I noticed that the "postings" on our blog have gotten a little thin, quite possibly due to the trauma of this past summers events. It just so happens that I do have something of interest to share. I participated in the Rochester 1/2 Marathon held this past Sunday along with our nephew Bernie Klos. I already shared "my adventure" with Sam and she encouraged me to post it for the rest of us to share.
As many may already know, I have taken up running about two years ago and it started when I saw both Abby and Alex participate in X-country and Track. I figured it would be intersting to see how running felt in a middle-aged body ( thats right, middle-aged body..what, what are YOU all going to say?!) I quickly realized that running is a full contact sport; I came into "full contact" with how diminished my physical powers were compared to my memories of running as a child! Running if pursued seriously makes working out at a gym seem easy. I have since ran in about 6 5k races which are 3.1 miles. Even though these are "long distance" events they are generally the shortest of long races and hence are run rather quickly.
While at Bernie's funeral I was talking to Bernie Klos and he happened to mention running in the Rochester 1/2 Marathon. He recounted that he was planning on it but once he heard the news of his uncle's death and that it coincided with Bernie's B-day he knew that he "just had to run it now." Right then I made the decision that I too would join him. This was an interesting challenge to me because the differnce in length of a 5k compared to a 1/2 marathon is more than 4x, the 1/2 is 13.1 miles. Normally runners build up to a longer race but I felt that I had motivation enough.... do it for Bernie. It turns out that Bernie was a runner himself. Sam related that he ran in the spring and summer for the past 4 years and he did it at the urging of Sam to get in shape. It is amazing what people do for love!
Well that is the framework for the tale I will recount now, and it does have a happy ending too. About a week before the race I reconnected with a buddy who is virtualy impossible to pin down; I tried unsuccesfully for about 5 years! He invited me and my family to visit him at his home on Duck lake, this is a beautiful lake situated between Rochester and Syracuse north of Rt.104. I concocted a plan to visit him with my son Alex on Saturday and spend the night; "The best made plans of mice and man". My host had invited us because he was having a get-together with several buddies and to enjoy what little of summer we had left. Long story short: when the last of the guests left we had dinner by 10:15 pm and went to bed at 12 pm. These are not ideal conditions to launch into uncharted running waters much less a race in general. We awoke Sunday morning at 5:30am as planned. My host assured us that it would take roughly an hour to get to Rochester, unfortunately being in a strange location and home has its own challenges; we left later than our intended 6am and also discovered that the trip to the city took closer to an hour and a half! At his point my ever-growing teeage son was fast asleep while I was participating in my own "Pre 1/2 marathon race" racing to get to the race. Brother Bernie and I must share some of the same genetics because this is all to familar. It gets more convoluted.
Ultimately I missed the start-time by a mere 31 minutes. A very fast 5k race can be completed in about 15 minutes to give some racing perspective. When I checked in at Frontier field for the race and subsequently came in contact with several volunteers, no one bothered to state the obvious, such non-statements I have learned from past experiences usually only accompany REALLY BIG screw-ups! It's as if I was waging my own personal battle of "shock and Awe"; the onlookers were too shocked or polite to remind me that there would be no visible competitors for me to see at the start-line. I was accompanied by Alex to the starting line located on Andrew's St. (How appropriate). At exactly 8:16 Alex announced "Go" and I began my lonely vigil down the street. At this point the only thing that kept me "in the race" and not conceding to the foolishness of starting all alone and with no directions!, was the knowledge that Bernie Klos was already out there and that I was running this in memory of Brother Bernie who in a much different sense was also already "out there". Biblicaly speaking he had run well the hard race set before him and now enjoys the crown of life. Undoubtly he has a much better body now than I have! (Look it up!)
As I ran along I didn't have the benefit of seeing a well mapped out course route since all the officals and spectators, etc. had long moved on. I only had a vague sense of the course and was aided a lot by evidence of the race; there were numerous shirts abandonded and scattered along the route which slowly became less as I traveled on. I stopped several times to ask the few people I did see if they saw the race. Eventually I did come upon a course offical who handed me a map. Around mile 4 or 5 I came upon the "walkers" of this event and from there on it was easy. I got to pass them all one by one. Around mile 8 the first of the Marathoners (26.2 miles) glided past me. This was to be expected since they started at 7:30am and many are much faster than I. In many ways this race was actually easier than a 5k because my main goal was simple-finish the race; as such, I found a comfortable pace and stuck to it, even allowing for a bathroom break, stops for stretching, and stops for water/gatorade. In all I probably spent 10 minutes not running. I finished the race minus the "rest times" in 2 hours and 10 minutes.
The Post-race events were pretty sweet. The runners section included many goodies such as all the food one could eat of pizza, chocolate milk, oranges, bannanas, bagels, gatorade, etc.. If you run like a kid you may as well eat like one and I did. There were professional massues there who gave massages on the spot. They worked my tired legs over for about 15 minutes and then I moved over to the next tent and had a chair massage for another 10 minutes. This was all accompanied with a live band. Finally we left and sometime that day I had the catch-up sleep I missed from the night before and the workout of that morning. I may well try another 1/2 marathon but this time I'd like to do it under different circumstances and perhaps with some caffeine too.
Post Script:
At a X-country meet this week Alex identified one of the coaches there as a 1/2 marathoner in my race. I had to say something to him. It turns out that he came in 2nd and his traveling buddy took 1st out of a field of about 1600 runners. This was impressive I thought but then he asked me if I wanted to hear something funny. It turns out that both of them had to take a last minute "pit stop" in the bathroom prior to the race and both missed the start by 45 seconds! This is all starting sound strangely familar...... I guess the lesson to be learned from all of this is it doesn't matter when one starts or even how long one runs just as long as one enjoys the trip and finishes their race well. Well done Bow, see you at the finish line!
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