There’s a TV advert from a few years back… maybe MANY years back now. It featured a guy sitting on a curb outside a mini-mart slurping a popsicle. His wife pulls up in her car and says, “I thought you were going for a run.” “I got hot,” the man says. She looks at him and says, “After three blocks?!”
I’ve tried to find that ad for the past fifteen minutes with little success. Let me tell you, googling “I got hot ad” leads you down a red light district rabbit hole and nowhere near the commercial I remember.
But just go with the description above. The point is, as I started running the Shiprock Marathon yesterday at 7 AM MDT, I kept flashing onto that commercial. But while the temperatures were climbing rapidly and I was sweating early on, the real thing I kept thinking was “I’m winded.” And I could hear another voice say, “In the first mile?!” with the unspoken warning that there were a good 25.2 miles to go.
The start line was at a 6000+ foot altitude. I’ve done altitude races before but for some reason this one really took a lot out of me. Too many days in the lowlands of Florida mayhaps… or maybe the prior day’s 13 hour drive out from the West Coast to Shiprock, NM, had left me depleted. Whatever the case, I was huffing and puffing WAY earlier than I would have liked.
We parked at the finish, the Shiprock High School, to catch a bus 26.2 miles out to the start line, just inside the New Mexico border. It was to be a net downhill run with a few rolling hills; Vinnie and his wife Danielle at the pasta dinner said I should be able to fly down the closing 10K as it was all downhill. This did not come to pass… but more on that in a moment.
A batch of photos from the bus to the start line — I was feeling a bit off even then. I think I saw a few folks I’ve run with in the past but I was so distracted and punch-drunk tired from the drive in that I just kinda shuffled off by myself and avoiding people as I waited for the start.
The course itself was about 20 miles straight down a road, a left turn for 5.5 miles, and then another left into the school, followed by a right turn to the finish line. I’m not sure if the road vanishing into the horizon before me for 20 miles was a positive or negative — it was nice not to have to turn but mentally it just felt like I was making little progress.
Much like my aborted hotel stay in the “Shiprock area” 6.5 hours from the start, Shiprock itself was more of in the vicinity of the run rather than directly on the course proper. We ran past it, but it was in the distance.
At the start they said there were approximately 260 marathoners plus 85 relay teams. We eventually met up with the 720 half marathoners.
After the 20 mile mark, we turned left to head on a long decline. This is what I was told if I had anything left I could really “fly” down and possibly get a new PR. I had nothing left. I was still having trouble breathing… albeit we were down to 4000+ feet elevation by this point so it was a little easier. Still, I was wiped out from the previous mileage, so was just struggling to keep one foot in front of the other.
I passed this one guy who was looking strong. We said to me, “You’re not 50, right?” I guess he was worried about his age group award. I tried not to take offense… I certainly was *feeling* 50 and, who knows, maybe I looked it at that moment… or maybe I always look at it. Sigh… tough one. But I said to him, “No, not 50…” and I gave him a quick glance, told him he didn’t look 50. He said he was 59 and this was his race in that age bracket. I was astonished… he definitely didn’t look like he’d be 60 soon… and he was motoring down the road to boot. Still, he wondered if I was 50… so I snapped his dejected shot with him in the background for posterity’s sake.
Heading into the final stretch, a guy kicked it past me and I cheered him on, congratulating him on his hustle. He snorted at me. Maybe he was struggling with the altitude or he was just in a zone. But the snort didn’t feel particularly… camraderie-ly. It was an ant-snort. A snort of rebuke. A snort of snortiness. And when I crossed the finish line I think I know why.
So there I am, finished. Relieved to be done. A nice woman I ran with briefly before she pulled way from me in the teens won the women’s race overall; she was running her first marathon in 4 years having switched to trail ultras and was enjoying just being out on the road. The guy who passed me, the snorter? He looked 40-something, not to be dismissive or judgemental. But he was DEFINITELY in his forties. You know how I know? He placed third in my age group. His passing me meant no Navajo pot for me. Navajo-no,no, no.
As awards go, they were pretty sweet… and man, did I want one. Plus, it would’ve been a nice “on the road to moonshot” victory. But more than anything, it was the snort heard round the course that will stay with me.
Also, this:
I’m a pretty adventurous eater… and I did lift the cup of “blue mush” out of curiosity. It was icy but… really warm. It felt like the laws of nature had been broken. I chickened out.
I may not have gotten one of those age group pots, but the Dominos guy gave me an air freshener for the drive home… “because you smell” he said. I think he was joking/not-joking. Which is better than not-joking/joking I guess.
And so 26.2 miles and 2 slices of pizza later, I got into my car for the long drive home.
I stopped at Four Corners for one last photo — it was free re-admission on consecutive days so, how could I NOT detour? That would’ve been throwing money away…
I left California at 4:15 AM on Friday morning. I got back at 10:40 PM on Saturday night. Forty-two and a half hours trip time, with 26 hours in a car… and 3:26:15 at the marathon.
***
Two quick shots from the road that I couldn’t figure out where to put in the above:
I posted this one to Facebook. My Garmin GPS watch beeps when I’ve been inactive and tries to remind me to “move.” This is true even after running a marathon and when I’m driving. I’ve been trying to capture the message on the watch for months and I finally caught it. The caption I put on FB read:
“Ya know what, Garmin? Go move yourself… but substitute a different four letter word there for “move.” Hashtag – pardon my French.
And then there was this magazine rack in one of the convenience stores I stopped at for a soda. Who says prints is dead?
