Event Recap in Long

I was going to name this entry “Event Recap in Brief,” but then I decided to let it all out. After all, I’m not forcing anyone to read this. (Although I ought to offer chocolate to everyone who finishes!) So here’s the story, not so briefly.



Notice the slogan



First, it’s always hard coming off a marathon. I don’t often deal with sore muscles anymore, but lots of other sore parts. I always have a bad headache and general body aches the next day. It doesn’t hurt worse when I move or bend; it feels more like the beginning stages of a cold. And the initial glory of finishing the race fades quickly, leaving an emptiness in its place, a restlessness, a nagging “what are you going to do next?” That’s the worst soreness. I once told a friend that the really addicting part of marathon running happens within about 10 minutes of crossing the finish line, so it’s a lot of work for a short (but intense!!) reward. She pointed out that scrapbooking and other types of crafting provide much longer payoffs—and I’m not going to argue with that.



On the plane from Dublin, ready to give up the ghost

So, you finish, you taste the glory, and then what? Since I was in Ireland, what I did the next day was go out on a bus tour of the countryside south of Dublin. And the day after that I flew home. But I’m still restless and out of place. It’s hard to return to the daily routine. Fortunately, this time, I have another race coming up soon. Unfortunately, the next one is not in Europe!



Dun Laoghaire (“Dun Leary”)



Now, let’s backtrack a little. I arrived in Ireland with two pressing missions: (1) get to the race expo at the RDS in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 (which turns out to be the Royal Dublin Society convention hall south of downtown Dublin), to pick up my race number with the timing chip and my final instructions, and (2) find something (preferably hairspray, but I was ready to be creative) to put some colored streaks in my hair for race day. I checked in at the hotel so I could dump my backpack, and then I set out, afraid that if I stopped to rest I’d have trouble getting up again. I had mapped out the route from the hotel to the expo beforehand. It would be about 3.5 miles roundtrip, so I decided to walk it rather than untangle the complexities of the bus system.

It developed into an interesting journey. Most of my photos come either from this walk or from the bus tour. I never took a picture on the day of the marathon. Within a block of the hotel, I found a promising convenience store and stopped in to check out the food supply and inquire about the hours. Yay, it was open late and early … so I was going to be able to eat. I continued on, cycling between a sense of urgency (night was coming, the expo would be closing, and heck, I had to remember that I was running a marathon the next day) and irresistible engagement in my surroundings. So much to see! Dublin, I missed you! I had a guidebook in my purse, but I navigated from my memory of the maps I had already studied and my previous visit to the city. I had a good sense of where I was headed. I almost couldn’t believe how familiar it all seemed, and I wondered how I had forgotten what a great city Dublin is … how could it have taken me four years to come back?



On the way to the expo



For a while, I pushed away the urge to zip out my camera. Once I get started with that toy, I can’t seem to put it away. I keep seeing new images that absolutely must be captured on film. I finally took it out to photograph an ad on the side of a bus. The ad promoted an American movie, and I found something about the wording amusing. But I can’t remember what, and I can’t refer to the picture, because after trying to get exactly the right angle and zoom and then racing against the movement of the bus as it began to pull away from the curb, I managed to take a shot I felt satisfied with. I browsed through my pictures to delete the failed attempts and accidentally deleted the good one, too. Oh, well. That should have taught me to put my camera away and get on with my errand. But I kept popping it out now and then.

 

Miraculously, I managed to make it all the way to the expo. I realized I was getting close when I started seeing clusters of people carrying bags with the marathon logo. I arrived at the convention center without consulting my map—and once inside the expo, I found I still needed my navigation skills.

As usual for such events, the layout required me to skirt an impressive collection of vendor booths offering running-related products, from apparel to training tips. I found my way to the second level to pick up my race number and then descended the stairs on the other side of the hall, ending up right in front of the sales area for official marathon merchandise. Now, you always get a T-shirt for running; it’s a given. So why would you need more marathon paraphernalia, at an extra cost? Last time I ran in Dublin, in 2007, I got drawn in and splurged on a marathon sweatshirt and a hat. I had buyer’s remorse as I figured the cost in dollars, but the sweatshirt soon became a treasured possession as I learned I hadn’t packed warm enough clothes on that trip! This time, I had packed better and I resisted all the alluring shirts and hats. It may have helped that I overheard one of the sales representatives telling a potential customer that they had already sold out nearly everything. No—I’m sure it was my willpower at work.

On the way back to the hotel, I tried to focus on my second mission, finding something to streak my hair purple and green. Sadly, I had no luck, although in the next two days, after the race, I passed several shops offering Halloween costumes. That’s Murphy’s law at work in its native land.

Back at the hotel, I passed the evening in a blur. I woke up to sunlight at 7:30 a.m. Ireland time, 3:30 a.m. my time. I got dressed and ate breakfast while I watched a morning news show on the BBC. I saw the weather report a few times without the details ever sinking in. I did notice that the forecaster kept mentioning something about a band of showers.

With 14,000 runners registered, the marathon would start in three waves. I had been assigned to wave 2 based on previous marathon finish times, and my wave was scheduled to be let loose at 9:55. I crossed the starting line about 8 minutes after the elite runners.

And what a crowd! Even with the staggered start times, the course was choked. (Here’s a link to some video showing the pack at mile 5: http://mysports.tv/default2.asp?e=DM11M&n=ESPLIN+AMBER&r=4139&nt_s1=&ct_s1=&nt_s2=00:50:26&ct_s2=10:45:34&nt_s3=02:02:23&ct_s3=11:57:31&nt_s4=02:50:45&ct_s4=12:45:53&nt_s5=&ct_s5=&nt_s6=&ct_s6=&nt_s7=&ct_s7=&nt_s8=&ct_s8=&nt_s9=&ct_s9=&nt_s10=&ct_s10=&nt_s11=&ct_s11=&nt_s12=&ct_s12=&nt_s13=&ct_s13=&nt_s14=&ct_s14=&nt_s15=&ct_s15=&nt_s16=&ct_s16=&nt_s17=&ct_s17=&nt_s18=&ct_s18=&nt_s19=&ct_s19=&nt_s20=&ct_s20=&nt_s21=&ct_s21=&nt_s22=&ct_s22=&nt_s23=&ct_s23=&nt_s24=&ct_s24=&nt_s25=&ct_s25=&nt_s26=&ct_s26=&nt_s27. The truth is, it looks a little scary from on high … worse that it did from my perspective!) I let the crowd provide me with an excuse to stay slow and easy as we ran through my favorite part of the course, a several-mile stretch through Phoenix Park northwest of the city. At mile 11, I was feeling good and relaxed; in fact, it occurred to me around that mile marker that I had achieved a state of Nirvana, which felt wonderful and was, unfortunately, not going to do much for my finish time. After I passed the big clock at the halfway point, I convinced myself to speed up and push a bit. I adopted a new approach: boxed in I may be, but I couldn’t run frustrated. Have you ever found yourself driving down the interstate on a road trip listening to some good music and enjoying the ride, only to realize you are following a driver going 45 mph? Feeling relaxed is great, but you’re trying to get somewhere, and you have to wake up and pass! I decided I had to keep finding the gap to pass runners going at a slower pace than I wanted to maintain. It’s hard for me to pass in a crowded field because I’m a lifelong klutz. But I kept to my goal of not running frustrated, and I knocked only a few people down … OK, I didn’t knock anyone down (!), and I bumped only a few arms; I hope the wind didn’t whip away my instinctive exclamations of “Sorry!”

The field remained crowded all the way to the end, and the spectator support stayed consistent as well. This race had no long, lonely stretches on country roads or forested bike trails where it’s a struggle to keep some other runners in sight. Spectators lined most of the 26.2-mile course and shouted their encouragement. In Ireland, cheering comes out in phrases like “Well done, lads,” and “Brilliant—you’re running brilliantly!” (Is the latter a reference to the mental strain or to a marathon glow perhaps related to a sheen of sweat?) But I also heard the typical (and usually false) assertion that we were “almost there” and the call to “finish strong.” In the last couple of miles, the shouts of “almost there” made me wonder if I had missed a mile marker; I seemed to have been “almost there” for a long time without ever getting “there.” I owe extra gratitude to one spectator standing across from the 25-mile marker who kept his arm up to point out the sign to passing runners (it was turned sideways, and in the midst of the crowd, it was hard to spot).

As long as they may seem, marathons are finite; the last two miles may feel like four, but eventually you reach the finish line, and suddenly, so suddenly you can’t really believe it, it’s all over. I had enough of my intellect intact to smile during the last few yards in hopes of getting a good finish photo, and then I was approaching two young female volunteers handing out medals. The girl who gave me my medal actually placed the ribbon around my neck, a special gesture as it brings to mind an Olympian achievement. Next, another volunteer directed me farther into the finish chute to pick up my T-shirt, and bless her, she recommended an extra small. I collected my goody bag from a grandfatherly man wearing a court jester’s hat complete with bells on the ends of the multicolored prongs. I smiled and told him I liked his hat, and he gave me a hug and wished me a happy Halloween.

So I got to enjoy some postmarathon glory before the downpour started. I was making my way out of the narrow gate at the end of the finish chute when the rain stopped playing around and grew earnest. Outside the finish chute, the crowd was pressing toward the stream of exiting runners, searching for their family members and friends. I tried to slip through the tangle of people so I could orient myself, but when I found a sign pointing the way back across the River Liffey, which I had to cross to return to my hotel, I found my route blocked by the marathon course. I worked my way down, paralleling the course and the river, but I feared losing myself in the rain and my postrace frenzy; I didn’t know how long I’d need to walk in that direction before I could get around the street closures and turn north to reach one of the river bridges. And in that chilly rain, I didn’t want to take a single step or spend a single moment that wasn’t moving me toward my new finish line: the front door of my hotel. After about 40 minutes of walking, I stepped onto the hotel porch and met a couple coming out through the front doors. One of them held a door open for me and congratulated me with a “Well done!” I was wearing my race number and my medal, so it was easy to spot me as a marathon runner, but I still think the hardest part of what I did that day was making it back to the hotel. The congratulatory phrase wasn’t specific to my accomplishment, but it was specific to me, so I guess I get to take the kudos any way I want. Anyway, I needed a little encouragement then; that kind stranger couldn’t have any idea how much.

Back in my hotel room, I broke down in sobs while my mom tried to offer comfort. Could she help me get some of my wet clothes off? Had the whole marathon been miserable? She must have thought I was pretty squirrely. I couldn’t express anything coherent until after I’d spent some quality time in a hot shower. After that, I put on a rain jacket and a hood over dry clothes, and we went out to get some postrace food (thank goodness for the close convenience stores, with their wares of fruit, yogurt, sandwiches, and my ultimate lifesaver, diet soda). The rain had let up some, but the skies stayed thick with crowds and the approach of dusk. Another marathon over; a great medal; a T-shirt I hadn’t really looked at yet … and it was time to reflect. I finished in 3:50:08, not bad, not great, not Boston qualifying, about halfway between my best and worst times ever. Well, a little closer to my best time, so that’s something. (Results are available at http://dublinmarathon.ie/results.php; my race number was 4139.)

Before the downpour had shut off all thoughts but those of reaching the hotel, I had overheard some runners talking about their finish times. One of them lamented that he never managed to run the marathon quite as quickly as he hoped. “And this time I did everything right,” he explained. He slept right, he ate right; he couldn’t have been better prepared. I’m skeptical about whether there’s a right way to go into a marathon. Certainly, there are lots of wrong ways. It helps to get some sleep, if not the night before, at least in the nights leading up to the race. It helps to get some food in before the run, and it’s tricky figuring out what works in your body, what gives you some energy without causing digestive problems along the route, once your intestines have been shaken around for a good spell. (Thank goodness for port-a-potties.) But what’s the right way? I don’t know. I haven’t solved that puzzle yet, and maybe this runner hasn’t either. I just know that crossing the finish line feels good, so good it’s addictive, and when you cross and you can’t believe the finish clock because there’s no way you thought you could ever run that fast, well, that feels amazing. But being close to your goal is addictive, too, maybe like sitting at a slot machine in Vegas. Oh, I’ve almost got it—that jackpot is just around the corner! It’s a reason to keep running, to put your body through the stress another time. Because who knows, a new PR (“personal record”) could be there in your future, if only you keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The tote bag my T-shirt came in is bright red. The Spar convenience store logo covers the bottom, and above that, a big smiley face tops the words “I’m glad I got out and ran!” I don’t think I could sum it up any better.