore subject. Get it? That was as funny as it was. The armpits didn't seem that bad in the car. Once I got home and cleaned up, I realized how bad they were. Look in the images page. There is are 2 pictures of the right armpit. The left is identical. There is also a picture from 3 days later and it is worse. Basically I cut myself open. In fact, anytime I moved my arms, I re-opened the wound. When I swam on Wednesday, part of my "warmup" is stretching my arms and that was like a knife in the side chest. It's now almost 2 weeks later and it's not fully healed. The lower back was bad as expected. As I drove home, everytime I shifted a little in the seat, I felt the shirt ripping it back up. You see my shirt got "glued" on to the open bleeding wound and everytime I moved, it ripped right out of it causing it to bleed again. That was fun. No picture posted as no one needs to see my love handles.
Anyway, I think that's it for now.
First part of this weekend is here if you want to take a look...
