Spectacle

After my internal system reboot, I lost about six or seven pounds over those few days. I am still feeling a little fatigued, but I feel fine otherwise. At the begining of the year, my coach and I were looking at racing a half marathon this weekend. Despite my weak week, my coach left it up to me whether or not to race. Well, I don't care if my finisher medal spins, vibrates, or does my taxes, I'm not paying $70 to run 13.1 miles. So I went out on a 40 mile/3 mile brick on Saturday. So below are some pictures from my ride. Nothing too exciting.

Sunday I had loads of fun as I spectated a marathon with elizabeth, who is a master at this. She has way more energy and enthusiasm than I do. For us, everything fell into place as we were able to catch tons of people all over the course. We met up right around mile 10 as the lead wheelchair athletes were flying by. We waited a bit until the lead runners came cruising through.

My fun story of the day came early in the day. Elizabeth and I were camped out right before a water stop. As the leaders were coming by we saw and cheered them on. We noted the lead woman and saw she was openly distraught. She looked over and cried something like: "I can't get my gel open." So I took off after her and finally caught up to her. She passed me her gel. I was trying to keep pace with her and haven't practiced opening gels on the dead run in a while. So I fumbled a bit, but after a few paces I was able to rip the top off her vanilla Clif Shot. We were coming up on GLBC, so I offered her a shot of Jameson too. (Just kidding) She thanked me and went speeding off. Talk about a fan friendly event!!! How fun!!!

Then it was waves and waves of people. I tried scanning the crowds for people I knew; sometimes I found them, while some folks I just missed. I ran a quarter to half mile with a few folks, but at mile ten most folks were just settling in a groove. I should have packed a few gels with me, since I had a few folks ask for one. I'll know for next time.

Elizabeth was now way out there having followed a bunch of other runners, while I made my way back to mile 10 and then back to my car. I was able to navigate around the traffic and closed streets and just happened to be driving right by where she ended up. I pull over to pick her up and we decide to try to get as close to mile 20 as we could. As we were driving there we caught glimpses of the 3:10 folks. When we get to a parking lot just off the course, we see the 3:20 pace group go by. We could still catch a bunch of folks going by. Sweet.

We would run with some folks for about a quarter to half mile and try to cheer them up. The discouraging note here was this damned spot where the road met the sidewalk, producing a nice little bump. I probably saw 8 to 10 people get tripped up and just spill right there. I couldn't imagine how tough that was physically and mentally. I hope those runners were able to get their game back on. Since I could not just keep saying "Mind the gap," I repositioned the cones a little. Hopefully by actually seeing a barrier in their way they would be more careful of their step.

For the runners out there, they went through four seasons in 26 miles as they encountered cold, rain, wind, and even, gasp, sunshine. I know marathons suck, but that gradual uphill stretch around mile 20 along the lake right into a 20+ mph steady wind was cruel and unusual punishment. They earned their stripes. Congrats to CurlySu and BuckeyeRunner for their awesome efforts. Great job to PapaLouie for an incredible half marathon. I wasn't the only with a non racer's perspective; great job with the pacing TriSaraTops. Check out their tales. Congrats to my non-blogging running buddies too!!! One of my IM WI sisters stacked 200 miles of biking last weekend with a tough marathon this week. Awesome Awesome job. And if you folks reading this ever get a chance, go out and volunteer or spectate at a race. It's worth it.