Sag you too.

After we picked up T at Saturday's SunTrust National Marathon, we drove up in the Sag Wagon behind two women and followed them for awhile as we approached the DC waterfront. One was a lady in her 60s, always traveling with a running motion although going very slowly, and the other was a 30s-something woman who was running some and walking some. She was barely ahead of the elderly lady. No one else was in sight, as the juggler had surged ahead of these two.

By now the long lost Sag Wagon 1 had joined our procession. The convoy of race vehicles, street sweepers, police cruisers and sag wagons followed the two women for a short bit, past MP 18. I confirmed that they were several minutes behind the course closure time for that point in the race. There seemed to be no prospect that they would make up the time, given the painful nature of their shuffling gaits.

I popped out of the bus and ran up to the elderly woman and walked alongside her. I remembered her from when she passed by me at MP 15 while I attended to the course clock there. She was very dignified and distinguished looking.

I asked her what her name was and told her the bridge, more than a mile ahead, was going to be opened soon and that she couldn't get there by then. Without arguing that point she said, "But there's a sidewalk on it."

Meanwhile the other woman had come back to us and joined our conversation. I agreed the bridge had a walkway but said that the road by the waterfront also needed to be opened and the support people should be released. I said that both of them had had wonderful long runs of 18 miles, quite a feat, on a beautiful morning and asked them to please get on the bus for their safety and support. I sorrily informed them that they wouldn't get a finishing time, no matter what. The younger woman looked stunned.

The elderly lady wanted to continue on the sidewalk, but only if she had company. She still had to go through SE Washington, after all. She looked at the other woman for support, but that woman shook her head and glumly climbed aboard the bus. The first woman followed suit. It was over for them.

Once everyone was aboard, the tail of the SunTrust National Marathon started to move with a little pep. Gears ground and gas pedals were pressed down. We drove over the streets by the waterfront and then turned onto a broad cement walkway along the river. There we came upon the juggler, and the vehicular juggernaut snugged in behind him at 4 MPH.

B, the elderly lady, cried out that we couldn't pick him up. He is well known and a mainstay at many local races. Ominous thoughts of newspaper headlines about the juggler being jerked off the marathon course by the DCRRC president flashed through my mind. Fortunately the juggler was many minutes ahead of the rolling course closure time and seemingly traveling at a pace that would carry him to the finish line on time. It was going to be a long seven miles though, even with the distraction of watching a traveling vaudeville act for over an hour. (Above: The juggler at a 2007 race in Anacostia River Park.)

We crawled by the Nationals' ballpark and creeped over the Frederick Douglass Bridge into Anacostia River Park. The younger woman was seething at having her marathon ended, although she claimed not to be mad at me. She wouldn't talk, except to say that she'd run marathons before. B, however, was quite pleasant and loquacious.

She said she had done 64 other marathons, well, actually 66, because the one she did on the Great Wall of China didn't count ultimately and now there was this DNF. But she had started this morning's marathon as a long training run and she was okay with being swept off of it. She was hoping to match her age soon in number of marathons completed. She was actually training for a 50-miler.

She was fascinating to talk to. She had done marathons on all seven continents. I asked about the one in Antarctica, and she said that one was very dangerous. They had arrived in their cruise ship off the Antarctic peninsula and a lead party had gone ashore to set out the milemarkers. The support stations were going to be the various national research stations. I guess you don't just set up water tables in the Antarctic. But then a storm system had descended upon the area and a three-day whiteout ensued. They barely got their advance party back. When it came time to sail away, with the storm barely abated, they gave the runners this choice to complete their Antarctic marathon. 422 laps around the ship's deck. She took it.

She had raced in Rio, and run by the Pyramids in Egypt and over to Gaza. In China, the marathon had started on the Great Wall and then traveled through a long series of rural roads before winding back to the Wall for the finish. However, she arrived back at the Wall four minutes after they opened it up to tourists for the day and they wouldn't let her pass by to complete the marathon. That was her only prior DNF, before Saturday.

We passed by a water station at MP 22 staffed by enthusiastic young men and women. I asked them to bring fluids to our wounded warriors and these eager children swarmed over the buses, offering up water and Gatorade. I asked Sag Wagon 1 to complete the mission of succoring any remaining runners on the course and we drove our three weary runners back to the finish area.

B was upbeat about it all, very positive, taking the situation as it occurred with a positive frame of mind. That's why we run.

Sag You

T was the first one we scooped up. We’d been following this late-40s runner for awhile.

Sag Wagon 2 was on task. It pulled out from the curb at MP 15, where it had sat idling for three and a half hours generating plenty of complaints from the neighbors (the driver kept the motor running to keep the heater going–it was cold!), and went off to find the tail of the SunTrust National Marathon.

Sag Wagon 1 was lost and never came by. Sag Wagon 2 was supposed to drive onto the course and start sweeping up slow and lame runners once it reached us. All the halting runners had already limped by us several minutes ago, followed by a procession of street sweepers, and nothing was coming down East Capitol Street now except for cars, which had been let back onto the road network by the beleaguered police who had been blocking off every street corner so far. If you want to hear a terrific argument, stand next to a policeman as he tells a local resident that the citizen can’t drive his car away from in front of his house for the next three hours because of some race.

We drove down to the Capitol where a Capitol Policeman stood next to his unit, eying us suspiciously. No buses are allowed to go by the Capitol. I got out to ask him where the race had gone, but he swept by me and hopped aboard the bus to look around. All he saw was the radioman and the driver. When he alighted again, satisfied we weren't the advance guard of the Taliban, I told him we needed to catch up to the end of the race, wherever it was. He waved us on.

Meanwhile, the race administrators were telling the radioman we should backtrack to find Sag Wagon 1 and pick up all the runners behind us. There were no runners behind us. And no one knew where Sag Wagon 1 was currently. This was getting to be like a typical military operation, all fouled up.

I told the driver to go on forward. The radioman looked dubious but reported my decision to base. We pawned responsibility for not following orders off onto the police, saying they had said there were no runners behind us. (They had said this. They apparently know everything.)

We turned onto Constitution Avenue and passed by MP 17. No walking wounded there. We turned into the Ninth Street tunnel which runs under the Mall, where we located T hobbling along, the tail of the race.

T was walking along with huge vehicular escort. He was being closely followed by a race vehicle picking up cones, street sweepers and several different jurisdiction police cruisers with their lights going. If I were T, all that commotion 12 feet behind me would have made me nervous. But he was ignoring it, I think in the hope that we would all go away.

I could see two women slowly moving along the tunnel up ahead, and way up ahead, the juggler. This locally famous juggler is actually a decent runner, but he apparently has to juggle so many seconds every minute during a race or else it doesn’t count. He was dropping a lot of balls because he was getting tired.

We followed T all the way through the long tunnel and down an exit ramp which led towards the Interstate highway. No one in the Sag Wagon knew where the race went but a printout of the race map showed a wicked hairpin turn where the course doubled back on itself. The two women were stopped here wondering whether the course went onto the Interstate or back down the other ramp towards the DC waterfront. There wasn't a race marshal here, merely a set of cones set haphazardly in the roadway. I waved the women down towards the water, figuring that no marathon would put runners onto an Interstate full of moving cars. The operative word here was FUBAR.

T limped down the ramp towards the waterfront and MP 18. The Sag driver could barely go slow enough to keep behind him. The radio operator confirmed that T was several minutes behind the rolling cutoff time for that section of the course. National has a qualifying standard of five hours to enter, and a course limit of six hours to finish.

The Frederick Douglass Bridge across the Anacostia over by the new ballpark was still another mile ahead, still closed down waiting the passage of these few runners before it could reopen.

I hopped out of the bus and ran up to T and fell in beside him. I asked him how he was doing. He said fine in a hopeful manner. I asked him his name, and then I lowered the boom. I said he’d run a terrific race, but I had to put him on the bus. He acted as though he didn't know what I was talking about. That bus there, I said, pointing to the shuttle bus twelve feet back, leading the slow moving convoy. He acted as though it was the first time he'd seen any of that back there.

I told T that an 18 mile run was a tremendous accomplishment which lots of people couldn’t do. He'd already had a beautiful run on a wonderful morning. But it was past time for Maine Avenue down by the waterfront to be reopened, and he wouldn't make the bridge before it reopened as well. He could continue by taking off his bib and becoming a pedestrian on the sidewalk, but he wouldn’t get a finishing time. I didn’t recommend this course, I said, because he would lose his support and it would be unsafe. Get on the bus, I urged.

I felt like a State Trooper again back in Colorado, trying to talk a recalcitrant motorist into doing something he didn’t want to do. A good cop operates by persuasion, not force.

My old fast-talking charm was still there. T got on the bus. I felt bad though, as for the next hour T resisted all my attempts to engage him in a conversation and merely politely answered my questions. He displayed neither anger nor resistance. I think he was mortified.

Directly ahead were the two women, moving very slowly. One of them was to prove to be very interesting, a seven-continent marathoner.

What a race

The National Marathon was run yesterday. This is a great race, a must-do. A comer. Even if they did run out of cups yesterday.

I ran the infamous seven hills of hell part of this course in PG County the first year when the race strayed beyond the confines of the District. Bex was doing her first marathon and I accompanied her the last six miles. They changed the course the next year to put it entirely within the District and eliminated these diabolical hills. I still go over to PG County once a year to run those seven hills on Central Avenue/East Capitol Street for hillwork. Whomever I talk into accompanying me never runs with me again. It's like being out on a LRRP patrol over there, they are not used to seeing runners on that vast highway wasteland and the locals do not react well to their presence. During the marathon, scores of motorists, angry at being delayed by road closures, drove alongside runners on the other side of the road and yelled and gave them the finger. When I last did this run one Sunday morning last fall, Redskins fans, obviously well into their cups already, honked and shouted at us for daring to be on the shoulder of their highway as they zoomed off to their hours-long pre-game tailgate rituals at FedEx Field.

The next year I set my marathon PR in this race. I will never forget running over the Frederick Douglass Bridge into the District proper from Anacostia (SE) in the early morning gloom and, when the mist suddenly parted, seeing revealed to me the steel skeleton of the new baseball park being built, arising out of the ground by the river shore. It was a magnificent sight, my most memorable marathon moment ever in this, my second favorite marathon race (NYCM is the best race ever) .

Last year I directed the 17-week Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program and I felt I should run the half-mary in support of my trainees. Although a couple of trainees and a couple of coaches beat me, I was gratified to get my second best HM time on the course. I liked the course a lot, with it's challenging hill being in the middle (around the seventh mile) when you're still "fresh." Its long downhill run to its ending point at RFK from the course's high point near McMillian Reservoir (where the raucous Howard University band lifts your spirits with their brassy sound and extreme gyrations) takes you through parts of the District where runners rarely go otherwise.

This year I directed 20-week Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program again. We had great turnout each week at our usual meeting place Gotta Run in Arlington, and incredible coaches. (Thanks Matt, Lauren, Ellen & John, and get better soon Emily!) I know a lot of the trainees ran the race and did well, and I know Ellen, at least, had an incredible 11-minute PR. Ellen, a trainee last year, developed an incredibly devoted following amongst her charges as a coach this year.

Since I had run the marathon and had a good HM race on the course already, I saw no need to run either race again. I wanted to learn more about administering a big race so I contacted the race administrators and asked for SAG Wagon duties. Racers know what the ominous SAG Wagon is. Those interesting duties will be the subject of a future post.

The National Marathon: Review. A Nice and Smooth First Half.

National Marathon Review. The first half was nice and smooth...
It’s been three days since I ran the National Marathon. My quads are still on fire, and the toenail on the long toe of my right foot is sore and slowly going from mottled purple to black. Motorists are still outraged over Saturday’s road closures.

My splits.
MP Split Time Notes
1. 8:06 (8:06) Goal–eight minute miles
2. 7:45 (15:51) Downhill
3. 7:57 (23:49) Steady
4. 9:00 (32:49) Missed the marker
5. 7:22 (40:11) Short mile
6. 9:01 (49:12) Missed the marker
7. 7:22 (56:35) Short mile
8. 8:14 (1:04:50) Steady
9. 8:33 (1:13:23) Uphill
10. 8:04 (1:21:28) Competition
11. 8:38 (1:30:06) Bucolic running
12. 8:28 (1:38:30) Bucolic running
13. 8:40 (1:47:10) Very Scenic-The new ballpark
14. 8:35 (1:55:46)
15. 8:42 (2:04:28)
16. 8:51 (2:13:20)
17. 8:53 (2:22:14)
18. 9:49 (2:32:03)
19. 9:31 (2:41:35)
20. 11:04 (2:52:39)
21. 12:12 (3:04:51) Missed the marker.
22. 7:15 (3:12:07) Short mile.
23. 8:46 (3:20:54)
24. 9:15 (3:30:09)
25. 9:15 (3:39:25)
26. 9:12 (3:48:37)
.21. 1:59 (9:04 pace for this bit. 1:36 would require a 7:19 pace.)
3:50:36

The night before. While watching some NCAA tournament basketball I laid out my gear for the marathon. In my waist pouch I put my cell, a throwaway camera, some commemorative quarters and two twenties, my work ID (in case I wanted to use the bathroom when we ran by my building at MP 3), a metro fare card (you never know), two Advils and three GUs (non-caffeine flavor). Because I was worried the pouch was becoming too heavy (it starts bouncing as you run), I didn’t put in my little tube of vaseline. Shortly after midnight I set the alarm for 5 am for the 7 am race start and fell asleep.

An early morning run. I arose by 5:10 am, taped on my nip-guards and dressed in black compression shorts, long baggy shorts with zipper pockets, Asic shoes, socks and a dark blue short sleeve technical shirt. Then I ran around my block in the dark to loosen up. It was warm enough, 46 degrees and getting warmer, but threatening to rain.

Breakfast in the car. I threw my breakfast and my gear bag into the car at 5:55 and drove off. I ate some cantaloupe, two cups of diced fruit in heavy syrup and a banana enroute to RFK, arriving in parking lot 7 by 6:30 am. It had rained during the entire drive.

At RFK. By 6:55 I was on the starting line near the front, wearing a throwaway sweatshirt for warmth. The rain had stopped for good. A friend who was running the half, M, saw me and came over. M. is cool and did a handstand at the Army Ten Miler's finish line after completing it last year. Given the severity of the ATM security regulations (I'll never sign up for that race again), it's a wonder she wasn't thrown into a cell at Guantanamo for violating one of their rules. When the gun went off I tossed my sweatshirt aside and we went out together. (M. training for the National Half on Constitution Avenue by the Mall during the long cold winter.)

The Race. The National course lay entirely within DC this year, unlike last year's course which branched out into Prince Georges County in Maryland. My goals for the race were threefold: break 3:45 (8:35), break 3:50 (8:46) , or break my PR of 3:52:34 (8:52), set in November at New York City.

Miles 1-13.
MP 1–8:06. The time included the seventeen seconds it took us to cross the start line. We ran down darkened East Capitol Street getting our pace established. I told M. I was going to do eight-minute miles as long as I could as I tried for my goal of a time of 3:45 (8:35). M. wanted to break 1:50 (8:24) so she said she’d hang with me as long as she could. She got ahead of me early and I started to feel like I would have to let her go, but then we got settled down into easy running and our ragged breathing normalized.

MP 2–7:45 (15:51). We encountered the first of several inspiring sights, the Capitol Dome straight ahead of us lit up in the dim early morning light. We veered left to Independence Avenue and started down Capitol Hill. I looked for my NYCM running buddy who said she was going to come out to cheer us on, but she got delayed in traffic and I never saw her.

MP 3–7:57 (23:49). We ran past the Capitol to Constitution Avenue and then passed by my work building. M. dropped back a little and soon I was running alone. (M. posted an excellent time of 1:51 for her first Half-Marathon.)

MP 4–9:00 (32:49). Running alongside the Mall, we passed the Washington Monument on our left, another inspiring sight, and the White House on our right. (Two of the historic sites we ran by, the Washington Monument and the Capitol.) We turned for a short distance up Virginia Avenue. I missed mile marker 4 somehow, so I just punched my Timex at 9:00 to keep the number of splits correct. This was flat running in the heart of our nation’s capital, supported by a few spectators clapping in the early morning.

MP 5–7:22 (40:11). This was a "short" mile because I missed the last mile marker. I was running a little over eights here, which is about where I wanted to be. We backtracked on Constitution alongside the Mall and I noticed the large marker signaling MP 16 behind me as I ran by. It was a sentinel telling us that we would be back running this stretch later. I had run this part of the course as a training run half a dozen times recently, getting ready for this race.

MP 6–9:01 (49:12). Three quarters of a mile after we ran by the Washington Monument a second time, we turned off Constitution and went across the Mall southbound on 7th Street towards the DC waterfront. There were a couple of dips and doodles in the road as we ran by L'Enfant Plaza, the first intimation of some hills to come. I missed the mile marker again so I pushed the button on my watch at 9 minutes.

MP 7–7:22 (56:35). Another "short" mile. My friend Bob ran by sans shirt and with a heart monitor strapped around his chest, chasing after his BQ. He had gotten caught up in the back of the pack at the start but he went on to achieve a PR. I waved hello as he departed with a quick glance backwards to see who was calling out to him. We hit the waterfront and turned up M Street. I knew from training runs that the first hill awaited us down M Street.

MP 8–8:14 (1:04:50). We were cruisin’ down M Street. There was lots of new construction down there. It was turning out to be a good day for running, overcast, warm but not hot, slightly humid but not muggy. My glasses had steamed up so I had zipped them away in my trench pocket. That's why I missed some mileposts. The water stops were ample and I was eschewing gatorade so far and grabbing water on the run. However, I was steadily slipping off my desired eight minute pace.

MP 9–8:33 (1:13:23). We ran up the hill on M Street, the equivalent of Capitol Hill which we had run down at MP 2, and then zig-zagged up a couple of side streets until we hit Pennsylvania Avenue. We turned right, away from the Capitol.

MP 10–8:04 (1:21:28). (Running eastbound over the Sousa Bridge and looking southbound down the Anacostia at the bridges we would shortly run under.) We ran down Pennsylvania Avenue and across the John Philip Sousa Bridge over the Anacostia River into SE. I was running near an acquaintance of mine whom I always try to beat. We never speak. He was doing the half. Across the bridge the halfers would split off and turn left (north) to go up Minnesota Avenue towards their finish at RFK, whereas the marathoners would turn right. I pushed a little harder and reached the juncture ahead of him. (My half marathon time would beat his.) Two years ago, before I ramped up my training, I would have killed for a 1:21:28 ten-miler. Now I noted how I was already 88 seconds off an eight-minute pace (1:20:00). Still, I "only" had 16.2 miles to go.

MP 11–8:38 (1:30:06). We were running down a waterfront parkway by the Anacostia which was totally deserted. My friend J. passed me. He is one of those runners who makes beaucoup noise as he runs, one of the grunters and sighers. I can always hear him coming up behind me from a long ways off. We called out greetings. I was running alongside a runner who was busy telling me how he was back from injuries and this marathon would be a test of his fitness. He would either DNF or have a great finishing time, he explained. Then he noted a porta-potty alongside the road and said it was the first one he’d seen for quite awhile. I told him I had seen plenty recently. He asked me where so I pointed them out to him. That tree, that tree and that tree over there, I said. He laughed at my witticism and thus reminded, I ran over and stopped momentarily behind a tree for my only pit stop of the race. Aside from runners, a couple of cops and some course marshals, not a soul was in that pretty riverside park in SE as we ran through it.

MP 12–8:23 (1:38:30). This was further pleasant running along the water on flatlands. I am doing a three-mile race in May along this roadway and I reflected upon strategies for that race as I ran.

MP 13–8:40 (1:47:10). We ran back over the Anacostia on the Frederick Douglass Bridge. Somehow we gained the bridge’s height on a curving access road without seeming to go up too much of a hill. My perceptions would alter dramatically very soon. I kept passing a walker who would thereupon run some more and pass me again. This was maddening, especially since I had to listen the whole time to the patter of another runner who had attached himself to her and was busy trying to pick her up. Approaching the District again on the bridge, I was treated to the majestic sight of the structure of the Nationals' new $611 million baseball stadium arising from the fog along the river. I had never been across this bridge before and I hadn't seen the new stadium construction yet. The steel skeleton was fully up and some bleachers had been already added. I saw the stadium was oriented away from the water and towards the Capitol. It was too misty too see the Capitol from where I was but I hoped there would be a nice view of it from the stadium when the ballpark was done in time for the 2008 season. Studying the new park as I traversed the bridge was preferable to looking down at my feet. The bridge had several long steel grate sections that, at speed, gave a clear view of the river several dozen feet below and seeing the dancing water underneath, sunlight glistening off the eddies and swirls, induced a strong sense of vertigo in me. Once off the bridge, I noted that the halfway mark was coming up. I quickened my pace because I wanted to see if I could run my half faster than the finish time of my friends who were doing the Half. We ran up South Capitol Street and came back to M Street where we turned left. We had just closed a five mile loop over the river and back.

MP 13.1–1:48 (8:15 first half race pace). I ruefully reflected that during my marathon relay race with Bex two weeks earlier, I had hit the Half mark four minutes earlier at 1:44, a significantly faster time. Of course, then I only had a mile and a half remaining. Here I had another 13.1 miles to go, which would take me two hours and two minutes to run for a 9:19 second half race pace. Leaving the race was Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde was about to enter.

Coming up.
Next: From the Halfway Mark to Milepost 20. The Hills Were Waiting...