When is this supposed to start? Six fifteen? What time is it now? I am in the middle of a vast crowd of people. My particular section is marked as corral #38 by a big black sign being waved above the crowd like some ancient banner. About twenty feet behind me through the press of people in work-out clothes is another banner marked #39.
To my left is a press of mid westerner stereotypes. Thirty to forty year old women in varying degrees of obesity, the one next to me is wearing a visor declaring her loyalty to some bank that I’ve never heard the name of. They all wear the same kind of purple shirt that makes up roughly sixty percent of the crowd. The backs of these purple shirts each exclaim “TEAM IN TRAINING” followed by a name of a hometown or state, and then finally a list of various sponsors.
To my right is a different woman fidgeting with her iPod prior to the event’s start. She pays no attention to the man dressed as Elvis directly in front of her. The song changes to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the announcer declare the start for the next wave. Since the first gun shot, each corral has been released a minute after the previous wave is sent on the track; leaving me and several hundred others to anxiously shift as we wait for our turn to get the ordeal over with.
How could anyone ever think this would be a good idea?
It is the Rock & Roll Marathon & Half Marathon in San Diego. And this year it begins in Balboa Park on a rather chill overcast Sunday morning. I find myself a little bit glad that I chose to do this since traffic must have been severely fucked up everywhere because of the event. If I had chosen to bail at the last minute any other plans would have been sullied by that continuous reminder. Like a sweaty version of Poe’s Tell-tale heart.
I always thought the Gates of Hell would be less colorful and more fiery.
People with big grins on their face move through the crowd handing out salt packets like those they give at diners. I see some of the more serious-looking runners take a few and shove them in their pocket and I repeat the process. Later I found it helps keep you from sweating out all your electrolytes and having a heart attack. At the time I was just mirroring people who looked like they knew what they were doing. I sure as shit didn’t. As I write this the event is over, and I still have little to no idea. In retrospect I should have trained more, but fuck it. Too late now. If the masochism that comes of forcing yourself to run thirteen to twenty six miles sinks in, I will certainly know for next time to prepare better.
What time is it? Six thirty lately? Seven? Nine? Noon? I have no idea and give up guessing as the corral moves just a little bit closer to the starting line.
When finally I do get going I find the event to be a blur. I am not a runner by any definition of the word. In it is my loathing for this form of exercise that caused me to take up a half marathon (Figured if I have something that forces me to run, it won’t be so bad after a while). The race though is a lot easier then I thought. It goes in a circuit around Balboa-park and then splits off, the full-marathon runners taking a circuit in the downtown while the half-marathon is resigned to part of the 163 north bound.
It was there that it began to suck. While running the lap around the park, there were a few benefits that made the first five miles fly by. As I jogged on I was carried by an initial and unexpected wave of adrenaline as everyone set out on this journey. People were cheering for one another, trading high-fives, and joking with each other for those who decided to wear some form of costume. There were also stages set up along the course where live bands played high-pace rock that helped us push just a little bit harder. The stages would be found throughout the race, but they seemed to be most closely packed around the Park.
Once I passed the five-mile mark on the 163, I overtook the woman I had been running by for most of the race so far: A college student with a wonder-woman cape and rainbow knee socks that seemed weird for an event that would involve so much sweaty. I ran by the clock and distance marker as it clicks off the time since the first corral began the course. It was around an hour or so, I think.
The course banked under our feet and we found ourselves running along an almost forty five degree slope. It was this time frame that the morning chill and cloud coverage broke, and we were hit by a blast of the southern California sun and it jumped maybe ten degrees. It was hear that the initial adrenaline wore off and I began to feel it.
I was trying to find a picture as an example of how ugly the course looked and the steep slope - and Googled '163' foolishly. This is one of the first results I got. WTF?!
For the next few miles I found myself counting away the steps and trying to do everything I could to keep my mind off the fact that I was running. The serene park background had now been replaced with slate-gray over passes and numerous road signs warning of upcoming exits and merging lanes. The hills were not covered with sage green grass but random desert foliage, brown and dying from the lack of recent rainfall.
I tried enjoying the other ‘scenery’ that was available, a tip I had received from an overly energetic woman the day before who was trying to sell me a suspiciously phallus-shaped leg massager. While there were plenty of people not in the greatest shape, there were just as many who were truly in their element in the middle of such an endurance contest. Doing my best not to leer, I admired some of these individuals and occupied myself with thoughts best not shared.
When the novelty of this wore off, I turned to singing quietly to myself or trying to remember stories. This wasn’t nearly as effective of doing a mental catalog and rating the various combinations of ass/legs that were moving along, and I gave up rather quickly. I was back to looking at the urban scenery and mentally counting my paces. It sucked.
My feet ached and cried out as new blisters formed and popped. The outside of my feet bemoaned the stresses of running along a slope and my pace took on a slight limp. After passing another water station around the seven mile mark, the warming sun seemed to take another ten degree hike in temperature.
I began doing half-mile jogs separated by a fast walk. When finally I passed a festival stop that was decorated and entitled by various signs as ‘Margarita Ville’, I gave up jogging entirely. A Jimmy Buffet cover band sung the praises of island living while someone who looks exactly like the real Jimmy Buffet busies himself sweeping up discarded paper cups with a rake. This might be a much better use of the real Jimmy Buffet, to be honest.
From the nine mile mark I walked the next few in relative silence. That initial wave of adrenaline and mutually-motivating energy had abated. The bands were no longer doing it, and most of the people cheering by road side had abandoned what little enthusiasm remained.
All around me I could see only a few joggers, as the courses re-merged I saw sweat-slicked full marathon runners, all with a glazed expression that showed them some place distant, some place where they weren’t running a race that was based on an event of desperation during the Peloponnesian Wars.
Those people who dressed in costume seem to be feeling the full effects. I see a person who for whatever reason decided to run it in a SpongeBob suit at a medical station, probably suffering from heat stroke. A group of guys dressed like Scottish warriors (complete with blue face paint, kilts, and toy swords strapped on their backs) who had begun the race hooting and hollering were now quietly running at an even clip.
This was the part that really tested people. The hump was past and now that most of the race was over and the community of runners had hit the wall, who really wanted to finish? The prospect did cross my mind a few times. I passed an exit where I new some friends went to a game store on Sundays and thought how it would be funny (and a little nice) to call it quits and just walk over to the game store. With that initial small limp having grown into a full-blown Igor impression: I thought about just going and sitting by the road, giving my poor legs and feet a chance to rest until one of the poorly named ‘sag wagons’ could come and pick me up with stragglers.
I chose not to though, knowing my propensity to quit on things in favor of the lazier answer. I was also well aware that there were a few friends and co-workers who had heard through the grape vine that I would be doing this, and I didn’t want to disappoint. So I carried on and as the course became a blur the last few miles slowly ticked away.
Around the bend I came to the twelve mile-marker – and as I walked by I picked up the pace and decided to run the last little bit. On that finally tenth of a mile the course was flanked by a yellow fence of advertisements and a crowd behind it cheering on everyone. Under a great banner marking the finish line a clock hanging from a crane where a photographer documents each runner over the line reads off 4:17:26. It was the time since the first gun shot, but not everyone’s time. We had been provided with an orange band that was knitted through the laces of our shoes and tracked our progress. I would later discover my time was 3:22:31 – something that surprised me more then anyone.
This is the LEAST retarded looking photo of me crossing the finish line. Which isn't really saying much to be fair.
I grabbed a bottle of water and my medal for completion, favoring the bottle of water over the recognition of achievement. Next to me medics carry a woman who collapsed after finishing the run and had pushed herself too hard. Behind her is a man who was laughing and talking with some friends, his white shirt covered in two shot-gun blasts of blood where his nipples underneath had been chaffed bloody. It was then I knew for certain I would never make a hobby of this.
Any hobby where bleeding nipples are a common ailment seems to be worth avoiding in my book.
While some people reunited with friends and family who were waiting at the finish, moving on to enjoy a festival of activities and free samples: I slowly shuffled past. My priority was to take the long trek home. After that run I was sore all over and more exhausted then ever can be recalled by my recent memory. In the line for shuttles to take me back to the trolley I had boarded to get there, I blacked out on a few occasions to wake up still moving ahead with the mile-long zigzag queue.
Once home, I could at last collapse for a few hours and enjoy a good shower. All in all it was an experience, one I am not very likely to repeat: but an experience none the less.
Biggest lesson I learned? Get a Kenyan to run it for me next time.
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