The online community recently presented me with the
opportunity to run a different kind of marathon, one without an entry fee,
t-shirts, medals, swag, aid stations, spectators, a set start line or finish
line. The ‘race’ would begin when I hit start on my Garmin, and stop when I hit
stop. I wanted this to be on a course that was interesting enough on it’s own
merits, but with as little traffic as possible so that I could blare dumb music
into my ears without fear of being run over. I wanted it to be outside, where
I’ve always felt I belong ever since I was a little kid riding my bike through
the neighborhood, playing football in front yards of my friends and enjoying
one of those glorious sunny days that seem to last forever. Most of all, I
wanted to re-visit that utterly unique Long-Run feeling, the one you get when
your distance somehow goes from a just a couple/few miles up to 20-something,
you start to lose yourself in the act, a weird cosmic flow happens, time
becomes irrelevant, your consciousness elevates, the soul becomes cleansed and
this life we’re living finally starts to become truly Alive again.
Someone I’ve never known (and only briefly may have spoken
with during a race earlier in the year) was putting together a 24 hour run to
help raise awareness about teen bullying, depression and suicide. Her name is Adele
Garcia, and her event was called the Upward Spiral 24 Hour run. I really wanted
to participate, but the 5 hour round trip plus the timing (it would start on a
Friday afternoon) just weren’t conducive to my situation. Still I wanted to do
something positive on my end to help out and maybe raise a little awareness.
I’m not entirely sure why; I’ve never done something like this before, and I’ve
never had involvement with that particular cause. I just wanted to help. She
didn’t ask me, I simply decided to run a satellite marathon on the same weekend
and do what I could to contribute to the cause.
In a way, fate was on my side. On the day I would end up
doing this run it would get all the way up into the 20’s and the sun would
shine all day. This during the coldest February in the history of the state of
Michigan, when almost every day of the month it never seemed to get out of the
single digits and clouds have been so prevalent you’d think the sun was gone
forever, never to return.
In other ways, fate was not on my side. The day before my
Saturday run, a burning plastic smell started to permeate the air of my Flint,
Michigan home. Upon further inspection I discovered my furnace had somehow
managed to tear apart and suck a piece of air filter into the motor, frying the
motor and rendering my furnace useless. It would get below zero outside that
night, and indoors I awoke to a crisp 53 degrees in my house.
So, earlier in the week I’d published online that I would be
running a 2 mile loop of trail and roads until I reached a distance of 26.2
miles. I was calling my run The Applewood Marathon since much of the course
would be on the Applewood Trail that runs through Mott Community College near
my house. There was even a port-a-john on the course for workers doing construction
on the planetarium that sat next to where I would start. Every marathon worth a
darn has got to have a port-a-john, right?
The plan was to start at 9am, and finish around 2pm.
However, with my furnace dying the night before, I had no choice but to put off
my run until my Furnace Guy came and my furnace was fixed. Fortunately I have
the greatest Furnace Guy ever, and he got me back up & working that very morning.
In the meantime, I also happened to notice that my tap water
was suddenly coming out orange. Anyone who follows Flint knows we’ve had an
almost circus-like time of getting clean water in recent months, for which we
pay some of the highest monthly water bills in the country. It’s even gotten
some national attention from Erin Brokovich. I’d heard through the grapevine
that the key is to run all faucets for a couple minutes to flush out the bad
and then everything would be fine. Still, of all the mornings for this to
happen, it just had to be that morning? Really? I’d been planning on doing this
run for a couple of months; to have my furnace die and my water turn orange in
just the few hours leading up to it, well, it was bizarre more than anything.
Fortunately, I seemed to have a somewhat zen-calm that
morning and didn’t want to let it derail my plan. I mean, how could I really
get upset over those things? They were out of my control, mere setbacks that I
addressed calmly and moved on from. I would still get over to my little
starting area by about 11:30, do my run and get back in time for some dinner, a
shower, a cocktail and a smile as I drifted off to sleep. The final twist of
fate unveiled itself as I approached the area where I would start my 13
two-mile loops and saw 5 or 6 City Of Flint maintenance trucks working on what
was clearly a water main break. Ah, this explained my orange / rusty water. They
had the area completely blocked off, and down the hill from where they were
working, on the start of the paved Applewood Trail where I’d be running, there
was about 100 yards of thick, frozen slush and ice from where water had leaked
out, pooled at the bottom of the hill, and frozen everything in it’s path along
the way. The trail was completely un-runnable. My course was destroyed.
At this point, really all I could do was shake my head and
wonder. I briefly thought about throwing in the towel, considering that maybe
this was a higher power telling me to not do this run for some uncertain
reason. But I’d made a promise, one I felt compelled to keep. So I drove back
home and decided to simply do loops through my neighborhood. The roads there
were also snow covered and solid ice in many spots, but at least I knew the
terrain and wouldn’t have to (literally) skate around those maintenance trucks.
After getting myself put together and ready to go, I walked
down to the intersection of Meade and E. Second Street. For some reason it
seemed that an intersection was the right place to start. I pushed the button,
started my music and off I went, 3 hours later than I’d originally planned to
start. My new course was basically the outer boundaries of what’s known as the
College Cultural Neighborhood, roughly outlined by Dort Highway, I-69,
Burroughs Park, the aforementioned Applewood Trail (only the runnable portion,
not the mushy/frozen disaster area section) and Robert T. Longway Boulevard.
Thus the College Cultural Marathon was born. Upon completing my first loop I
discovered the distance was approximately 4 miles. I would simply keep doing
this loop and then do a shortcut on my last loop to get to 26.2 miles.
It’s just not a marathon if you don’t go out too fast, which
is exactly what I did, what I always do. My legs felt decent, it was a
beautiful sunny day, good music flooded into my ears and out here on the roads,
I didn’t have a care in the world, other than maybe getting hit by a car. As I
ticked off a few miles I started calculating possible finish times: 4:10, 4:20,
4:30? I would soon see the error of my ways, as I always do. Certain parts of
my feet started to hurt, and my IT Band started to grumble, and my hips started
to groan, and my hamstring started to mumble, and my groin muscles started to
voice their displeasure, and my Achilles started to protest, and my calves
started to balk. It wasn’t long before I regained my common sense and eased
off, thankfully. Plenty of walk breaks and only easy jogging/running the rest
of the way.
My mind went everywhere and anywhere as it typically does
during one of these long runs. But there weren’t any divine inspirations, no
ethereal visions from the heavens, no Meaning Of Life insights to report. Just
running. Living in the moment. Appreciating the gift. Since this “satellite”
run was in support of troubled teenagers I tried to think back to the time when
I was that age, awkwardly struggling through hormones and pressures and high
school in my quest to figure out my place in the world. Even though I was
listening to the music of my youth and thinking back to those days, it was hard
to relate because I’m not struggling anymore like I was back then. Things have
turned out well. I love my career, social life is as solid as it can be, I’m
healthy, have a few bucks in the bank. Basically everything has worked out. If
I had a chance to go back in time, I guess what I would say to my younger self
is “Just be patient, everything will work itself out.”
Anyway, the run came and went with much fanfare. Simply a
26.2 mile long run through my neighborhood. I finished in 1st place
at the inaugural College Cultural Marathon (and last place); my reward was
food, a shower and a couple of cocktails. Sometimes the simple pleasures in
life are the most profound; such was the case on this day. It was a great long
run on a beautiful day that resulted in $262.00 worth of support for an
important cause. Doesn’t get much better than that.
