The Nicsperiment Runs a Marathon: A 26.2 Mile Long Travelogue
Last July, a close friend of mine killed himself. He and I shared a similar background and many of the same failures. Up until that July, we had both failed to kill ourselves. I put a knife to my wrist once when I was 18, and I went ankle deep into the Mississippi in the middle of the night when I was 31, but I never followed through. Sam followed through. So the night after his funeral, far after my wife and son were asleep, while I was putting the finishing touches on a piece for this very blog, I took one of my rizatriptan, even though I didn't have a migraine. I took a large pull of whiskey straight out of the bottle, took another rizatriptan. Then I googled the phrase "CAN YOU OVERDOSE ON RIZATRIPTAN." You cannot overdose on rizatriptan.
Failure.
I took a few Tylenol PM's and drifted into oblivion.
The next day, I woke up pissed off, and I told my wife I was going out. I drove to the LSU lakes, parked, got out of my car, and immediately started sweating off the whiskey and pills in the heat. A Louisiana July is like a pile of dog shit. Don't stand in it.
For some reason, though, I started running. I thought that maybe triumphant music from Forrest Gump would start playing, like when Forrest started running after Jenny left him, but it didn't. It didn't play for me because Forrest Gump went to Alabama, and my alma-matter, LSU, had lost to an Alabama coached by an ex-LSU coach for eight straight years at that point, including in a humiliating 1/9/12 National Championship rematch. Also, Forrest Gump is a myth of Baby Boomer greatness, and I am stuck between Generation X and the Millennials, in a generationless gap. Just a damned generational vagabond who's sick of hearing about all of them, everybody having a place but me. Hey, I own a home (hello, Gen X!), but also crushing debt (hello, Millennials!). SPOILER ALERT: I HATE ALL OF YOU!!!
I guess you could say, I woke up pissed off, only to get even more triggered by the film that beat The Shawshank Redemption for the Oscar for BEST PICTURE OF 1994, ARE YOU JOKING, FORREST GUMP?! so I put on my headphones, provided my own music and ran, and ran, and--Sam saw 2009 Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire nine times in the theater. Nine times! Sam, are you kidding me? It wasn't that good!--ran, and ran. Then, at the point that the montage would end...I ran some more. I couldn't stop thinking about all of the things that pissed me off.
I am an angry person by nature. I generally don't show it, especially not on my face. I just bury it, but I've come to the conclusion over the past couple of years that I'm neither a lover nor a fighter: I'm a hater.
Yes, I'm a hater, and I'm proud of it!
So many things make me angry, and at that moment, during that run, my good friend offing himself while I had to hang around here without him pissed me off more than anything else, even Forrest Gump.
Finally, I noticed a painful sensation in my feet. They felt like bloody waffles--like I imagined someone had hit them with a sledgehammer until they were roughly waffle-shaped. That couldn't be good. Thankfully, I'd made a wide circle around the lakes and was relatively close to my car. I checked the STEPS app on my phone. I'd run 11 miles.
* * *
I've wanted to run a marathon ever since I saw a picture of a New York Marathon-finisher getting cloaked in one of those cool tinfoil robes in one of my second grade textbooks. Something about that photo seemed so epic and heroic. I could never remember the purpose of the tinfoil robe, though. To cool you down? Warm you up? Protect you from scabies? Whatever the case, my eight-year-old self swore that one day I'd cross a marathon finish-line and be cloaked in tinfoil. Then, over the years, I just sort of forgot about all of that, just like late 90's society as a whole forgot about Dre. I remained active in my youth, playing soccer, football, basketball on into high school.
In college, I jogged for awhile, then started going on walks. When college ended, I started going on...really long walks. Marathon-length walks. No running was involved, but in the Summer of 2005, my buddy Jon and I walked all the way from my house in Glynn, Louisiana to False River, then all the way around False River--a distance of more than 20 miles. The walk might not have been a marathon, but it felt pretty epic, and I sure needed it. A month after that, the two of us were so enthusiastic from the last walk, we walked all the way to Baton Rouge--easily a mile-distance in the mid-20's, and in the August heat, after I'd just had surgery. The timing of that Baton Rouge walk was maybe not the wisest, but boy did it feel like an accomplishment. Still...it wasn't a marathon. I didn't get a tinfoil robe at the end, or anything.
In college, I jogged for awhile, then started going on walks. When college ended, I started going on...really long walks. Marathon-length walks. No running was involved, but in the Summer of 2005, my buddy Jon and I walked all the way from my house in Glynn, Louisiana to False River, then all the way around False River--a distance of more than 20 miles. The walk might not have been a marathon, but it felt pretty epic, and I sure needed it. A month after that, the two of us were so enthusiastic from the last walk, we walked all the way to Baton Rouge--easily a mile-distance in the mid-20's, and in the August heat, after I'd just had surgery. The timing of that Baton Rouge walk was maybe not the wisest, but boy did it feel like an accomplishment. Still...it wasn't a marathon. I didn't get a tinfoil robe at the end, or anything.
Damned good view, though, with a damned good friend.
Don't ever die, Jon. If you do, I'll kill you.
I did a bunch of stuff they say grown ups do, like get married and get a job and have a kid, then I did a bunch of stuff they don't necessarily say grownups do, like go back to school to get a better job, and go to therapy for your crushing depression and traumatic childhood, where you were frequently told that you were demon-possessed. Wait, being told throughout your youth by family members and authority figures that you are demon-possessed in order to control your actions isn't normal? So that was a cult! If anyone could empathize with me about that kind of upbringing, it was Sam, but Sam's dead. I know I told you this at your wake, buddy, but you looked like hell in that suit. They should have dressed you in a dirty t-shirt.
Anyway, life, bunch of ups. Bunch of downs. Somewhere in there, I tried to get Jon to go on another long walk with me, but he tuckered out five miles in. I got my cousin Adrian to walk all the way to Morganza, Louisiana with me in 2012, but years started to pass, and I started to put on weight, my blood pressure getting to more and more dangerous levels. In 2016, I read Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, and tacked up a note on my bathroom mirror that read IN 2017 YOU WILL RUN A MARATHON. I started running in the morning, and got all the way up to four miles. However, my family was at the time exiled to a trailer out in the middle of a cane field in Glynn, and enough scary, loose dogs (they had no leashes and wandered free...and were probably promiscuous, too!) chased me to the point that I gave up on those runs. It just wasn't working. I'd never get a tinfoil robe. I'd never even get one of those obnoxious "26.2" bumper stickers that people slap on the back of their Subaru's to prove they're better than you.
My life became more and more disappointing.
Anyway, life, bunch of ups. Bunch of downs. Somewhere in there, I tried to get Jon to go on another long walk with me, but he tuckered out five miles in. I got my cousin Adrian to walk all the way to Morganza, Louisiana with me in 2012, but years started to pass, and I started to put on weight, my blood pressure getting to more and more dangerous levels. In 2016, I read Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, and tacked up a note on my bathroom mirror that read IN 2017 YOU WILL RUN A MARATHON. I started running in the morning, and got all the way up to four miles. However, my family was at the time exiled to a trailer out in the middle of a cane field in Glynn, and enough scary, loose dogs (they had no leashes and wandered free...and were probably promiscuous, too!) chased me to the point that I gave up on those runs. It just wasn't working. I'd never get a tinfoil robe. I'd never even get one of those obnoxious "26.2" bumper stickers that people slap on the back of their Subaru's to prove they're better than you.
My life became more and more disappointing.
Was this it?
I had all these hopes and dreams when I was kid, and I'd accomplished virtually none of them. And really, nothing was a bigger failure for me than the 10's. What had I achieved in them?
My college experience? The 00's. Marriage? 00's. Child born? 00's. Best writing? 00's.
The 10's were filled with bitter disappointments, both professionally and personally.
The 10's were filled with bitter disappointments, both professionally and personally.
All I'd done in the 10's was flail around between shallow seas of unhappiness. What a damn bummer.
All of my disappointments seemed to reach an apex in early 2019, when I got so angry at a work meeting, I started to lose my vision. Instead of exploding in the meeting, I just inhaled loudly, and shut my eyes...which got the point across. Shortly afterward, I went to the doctor for a checkup...and my blood pressure was at "You can't leave until it goes down" levels.
My doctor told me he believed I could get my blood pressure to a healthy level over time without medicine, but that I'd have to start exercising regularly and cut down on my salt intake in order to so...and maybe get a new job. I told him I'd try those things, not believing lowering my blood pressure, or any other personal improvement was possible at this point.
I started looking for an outlet for activity, and my first thought was not running. I needed to do something with all of this anger and pent up aggression. I needed to hit something.
So, I started boxing. A local police officer, and ex-boxing champ, Ashley, held some classes in mid-city Baton Rouge, and I noticed an old high school classmate of mine, Andy, trained there, so I signed up. Ashley holds an assessment to make sure someone is fit enough to train with her, and I almost passed out after mine, but I passed...man, same word, different meaning. She pushed me hard in the following classes, and I kept throwing a right hook when said left hook, and I even punched myself in the face a few times, which wow, this is all a great metaphor for my life, but sure enough, my blood pressure started to track downward. In fact, I think all that boxing is the reason I was able to run 11 miles the day after Sam's funeral.
So, I started boxing. A local police officer, and ex-boxing champ, Ashley, held some classes in mid-city Baton Rouge, and I noticed an old high school classmate of mine, Andy, trained there, so I signed up. Ashley holds an assessment to make sure someone is fit enough to train with her, and I almost passed out after mine, but I passed...man, same word, different meaning. She pushed me hard in the following classes, and I kept throwing a right hook when said left hook, and I even punched myself in the face a few times, which wow, this is all a great metaphor for my life, but sure enough, my blood pressure started to track downward. In fact, I think all that boxing is the reason I was able to run 11 miles the day after Sam's funeral.
* * *
As I finished the last leg of that run, my wife called to check in on me, a bit worried. I mean, I don't know why she was worried, it's not like I was googling to see if I could kill myself with my migraine medication the night before.
"I'm great!" I answered. "I just ran 11 miles!"
She was, of course, concerned that I needed to take care of my body after putting it through that much stress, but I was ecstatic.
"That's only two miles short of a half-marathon!" I chattered on excitedly between waffle-feet winces.
A thought formed in my head. Not quite I'm gonna run a marathon, but I'm gonna do this again next week, and see how far I can go.
Sure enough, the next week I found that the 11 miles wasn't a fluke of grief. I could do it again. And if I could do it again, why not go for 13.1? A couple of weeks later, I did 13.5. It hurt, but I did it, watching Tony Burton yell "No pain!" at Sylvester Stallone on my phone until I believed it myself, when the going got tough. By the end, my feet felt like blood jelly. I'm not going to describe what I mean by that like I did with bloody waffles. They just felt like blood jelly. Thankfully, now that we had recently moved back to Baton Rouge again, I had plenty of sidewalks and designated areas to run upon. No more loose dogs chasing me. Well...not as many loose dogs chasing me. But was 13.5 my wall? My blood jelly feet sure seemed to be telling me so.
"You just need to get some new shoes," my sister said.
My younger sister, Arisa, actually fulfilled my own 2017 New Years resolution. She did run a marathon that year. She told me I should try going to Varsity Sports in Baton Rouge, where they could measure my feet with a laser, watch me run, and determine just what size and sort of shoes I needed.
Turns out I've been wearing shoes that are too small for me all these years. When I was a teenager, Adrian and I were in competition to see who would have the biggest shoes. Our feet were vastly outgrowing our bodies, though we both believed we'd surely become giants. Of course, to stay ahead of Adrian, I always bought shoes that were too big, getting some size 13's far ahead of when I should have. I could have put a roll of dimes in front of my big toe and still fit into those things.
I finally grew into those shoes by the 10th grade (I never quite topped 6 feet in height...though at least my balance is spectacular, and totally worth all the "Hey, Ronald McDonald!" comments I get!). I then just assumed 13 was my size, even though finding comfortable shoes has been difficult in recent years. It's already hard enough to find 13's, anyway
Turns out, I'm a 14. The things you learn at 38.
Actually, I'm closer to a 13.5, but apparently, it's good to wear shoes that leave room to breathe, as your foot expands while you run longer distances. The swell folks at Varsity, who earned my patronage for life (also, they gave me a free T-Shirt, which is advertising brilliance!), set me up with some Mizunos, and sure enough, I soon found the pain in my feet fading away...and shifting to my right ankle.
I then talked to another friend, Ben, who'd also run a marathon before, and he suggested an ankle brace. Ben is in his 40's, which basically means he's like a million.
Viola. All physical impediments fell away. I suddenly dared to speak aloud my 30-year-old dream I thought had died, "I want to run a marathon." I now believed I could eventually run that distance. It was just a matter of training more. I went online, and registered for the Louisiana Marathon, scheduled for January 19, 2020. Registering makes the marathon a commitment you don't want to back down from...it's a non-refundable fee that cost more than my Mizunos.
"I'm great!" I answered. "I just ran 11 miles!"
She was, of course, concerned that I needed to take care of my body after putting it through that much stress, but I was ecstatic.
"That's only two miles short of a half-marathon!" I chattered on excitedly between waffle-feet winces.
A thought formed in my head. Not quite I'm gonna run a marathon, but I'm gonna do this again next week, and see how far I can go.
Sure enough, the next week I found that the 11 miles wasn't a fluke of grief. I could do it again. And if I could do it again, why not go for 13.1? A couple of weeks later, I did 13.5. It hurt, but I did it, watching Tony Burton yell "No pain!" at Sylvester Stallone on my phone until I believed it myself, when the going got tough. By the end, my feet felt like blood jelly. I'm not going to describe what I mean by that like I did with bloody waffles. They just felt like blood jelly. Thankfully, now that we had recently moved back to Baton Rouge again, I had plenty of sidewalks and designated areas to run upon. No more loose dogs chasing me. Well...not as many loose dogs chasing me. But was 13.5 my wall? My blood jelly feet sure seemed to be telling me so.
"You just need to get some new shoes," my sister said.
My younger sister, Arisa, actually fulfilled my own 2017 New Years resolution. She did run a marathon that year. She told me I should try going to Varsity Sports in Baton Rouge, where they could measure my feet with a laser, watch me run, and determine just what size and sort of shoes I needed.
Turns out I've been wearing shoes that are too small for me all these years. When I was a teenager, Adrian and I were in competition to see who would have the biggest shoes. Our feet were vastly outgrowing our bodies, though we both believed we'd surely become giants. Of course, to stay ahead of Adrian, I always bought shoes that were too big, getting some size 13's far ahead of when I should have. I could have put a roll of dimes in front of my big toe and still fit into those things.
I finally grew into those shoes by the 10th grade (I never quite topped 6 feet in height...though at least my balance is spectacular, and totally worth all the "Hey, Ronald McDonald!" comments I get!). I then just assumed 13 was my size, even though finding comfortable shoes has been difficult in recent years. It's already hard enough to find 13's, anyway
Turns out, I'm a 14. The things you learn at 38.
Actually, I'm closer to a 13.5, but apparently, it's good to wear shoes that leave room to breathe, as your foot expands while you run longer distances. The swell folks at Varsity, who earned my patronage for life (also, they gave me a free T-Shirt, which is advertising brilliance!), set me up with some Mizunos, and sure enough, I soon found the pain in my feet fading away...and shifting to my right ankle.
I then talked to another friend, Ben, who'd also run a marathon before, and he suggested an ankle brace. Ben is in his 40's, which basically means he's like a million.
Viola. All physical impediments fell away. I suddenly dared to speak aloud my 30-year-old dream I thought had died, "I want to run a marathon." I now believed I could eventually run that distance. It was just a matter of training more. I went online, and registered for the Louisiana Marathon, scheduled for January 19, 2020. Registering makes the marathon a commitment you don't want to back down from...it's a non-refundable fee that cost more than my Mizunos.
* * *
Okay, I'm doing this, I thought. Better get regimented. I talked to my sister about how she trained, and she sent me some basic plans generally used by marathon runners-in-training. Turns out, I was already doing pretty close to what those plans suggested...and I decided to stick to what was working. I'd do a long run on Tuesday, go boxing on Wednesday, take off Thursday, light run Friday and Saturday (with maybe another boxing session on one of those days), medium run Sunday, rest Monday, go to the moon on Srunday, repeat. All of this running around town ended up being a blessing for me because...
Baton Rouge had not been feeling like home for me.
Baton Rouge is my wife's hometown. Mine is Glynn.
Okay, I'll be honest. I was born in a Baton Rouge hospital.
My mom took me to Baton Rouge and the LSU campus frequently as a kid. A lot of my family lived in Baton Rouge. I went to church in Baton Rouge for all of my teenage years. I went to college in Baton Rouge at LSU. I moved to campus Sophomore year. I met my wife on campus. I have no remaining friends in my hometown. I made all of my original friendset in Baton Rouge. I got engaged in Baton Rouge. I got married in Baton Rouge. My wife and I lived in Baton Rouge for the first five years of our marriage (most of that in mid-city). My son was born in Baton Rouge and lived there for his first two years. When we moved to Glynn, I still worked or went to school in Baton Rouge for the entire eight year period.
Okay, so it's not like I haven't shed just as much blood, sweat, and tears in Baton Rouge as I have out in the country. However, after the move back this time, I just wasn't feeling it. Outside of Sam, I didn't really have any other close, long-time friends that I still spent time with on a regular basis still living within city limits. Everybody had moved away. Even family. Some people were in the outskirts, like Prairieville, but no one was still in BR. I just felt like I didn't have anything here anymore. Combine that with my general unhappiness in life, and Sam dying felt like the last straw.
Running around Baton Rouge brought back a lot of memories. Sure, some of them were painful--Sam and I had hit so many Baton Rouge restaurants getting lunch, it was hard not to tear up thinking of some of our visits. Some were just memorable because they sucked--the Tex-Mex and Asian buffet places we planned to bankrupt that instead had us barfing after two plates. Some were just special, like the Italian deli where we suddenly came to the realization, after nine years of friendship, that, despite holding opposite political views of the author, we had both read every Tom Clancy Jack Ryan novel. We talked about the nuances of Jack Ryan's character for so long, and all of Clancy's digressions about people putting mini-fridges into their capitol hill offices, I had to call into work. Then, there was the BBQ place, the last place we would have eaten at together before he died, where he canceled on me. He texted me and apologized, said he forgot and asked for a rain check, but I ordered a king's feast for myself, anyway. He called me halfway into the meal to apologize again, this time saying he wasn't feeling well, and he actually hadn't forgotten, and I could tell by his voice that he was so unbelievably fucked up and it was Wednesday and we never got lunch again. I sent him a picture of my empty plate when I was through.
As my runs got longer, I started getting deeper into mid-city, eventually passing both of my wife and my first dive apartments. I passed old haunts. I developed a routine route, and perhaps a bizarre running stance, carrying my water bottle in one hand, and my phone in the other, refusing to use an arm or belt clip, as they just didn't feel right. I listened to a ton of awesome new music, discovered a lot of new bands through Bandcamp. I watched Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas come and go in the citizens of Baton Rouge's yards and houses, in their windows, in the auras of their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, I spent my Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium with my son, watching LSU go undefeated in football.
The podcast I hosted with my good friend, Jordan (who lives with his family in Prairieville, natch), switched to a focus on 90's movies, and brought back even more great memories. I started reflecting on the good things in my life. I started appreciating my family more. I got a new job that wasn't making me have near strokes every week...in fact, I got a job I interviewed for the day before Sam's funeral, knowing full well, as my wife said, "Sam would want this for you." Life improved...
And yet. I still built up anger every week, just like I always have. Life is so unfair. People act like such huge assholes all the time. No one is ever considerate. All anyone actually cares about at the end of the day is themselves. They don't care about your story. They care about their story. And I'm a people!
I blew off all that steam by running. The best was my first 20-plus mile run, which was only supposed to be 16 miles. There was a 40% chance of rain that night, and the clouds looked like they would pass, but I ended up getting caught in a three-hour downpour that flooded most of the streets I ran through. I verbalized all of the hate in my heart throughout that entire run, everything that was pissing me off getting tagged in torrents of rain-drenched profanity--good thing nobody else in the city was outside to hear it.
Actually, as the days grew shorter and colder, and my runs grew longer, I found myself more and more isolated on the streets. The last few night runs in late December, I didn't see another soul.
Thankfully, I ran my final long runs on lovely weekend mornings in January, when people were out and about, mostly taking down their Christmas decorations, dragging their Christmas trees to the road, and setting out their Mardi Gras stuff.
I felt great. I'd trained for so long, but everything had happened like a second-graders dream, except with less dinosaurs. It had almost happened too fast. I ran 27 miles one night in November, with a stomach ache on over-worked legs, just to show myself I could run the marathon during bad conditions. I did a 16 mile run one late night when the temps dipped into the low-20's. The only night the temps dipped into the low-20's...this is South Louisiana.
I was already more than ready for the marathon. I just had to maintain for another three months, stay healthy, and avoid injuries.
Of course, I then got injured.
I had no original plans to run the marathon quickly--slow and steady has been my mantra since birth. I started with a nice-and-easy 5 hour and 45 minute finishing pace, and I kept that into December...until I got bored and realized I could run faster. I started shaving chunks off of my time until I actually got my marathon finishing pace to under five hours. Not bad for a guy nearing 40 who hadn't done much of any physical exercise in 20 years! One night, I was really pushing it, getting my miles down to 11 minutes, when I felt a soreness in my left knee. Better take it easy, I thought.
I toned things down a lot. The marathon was only two weeks away. No reason to go crazy. You're supposed to "taper down" at that point, anyway.
I focused my attentions on watching LSU football try to wash away the evil ghosts of the 1/9/12 National Championship game. They obliterated those ghosts in a title victory, successfully completing arguably the greatest season in college football history, but I already talked about all that. Two things I didn't mention in that piece that will later become pertinent to this Marathon Travelogue, though.
1. Our 5'8" running back, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, after scoring four touchdowns earlier in the year in a cathartic victory against our hated rival, Alabama, was asked how he achieved such a monumental accomplishment against such a towering foe, despite his humble stature. He answered "Throw your heart across the line, and your body will follow."
2. Our quarterback, Joe Burrow, got hit so hard at the end of the first half of the National Championship game against Clemson, he tore cartilage in his ribs. He came back and played the entirety of the second half, throwing two touchdown passes to ensure a 42-25 victory for LSU. I later heard someone else say that after they had torn cartilage in their own ribs, they were in so much pain, they couldn't even bend over to pick up dropped change from the floor.
The Thursday night before the marathon, after all the football celebrating, I decided I'd go on a little four mile run. The marathon was only three days away, Sunday morning.
A half-a-mile into the run, I felt a stabbing pain, like someone was shoving a knife into the side of my left knee. I finished the run, thinking maybe the pain would go away, like a cramp. It only got worse.
At my wife's urging, I went to the doctor the next day. Turns out, I had pes anserine bursitis, a common running injury. The common recommendation is to get a cortisone shot, and then to stay off of the injured knee for several weeks. A cortisone shot can swell your knee up to such a degree that, for at least 48 hours, running is impossible. I told the doctor, "The only way I'm not running in this marathon Sunday is if someone cuts off my legs." Because of the chance of swelling, I told the doctor I didn't want the cortisone shot. He gave me some prednisone tablets and a recommendation to take some ibuprofen, get a knee brace, and stay off my knee as much as possible.
I said I would...after I ran the marathon Sunday.
Running around Baton Rouge brought back a lot of memories. Sure, some of them were painful--Sam and I had hit so many Baton Rouge restaurants getting lunch, it was hard not to tear up thinking of some of our visits. Some were just memorable because they sucked--the Tex-Mex and Asian buffet places we planned to bankrupt that instead had us barfing after two plates. Some were just special, like the Italian deli where we suddenly came to the realization, after nine years of friendship, that, despite holding opposite political views of the author, we had both read every Tom Clancy Jack Ryan novel. We talked about the nuances of Jack Ryan's character for so long, and all of Clancy's digressions about people putting mini-fridges into their capitol hill offices, I had to call into work. Then, there was the BBQ place, the last place we would have eaten at together before he died, where he canceled on me. He texted me and apologized, said he forgot and asked for a rain check, but I ordered a king's feast for myself, anyway. He called me halfway into the meal to apologize again, this time saying he wasn't feeling well, and he actually hadn't forgotten, and I could tell by his voice that he was so unbelievably fucked up and it was Wednesday and we never got lunch again. I sent him a picture of my empty plate when I was through.
Not so happy plate.
As my runs got longer, I started getting deeper into mid-city, eventually passing both of my wife and my first dive apartments. I passed old haunts. I developed a routine route, and perhaps a bizarre running stance, carrying my water bottle in one hand, and my phone in the other, refusing to use an arm or belt clip, as they just didn't feel right. I listened to a ton of awesome new music, discovered a lot of new bands through Bandcamp. I watched Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas come and go in the citizens of Baton Rouge's yards and houses, in their windows, in the auras of their neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, I spent my Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium with my son, watching LSU go undefeated in football.
Hey, scoreboard, you spelled "eaux" wrong!
The podcast I hosted with my good friend, Jordan (who lives with his family in Prairieville, natch), switched to a focus on 90's movies, and brought back even more great memories. I started reflecting on the good things in my life. I started appreciating my family more. I got a new job that wasn't making me have near strokes every week...in fact, I got a job I interviewed for the day before Sam's funeral, knowing full well, as my wife said, "Sam would want this for you." Life improved...
And yet. I still built up anger every week, just like I always have. Life is so unfair. People act like such huge assholes all the time. No one is ever considerate. All anyone actually cares about at the end of the day is themselves. They don't care about your story. They care about their story. And I'm a people!
I blew off all that steam by running. The best was my first 20-plus mile run, which was only supposed to be 16 miles. There was a 40% chance of rain that night, and the clouds looked like they would pass, but I ended up getting caught in a three-hour downpour that flooded most of the streets I ran through. I verbalized all of the hate in my heart throughout that entire run, everything that was pissing me off getting tagged in torrents of rain-drenched profanity--good thing nobody else in the city was outside to hear it.
Actually, as the days grew shorter and colder, and my runs grew longer, I found myself more and more isolated on the streets. The last few night runs in late December, I didn't see another soul.
Nothing like Capital Heights at 11 o'clock on a cold winter's night. Yep, just me and the ghosts.
Thankfully, I ran my final long runs on lovely weekend mornings in January, when people were out and about, mostly taking down their Christmas decorations, dragging their Christmas trees to the road, and setting out their Mardi Gras stuff.
I felt great. I'd trained for so long, but everything had happened like a second-graders dream, except with less dinosaurs. It had almost happened too fast. I ran 27 miles one night in November, with a stomach ache on over-worked legs, just to show myself I could run the marathon during bad conditions. I did a 16 mile run one late night when the temps dipped into the low-20's. The only night the temps dipped into the low-20's...this is South Louisiana.
I was already more than ready for the marathon. I just had to maintain for another three months, stay healthy, and avoid injuries.
Of course, I then got injured.
I had no original plans to run the marathon quickly--slow and steady has been my mantra since birth. I started with a nice-and-easy 5 hour and 45 minute finishing pace, and I kept that into December...until I got bored and realized I could run faster. I started shaving chunks off of my time until I actually got my marathon finishing pace to under five hours. Not bad for a guy nearing 40 who hadn't done much of any physical exercise in 20 years! One night, I was really pushing it, getting my miles down to 11 minutes, when I felt a soreness in my left knee. Better take it easy, I thought.
I toned things down a lot. The marathon was only two weeks away. No reason to go crazy. You're supposed to "taper down" at that point, anyway.
I focused my attentions on watching LSU football try to wash away the evil ghosts of the 1/9/12 National Championship game. They obliterated those ghosts in a title victory, successfully completing arguably the greatest season in college football history, but I already talked about all that. Two things I didn't mention in that piece that will later become pertinent to this Marathon Travelogue, though.
1. Our 5'8" running back, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, after scoring four touchdowns earlier in the year in a cathartic victory against our hated rival, Alabama, was asked how he achieved such a monumental accomplishment against such a towering foe, despite his humble stature. He answered "Throw your heart across the line, and your body will follow."
2. Our quarterback, Joe Burrow, got hit so hard at the end of the first half of the National Championship game against Clemson, he tore cartilage in his ribs. He came back and played the entirety of the second half, throwing two touchdown passes to ensure a 42-25 victory for LSU. I later heard someone else say that after they had torn cartilage in their own ribs, they were in so much pain, they couldn't even bend over to pick up dropped change from the floor.
The Thursday night before the marathon, after all the football celebrating, I decided I'd go on a little four mile run. The marathon was only three days away, Sunday morning.
A half-a-mile into the run, I felt a stabbing pain, like someone was shoving a knife into the side of my left knee. I finished the run, thinking maybe the pain would go away, like a cramp. It only got worse.
At my wife's urging, I went to the doctor the next day. Turns out, I had pes anserine bursitis, a common running injury. The common recommendation is to get a cortisone shot, and then to stay off of the injured knee for several weeks. A cortisone shot can swell your knee up to such a degree that, for at least 48 hours, running is impossible. I told the doctor, "The only way I'm not running in this marathon Sunday is if someone cuts off my legs." Because of the chance of swelling, I told the doctor I didn't want the cortisone shot. He gave me some prednisone tablets and a recommendation to take some ibuprofen, get a knee brace, and stay off my knee as much as possible.
I said I would...after I ran the marathon Sunday.
* * *
I hyper-focused on my knee all day Friday and Saturday. I googled "pes anserine bursitits stretches" and did as many as possible. My knee was killing me. I was walked with a limp. Stairs felt like hell. Tough sledding. I just kept stretching, taking my prednisone, icing my knee, stretching, eating bowls of Fruity Pebbles. I drove to the Cane's Center in downtown Baton Rouge to pick up my running bib, number 757, on my lunch break Friday, and even that felt like work. My son and I went to get haircuts Saturday morning, and I iced my knee on the drive there. I was supposed to be running over 26 miles the next day. Why was this happening?
Of course this is happening. Another dream down the hole.
All that work for nothing. You'll never run a marathon. Two months from now you won't be able to run a mile.
I never allowed myself those thoughts. Instead, I forced myself to watch the first two rounds of Rocky IV with my headphones on again, just like the first time I ran over 13 miles, Tony Burton yelling "No pain!" in my ear again and again. There is no way in hell I'm not running this marathon I thought as a mantra, again and again and again.
Over the last six months, I hadn't just been transforming my body, but my mind. My whole mental philosophy had slowly evolved. Before, growing up, if something bad happened, it was just, oh well, God must be telling me to quit.
Not this time.
I worked my ass off for six months to run a marathon, and by God, on the Sunday of January 19, 2020, I was going to run a marathon. If you really want to do something, you go out and do it.
I set three alarms for Sunday morning, at 5:15, 5:16, and 5:18, to make sure I wouldn't oversleep. My wife and son helped me to go to bed earlier than I usually do on Saturday night (I usually don't really go to bed), and then (as usual), I rolled around in bed and didn't sleep. I nodded off at some point, but then woke up at 2:30. Eventually, I figured I might as well get up. After all, I had so many braces to put on.
Eventually, after showering and getting ready, shaking with anxiety, I kissed my wife goodbye and left. I thought it felt nice outside, maybe in the low 40's, good running weather. I checked in with my sister, who was going to run in the half-marathon (the full and half started and ended at the same point downtown, splitting about 11 miles in...they began at the same time, as well) with her friend, Angelle, and then pulled up at the Galvez parking garage on North Street in downtown Baton Rouge. I quickly ate my usual, very mature pre-run meal of a ham and cheddar Lunchable, half of a Hershey's bar, and a third of a Monster Hyrdo, which I then topped off with water. I also downed a large quantity of painkillers. The race started at 7--it was 6:20.
The garage was filling up with runners who looked like they knew their stuff. I immediately felt like an outsider, though I generally always feel like an outsider, so that's nothing new. Are you reading this feeling like I belong somewhere? If so, let me know where, especially if it's another planet that you have the means to get me to!
Everyone around me looked pretty fit, had their running gear on, had their marathon bibs tacked onto their shirts--thankfully, I had my wife safety pin mine to my sweatshirt the night before, so I wouldn't have to struggle with it right before the marathon. Arisa and Angelle were running a little behind, so I promised to meet them in the back of the runner corral, as I figured I'd be running at a slow, wounded pace, and would rather not have a bunch of hasty folks bumping by me at the start. Or I don't know, maybe I should have gone to the front to get bumped around so I could hulk out. That's something to remember for next time.
Everyone around me looked pretty fit, had their running gear on, had their marathon bibs tacked onto their shirts--thankfully, I had my wife safety pin mine to my sweatshirt the night before, so I wouldn't have to struggle with it right before the marathon. Arisa and Angelle were running a little behind, so I promised to meet them in the back of the runner corral, as I figured I'd be running at a slow, wounded pace, and would rather not have a bunch of hasty folks bumping by me at the start. Or I don't know, maybe I should have gone to the front to get bumped around so I could hulk out. That's something to remember for next time.
I hit the dark streets of downtown Baton Rouge, and got nailed with a 25-mile-an-hour wind gust. Thankfully, the starting area was only a couple blocks away, and I found an empty patch of grass (most people were huddling away from the wind) and started stretching in the sunrise.
There's no check-in at the Louisiana Marathon, as there's a microchip in your bib that activates the moment you cross the starting line. This is the perfect thing to make a paranoid OCD person freakout that they'll run an entire 26.2 miles, only to be told, "Oh, hey, who are you? We don't have any record of you ever running this race. Sorry, no medal for you! And certainly no tinfoil robe!!! You don't exist!"
There's no check-in at the Louisiana Marathon, as there's a microchip in your bib that activates the moment you cross the starting line. This is the perfect thing to make a paranoid OCD person freakout that they'll run an entire 26.2 miles, only to be told, "Oh, hey, who are you? We don't have any record of you ever running this race. Sorry, no medal for you! And certainly no tinfoil robe!!! You don't exist!"
I noticed that, as I had essentially been immobile for the past 48 hours, my entire body felt enormously creaky. My knee at least felt a little better than it had Thursday night. Arisa and Angelle eventually arrived, and we ended up near the back of the runner corral, behind most of the thousands of other runners. Someone sang the National Anthem. I wasn't anticipating that, and just standing still for the National Anthem made me realize how jittery I was, and how much all that jittery moving around was helping--my body felt so stiff as the "...and the home of the brave" faded out, and I started to move around again. Finally, the starting gun fired. I think there was a gun. It's South Louisiana. There was probably a gun.
We stood around for what felt like hours, waiting for the crowd in front of us to disperse across the starting line. We finally gained at least enough space to walk forward. I jokingly asked my sister if we were going to have to walk for the entire race.
Then, suddenly, the crowd fell away before us. I wasn't ready for it. All these months of training, all these minutes of standing here, and all of a sudden, all this empty space to run before me, and a ticking clock above my head. I hit "start" on the Louisiana Marathon App on my phone, so that my family could GPS track me through the race, and broke into a run across the starting line.
What a strange feeling, to work so hard for so long for one moment, to have that moment come.
I told Arisa and Angelle goodbye as we separated--Arisa quickly passed me, and I'm not sure what happened to Angelle, though they both finished the half-marathon respectably. The cold wind pouring between downtown Baton Rouge's few skyscrapers felt great upon my skin, as I immediately started to pass a few stragglers and got passed by a few fast-running late arrivals. All the downtown church bells rang out 7:15 am, and sounded so very, very badass. What a damn moment.
I soon turned the corner out of downtown...
and that's when the cramps hit.
I figured that running full-bore after lying on the couch for two straight days would give me some pretty bad cramps, and these were indeed pretty rough. The first two miles, I felt like I was running through walls of constantly punching fists. But...that's what you prep for. I'd run so many times, and experienced enough cramps to know that if you just keep running, they eventually go away. Somewhere between the second and third mile, my legs felt just fine. Before I knew it, I was running through homebase--past the lakes and onto LSU's campus. I started my first race conversation, with a guy in his 50's who was running the half-marathon. He was curious about Glynn and my dad's crawfish farm. I obliged him for a few minutes, but his pace was a lot slower than what I wanted mine to be, and I was just starting to feel good, so with his encouragement, I left him behind.
I'd predetermined to take a stretch break every hour, going through many of the ones Ashley taught me at boxing, and rather perfectly, my first break came right near Mike the Tiger's enclosure and Tiger Stadium, where hung the new National Champions banner. I did my set of stretches, and for the next hour, felt physically better than I did at any other part of the race. I listened to my podcast, Filmshake(plug!), and realized that Jordan Courtney and I have created the exact show that we would want to listen to. Listening to that, running, feeling great, the Louisiana sky blue, the air clear and cool and brilliant, passing the eastern, cypress-laden side of the LSU lakes that I had run by so many times before during the last several months, I felt a sensation of pure bliss. I finally got to listen to some post-game National Championship podcast stuff, too, and some other podcasts I enjoy, like the wacky 80's movie-centric Good Time Great Movies(friend plug!).
Then, three things happened in quick succession:
1. The half-marathon split away, and the river of runners in my path suddenly turned into a lonely trickle.
2. I met and passed a 64-year-old guy named Don, who was running his first marathon in 30 years. He told me to keep up my pace and he'd see me at the end. I didn't see another runner for 15 minutes.
3. My phone informed me that its battery was rapidly dwindling. I realized that this was likely due to the GPS-tracking function of the marathon app. I had to cease my podcast fun time.Gonna have to get one of those charging cases for the next marathon...or a better phone.
4. The painkillers wore off and my knee lost its bursitis-amnesia.
At this point, I was about 12.5 miles into the race, deep in the heart of Baton Rouge's garden district. The pain hit all at once, like a tsunami of hammering needles, and I realized that no amount of pills would make it go away. Bursitis in my knee, and I'd just run on it for nearly three hours. My pace started to slow considerably.
However, as this happened, I began to notice several runners in front of me, all who were going at paces that were somehow slower than what I was doing...several were even walking. I was happy just to see other people--honestly, I was a little worried that, despite the clearly marked path and police everywhere, I'd gone off course. I mean...bunnytrails are kind of my thing.
Before the 13th mile, I passed a couple of people who'd not only slowed to a walk, but trudged to the side of the road to stop. Those people stopped a thought popped into my head. You've got an actual legitimate injury to excuse you. Just call someone to pick you up. You did your best. This isn't for you. You don't belong here.
My wife had joked around with me months before the race that I was probably going to cry when I crossed the finish line. I cry while watching movies and TV shows all the time, so it happens. I mean, when that Pete's Dragon remake came out a few years ago, a lot of people in the theater were yawning, but I cried the entire film, to the point that my family nearly left me there.
As those quitter thoughts popped into my head, my will, for the first time since I started training nearly sixth months before, since I first started angrily stomping down the sidewalk, started to fade. Then--and this is so sappy, I'm sorry, but this is why I like sports--then, I heard 5'8" Clyde Edwards-Helaire's voice say "Throw your heart across the line, and your body will follow," and saw flashes of him stiff-arming and spinning around linebackers and refusing to go down no matter how much bigger the guys who were trying to tackle him were, and Joe Burrow throwing touchdown passes with torn cartilage in his ribs and talking about how his preparation guaranteed that he would win. I wiped a little tear out of my eye, the only one I shed that day. I threw my heart across the line when I registered for this marathon, and I put in the prep to finish, no matter what. Yes, I cried because of LSU football. I'm from South Louisiana.
I picked up my pace and started running faster. I ran until I passed the 13-mile marker, then another half-mile, stopped to do my hourly stretches, and then started running again.
I met another a guy in his 50's who ran marathons routinely, but who was recovering from a hip replacement, passed him, and kept going. At this point, the pain in my knee was excruciating. Every time my left foot hit the pavement, pain shot through my leg like a lightning bolt.
Around this time, I passed a lot of cheering folks who'd camped out in front of their houses. These folks reminded me of why I love Louisiana: people will find any excuse for a party. The marathon had volunteer-staffed water stations at every mile, which I timed up with my stretch breaks, so that I could get them to fill my Hydro bottle straight from the cooler. The volunteers were great, but I enjoyed the house cheerers a lot, as well...all except the girl who looked like grown up Angelica from Rugrats, who tried to throw glitter at me. Well, first, Angelica tried to make me drink from her bottle of Vodka, then when I said "no," she tried to throw glitter at me. I yelled at her, in my most murderous voice, that I was allergic to glitter, which on a philosophical level is 100% true, and she shrunk away. Eventually, around the 18th mile, I stopped for a very long stretching session, as I was having a hard time bending my left leg. A married couple a few houses down called me over, and I walked to a booth they'd set up. They offered me vodka, too--I don't know what the deal with all the alcohol offers was, as I had no desire to get quickly dehydrated and puke--but I turned that down for a giant slab of strawberry creamcheese kingcake. Boy that kingcake hit the spot.
While I was doing all that stretching and kingcake eating, my hip-replacement recovering buddy had passed me by. I took some TUMS--yes, I packed chewy TUMS for the race--then caught back up with him. Seeing as my knee hurt like hell, I decided to run next to him for a while. Turns out we not only had a lot in common, but he was currently working in mental health counseling, the same field as my wife. The two of us yucked it up, but then I suddenly realized that we'd been talking for a good half hour, while trotting at a very slow pace. I wasn't having a conversation contest, but was running a marathon, and also, the kingcake was kicking in, and also, I'd taken two ibuprofen I'd found in my pocket while I was fishing out the TUMS, and could feel just a little numbness in my knee. I told my buddy, "Hey, I've got to pick it up, I'll see you at the end," and took off.
After those two very slow miles, the next two kingcake-and-ibuprofen-fueled miles were probably my fastest of the race. At one point, across the street from the Main Branch of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, my sister--who'd finished the half marathon earlier-- her family, and my mom cheered me on. My mom tried to chase after me with a string cheese for some reason, which gave me a good laugh, but I waved her off. I couldn't slow down. I didn't know how long this nearly pain-free burst of energy would last.
Turns out, it lasted until right about the 22nd mile. That's when the ibuprofen suddenly and shockingly wore off, the energy from the kingcake wore out, and someone stuck a broadsword into the side of my knee. Thankfully, my wife and son were waiting for me at the 22nd mile marker. After a quick pep talk and some photos, I did my last set of stretches, and told them I'd see them at the finish line.
Seeing them gave me a little boost, and I got back on the path. I snacked on the last of the Cliff Energy Bloks my wife had packed for me, made it to mile 23...and then all manner of hurt descended upon me.
I started praying for strength. My mouth dried out completely, I ran out of water, and yet somehow--and this is my only knock on the entire marathon organization--there were no more water stations. I started thinking about Sam and tried to draw strength from that, but really, that just gave me some laughs. I started talking to him, thinking of how he would never be out there running a marathon. Sam was a big guy who didn't get a lot of exercise. Sometimes he'd tell me "I need to start getting more active," and he'd go for a walk with me, only to light up a cigarette a few minutes in. I'd side-eye him, which would generally earn me a "Hey, I'm just enjoying the walk." All I could picture was him sitting in a chair, tipping back a glass, and laughing hysterically at me, while I limped-ran these last three miles out of 26. Sam, you son of a bitch. I miss you. You were the best.
In the end, I was able to draw on my most precious fuel for those final three miles: hatred. Let me just say, I love the original Star Wars trilogy, but those Jedi have it all wrong. You shouldn't just abolish or ignore or attempt to never ever have any hate. Your hatred is a powerful tool, when you use it as a driver to do something positive. Though the issues with my knee were enough to piss me off, I pulled up Twitter on my phone, and got into an argument with some Alabama fans. It was gloriously awful, and gave me some excellent "I'll show you!" power, swearing constantly under my breath as my legs kept churning, no matter the pain.
I'd finally decided to put on some music for inspiration, too, an album I'd timed perfectly to where the most powerful moment would hit just as I crossed the apex of the North Boulevard overpass, often called the most difficult and glorious moment of the race, as it's a steep and long incline a little more than a mile before the finish line, that gives a spectacular view of the mile-distant downtown.
Rather fittingly, the music, just as it was about to reach its climax, just as I was about the reach the overpass' apex, stopped, as my phone finally died. This was actually the best possible outcome, as by this moment, my knee felt like it was being both drowned in a vat of fire ants and repeatedly hit with a sledgehammer. I needed just a little bit more hate to get through that final mile, and a "Well, fuck you, phone!!!" was as pure a hatred as possible.
I caught up to a young woman whose mother and three children were waiting for her at the finish line and we made the turn onto the last downtown street together, a full 90-minutes behind my usual finishing pace. A group of folks lining the streets cheered us on the last half-mile. People cheering has never really helped me at anything. Maybe that's because my last name rhymes with boo, and anytime I did anything good at a sporting event growing up, I thought I was being heckled.
As I neared the end and heard the pumping DJ speakers of the finishing booth, I was provided with the last bit of hatred energy I needed, as I realized with a horror that the song that would be playing as I crossed the finish line of my first marathon would be Avicii's 2013 folktronica hit, "Wake Me Up."
My sister said she got "Born to Run." You've got to be kidding me.
My wife cheered me across the line, and before I knew it, a marathon representative was putting a medal around my neck...and a tinfoil robe around my shoulders!
I had done it!
I had received my robe of tinfoil!
I was a champion!
Pes anserine bursitis be damned!
I limped over to the curb in front of the towering Louisiana capitol building (have I ever mentioned it's the biggest one?), and my wife and son and mom and sister and her family (with Angelle) came over, as well. They'd made me some pretty awesome signs, and there were some requests for pictures, but I just wanted to sit for awhile.
Eventually, I got back my powers of standing.
You can see my tinfoil robe balled up in my niece's stroller...it wasn't as comfortable as it looked in the textbook.
Thanks to my wife for putting up with me running for approximately 500 hours a week for the last six months.
I went into the little Marathon vendor village, finally got that obnoxious bumper sticker I'd always wanted almost as much as the tinfoil robe, bought the awesome art print for the race, and turned down a lot of beer, as I didn't much want to get a raging headache. All I wanted to drink for the time being was water. I bid everyone goodbye, told my wife and son I'd meet them at home, and then did what I always do when I finish a long run.
I went to McDonalds and got a quarter-pounder with cheese combo. They use real beef on those suckers now. Before they were using ground-up frog tongue mash. I got my wife one, too, this time, as it was two in the afternoon instead of two in the morning, and we had a McFeast(tm). I drank seven or eight bottles of water, then I took a shower, laid in bed, and watched NFL conference championships for most of the rest of the day. I hauled myself out of bed to pick up my kid from a birthday party later that day, grabbed a footlong coney and a bacon breakfast toaster sandwich from Sonic and ate them in two bites, then promptly collapsed back into bed and drifted into the nether-realms, with some really deep thoughts on my mind...
Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start
They tell me I'm too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost
I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
I hope I get the chance to travel the world
And I don't have any plans
I wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life's a game made for everyone
And love is a prize
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
I slept really hard and woke up at some point close to lunch. Jon, who lives in New Orleans now, but has also lived in pretty much every other place in the U.S. not called New Orleans since we took that walk to Baton Rouge almost 15 years ago, called me up, and we went to lunch and ordered Fajitas for 16 people.
Jon was on a diet, and even though he'd decided to break it for this meal, he couldn't get too deep into the platter without getting full...which is fine because it's been nearly a week since I ran that marathon, and I'm still hungry.
My knee is...jacked.
Like messed up, not heavily muscled.
Two days after the race, I walked with a heavy limp, and nearly a weak later, I still can't go up or down stairs. Still...it feels like the bursitis is slowly leaving. I'm going to start boxing again in a couple of weeks. My blood pressure isn't going to stay down all by itself.
October will be here before you know it. I realize now that I can get into marathon shape in three months. October is when I'll start training for the 2021 race. At least I've got a great chance to beat my current personal best. Next January will be tough to beat in terms of personal goals and personal interests peaking at the same time, however.
I'm looking forward to it, though. Baton Rouge is starting to feel like home. I'm slowly starting to build up traditions here, the marathon included. I'm starting to see how the 10's actually did lead to positive outcomes for my life. I'm starting to see how the 20's might just be 100X better. Who knows, I might even make some new friends. I'll never forget the old ones, though.
We stood around for what felt like hours, waiting for the crowd in front of us to disperse across the starting line. We finally gained at least enough space to walk forward. I jokingly asked my sister if we were going to have to walk for the entire race.
So...I guess I'll just stand through this marathon?
Then, suddenly, the crowd fell away before us. I wasn't ready for it. All these months of training, all these minutes of standing here, and all of a sudden, all this empty space to run before me, and a ticking clock above my head. I hit "start" on the Louisiana Marathon App on my phone, so that my family could GPS track me through the race, and broke into a run across the starting line.
* * *
What a strange feeling, to work so hard for so long for one moment, to have that moment come.
I told Arisa and Angelle goodbye as we separated--Arisa quickly passed me, and I'm not sure what happened to Angelle, though they both finished the half-marathon respectably. The cold wind pouring between downtown Baton Rouge's few skyscrapers felt great upon my skin, as I immediately started to pass a few stragglers and got passed by a few fast-running late arrivals. All the downtown church bells rang out 7:15 am, and sounded so very, very badass. What a damn moment.
I soon turned the corner out of downtown...
and that's when the cramps hit.
I figured that running full-bore after lying on the couch for two straight days would give me some pretty bad cramps, and these were indeed pretty rough. The first two miles, I felt like I was running through walls of constantly punching fists. But...that's what you prep for. I'd run so many times, and experienced enough cramps to know that if you just keep running, they eventually go away. Somewhere between the second and third mile, my legs felt just fine. Before I knew it, I was running through homebase--past the lakes and onto LSU's campus. I started my first race conversation, with a guy in his 50's who was running the half-marathon. He was curious about Glynn and my dad's crawfish farm. I obliged him for a few minutes, but his pace was a lot slower than what I wanted mine to be, and I was just starting to feel good, so with his encouragement, I left him behind.
I'd predetermined to take a stretch break every hour, going through many of the ones Ashley taught me at boxing, and rather perfectly, my first break came right near Mike the Tiger's enclosure and Tiger Stadium, where hung the new National Champions banner. I did my set of stretches, and for the next hour, felt physically better than I did at any other part of the race. I listened to my podcast, Filmshake(plug!), and realized that Jordan Courtney and I have created the exact show that we would want to listen to. Listening to that, running, feeling great, the Louisiana sky blue, the air clear and cool and brilliant, passing the eastern, cypress-laden side of the LSU lakes that I had run by so many times before during the last several months, I felt a sensation of pure bliss. I finally got to listen to some post-game National Championship podcast stuff, too, and some other podcasts I enjoy, like the wacky 80's movie-centric Good Time Great Movies(friend plug!).
Running strong.
1. The half-marathon split away, and the river of runners in my path suddenly turned into a lonely trickle.
2. I met and passed a 64-year-old guy named Don, who was running his first marathon in 30 years. He told me to keep up my pace and he'd see me at the end. I didn't see another runner for 15 minutes.
3. My phone informed me that its battery was rapidly dwindling. I realized that this was likely due to the GPS-tracking function of the marathon app. I had to cease my podcast fun time.Gonna have to get one of those charging cases for the next marathon...or a better phone.
4. The painkillers wore off and my knee lost its bursitis-amnesia.
At this point, I was about 12.5 miles into the race, deep in the heart of Baton Rouge's garden district. The pain hit all at once, like a tsunami of hammering needles, and I realized that no amount of pills would make it go away. Bursitis in my knee, and I'd just run on it for nearly three hours. My pace started to slow considerably.
However, as this happened, I began to notice several runners in front of me, all who were going at paces that were somehow slower than what I was doing...several were even walking. I was happy just to see other people--honestly, I was a little worried that, despite the clearly marked path and police everywhere, I'd gone off course. I mean...bunnytrails are kind of my thing.
Before the 13th mile, I passed a couple of people who'd not only slowed to a walk, but trudged to the side of the road to stop. Those people stopped a thought popped into my head. You've got an actual legitimate injury to excuse you. Just call someone to pick you up. You did your best. This isn't for you. You don't belong here.
My wife had joked around with me months before the race that I was probably going to cry when I crossed the finish line. I cry while watching movies and TV shows all the time, so it happens. I mean, when that Pete's Dragon remake came out a few years ago, a lot of people in the theater were yawning, but I cried the entire film, to the point that my family nearly left me there.
As those quitter thoughts popped into my head, my will, for the first time since I started training nearly sixth months before, since I first started angrily stomping down the sidewalk, started to fade. Then--and this is so sappy, I'm sorry, but this is why I like sports--then, I heard 5'8" Clyde Edwards-Helaire's voice say "Throw your heart across the line, and your body will follow," and saw flashes of him stiff-arming and spinning around linebackers and refusing to go down no matter how much bigger the guys who were trying to tackle him were, and Joe Burrow throwing touchdown passes with torn cartilage in his ribs and talking about how his preparation guaranteed that he would win. I wiped a little tear out of my eye, the only one I shed that day. I threw my heart across the line when I registered for this marathon, and I put in the prep to finish, no matter what. Yes, I cried because of LSU football. I'm from South Louisiana.
I picked up my pace and started running faster. I ran until I passed the 13-mile marker, then another half-mile, stopped to do my hourly stretches, and then started running again.
I met another a guy in his 50's who ran marathons routinely, but who was recovering from a hip replacement, passed him, and kept going. At this point, the pain in my knee was excruciating. Every time my left foot hit the pavement, pain shot through my leg like a lightning bolt.
Feeling the pain.
Around this time, I passed a lot of cheering folks who'd camped out in front of their houses. These folks reminded me of why I love Louisiana: people will find any excuse for a party. The marathon had volunteer-staffed water stations at every mile, which I timed up with my stretch breaks, so that I could get them to fill my Hydro bottle straight from the cooler. The volunteers were great, but I enjoyed the house cheerers a lot, as well...all except the girl who looked like grown up Angelica from Rugrats, who tried to throw glitter at me. Well, first, Angelica tried to make me drink from her bottle of Vodka, then when I said "no," she tried to throw glitter at me. I yelled at her, in my most murderous voice, that I was allergic to glitter, which on a philosophical level is 100% true, and she shrunk away. Eventually, around the 18th mile, I stopped for a very long stretching session, as I was having a hard time bending my left leg. A married couple a few houses down called me over, and I walked to a booth they'd set up. They offered me vodka, too--I don't know what the deal with all the alcohol offers was, as I had no desire to get quickly dehydrated and puke--but I turned that down for a giant slab of strawberry creamcheese kingcake. Boy that kingcake hit the spot.
While I was doing all that stretching and kingcake eating, my hip-replacement recovering buddy had passed me by. I took some TUMS--yes, I packed chewy TUMS for the race--then caught back up with him. Seeing as my knee hurt like hell, I decided to run next to him for a while. Turns out we not only had a lot in common, but he was currently working in mental health counseling, the same field as my wife. The two of us yucked it up, but then I suddenly realized that we'd been talking for a good half hour, while trotting at a very slow pace. I wasn't having a conversation contest, but was running a marathon, and also, the kingcake was kicking in, and also, I'd taken two ibuprofen I'd found in my pocket while I was fishing out the TUMS, and could feel just a little numbness in my knee. I told my buddy, "Hey, I've got to pick it up, I'll see you at the end," and took off.
After those two very slow miles, the next two kingcake-and-ibuprofen-fueled miles were probably my fastest of the race. At one point, across the street from the Main Branch of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, my sister--who'd finished the half marathon earlier-- her family, and my mom cheered me on. My mom tried to chase after me with a string cheese for some reason, which gave me a good laugh, but I waved her off. I couldn't slow down. I didn't know how long this nearly pain-free burst of energy would last.
Turns out, it lasted until right about the 22nd mile. That's when the ibuprofen suddenly and shockingly wore off, the energy from the kingcake wore out, and someone stuck a broadsword into the side of my knee. Thankfully, my wife and son were waiting for me at the 22nd mile marker. After a quick pep talk and some photos, I did my last set of stretches, and told them I'd see them at the finish line.
4.2 miles to go.
"Take a selfie with you? Bah, I guess so."
Seeing them gave me a little boost, and I got back on the path. I snacked on the last of the Cliff Energy Bloks my wife had packed for me, made it to mile 23...and then all manner of hurt descended upon me.
I started praying for strength. My mouth dried out completely, I ran out of water, and yet somehow--and this is my only knock on the entire marathon organization--there were no more water stations. I started thinking about Sam and tried to draw strength from that, but really, that just gave me some laughs. I started talking to him, thinking of how he would never be out there running a marathon. Sam was a big guy who didn't get a lot of exercise. Sometimes he'd tell me "I need to start getting more active," and he'd go for a walk with me, only to light up a cigarette a few minutes in. I'd side-eye him, which would generally earn me a "Hey, I'm just enjoying the walk." All I could picture was him sitting in a chair, tipping back a glass, and laughing hysterically at me, while I limped-ran these last three miles out of 26. Sam, you son of a bitch. I miss you. You were the best.
In the end, I was able to draw on my most precious fuel for those final three miles: hatred. Let me just say, I love the original Star Wars trilogy, but those Jedi have it all wrong. You shouldn't just abolish or ignore or attempt to never ever have any hate. Your hatred is a powerful tool, when you use it as a driver to do something positive. Though the issues with my knee were enough to piss me off, I pulled up Twitter on my phone, and got into an argument with some Alabama fans. It was gloriously awful, and gave me some excellent "I'll show you!" power, swearing constantly under my breath as my legs kept churning, no matter the pain.
I'd finally decided to put on some music for inspiration, too, an album I'd timed perfectly to where the most powerful moment would hit just as I crossed the apex of the North Boulevard overpass, often called the most difficult and glorious moment of the race, as it's a steep and long incline a little more than a mile before the finish line, that gives a spectacular view of the mile-distant downtown.
Rather fittingly, the music, just as it was about to reach its climax, just as I was about the reach the overpass' apex, stopped, as my phone finally died. This was actually the best possible outcome, as by this moment, my knee felt like it was being both drowned in a vat of fire ants and repeatedly hit with a sledgehammer. I needed just a little bit more hate to get through that final mile, and a "Well, fuck you, phone!!!" was as pure a hatred as possible.
I caught up to a young woman whose mother and three children were waiting for her at the finish line and we made the turn onto the last downtown street together, a full 90-minutes behind my usual finishing pace. A group of folks lining the streets cheered us on the last half-mile. People cheering has never really helped me at anything. Maybe that's because my last name rhymes with boo, and anytime I did anything good at a sporting event growing up, I thought I was being heckled.
As I neared the end and heard the pumping DJ speakers of the finishing booth, I was provided with the last bit of hatred energy I needed, as I realized with a horror that the song that would be playing as I crossed the finish line of my first marathon would be Avicii's 2013 folktronica hit, "Wake Me Up."
My sister said she got "Born to Run." You've got to be kidding me.
My wife cheered me across the line, and before I knew it, a marathon representative was putting a medal around my neck...and a tinfoil robe around my shoulders!
I had done it!
I had received my robe of tinfoil!
I was a champion!
Pes anserine bursitis be damned!
I limped over to the curb in front of the towering Louisiana capitol building (have I ever mentioned it's the biggest one?), and my wife and son and mom and sister and her family (with Angelle) came over, as well. They'd made me some pretty awesome signs, and there were some requests for pictures, but I just wanted to sit for awhile.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I'm too busy wearing a tinfoil robe.
Eventually, I got back my powers of standing.
You can see my tinfoil robe balled up in my niece's stroller...it wasn't as comfortable as it looked in the textbook.
Thanks to my wife for putting up with me running for approximately 500 hours a week for the last six months.
I went into the little Marathon vendor village, finally got that obnoxious bumper sticker I'd always wanted almost as much as the tinfoil robe, bought the awesome art print for the race, and turned down a lot of beer, as I didn't much want to get a raging headache. All I wanted to drink for the time being was water. I bid everyone goodbye, told my wife and son I'd meet them at home, and then did what I always do when I finish a long run.
I went to McDonalds and got a quarter-pounder with cheese combo. They use real beef on those suckers now. Before they were using ground-up frog tongue mash. I got my wife one, too, this time, as it was two in the afternoon instead of two in the morning, and we had a McFeast(tm). I drank seven or eight bottles of water, then I took a shower, laid in bed, and watched NFL conference championships for most of the rest of the day. I hauled myself out of bed to pick up my kid from a birthday party later that day, grabbed a footlong coney and a bacon breakfast toaster sandwich from Sonic and ate them in two bites, then promptly collapsed back into bed and drifted into the nether-realms, with some really deep thoughts on my mind...
Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start
They tell me I'm too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost
I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
I hope I get the chance to travel the world
And I don't have any plans
I wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life's a game made for everyone
And love is a prize
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
I slept really hard and woke up at some point close to lunch. Jon, who lives in New Orleans now, but has also lived in pretty much every other place in the U.S. not called New Orleans since we took that walk to Baton Rouge almost 15 years ago, called me up, and we went to lunch and ordered Fajitas for 16 people.
I think we need a bigger table.
Jon was on a diet, and even though he'd decided to break it for this meal, he couldn't get too deep into the platter without getting full...which is fine because it's been nearly a week since I ran that marathon, and I'm still hungry.
My knee is...jacked.
Like messed up, not heavily muscled.
Two days after the race, I walked with a heavy limp, and nearly a weak later, I still can't go up or down stairs. Still...it feels like the bursitis is slowly leaving. I'm going to start boxing again in a couple of weeks. My blood pressure isn't going to stay down all by itself.
October will be here before you know it. I realize now that I can get into marathon shape in three months. October is when I'll start training for the 2021 race. At least I've got a great chance to beat my current personal best. Next January will be tough to beat in terms of personal goals and personal interests peaking at the same time, however.
It's so beautiful!!!
I'm looking forward to it, though. Baton Rouge is starting to feel like home. I'm slowly starting to build up traditions here, the marathon included. I'm starting to see how the 10's actually did lead to positive outcomes for my life. I'm starting to see how the 20's might just be 100X better. Who knows, I might even make some new friends. I'll never forget the old ones, though.
Comments
Wow!
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