I feel terrible. Kevin’s Law is in full force. I’m normally too cheap to pay for a luggage cart but I had two huge bags to move some stuff and last night (or was it this morning?) I decided as the plane taxied to the gate that I would just suck it up and pay for one to get the bags out to the rental car… and then, this happened (Or I should say, didn’t happen):
I wandered the baggage claim and found one that did work — and paid $5 for the privilege and ease of wheeling the items outside and down a long walkway to the cars. Probably worth it I was thinking as it was 12 midnight and I had to be up at 5:45 AM to get out to the race day packet pickup.
But of course as soon as I wheeled outside the terminal to the walkway, the streets were littered with abandoned (and therefore FREE) luggage carts that hadn’t been collected and returned to be vended again onto unsuspecting travelers. Cheated, I headed to my rental car that had a 9/10 full tank… the needle was just under the “F” which we all know means it’s like 3/4 full as the manufacturers always pad the first part of the gauge movement to make you *think* you’re getting great mileage… and then after about the 3/4 mark the needle falls precipitously as gas is used. Sure enough, I drove less then 50 miles in the 18 hours I had the car and needed to put in 4.259 gallons to fill the tank. Cheated again.
Further, I guess the local taxes were raised overnight as from the time I booked my Motel 6 room on Friday 11/18, the final bill this morning was $1.37 more than the amount I was quoted online. So the price per hour in the motel wound up being $11.97 (I’ve never before booked a hotel by the hour, even in math class as an applied mathematics word problem). Cheated times three.
Groggy from a fitful couple hours rest, but better rested than had I reclined the seat in my Kia Soul and shivered through the sub freezing night, I made the 30 minute drive out to Percy Warner Park. It’s an expansive park and I clearly went in the wrong way as I wound up driving a lot of the course. I kept trying to use the mile marker signs to gauge the distance to the start, spotting a mile 23 and then later a mile 24 sign and feeling like I was getting closer… only to get to a wrong way or blocked off gated section for the course and having to backtrack around. Eventually I found an aid station attendant who could give me directions… but by this time I was driving down the opening mile and the early starters had just begun. It was a reverse game of Frogger as I tried to slowly dodge runners who wanted more time to achieve their finish line.
Eventually I did make it to the parking lot in a field and picked up my packet. There was a fun atmosphere to the proceedings, albeit the opening temperatures were a bit… daunting? All I could hear in my head was a bastardized version of Bruce Willis saying, “Come out to Tennessee. Run a Marathon. Have a few laughs!”
Having previewed some of the course on my wayward journey in, I knew they weren’t kidding about the hills. Still, you get what you pay for… and the views were stunning throughout. A lot of the photos will fail to do justice to the foliage and experience of running through the autumnal leaves and soaring trees. The hills were, well, hilly but aside from one or two truly steep ones, I thought them mostly manageable. There just were A LOT of them.
The race director was a funny guy, which I had known from his race emails and because a friend of mine at the recent Mainly Marathon series vouched for him and this race. He warned us all that the race markings were “approximately approximate”; basically he said he had no idea how long the course really was and if we were relying on Garmins they’d be off… and if we were relying on FitBits we should just forget it…ZING!
Long story short — somewhere in the early teens I had the markings about 0.15 miles off and then we kinda got back on track… but by mile 20 we were 0.25 miles off and by mile 25 we were closer to 0.33 miles off. By race’s end, I had the course short by about 0.4 miles. Brian Wright, who I bumped into before the race and the again at the finish after he crushed it well ahead of me, thought it was off as much as 0.8 miles. Let’s split the difference and say it was 0.6 miles short… but since I’m pretty sure I ran long at the Southwest Series this past week each day, it kinda averages out. Still feel a little guilty though…
Not as guilty and regretful as I am about stuffing my face at the finish line food smorgasbord buffet extravaganza.
I realize now I have to be careful at buffets as I have a hard time with portion control and minimizing my over eating habits. From savory to sweet I piled on the foodstuffs and negated any progress I’d made in getting that bathroom scale needle to fall. I’m feeling incredibly bloated and yucky after the fact and am considering skipping dinner … or maybe just having a small salad from some place to try and regain a bit of balance. You would think after ten events in nine days, eight of which were marathons, that I’d be feeling like I could cheat a little on the calories… but I just feel terrible. Kinda a bummer… albeit I’m telling myself maybe it’s dehydration coupled with the inevitable crash from adrenaline junkie highs of high volume running. I made it through and feel mostly injury free… but my stomach is in knots from poor eating choices at the end.
The price of running and feeling healthy is eternal vigilance. Thomas Jefferson didn’t say that but probably should’ve.
I’ll endeavor to sum up a few other observations from this nine day runcation tomorrow. But in the meantime, it’s to the airport and a flight back to Florida.
I have learned one lesson though: I’m going to scope out the rental car garage for a free range cart before plunking down any money for one. Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks.