The road to this particular race was unexpectedly fraught with more challenges than my first road race, the 2010 Freihofer's Run for Women. And on that road, I was, as usual, my own worst enemy.
Stress can be a pesky adversary. It's a tenacious little bastard to whom most of us (me especially) tend to afford more power than it deserves. My stress-reducer, my anti-depressant, my meditation, my medication of choice, is exercise: running, cycling, using the elliptical machine or the summit trainer at the gym. They're better than any medication I've ever been prescribed, since they fill in the lows without leveling off the highs. (Hell, they make the highs even higher!) So when I get sidetracked from "taking my meds," missing exercise (due to crappy weather or being overextended, stressed, injured, lazy or any number of other pathetic excuses), the stress compounds and builds on itself. And, as they say, it never rains but it pours. Just as my injured hamstring started showing some significant improvement and "Hairspray" wrapped, I had to go to DEFCON 1 against a tenacious potential cold. (For once, Gingah was victorious!) What little exercise I got was all cross-training, no running. I was barely able to run at all for two weeks before the Run to Home Base, so as my weekend in Boston approached, I was filled with trepidation.
As marathoner Albert Salazar says, "Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards." You question everything: Did I train enough? Did I eat the right foods in the right amount? Did I hydrate enough? Did I get enough sleep? Even if you can answer all of those questions in the affirmative, you still wonder if you have it in you today to give it your best. They say "The difference between a try and a triumph is that little extra umph." The beauty of racing is that you never know whether or not you've got the "umph" until you have to dig down deep and bring it out.
When I registered for the Run to Home Base, I decided to run the race in honor of Louis Zamperini, 1936 Olympic runner, WWII POW and subject of Laura Hillenbrand's fascinating bestselling biography, Unbroken. I decided to wear a sign on my back with the name of every donor and every veteran in whose honor those donors contributed. Louie's name was the first on the sign. As donations came in, more veterans' names were added to the list of honorees and donors I would wear on my back throughout the race. One donor, Nancy Schramm, sponsored my run in memory of her son's best friend, Marine Corps Sgt. Michael Kashkoush from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, who was only 24 when he was killed in action in Anbar province, Iraq, in 2007. Nancy later sent me a photo of Mike, and it was my honor to wear his photo on the front of my running jersey.
This race was different from all the others in so many ways: new distance, new course, new emotional environment. It was also the first time I've ever walked so much the day before and the day of the race (both before and after). When I added up all the miles I'd covered on race day (between walking to the race venue, running the race itself, walking back to my hotel after the race and then making the roundtrip again for that evening's BoSox-Cubs game), I'd gone more than 12 miles. Add in the 4 or 5 miles I'd walked the previous day and you could say I'd already done my first Boston half-marathon.
Among my many pre-race routines is the iron-clad rule, "No alcohol within 24 hours pre-race." Well, finally getting to meet my Facebook friend Terry caused me to break that rule. In the interest of full disclosure, I obliterated that rule with two bloody marys at lunch and three cosmo's at dinner. The two bloody marys left me with a fun little light buzz as I strolled through Boston's Back Bay on a sunny, temperate afternoon. The cosmo's left me, well, to be honest: shitfaced. (Sorry, but inebriated just doesn't cut it here.) When I got back to my hotel room just before midnight, I guzzled down nearly a liter of water and fell asleep for four deep, glorious hours. (No pre-race crappy-sleep-inducing jitters here, thankyouverymuch!) When I awoke, I was (thankfully) not hungover, but I was ravenously hungry and the closest thing I had to food in my hotel room was a shot of 5-Hour Energy. That plus another liter of water plus ibuprofen would be my only defense against sleep deprivation, a questionable hamstring and a rumbling stomach until I would get to Fenway Park for the race. (Note to self: 5HE on an empty stomach is not advisable. And it was the grape flavor, so it was like guzzling a shot of Children's Dimetapp. Yeah. Euw.)
Between the 5HE, the bottle of orange juice and soft pretzel from the concession stand at Fenway, the emotion and electric raceday vibe (and possibly some lingering effects of the previous evening's libations), I felt like I was a little tipsy and yet simultaneously hyper-aware. I thought, Wow, I may have made the biggest mistake EVER here. I don't know how much I can credit to those factors and how much I can credit to the preemptive dose of ibuprofen I took, but my rehabbed hamstring did not offer any significant problems during the race. In fact, I ran the first three and a quarter miles before I had to slow to a walk for the first time.
After the very emotional and inspiring opening ceremonies at Fenway, the race began in three waves; I was in the second wave. We started on Yawkey Way, turning onto Van Ness and then to Ipswich before heading up Boylston Street toward Mass Ave as Phish's "Foam" set my early pace. (Thanks to Fleechman for introducing me to that song, which he used as the soundtrack to a video of his pet, Mrs. Turtle. As La Tortue Enflamme, I figured it was apropos.) As we turned onto Mass Ave, Zombie Weekend's "Walcott" turned up the tempo a bit, giving me a nice peppy cadence. I high-fived one of Boston's Finest as the field thinned out approaching Harvard Bridge, where Terry was waiting to cheer me on with coffee and pastries (for him).
Not long after Great Big Sea's "Walk on the Moon" started near the one-mile mark, I saw Terry. Yup, big-ass cup o' Joe. I smiled, waved and gave him a "WOOOOOOOOT!!!" as I jogged by. It was only the second time anyone has ever (to my knowledge) come out to a race specifically to watch me run. As I continued along the bridge, the Standells' "Dirty Water" came up next on the playlist, and I breathlessly sang the chorus ("I love that dirty waterrrrrr...oh, Boston you're my home!") at the top of my lungs as I neared the end of the bridge and prepared to turn east onto Memorial Drive in Cambridge.
All this time, my legs felt fine. They felt pretty normal, actually. My hamstring not only wasn't nagging at me, it really wasn't bothering me much at all. While it wasn't operating at 100%, it was definitely in the mid- to upper 90s. I trotted along Memorial Drive toward Longfellow Bridge, near which the course would turn around and follow Memorial Drive in the opposite direction, across the front of the MIT campus: for me, what would be the longest and toughest single stretch of the entire race. I hoped I would be able to run the full distance, but I was also realistic enough to know that the odds weren't in my favor; I just wanted to run as much of the distance as I could. I was still running at the 3-mile mark and was actually moving at about a 12- to 13-minute pace, but my energy was starting to fade. A quarter of a mile later, my whole body needed to slow to a walk. Usually it's one part of you that needs to slow down: maybe your legs are fatigued, maybe your lungs can't get the right breathing cadence, maybe your head is up your arse. I couldn't pinpoint the problem, so I just let my body have the brief respite it was begging for. For once, though, slowing to a walk had an unexpected side effect: the emotion of the event really caught up with me and some of the tears I'd shed during the opening ceremony came back as I walked. I allowed myself to walk for one minute, then tapped Mike's picture and said, "OK, Mike, help me out here." I started running again. The next couple of miles would be run/walk intervals, but I was pleased that most of them were running, especially since every time I slowed to a walk, the tears would come again. I called on Mike and Louie Zamperini to get me through, and drew strength from the runners around me, who would quickly lend encouragement, and the spectators who gathered at various points along the course. After the second turnaround just before Vassar Street, I headed back east along Memorial Drive and toward Harvard Bridge. After the final walking interval before the bridge, I saw the Boston Duck Tours' Red Sox Nathan and the Run to Home Base supporters on board (positioned to be able to cheer runners on both sides of Memorial Drive, and I'd seen them on the westbound leg). As I ran toward them, I veered slightly out of the running lane to approach the duck boat, and reached up for some much-needed, energy-inducing high-fives. Everyone on board enthusiastically cooperated, and, my physical and emotional batteries recharged, I turned onto Harvard Bridge and back across the Charles toward Boston.
A couple more brief walking intervals were required to get me across Harvard Bridge and along Mass Ave, but a little more than half a mile from the end, I committed to running all of the remainder of the race. I saw a fire engine and a ladder truck up ahead, blocking the side street, lights flashing, and six or seven firefighters (some of them in their turn-on--um, I mean turn OUT--pants) were gathered near the cones delineating the running lane. As I approached, I said, "Can a girl get a high-five gauntlet here?" and reached out my hand. They smiled and dutifully lined up, and once again, the connection with generosity and gratitude--a connection as simple as the touch of a hand--energized me, propelling me forward as I shouted my thanks and threw in "Be safe!" for good measure.
As we turned onto Boylston Street, Avril Lavigne's "Runaway" cued up on the iPod and I fell into a comfortable running cadence. I was finishing stronger than I would have expected back on Memorial Drive when I had to go to run/walk intervals. Avril got me around the corner onto Ipswich before Neil Diamond took over with "Sweet Caroline" and, being a die-hard Red Sox fan, I sang along with the chorus and the obligatory "bahm bahm bahm" and "So good! So good! So good!" chants that are de rigeur for the Fenway Faithful during the 8th inning.
As I came around the corner and Fenway Park came into view, Bon Jovi started singing "I Love This Town". I only heard about half of the song before I pulled out the earbuds as I entered the ballpark. Once onto the warning track, I saw some runners ahead of me touching the Green Monster. Not to be outdone, I attempted a kiss--only to be comically bounced off the wall by the bill of the red Home Base Program cap I'd forgotten I was wearing. I laughed to (and at) myself, but once across the finish line in front of the box score, I was able to lay my head against the Boston plate in the AL East standings--one of the few benefits of the team being in third place at the time; if we'd been on top, I wouldn't have been able to reach it with my head.
We waited in a long but fairly quick-moving line to cross home plate, after which there was a line of folks there to shake our hands, including Red Sox president Larry Lucchino (I resisted the urge to offer advice on our bullpen), the president of New Balance, and several military officers, including the Air Force officer who'd obliged my request for a hug at the start line. He smiled when I told him the hug was a big help.
As I entered the concourse, I accepted the bottle of water and bag of food offered to me by the R2HB volunteers, then searched out an uncrowded spot near one of the field entrances, leaned my head against the wall and just let every ounce of emotion flow out of me on a river of sobbing tears. I was thankful for those few minutes of solitude among the crowd and the cathartic release of everything that was left inside me. I thought of Mike, I thought of Louie (who is still going strong at 94), I thought of everyone who contributed to my run, I thought of everyone who gave me encouragement--back home, via Facebook, along the race route, and among my fellow runners. The gratitude came over me in wave after wave, and just when I thought I was done crying, I cried a little more: for those who are helped by the Home Base Program, for those who were lost and the families who grieve, for those who still serve and the families who eagerly await their return. Despite my qualms about the political aspects of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq (and my view of war in general), I proudly support those who selflessly place themselves in harms' way in service to this country and emphatically encourage our political leaders to bring them all home safe and sound--and soon.
And, yes, some of those tears were for myself--tears of accomplishment and thanks to Providence for the strength and determination to enable me to go the distance.
Ever since the 2010 Dunkin Run, I've made it my mission to run with an attitude of gratitude (something I learned from my friend, Ironman Tiffany). My expressions of gratitude--encouraging other runners and cheering them on; thanking the spectators, police officers, firefighters and volunteers who support the runners and keep us all safe--might cost me a few measly seconds during my race; maybe they even cause me to expend energy that some would say I should focus toward running. But what I get in return is an energy that comes from a source that has nothing to do with training or nutrition or physical ability: It comes from the simple connections with other human beings in the course of this highly solitary sport.
I will run this race again in 2012. I sincerely and humbly thank everyone who sponsored my run, and if you didn't get a chance to do so this year, I hope I can count on your support in 2012. You'll even get your name on my sign!For Mike, thanks for running with me. For Louie, thanks for the continued inspiration.
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