27 October 2003

Personal Best

The race went under cloudy skies and a cool breeze. Almost perfect. Some prefer crisp and cold, but the challenge of being ready to go and the hour or so that you have to kill waiting for the starting cannon is always problematic. These conditions were about perfect, provided it does not begin to rain. Perfect condition to try for a Personal Best, a victory against the only person who counts.

Yourself.

I was not going to run this morning, or any other morning for that matter. I have enough problems walking around now, what with the junk the Doc said was floating around in my knee. And if the running did it, it was because I had to do it because of the fitness standards of a downsizing military and the fear of failure that went along with the biannual fitness tests. Running was part of the military culture, and almost religious at the Pentagon. We started early down there, driven by events or the commute. Military people can afford to live in the County and places like Springfield and south of the Occoquan.

It is a curious notion that maybe the events of the world were partly driven by the fact that there were people at the office early because the commute was easier then, part of a doctrine of unintended consequences. But there came a time in the midst of the twelve-hour days when an air of expectation came over the officers and they would sidle to the door and head for the Pentagon Athletic Club. We called it the PO-ACK, since the original name had been the Officer's Athletic Club.

Despite the change we knew what it was, really.

It wasn't much of a club. It was a facility buried in warrens under the ceremonial River Entrance to the building. In exchange for the length of the days, it was an unwritten rule that the daily workout was sacrosanct. There were people that played basketball or lifted weights. Ran on treadmills. But I was one of the outdoor crowd. I would change into my shorts and running shoes and whatever shirt was merited by the conditions of the day. On a day like yesterday it would have been a long-sleeve t-shirt from some local race, maybe the Georgetown or Tenleytown 10k events. Some guys wore their Marine Marathon shirts, but I figured those were keepers, proof that for one moment, anyway, I had the stamina to run 26.2 miles all in one row.

Washington is a fabulous place to run. Starting from the Pentagon, you can head north to Memorial bridge and loop the Lincoln Monument if you do not have a lot of time. Push on to the Washington Monument for a pretty good jaunt. Keep going up the Mall to the Capitol if you have the time and no meeting at 1300. The years I committed to running the Marathon I got in a training groove of seven or eight miles a day. I would run up the trail to the Key Bridge and over into Georgetown, up M Street and across Rock Creek Park to Foggy Bottom and down past Main State.

The people watching was fabulous and it didn't even seem like effort. What were these people doing in the middle of the day, lunching and shopping? It was a world I didn't live in and it was a guilty pleasure to glide through it. Washington is such a strange place, so much money and so little tangible industry. Georgetown was the best, and on a sunny day the windows were open at Clyde's and I would be tempted to grab half of someone's sandwich. On a long run I always had a $20 bill tucked in my sock with my POAC ID tied on my shoelace so I could get back in. The cash was a sort of talisman that meant I could always stop if something looked interesting, or if I got hurt I could take a cab back to work.

I never did, though. After Georgetown I would find State I would find myself back in the ceremonial city, and could duck back across the graceful curve of the Memorial Bridge, sliding by the great bronze horses with the realistic reproductive parts to take the trail south along Rt 110 and in the back door of the POAC.

On an aggressive day I would keep going south west of the River and come back on the 14th Street Bridge, ducking the traffic at the exits on the Virginia side. Working up for the People's Race, which is what they call the Marine Marathon, it was normally an aggressive day.

Two rules I followed. "You can run three times further than you train." That means if you train at eight miles a day you can run twenty-four. Which is right around where The Wall is, that awful moment when things seize up and the body refuses to work anymore. The glide becomes a forced motion through pain, the stomach has ceased to process liquids and life is not good. The less you train and the faster you go the sooner it happens. Simple.

The other rule was to take a good long run a week or two before the race. I was having trouble scheduling mine, so I decided to take a little longer on the commute one morning and ran in from the house, disappearing into the Fairfax gloom around four AM and pounding down the big hill past the Beltway and along Columbia Pike all the way downtown past the traffic. It was a revelation of sorts to experience the human scale of the city. I wasn't that late for the morning routine when I got there.

Before 9-11 it was possible to park in the North Pentagon lot and walk up to the Marine War Memorial, the great figures forever lifting the flag on Mt Suribachi and the names in gold around the base of the great battles the Corps had won. It is over a mile to get to the starting line, and with 18,000 people running and their support groups, the Pentagon was about as close as you could get.

The race starts and stops near the Memorial, the symbolism is powerful. There is a lot of adrenaline at the start, anxiety to get on with it, get moving, find out the answer. Was the training good enough? Would it be a personal best or a tooth-gritting slog with the ignominy of leaden muscles? They sequester the groups of runners by expected times. The Marines want the world-class athletes not to get bogged down with the interior linemen or the backwards-runners or the costumes. They would shoot out, serene in the knowledge that they would be back in a couple hours. I heard one Marathoner marvel at us, the pack in the back, saying that he couldn't imagine running for as long as we did. Not fast, mind you, but a long time.

The minutes before the cannon are high anxiety, everyone nervous. The crowd is fit, greyhounds and average Joes, Old people, young people, Moms getting their figures back and older women seeking some affirmation. Military and civilian. People just like me. The minutes would be ticked off in a booming incomprehensible amplified voice and the gun would go and nothing would happen. A crowd this big takes some time to get moving, and I always figured that my times should get some credit for the minutes spent standing around at the start. Everyone had a watch and everyone was looking down, jumpy and then it started to roll and we all went out too fast, careful to duck the optimists who were going out slow, on pace, stumbling sometimes, the bobbing and weaving.

The course this year snakes around Virginia for a couple miles before heading over the Key Bridge.

It takes a couple miles to sort thing out, and as you get past the first water stop the splits are normally way faster than the pace at which you trained. But that will fix itself, over time. After Georgetown the course rolls up the Rock Creek Park and loops back, so by the time the pack is heading up the greyhounds are heading back. By that point you have fond your rhythm and it is effortless, slowly gliding past other optimists and being passed by people who must have arrived at the event late.

After Rock Creek it is the Monuments, up and around the Mall on the east side of the Capitol and down Independence toward West Potomac Park and a whifferdill past the golf course and back to the 14th Street Bridge. That is where the body no longer is yours, hi-jacked by dull pain, the legs just not responding. There are people walking here, or staggering on. The finish is the point and it is 22 miles into this thing and you will finish and people are yelling and cheering from the curb. Then up the offramp and across the bridge. It was here at mid-span that I saw a man prostrate on his back, cubes of ice around his head and two baffled young Marines. The man's eyes were open and they looked like fired eggs and there was no sense of urgency about anything. He had just died.

Then down off the bridge and past the desolate cement plant that mixed the concrete that build Crystal City and the new chunk of the Pentagon. No crowds there, doesn't look like a part of the course at all. And then it is 24 miles and two to go and Goddamn it is hard to keep the joints moving, pain spearing, and then 25 and you are passing the Pentagon lot and jeeze you run this all the time why is it so hard?

26 miles is at the bottom of the hill going up to the Memorial. It is not a big hill and there are only two-tenths of a mile to go. But I assure you it is the steepest mountain in the known world. Arcing around the great statue the people are going nuts, screaming out names and the legs are like sticks, moving of someone else's volition. And then into the chutes and a Marine hands you a bronze-colored medal on a patriotic ribbon to go around the neck and you are free to collapse.

And then make the long walk back to the car. There are still people on the course, and they will be out there until it is opened again at three-thirty in the afternoon.

I checked the Post this morning for some vicarious results. Great Falls resident Peter Sherry paced himself early and used a late surge to earn his first marathon victory in 2:25:07. Running in her first marathon, Heather Hanscom crushed the women's field, finishing 20 minutes ahead of her nearest competitor at 2:37:59. The winners were both locals, the first time that has happened since 1998.

When I got home from my last one my ex asked me how I did. I smiled. "Personal Best!" I said. "3:52:30. And I beat the dead guy."

I may not be able to run anymore, but I have taken up in-line skating. And I think I can do the course even fast than that.