August 31, 2019 – Hamilton NightGlow Marathon

I’m operating on about 17 minutes of sleep.

Part of it was that a night marathon left endorphins and adrenaline coursing througg my veins after I finished the course.

Part of it was also because my Murder AirBNB was on the wrong side of the tracks. While the metaphorical meaning of being in a (more) downtrodden part of town applies, it also quite literally was on the wrong side of the tracks. Trains rumbled by every 10-15 minutes… and each time the engineer would blow the horn like he or she was hoping to bring down the walls of Jericho.

Sigh. It’s been a long night’s journey into day.

Hamilton, Ohio, was apparently voted one of the top 25 girlfriend getaways. I know this because the pre-race announcer kept repeating this and I wasn’t clear on the source or meaning… but he said it so many times it must be true! Whether it’s a great place to take your girlfriend or a great place for a girls’ trip, I’m not sure. I’d assume the latter but over the years I’ve made so many assumptions and invariably just make an ass of me… and no one else. So, don’t quote me on pretty much anything. Ever.

I’m sitting at the airport waiting to fly back to Florida to leave again later tonight. It looks like this crazed, risky less than 24 hour trip might work out, logistically speaking.

Running wise? Well…

I’m glad I did it if only because my waistline will hopefully thank me later. A with this race, Medoc will now be the nice round number of 440 lifetime marathons.

On the plus side, the cortisone shot into my foot seems to have helped. But the woman who would go on to decisively win the women’s marathon title noticed I was limping around mile 2. By mile 4 I couldn’t keep up with her and by mile 11 I was light headed and seriously dehydrated. From that point on there was much walking and every aid station saw me downing a cup of Gatorade and chasing it with a cup of water. I was able to rally somewhat but my time proved slower than the Australian Outback Marathon.

On the double plus side, it will still be better than my clock time at Medoc next week… albeit I suspect I will have a much more… Saturnalian time there.

The sun set definitively in my third loop pf the four loop marathon and so I got to experience the glowing neon dance party in all its dark glory. The photos are mostly blurry from then… and even so I wasn’t really focused on shutterbugging the fireflies.

But here’s a photoblog recap of my time in Ohio:

When you only have 18 hours from wells down to wheels up, you have to pick and choose your sightseeing. This was a must-see as far as I was concerned.

A vandalized monument to the man who said the world was hollow. He was an Army Corps of Engineer engineer.

For The World Is Hollow… and I Have Touched The Sky

Proof positive I’m not a wise man — I NEVER seem to know when to be Pastor Dennis G. Kidd. I’m always being him at the wrong time.

The clock tower of Hamilton is really something. They don’t build them like this anymore… albeit I suspect they NEVER built them like this. Is that the Temple of Gozer at the top there?

Hashtag: Not My Old Well. Hashtag: My Old Well is In Chapel Hill, NC.

Intriguingly, the packet pickup was inside a darkened theater… even though it was still daylight outside. Moody.

I don’t know if you can see it, but Hamilton, OH, appropriated the musical Hamilton’s logo for themselves.

Keep on glowing, y’all. Don’t waste your shot.

See those podiums? I did not wind up on them at all. Not even close.

I stubbornly thought it’d be fun for a night run to be sporting a (multi-day) 5 o’clock shadow. Turns out I just looked dumb. And it itched like, um, what’s really itchy? Like that.

Just before the start. I was so full of pep… that wouldn’t last long.

I think the woman in dead center is the female champion — she was amazing. She did a training run of 16 miles this morning with a group she coaches then turned up to win this thing. Non-runners would call that insane; I just call it awesome.

God light… though to be honest there was a time when I was sucking air and light headed when I thought of Pharoah asking me where was my God now…

When it got dark, these balloon towers glowed.

I liked that this was a turn around “area.” It makes it sound so much friendlier.

A bit o’ filter to try and capture the colors as the sun set.

As close as I could get to an in focus view of part of the last loop.

A less than stellar finish… but relief at being done.

I sucked down a lot of these at the finish to try and rehydrate. I’m not sure it was the greatest water ever… but it was MUCH needed.

They had wine… but this drink ticket was only valid for beer or a Pepsi product soda. Or in other words, it was WORTHLESS to me.

FYI: I did find a black feather… which meant I believed I would fly out succesfully, just like a certain big eared pachyderm.

However, there were 90 empty seats on the plane… I gues not a lot of people wanted to fly INTO a hurricane watch.

***

September 1, 2019 post script: I am posting this as I grab my large suitcase for the next adventure, this time in Europe. It’s been a risky move flying round amidst Hurricane Dorian’s shifting tracks.

During this trip, I kept flashing onto a famous James T. Kirk monologue from the original Star Trek series. It’s worth posting here both for context/reference and because William Shatner sets his acting to “kill” in this… I love that guy.