Surviving the Charlottesville Marathon, 15 April 2006.

Retrospective Training Diary

Marathon Elevation Chart

Race Day

The weather was rainy and cool the whole night. Thanks, Jeff and Bobbie, for giving us a place to stay and tons of positive vibes. Sleeping before a marathon is for wimps. Up early. Shower, light breakfast, lots of water. How far will my legs take me? Vicki and Eleanor drop me off downtown. Some stretching, lots of thigh pain. No big ambitions at this point, let's just have an easy morning run/stroll to the Rotunda and then do additional physical fieldwork research.

Here's Doc. W. (in the shades) cruising along at the head of the pack.

Now the group near the tail. This, I confess, is not the first time I have stood in front of the Rotunda wondering whether or not I should abandon the whole project, (you dissertation-writers out there will know the feeling). Maybe I can make it to Ivy Road, though, and we'll take the Full Body Health Scan at that point.

Just twenty-three more miles and I will have finally burned off all that pregnancy weight!

A prospective student, making her first campus visit to U.Va.

At Ivy Road I discovered that my thigh only hurt when I was running on the flat. Thing is, from here on in there WAS no flat. Looks like we're in business then.

In this picture they asked me to do special leg flexes for my next cover of Runner's World.

Mile 12. That's not gravel you see on the ground, it's a really big wall...

Before this point we had some difficulties linking up with the camera crew, so no pics from 21 curves to Ridge Road. One big landmark was Oakencroft and the quarter race mark. It was a strange thing to watch the half-marathoners turn around and run back toward town. I get the point now about the loneliness of the long-distance runner. By the time I got to the dirt road there were practically no other marathoners in sight. Two and a half hours out (or ten o'clockish, local time), and the heat is starting to rise.

The rest of the marathon was strictly for character-building. A big climb at mile 15 was followed by a few dozen more gradual grades. Sun higher, water stops fewer and farther between. It was the calves, not the horses, that fell behind at the Foxfield Races (mile 18). I started cramping/walking from here on in. For the sake of pride points I will report that I ran at least a tenth of every mile from 18 to 26.2. And I haven't run since...

An odd thing at end of the race. From mile 21 until the finish line I never saw another runner, or, more precisely, no other marathoner. In truth the campus sidewalks around U-Hall and Lambeth Field were crowded with nearly all of the young minds of America, each out for a pleasant jog on a bright sunny Saturday. Fortunately, there was no way Grampa 44 was going to let a few hundred fast undergrads and lawyers-to-be take the wind from his sails. I'll show them whippersnappers how to really break a sweat.

Here we are at the last two-tenths of a mile and once again coordinated with the camera crew. Yes, I know there's not a soul around. Yes, I know that all but 8 of the 453 finishers have come across the line, mostly a few hours ago. But hey, folks, please don't take down the balloons at the finish line. I've waited just under six hours for this moment. Ah. Good. Thanks for waiting.

Okay, time to stop now.

Yeah, (he says casually) I've done a few marathons.

Weather Data

This data, originally generated by National Weather Service, was adapted from the historical records presented at Weather Underground (That link is in Polish, friends. Ask Google, the NSA, and the Chinese government why I could only find the Charlottesville data on the Polish underground.)

Cheesy Sophomoric Afterword

Marathoners often get asked why they would attempt such a strange thing. I wish I had some transcendent answer, a deep meditation on the linkages of human experience that somehow connect the ancient Athenians and the poetry of Robert Browning, to the runners themselves who covered the course. Certainly the act of running a marathon involves lots of things, including self-improvement, self-denial, self-evaluation, self-discipline, self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement, and self-control. With so much "self" the chance of transcending one's individual ambitions and ecentricities through a marathon run seems difficult indeed. My colleague is fond of analyzing life choices by asking "what need does it serve?" and "does pursuing these choices lead to enhancements in the quality of human relationships?" It certainly has for me, though not without imposing burdens on others along the way. Thanks to those who provided conversation and encouragement on the training runs, to those who shared their advice, expertise, and experiences about marathoning from their scientific, medical, and professional viewpoints, and to those who provided effective answers to endless questions. A complete list of the anonymous people whose lives in some way intersected with this run and who also deserve thanks would be a remarkably long and complex one, but one worthy of reflection. One might begin with factory workers in China who made the ASICS shoes I wore during the run. The company has a statement of Corporate Social Responsibility in which they have promised to operate only under fair labor practices. I hope that is true. I gather that the company has been given some credit for its efforts to ensure compliance. We can be somewhat less confident about the Indonesian workers who manufactured the Mizumo shirt I wore, or the Walmart running shorts. May their futures be rich and their burdens light. There are the highway crews who made, paved, and maintain the roads we train and race upon. There were website builders who provided info, cops who directed traffic, volunteers who set up cones, handed out water and gatorade (not to mention those who made these products or helped get them to the course in a timely and clean way). Others offered words of encouragement and cleaned up millions of cups afterward. I am confident that the trash collectors who took the marathon waste to the dump have not ever been acknowledged for their role in making April 15 a success. If this raises the question of a marathon's environmental impact, my apologies if right now I choose to dodge pondering such things too deeply. More joyously, one might thank all the friends who asked about the training, or who have been kind in their responses to earlier marathon pages. One might celebrate the random people on the downtown mall who cheered us last few runners as we struggled up the bricks to the finish line. And then there were the runners themselves, who have always seemed to me to be unfailing in their support and encouragement for every other person who ran the course with them. To hint at the contributions of all these people to the marathon process may not approach transcendence, but it does offer an illustration of how intertwined the human community is, seen and unseen, named and unnamed. Does it improve these other lives to be mindful of their contributions? I hope so, though that does seem as improbable as the proverbial butterfly whose wingflapping generates a hurricane. One other note about mindfulness. If there is one experience that most marathoners can identify with, it is physical pain. From sore muscles and bruised feet to stiff joints and the ever-dreaded nipple rub, the body tells you that 26.2 is farther than the human body was ever designed to go. Such ailments are self-inflicted and fade in a few days. (Okay, a few weeks.) I hope as they fade that their place in runner memory keeps me mindful of the people close and far whose pains cannot be endured or managed so easily. Another colleague often speaks to the point that humans, as relatively simple entities, lack the ability to comprehend either the vast depths of the world's total sorrows or the profoundity of the world's boundless joys. Perhaps it is this latter, embodied in the triumph of trying, that allows events like this marathon to connect us beyond ourselves. Thanks everyone, for making this great joy possible.