Mercedes Marathon... Number 2

This was written sometime during early February 2007 after I ran the Mercedes Marathon. Don’t remember what I wrote and I don’t plan on reading it in case I feel like embellishing anything. So please forgive me if there is a lack of flow or poor grammar…

The alarm went off at 5:00 AM this morning. I rolled out of bed and looked down at my phone (the alarm). With great joy I saw that there was a snooze button that prompted a warning that it would sound again in 9 minutes.
"Well good enough for me!" I thought to myself while pushing the button and jumping back into the bed.

The second time the alarm went off I forced myself out of bed, turned off the alarm and headed for the shower. This was my second night at my brother and his wife's home in Birmingham, AL. It's a house fitting two hard working doctors.
We decided that our departure time would be 5:45 today, so we could find our way to the start line of the marathon. Our actual departure time turned out to be around 5:50, which I'll take as a schedule victory.

Having a partially type-A personality helped, as I had already set out everything I would wear today, and prepared all my equipment. While suiting up this morning, strapping on my Ipod and putting on my clothes I wondered what everyone else was doing to prepare for their big day.

Were they getting breakfast and talking to other runners about past marathons at the hotels? Were they from Birmingham, and just waking up to a fresh pot of coffee? I know, why am I thinking about this, when I have a run to do in less than 2 hours.
The days leading up to this weekend were just your average days. Even Saturday was just another Saturday, except I was visiting my brother. Never during these past few months since I've signed up had I thought about the marathon. At no point did my nerves get to me, or was I fearful that I wouldn't finish. Fear of not finishing at a decent time… that was a different story.

So the morning came. We got in the car and headed for downtown Birmingham, a beautiful city by the way, with wonderful people and a lot of southern accents. At the start I spoke with an older man who had run the marathon a few times in the past.

He said that it was first time they didn't change the course. I told him that I was worried about Red Mountain, which wasn't more than a very large hill. The problem was that it was a large hill on the course. He assured me that it was nothing to worry about. Not long after we were lined up in the starting chute. As the countdown began I pulled my headphones over my ears where they would sit for the next 4 hours or so.

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1! Cheers rang out, cow bells clanged and the sound of shoes pounding. The feeling finally hit me, I'm running another marathon…
I was surprised how good I felt at the beginning. I had started my GPS watch, which was having trouble finding satellites to synch to. When I hit the 1 mile mark I looked down and noticed that it came on. A little late, as it said I ran 300ft. But I did have my pace at 6:30 minutes per mile. I felt fine, so I continued with the faster pace.

The good feeling didn't go away, the miles melted away as my Ipod played on. The first of the demoralizing climbs came around mile 5, the first ascent of the front side of Red Mountain, which was a 300ft climb that stretched between miles 5 and 6.
I ran hard up the incline, harder than I've ever had to run. By now my watch had lost the satellites, very frustrating by the way, so I had no clue what my pace was. But I was passing people, and when your passing people chances are you aren't running that slow.

I had already planned out when I would take my water stops and when I would eat my energy gels. So around mile 8 I pulled out the first of three energy gels I would take. It was cold out, so it had the consistency of cookie dough. Not the feeling you want in your mouth when you're trying to run. I held it in my mouth until I got to a water station and washed it down with some Gatorade.

By this time I was already starting to feel a bit fatigued. I continued to push forward past the ever present desire to stop. Eventually the energy gel came into effect, reviving me and pushing me forward at a faster pace.

The miles continued to fly by. When I hit the half marathon mark the time was 1:45, I was a full 20 minutes ahead of my time from Chicago. I was exhilarated. I wanted to take it easy for this marathon and push hard in the Saint Louis Marathon in April. But at this point my goal time for Saint Louis was my pace time here in Birmingham. Not wanting to linger to long on my times, I kept running.

Through neighborhoods, over bridges, under bridges, through parking lots and shopping malls we ran. At times I looked around to find that I was the only person in sight. I had to do a misdirection check and find some orange cones to make sure I was still on course and fortunately I was.

At mile 19 I looked up and saw some of the front runners running past me on the other side. I didn't think the turn around was very far ahead. I couldn't believe it, was I that close to the start? Are you kidding me? What kind of people run this race if I'm this close to the front! Well… I wasn't that close… As it turns out I was about 3 miles away from where they were at. Good thing I didn't vocalize my excitement…

At mile 22 was the ascent of the backside of Red Mountain, this time it stretched between mile 22 and mile 23. What an awful thing to do to someone, making them run up this mountain at the end of the race. The old guy lied too, it wasn't easy at all! My swift pace slowed to a snails crawl, and at some points turned to walking when there were enough people around me. HA… I can walk all day when there are others around walking. But when they started running, I had to start too, however unwillingly.

A nice fellow in a suit and derby was walking down the road, presumably to his car and shouted to me.

"Keep it up, the crest is close and it's all downhill from there!"
Oh thank the good lord! I'm not sure how much more of this I could take. Sure enough right over the crest was the city, and the drop. I let gravity take over the accelerator and cruised down the hill. Around one of the corners was the 23 mile mark. There a group of younger spectators were cheering on the runners.
For some strange reason, probably alcohol, they screamed "TEXAS!!" so naturally I responded "TEXAS!!" and high-fived everyone in the group. I'm glad they were there, they're energy gave me a little more boost to finish.

I was relieved to reach the bottom of the hill. I was using more energy trying to not fall forward than I was trying to move forward. According to the elevation map provided by the website the rest of the course was flat.

I finally came upon the spot where my brother and Lara (his wife) were cheering people on. From about 100 yards away I could see the colorful "GO JEFF" and "Run Runners, Run" signs they had hastily made before coming out. They didn't seem to be looking in the direction I was coming from, so I yelled to them.
"Hey! Where are you guys looking?" I shouted with all my might.

They turned to me and started cheering, as did everyone else around the area. I was a bit embarrassed since my intention was just to get their attention, not everyone's. But it was nice to have everyone yelling for me to keep going.
My brother ran up to me outside the course cones and snapped a photo just as I passed the 24 mile marker at 3:20. I had 2 miles left! I stopped at the first water stop after the marker, by stopped I mean I got my cup of Gatorade and walked another 25 yards after it. That killed my time a little bit needless to say.

I finally came upon mile 25 and could see the city ahead. Only one more mile left! One more! I tried to pick up the pace, but my legs would have nothing to do with it. I decided that if I tried to push it much harder I might blow a gasket and need to take a tour of the Emergency Room at my brother's hospital.

Also, I had more than blown away my goal time so this last mile wasn't going to make or break my time. Finally, I came around the corner and saw the Finishers Chute. I ran across the finish line at 3:40, it took me 20 minutes to run 2 miles… but more importantly I could still walk, so I didn't mind the 10 minute mile pace had.

I got a nice medal, resembling something you could steal off of a Mercedes, and a really nice new shirt. After getting my timing chip cut off and talking to another finisher about his past marathons I called my brother and got the heck out of there. No more wandering the city after 4 hours of running for me (That's what I did after the Chicago Marathon... Okay I lied I read it anyway but I didn't do any editing).