A Bloody Worry

It was a worrisome call. My voice-mail message at work disclosed that it was Patti at the Cincinnati airport and it was about the blood donation I made there in early May. Could I call her please?

What would you think? Returning home from the Flying Pig Marathon, I had a couple of hours to kill at the airport so I followed some signs to a local blood donation center. They raised their eyebrows at my blood pressure ("Is it always this high?") but took my blood anyway. I left a pint lighter, my 75th lifetime donation (I'm a runner. I write this stuff down). I really do it for the cookies and soda you get afterwards.

If you actually read all the stuff they tell you to beforehand, it would scare you. It's bad to have gone to Africa, England, Europe, or the Channel Islands, to have been in the American military since 1980, to have decorated your body, to have had sex, to have treated baldness, to have taken drugs, or to have cavorted with certain people. (Oh no, I don't think any of them ever did any of that. Shall I call them up and ask them?)

And if you have AIDS or something, they'll not only tell you but they'll report you too. You'll never get insurance in this country again! No good deed goes unpunished!

As I listened to Patti's message, I was hoping that it was the West Nile Virus they were going to tell me I had, and not something awful like Hep C or HIV. Not that I do ever do anything fun beyond running 26 miles to be at risk for those diseases. That's plenty of fun, right?

I finally got ahold of Patti after her days off. She knew exactly who I was the instant I said my name. "Oh, yessir, I have your file right here! Do you remember giving blood earlier this month at the airport in Cincinnati?"

I swallowed hard. "Yes," I whispered.

"You won a t-shirt. Where shall we send it?"

When Pigs Fly.

I went to Cincinnati last weekend as my club's representative at the RRCA's 50th Anniversity Convention which was held there. I voted our club line, enrolled in a couple of very interesting classes on Lactate Tolerance and Sports Psychology, and attended lectures on Club Training Programs and Trail Running. (What I took away from the trail running lecture is to say no thanks. They were talking about how to get down a very steep loose scree slope that is very slippery (like ball bearings), apparently by jumping, land and turn as you slide, jump, land and turn as you slide, etc.)

This gave me a chance to run the Flying Pig Marathon. This is a very well put on marathon. The experience was a blast. The course, however, is, uh, challenging.

Before I went, I looked at its topographical map. It looks like a giant anaconda which has just swallowed a bus. Steady as she goes til MP 6, then a hellacious climb to MP 8, then down the other side and out. Sort of like National, with its climb and descent in the early mid-part of the marathon, before fatigue turns inclines into hills and hills become mountains. Very doable, on paper.

Still, one of Cincinnati's several nicknames is The City of Seven Hills. I no longer wonder why.

My training was abbreviated because I didn't know I was running this May marathon until sometime in April, when I was offered the opportunity to go to Cincinnati. I went out and was able to finish a 20-miler so I figured I could do the Pig. The next week I ran a 15-miler, the week after that a 16-miler and the week before the marathon I did a 10-miler. Then I lined up at 6:30 am on Sunday with the 3:40 pace group, "ready" to go. I had ankle and hamstring issues, but they wouldn't delay the start til I got 100%. Go figure.

They did delay the start, however, for a fire on the course. This caused a course alteration which lengthened the course. But unlike at Army in 2005, this did NOT turn the marathon into a Cincinnati Fun Run. They adjusted appropriately on the fly. (Are you listening, Chicago?)

By the time the starting cannon was fired, however, I was really ready to go, if you know what I mean. A quarter mile down the course I was relieved to find a handy bush along the Ohio. I never saw the 3:40 group again. Left to my own resources, I soon settled into a steady pace.

A jog by the Great American Ballpark (Reds) took us onto the Taylor Bridge into Kentucky. Two miles later we were back in Ohio running through downtown Cincinnati. We ran by the sports bar where I ate dinner and hydrated the two prior nights. Tragically, this was where I watched live on TV while Kentucky Derby runnerup Eight Belles was put to death the night before. Horse racing has a real problem.

Soon we surmounted what I thought was the climb of the race. It wasn't too bad and now I was literally at the top of the world. Up there I could see the Ohio far below, glinting in the morning sun. Downtown Cincinnati and its bridges were visible behind me, and stretching out in front was the great bend of the river.

But soon I discovered that the hills were far from done. Still ahead were lots more rolling hills, inclines, and, worst of all, short, sharp hills. Little ten and twenty-yard rollers that lifted up and down like a crazy roller coaster track. Major combat wasn't over. Well, bring 'em on.

The halfway mark came and went. We toured the Cincinnati suburbs to the NE. Suburbs are suburbs but the crowd support was great. We ran down some bike paths, which I always find interesting in marathons (where does this one go? Does it go all the way to downtown?).

We were actually detouring around the early-morning conflagration and the course was being stretched out thereby but hey, we all ran the same distance. Nobody made it "unofficial" thereby. (Cincinnati did a great job. This is a great marathon.)

We ran over a controlled-access four-lane divided highway where we got the shoulder and one lane, while the cars got the other lane. A line of orange plastic cones protected us dead-tired runners from them. Do you think the cars slowed down? (This is the midwest. Actually, many did.)

And then we were on the home stretch! A large sign announced the last mile. I tried to pick it up but the last mile was long, I tell ya. I finished in under four hours on all registers, the gun time, the chip time and the adjusted time due to the course lengthening. I loved this marathon. What more can I say?

Marathons

I ran a marathon on Sunday.

Marathons are like, I imagine, combat. Intense experiences that you need time to decompress from. The closest I have ever come to a combat experience was the nine years of police work I did. Most nights I was out on my own on patrol, focused, active, confronting situations fraught with peril, occasionally experiencing fear (or once or twice, terror). It was intense and, at times, dangerous work. Twenty years after I left it, I'm still decompressing from it. Marathons are a lot like that.

You never really get over any of them. I can vividly remember each one I have run. For the several hours that you are engaged in them you are thrust deeply into their immediacy. All actions are aimed towards the solitary completion of a difficult task. Hours of drudgery and acute discomfort are coupled with an occasional uplifting moment such as when you view a magnificent vista or come upon a rehabilitating wounded veteran struggling along doggedly on injured or missing limbs.

You are limited by the possible. Do you need a 5:40 in the last mile to PR? It ain't gonna happen so enjoy the finish. Do you need a 7:40 instead? Then it's time to get a move on and hope for the best.

Like a soldier placed into the field, the whole community supports you. The supply train is loaded and people hand you drinks, food or comfort in the form of aspirin, cooling sprays or encouragement. If you falter, they will immediately succor you. But you have to go it alone. No one can cover any part of the 26 miles for you. On the race course, there is no place to hide from the elephant.

Also, you can't escape from your own effort. Were you a coward, did you do your duty, or did you perform extraordinarily? Deep down, you know the answer. It's your own secret, but the knowledge is there within you.

A few years back, a friend, perhaps feeling the tug of mortality after passing the half-century mark, asked me if I had done even one thing in years that had left me feeling truly exhilarated. The way the question was asked implied that after long reflection the answer would invariably be no, sort of like when W was asked if he could think of any mistake he had made following 9/11.

The answer instantly sprang into my head. Sure, I replied, I feel that way after every marathon.

That's how I felt about it then, and that's how I feel about it now.

Heroes at the Flying Pig Marathon

The following account is taken almost entirely from information contained in an excellent front-page article in today's Cincinnati Enquirer about yesterday's Flying Pig Marathon, written by Dustin Dow (ddow@enquirer.com).

Bobby Edwards was a streaker. This is what they call marathoners in Cincinnati who have run all of the prior Flying Pig Marathons in that city. On Sunday morning, as he was approaching the tenth mile in this tenth running of the Flying Pig Marathon, Edwards was feeling good. Suddenly, without warning, the 55 year-old sub-5 hour marathoner collapsed. He lay lifeless in the road while bystanders desperately called for help. A minute ticked by.

Patrick Conrey, an EMT from Clearwater, Florida, must have been getting hot in his fireman's gear as he approached milepost 10. Cincinnati fireman Oscar Armstrong III had perished in a fire on March 21, 2003. Two Cincinnati-area firefighters, Captain Robin Broxterman and Brian Schira of Colerain Township, had similarly fallen while fighting a fire on April 4th. Conrey was running the Flying Pig Marathon in full fireman regalia in tribute to them and to raise money for charity. (Conrey was running for others at the Flying Pig Marathon.)

Some paramedics from local fire departments were running with Conrey in support of his effort. This group came across Edwards lying motionless in the roadway a minute after he went down, at about the moment that a paramedic team standing by elsewhere on the course was being dispatched to the scene. With one precious minute gone by, every second counted for the inert Edwards.

Surveying the scene as the group ran up on the prostrate Edwards, Conrey said to his comrades, "It's time to go to work, boys." The unnamed local firemen switched from runners to rescuers instantly and sprang to Edwards' aid.

CPR was started upon the unconscious Edwards. The standby paramedic unit arrived. For twenty minutes paramedics worked upon the prone runner in the roadway while marathoners streamed by.

Chest compressions were done. A tube was inserted in his mouth. He was shocked by a defibrillator three times.

Edwards was resuscitated and transported to University Hospital. He was speaking by the time he arrived. On Sunday night he was listed in stable condition.

Conrey modestly said, "I don't want to take too much credit. I was just there handing them drugs. Those paramedics running with me, they saved his life."

Edwards' daughter Stephanie Rabius said, "I could be planning a funeral right now. He had a heart attack. If they hadn't been there, my father would be dead."

Edwards asked his daughter at the hospital, "So, was I dead?"

She told him, "Yeah. You were."

Race medical director Dr. Jon Devine said the hospital cardiologist described the recovery Edwards made from his heart attack as "one of the greatest saves he's ever seen."

Conrey, a 3:22 marathoner who went on to finish the marathon in a time of 5:26:42 while carrying about 40 pounds of equipment, stated how he felt about having an unanticipated delay during his race. "You almost feel like that was the reason we were running the marathon today. It was twenty minutes well spent on the course."

There were some heroes afoot in Cincinnati this past weekend.