[This article was contributed by Roy Carlisle]
Monday, Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 Marin Memorial Day 5K / Kentfield, CA
Jack Mingo / Bib 846 / Time: 26:17 / Pace: 8:28 min/mile
Lindsay Boyd / Bib 717 / Time: 26:17 / Pace: 8:28 min/mile
Kim Spinale / Bib 809 / Time: 34:44 / Pace: 11:11 min/mile
Roy M Carlisle / Bib 719 / Time: 34:43 / Pace: 11:10 min/mile
What? A 30% chance of rain in Marin County on Monday morning, Memorial Day. In the East Bay we had been having exquisite weather, sunny warm days and perfect running weather. So the micro-climates of the Bay Area really do exist. I knew that, of course, but it is usually not quite so dramatic. Or, at least, you had to go east through the tunnel to the other side of the hills, or all the way down to the South Bay, or even over to the avenues in SF where all of the fog gathered, to experience them. That evening I mentioned to Kim that I would need to rethink my running gear and maybe even change my pre-race rituals to prepare for a change in the weather. She laughed. Many runners do have these pre-race rituals but mine are actually required because my brain does not engage in the morning. At all. So running togs have to be laid out exactly in the way I will put them on, then stop watch, Spibelt, bib, pins, registration docs, protein bar, phone, other items, all packed correctly so nothing is forgotten. If I don’t do this then it really does make me an anxious runner and I don’t need that since I don’t want to be up in the early morning anyway! These rituals would make more sense, of course, if I were an elite runner and a world class time was on the line. But that is far from the case. And I admit I am a little extreme about this set of rituals. The night before a race I turn off my phone, I neglect all electronic buzzing, don’t email, and go to bed hours before my usual time. And I keep up this fast for the whole day of the race. Usually I am napping anyway but still, it is a nice change of pace. It works for me even if I am not an elite runner and I am sticking to it!
So I woke up, put on clothes, gathered my prepacked bag, mumbled to my running comrades and tried to be civil, well barely. Eventually Jack pulled me out of that mood because he has no inhibitions about morning conversation. At first I ignored him but we have been doing these races for almost 14 years so he ignores my ignoring him. Of course, Kim and Lindsay are morning people; both of them are often up by 5am every morning, so they entered right into this gabfest. What could I do? I am glad to be with my friends and I am glad to be doing the race, well, I would be more glad if it were at a decent hour, like 11am.
I honestly don’t remember what was talked about in the car on the drive to Marin County at 7am. Another symptom of Morning Void. But we parked, made adjustments to running togs because of the weather and walked a few blocks to the registration tables. We picked up our bibs, helped each other pin them on, and then walked to the College of Marin track just to prepare ourselves for the finish by having a fresh image of that track in our minds. I found my voice when I saw that they had removed all of the bleachers and there would be no crowd to cheer us on. I even talked to another person and asked what had happened. She didn’t know. Why would they do this to us? Didn’t they know that we looked forward to having a crowd when no other race in the bay area finished on a track filled with cheering fans in the bleachers. It was a betrayal of all that is good in the world. Well, it felt like that at 7:30 am on a cloudy cool race morning.
Since February I had been trying to “rehabilitate” my lungs after my second bout with pneumonia. It was a short bout but it really knocked my endurance back to the Pleistocene age (right after the Pliocene age and before the Holocene age) and it was frustrating. For the whole past week I had been working out and running with Jack, Kim, and Lindsay, and I could not keep up with them. It made me mad and frustrated, simultaneously. I tried to calm myself by a squawky inner dialogue about how I needed time, and I was getting older, and I was facing this head-on, and this was my only injury, but in a race that inner dialogue just sounds like pissing and moaning, subsets of all out Bitching. Which is, of course, one of the more important skills that one has to learn when entering the world of long distance running. But after several years I had moved past it and was trying not to reinflate that inclination. So periodically I would mention that even running slow made my lungs burn and left it at that.
Oh wait; there is one more thing I have to bitch about. My Garmin GPS had died a few weeks before this race and so I had no way of knowing my pace or distance. Unfortunately, I am not like many runners who have an innate sense of those two metrics. So without a GPS I am flying (well, jogging) blind and that pisses me off also. This was made very clear after the gun boomed (which startled us even though we knew it was coming!) for the start of the race.
Kim and I have been running together to provide mutual encouragement but Jack and Lindsay had been training to maintain a much faster pace than Kim and I can muster at this point. Kim and I headed out, slowly I thought, and I asked her if she saw them ahead of us? Which normally is where they should have been. But Kim heard them behind us talking about their pace. They were talking about running an 8:30 pace and maybe they should slow down to an 8:45 min/mile pace. It took me a few seconds to realize that it meant Kim and I were running too fast and didn’t even quite know it. Blame it on sans GPS. Oh, how I would like to give Garmin a piece of mind for selling me a model of a GPS that lasted a few months and then died, cold, no warning, just dead. But we kept going and tried to slow down but that is hard to do when you have all of these runners sloshing adrenaline all over the course and you want to be in the middle of it. Jack and Lindsay finally took off; I watched them go and wished them well. I knew they were going to push each other and that made me glad because it does make a race more interesting when you are running with a buddy and you are helping each other keep the faith.
Eventually I had to walk. Usually I try to judge what Kim needs but today I was busted early and needed to walk in order to get back to some semblance of a maintenance pace. We walked for a few seconds and started back up, but as it turned out we had to do that about four times in order to catch our breath and slow down. It really is harder to slow down during a race than non-runners could imagine. Soon we saw the lead runners coming back at us, as the course did a U-turn. Watching the faster runners go for broke usually inspires me but today I was not even in the mood for that.
What did catch my attention during the course was that there were a couple of very young boys running with their parents and doing a great job. After we had passed the 2 mile mark we noticed one small boy who was running with his mother and the father was pushing a stroller and they were slightly ahead of us. I lost track of them but I imagine they stayed ahead of us. There was also another small boy with his father, and we passed them when they were walking but the last time I saw them they were quite a bit ahead of us. That also made me smile. Clearly this young boy was a gutsy runner. And I swear he could not have been older than 6 or 7. I remarked to Kim that it made me happy that he was doing so well. Sometimes I do remember how glad I am that so many people enter these races and have so much fun participating and competing. It short circuits my bitching mode.
Although I should not have been surprised at how exhausted I was toward the end of the course, I did reluctantly admit to myself (and to Kim) that I usually have more juice left at the end of the race. Before we arrived at the track, Kim and I had a discussion (well, in between my gasping for air) about how we were going to finish up. Were we going to stick together all the way to the finish, or were we going to find our own pace on the track? Eventually she put her foot down (so to speak) and said I should do what I wanted to do. (As you can see from the attached video I was struggling even when we got on the track.) It was hard to imagine sprinting for more than a couple of yards. I did, but I did not have my usual energy to ramp up my pace once we hit the track and then leap up to a faster push. Frankly, it was a pathetic sprint. For a split second I was glad there were no fans in bleachers. We did beat our time from the Zippy 5K race in March. We embraced our small increment of success. And we were glad for it.
Kim and Roy at the final dash to the finish line.
A NOTE FROM JACK ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE EVEN BEYOND THE RACE
To me, the story of Memorial Day morning was about breakthroughs, comebacks and the weeks before the run. Lindsay doing so well with her first road race. Kim increasing her speed and abilities. You (Roy) working on reclaiming your lungs. Me, breaking 9:00 miles for the first time in a few years. The story of this race is largely that of training and encouragement during the weeks before. A lot of that training was the result of you being a team leader, cajoling the lot of us to get together and train to the best of our abilities, to team up in friendship and even friendly competition to get better prepared for this race. For example, I doubt Kim would be running without your encouragement. Lindsay would still be on a treadmill at her health club. Without Lindsay and I pushing each other faster, I suspect I'd still have broken 9 minutes, but probably with a speed about 8:50 not 8:28. And without our every Sunday afternoon six mile run around Bay Farm, even through the months when I'd pretty much stopped running the rest of the week, I would've been in much worse shape and worse position toward reclaiming some of my old speed.
So this is a story of personal tests and triumphs, but also of teamwork and synergy. And you could be forgiven for taking a little pride in print about having a hand in that happening for all of us.
Lindsay, Roy, Jack, and Kim, very glad it was over! (Okay, this is embarrassing; I tucked my new race tee shirt between my legs for this photo. Well, I could hardly throw it on the ground!)
A NOTE FROM KIM ABOUT HER EXPERIENCE
My sense of success is much more internal. I don't care that much what the clock says or whether I showed an impressive finish. Sure, it's encouraging to see that I beat my last 5K by some increment of time and it was fun to hear my name announced to the dwindling crowd as I sprinted over the finish line. But there are two things that really keep me running. The first is simply my physical well being. My finish times are not particularly impressive, but I feel stronger and know my body is capable of something that used to intimidate me. I love pushing myself to run when I really want to walk. I love that I no longer wheeze after running and take that as a tangible sign of improved health. And I love hearing someone refer to me as "active," when that wasn't always the case.
But if I feel the first reason in my body, the second is always in my heart. I think of Joe* when I run, and how surprised and pleased he'd be to see that I've taken up his sport. I think of Gina** and being able to run with her the next time we're together. She'll need to slow down of course, but I look forward to her encouragement as an outward sign of our familial bond. And I am happy to be running with my new circle of friends, Roy, Jack, and most recently Lindsay. I enjoyed our breakfast out after the run as much if not more than the run itself. But, of course, I couldn't have enjoyed it half so much, had it not been earned.
*Joe was Kim’s beloved husband, who died of a heart condition at the finish of the Bay to Breakers in May, 2007.
**Gina is Joe’s daughter and Kim’s lovely stepdaughter, who recently completed a half marathon and lives in North Carolina.
