Running 26.2 miles is crazy. Traveling eight-hundred miles to run 26.2 miles might be psychotic. At least this time, it's not my fault and believe it or not, CT's not to blame either. This trip is the brain child of one of our Superstar friends and we are just along for the ride. Well, not exactly either. Driving this distance, running, then turning around and driving back all in the span of three days didn't sound very appealing to me. While it would have been fun to road trip with our friends, CT and I chose to fly.
Why are we doing this crazy adventure? For the medal, duh! At least that's our friend's excuse. Supposedly, The Route 66 Marathon medal is consistently rated the top running medal. A few weeks prior to the race, they released pictures of this year's medal and they completely changed it! Our friend made such a sour face when she saw it, I had to agree, the change wasn't good, but we were beyond committed at this point. So, scratch the reason why we are doing this, it's now because of the "extras"!
We have some really great friends, friends who I would travel eight-hundred miles and submit my body to the torture of a marathon for, even though they changed the medal, regardless (lets just not tell them that), but the real reason this adventure intrigued me were the extras. First, they advertise one perk as being the world's shortest ultra. A marathon is plenty far enough, but running a mere three-tenths extra, getting a coin, and being able to say I did an ultra, count me in! Second, if you are members of this special group, then not only do you get access to private bathrooms and a few other perks, but instead of the standard finisher medal, your medal will represent this group with it's own ribbon. The group is called the Marathon Maniacs and the name is very fitting. If composing a list of all the real crazies of the world, this would be a good place to start. Not very many people can gain entry to this club, to give you an idea, I got in under the minimum standards of completely three marathons in a month. Who does that? Not sure what I was thinking when I did that! The last extra, is a 5K race the day before the marathon.
If training is work, running the marathon is the reward, traveling is the dirty laundry. Sure glad we decided to fly, wait hold that thought. Upon arrival at the airport, trying to check in is the first sign of what's in store for us, "please see ticket agent". Turns out our flight is delayed and it's so delayed that we will most likely miss our connecting flight and they have us rerouted to Atlanta to get to Tulsa, changing our arrival time from early afternoon to almost midnight. At this point, we could drive to our connecting spot and make our original flight and the thought did cross my mind, but suddenly avoiding a fifteen hour car trip and needing to drive three seemed pretty silly. There was a connecting flight from a nearby airport, but we'd have to rush to get to it, time to race! En-route, we got notified that our connecting flight was now delayed. At this point stress levels were high, we were past the point of no return if we'd even make the flight we were trying for or do we turn around and hope our original plane flies. I won't bore you with the details, but we did make it and did arrive in Tulsa a few hours late. Coming back was a whole other set of problems because the agent who flew us out of the other airport, didn't change our return flight, so it took a heated call to the airline, pointing out how asinine it was to fly us out of one airport and return us to another and wanting to charge me "extra" to return to the airport where I left my car. Not the extra I had in mind this trip, but a perfect example of why I'd rather run a marathon than travel, maybe.
This thing is a novel already and the story hasn't even started, be prepared reader, you are doing an ultra. Once in Tulsa, we met our group and promptly went out to eat. The restaurant very quickly recognized the volume we bring and smartly seated us upstairs by ourselves.
(This blog kind of stinks, every pic needs to be portrait, sorry you miss one person in this shot and the full "Oklahoma" in the background)
Afterward, I was asked if I was the lead cowboy for this rodeo leaving the restaurant. Yeee-haw! Saying yes was on the tip of my tongue feeling pretty proud of myself for corralling these girls back to the hotel, when a Jolly Trolley rounds the corner. Stampede! Fifteen seconds later and all control gone. Now, the Superstars are getting a tour of Tulsa, music cranked, dancing, laughing, and I'm sure we made that trolley driver's weekend, not to mention getting the attention of two police officers and getting the signal for turn it down. Turn down for what? My favorite move, the trolley comes to our stop and it just so happens a boring song is playing, the girls wouldn't leave until they could exit on a good beat, yeah this is how we roll.
Just before bed, in a hurry to do so, I kicked my suitcase with my toe. Seems minor to even mention it, but this is my true getting my kicks on Route 66 moment. I drilled it good, but didn't think too much of it, just like any other toe stub. Waking up in the morning, this wasn't the normal stubbed toe, it still hurt. Looking closer, black and blue on both the inside and outside and clearly swollen. Made a quick appointment with nurse Downhill, where she gave me a quick checkup and diagnosed that I probably broke it. When asked what my pain was on the pain scale, I said three, she actually looked annoyed that I woke her for such a trivial pain. Can you believe that? This is further proof why I hate the medical profession, zero compassion! Reader tip, when asked your pain level on anything, add at least three, lie!
Running a 5K with a potentially broken toe is one thing, figured I could pull that off, I mean especially since my pain level is ONLY a three, but I was very concerned for the marathon. The 5K will be a good test though and would give me insight into how much pain I could be in tomorrow. It was an overcast morning and since it looked like it was going to rain, I didn't want to run in my racing shoes, opted for what I call my fast training shoes. My thought was wanting to keep my race shoes dry for the marathon. Walking caused some pain, yeah a three, but running didn't seem to make it worse.
This blog is getting ridiculous long, but feel it necessary to add this detail. Besides, you the reader, don't have a smashed toe with a pain level of three, a 5K, and a marathon which could be a potential an ultra still left to run! Suck it up! Prior to this trip, CT had a dream that at this 5K, they asked her to be a pacer. Nobody paces a 5K, so we both got a chuckle over her dream. Walking to the start and lining up, you know what's coming, there are damn pace groups!
Is this one of those signs? CT studies the race results, she thought we had a good chance to place. I think I humor her some and just agreed, you never know what the conditions were like in year's past, plus it all depends who shows up. This 5K, probably will have over a thousand people doing it, not to mention in previous years, it was held on the same day as the marathon, so people weren't able to do both. Here I am with a broken toe (pain level of three), the people in crowding the starting line look fast, then it clicked, "what if you could place"? Mood changed, found focus, lets try. Probably a dumb idea, but then again, it was dumb to kick a suitcase too.
Bang, goes the gun, no I didn't kick anything again! There were lots of people, this wouldn't be easy. Dodging the typical kids who start out way too fast or start way too close to the starting line, it seemed like I did make up ground going into the first turn. After the first turn, the road went up and over this fairly steep bridge. By the time we got to the bridge, I was past the mob of people, is this really happening? Up the bridge, a few more people passed. At this point, I could clearly count all the people a head of me, eight! While still very early in the race, it was shocking to me to be this close to the lead with this many people. No doubt I was going my 5K race pace, but I've been slacking the past few weeks, plus knowing I still have to run a marathon tomorrow, I wasn't going all out either. At the two mile mark, I was content where I was, still only eight people ahead of me. My pace, felt fast but still had some in reserve, and it finally dawned on me that my toe was actually at a zero on the pain level. I was ecstatic to finish this race in the top ten. Overall, it looked like Kzoo came and invaded the age group awards, the Superstars ran away with six age group awards! If Tulsa didn't know there is a Kalamazoo, they do now.
My marathon prep has always been consistent. Rest the days leading up to it, clipping toe nails, drinking lots of water, and of course pasta dinner. Since the Grand Rapids Marathon, I've been resting, too much in fact. Running a 5K, hard enough to place, is definitely different. Drinking lots of water, well do white Russians count? Hey, at least I didn't deviate from the pasta dinner, well it was kind of lunch! This will be interesting, not exactly my normal prep.
Oh, that weather! Week before, cold. Even yesterday was better. Sixty degrees! Really had high hopes that it would be so cold and I'd be the only one who could run well in it. CT dreams silly things and they work out, I dream up something entirely possible and nothing! Putting my racing shoe on, immediately, I can feel pressure on my toe. At first, thought it was just the thicker sock I wear on longer runs, switched to a thin one, same problem. The toe box in my racing shoes are just smaller than the shoe I wore yesterday. Dilemma time. Is it best to wear my normal racing shoe, hoping that my toe doesn't swell more? Do I wear my much heavier training shoe? Or do I wear the same shoe that I ran with for the 5K and it felt good, of course the catch is, never ran more than six miles at one time with these shoes? At the time, the smart choice seemed to be run in the shoe that felt good in the 5K.
Bang, goes the gun again! CT has this crazy notion that she's going to attempt to qualify for Boston again. I decided there's no way I'm going to run hard today and the best course of action is running with her and hopefully helping her quality again. The early miles felt good, we shadowed her pace group. For what I thought would be very flat cattle country, turned into many rolling hills though residential neighborhoods. Between miles four and eight we pushed ahead of the pace group she needed. It seemed crowded and the water stops were more tricky to navigate with the people around, so thought it best to get ahead of them. By mile nine or ten, my body already was telling me this could be a challenge. Think it was a combination of the warmer temps, too much rest leading up and pushing too hard the day before. At the halfway point, I had pulled away enough from CT to stop and rest a bit. The thin sock I had picked was creeping down enough that my heel was rubbing and already bleeding at this point, not to meaning I could already feel the tell tale signs of blisters on my feet. Once CT caught up, told her my problems, but clearly we had pulled away from her pace so she was more than ahead of her qualifying time, so were in very good shape.
Never stopped at an aid station before, but saw one coming up, so I split off to get a band-aid for my heel. As soon as I attempted to put it on, it was obvious how futile this was, being wet and sweaty the band-aid wouldn't stick for long. Doubt it lasted a half mile before it was gone and it was back to rubbing. Also back are the rolling hills! Wow, never would have guess it would have been like this. By mile sixteen, I was done. My feet were so tender, they were killing me and my heel didn't feel much better. Broken toe, pain index zero. Rest of my problems, seven (and that's not inflated). At this point, I told CT she'd be on her own and gave her specific instructions that if that pace group didn't catch her, she wasn't allowed to do the "extra", qualifying was more important than a coin.
The rest of the marathon for me was a whole bunch of walking. This is where the lesson of never wearing new shoes before a race glows bright and the bells and whistles go off. I even stopped and took my socks off, hoping it would help, it did, but the damage was already done. I did try another aid station too, hoping to try a band-aid, then wrapping my heel with tape, except they didn't have any tape. Talk about miserable. Marathons have beaten me up in the past, but this one really was taking a toll on me physically.
When it came time to do the detour for the ultra, figured it couldn't get any worse. It's always been my biggest fear to finish a marathon over the four hour mark. At this point, I was seriously flirting with it. This marathon was suppose to be fun anyway and although it seemed anything but at this point, figured I'd swallow some pride and just be happy to finish. The dreaded happened, finished over four, which considering had four pit stops trying to fix things and ten miles of walking, oh well.
Crossing the line, there was relief, but I ultimately looked forward to the "extra" walk to the hotel to put on different shoes! CT was smiling waiting for me. She didn't make her qualifying time, she also had trouble down the stretch. Maybe I started her out too fast, or it simply could have been a hard course to pull that off considering all the hills. I know her well enough to know that there will always be another chance.
In the end, very fun weekend, even though it came with an "extra" swollen toe. Sure, Route 66 got some kicks on me, still left town with this hardware. Oh and the medal did grow on all of us, think it's pretty cool.
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