Washington's Birthday Marathon Team Relay

In its 15th (of 20) weeks, the Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program I coach for met on Sunday morning, February 15th, in Greenbelt, MD to participate in the DC Road Runners Washington’s Birthday Marathon Relay race, the 8th oldest continuously-held marathon in the country. Coach Ellen volunteered at the race and dispensed the sweet elixir of life with a beatific countenance to thirsty runners at a water table. Coach Emily ran the full marathon in 4:13 and took third in her age group. Six 3-runner relay teams were fielded by Program participants. (Right: Coach Ellen, in blue, volunteering at last year's relay race with Je, in crimson. Last year Ellen was a Program trainee, this year she is a valuable coach.)

The marathon is a basic three-loop course, with additional distance accounted for by a run to the triple-loop at the start and a slog to the finish line at the end. The relay’s first leg is 9.7 miles and runs down a big hill into a large pastoral bowl bordered on one side by parkland and by rural highways on the other side. Emerging from the sheltered park onto the highway section in the fifth mile, runners brave headwinds, traffic and hills the rest of the way to the relay exchange point. The second leg is the 7.3 mile basic loop, and the anchor leg is 9.2 miles, running back up the big hill leading out of the park to the finish line.

Belying their name, the team formed by coach Matt, Sub 3 or Bust, won the Open Division with a time of 3:00:11. Matt turned in a torrid 6:15 per mile pace on what’s known as the Princess Leg, the middle 7.3 mile leg (which is almost always assigned to the female runner on Coed teams), as Jo and a guest runner ran only slightly slower on their longer legs in claiming the second team spot overall. A pesky Coed team snuck in five seconds ahead of these swift young men to claim the top team spot. (Left: Matt after his blistering run last year, when he did the first leg for his team.)

Coach Lauren did double duty, running the first leg for the White Jackets team of K and F, which finished in 4:07. Then Lauren anchored 2 Babes and a Tall Guy to a 3:42 time, which was good for the best finish among Program teams that didn’t have the rock star Matt on them. S and Joi handled the first two legs.

Right on Lauren’s heels was my teammate Ja, running eight-minute miles for the Satellite Cowboys which was the next Program team to finish, in 3:43. Jam ran an excellent Princess Leg for us after I got swallowed up by the hills on the backside of the first leg. I was glad to hand off the red Coed sash marker after experiencing my speed fall off precipitously during the run from a 7:57 first mile to an 8:46 overall pace.

Mere seconds behind the Cowboys was the Grumpy Old Men team, led by R, who passed me in the first leg as I was walking along in the fifth mile desperately sucking down a GU. Ju was the anchoring Old Man while a guest runner handled the short duty.

The next Program team to finish was Friends of Fleet Feet (an Adams Morgan running store, a community fixture), with St leading off and K and C following to turn in an excellent 4:19.

Many of these Program participants had never done a team race before. Everyone was totally stoked after his or her leg, even those runners like me who had a bad running day. (Did I mention the course is hilly?) The laughter was loud afterwards, bespeaking of the camaraderie on the course!

Back on track

I'm back on track. Not with my running, which has been non-existent since Saturday when I ran 13 miles with my training group and hurt my toe, but with my blood donating.

Last month the blood center rejected me because my blood pressure was too high, 182/106. Hitting the the century mark on the lower number is always a fatal reading.

Fatal to attempts to donate blood, that is. Apparently they're afraid that the drop in b/p caused by decreasing your volume of blood by taking a pint of it could be too precipitous if your b/p is too high to start with, and you could pass out.

Or worse, I guess.

I'm on b/p medicine (welcome to your 50s) but my dosage obviously needed some fine-tuning. I've been working on it.

There are always obstacles though. I upped my intake of the ace-inhibitor, which meant I needed to re-fill my RX sooner. Because I'm the health-conscious sort, I ran down to Kaiser from my house with a check, my Kaiser card and, just in case, my driver's license, to get a refill. By running back as well, I would make it a 5K workout.

The orderlies brought my bottle of pills to the counter and asked for the co-pay. I gave them my check for the stated amount, along with my driver's license. They already had my medical card.

They got antsy and called the manager over. She looked at my check and imperiously refused to take it, demanding that I pay by a credit card, which of course I didn't have on me. (Kaiser takes checks.)

The problem? My check, although it had my name printed on it, didn't have an address printed on it. It's a privacy thing.

The petty official acted absolutely dumbfounded that I could have checks without an address printed on them. She asked if anyone anywhere ever accepted my checks. Pointing to the check number, 1144, I said, "Sure, eleven hundred and forty three businesspersons have so far without a problem. And besides, I'm a customer of yours, and have been for ten years. You have my address on file."

Don't you hate it when officious types just make stuff up? I only got my meds by stonily refusing to run home and come back with a credit card. My "healthy outing" definitely raised my b/p.

Anyway, I went to the blood center today in mid-afternoon so I wouldn't be so close in time to my normal jangled, caffeine-induced morning state. This seemed to work as my b/p reading was lower, 168/87. However, the nurse was sure the machine was malfunctioning because it gave my pulse as 47. He was perplexed until I said I was a runner. "Oh," he said as he pranged my finger with a needle to get a blood sample.

He released a drop of my blood into a little jar of blue solution which had a disgusting, clumpy mass of blood from prior tests covering the bottom of the jar like a giant omeba. If your blood sinks into this mess, it has enough iron in it for you to donate blood. If it floats, you 're anemic and they won't take your blood.

I'm pretty sure that every woman on the planet is anemic according to this test and can't give blood, but for guys, usually their blood sinks into this slowy swirling bottom-clinging mass. Mine stopped halfway down, suspended in perfect stasis midway. Now what.

The nurse squeezed another blood drop out of my finger and took it into the next room. He came back sans the blood drop, happy. "Fifteen over three," he said in triumph. "I tested it in the other room." Apparently 15/3 is good. That's irony, I guess.

"What's wrong with that blood," I asked, indicating the red tear-shaped drop in the tube hovering immobile just above the clotted bloody cloud at the bottom.

"Oh, I got a tiny air bubble in it when I pulled it out of your finger into the crystalline tube. That's causing it to come to rest." Oh.

So I gave blood for the 78th time. But who's counting? I just hope the bloodletting doesn't impact too much on my effort in the hilly 9.3 mile anchor leg I'm doing in a marathon relay race in 40 hours.

Poor Man's Marathon

I finished a marathon last Sunday in 3:33:30 (8:09 minutes per mile). Or in 3 years (41.8 days per mile). It all depends on how, or whether, you count it.

I first ran the Washington's Birthday Marathon in 2002 in 4:59:53 (11:27). It was my 3rd marathon and I had never broken 5 hours before. How big do you think my eyes got while I watched the seconds tick off the finisher's clock as I ran that last 100 yards? (Right: Last year I struggled running the anchor leg for the G-Force.)

This is a venerable race, a club marathon that runs through a rural nature research park in Greenbelt, MD. Three times. You go down this steep 3/4 mile hill to get into a forested bowl, run three 7.3-mile loops down there and finish by climbing the monster hill you ran down in the first mile in the last mile. After thinking about it for 25 miles.

This marathon is in its 47th consecutive year. It is known to be cold, windy and hilly. It is also dirt cheap, costing $25 (for which you get a technical shirt beforehand and a bowl of chili afterwards).

In 2006, L put together the G-Force to be a coed entry in the Relay part of the race. The three legs, being 9.7, 7.3 and 9.2 miles respectively, correspond to the three loops, obviously, with the first having a nice downhill and the last a nasty uphill. (Above: After the 2007 race with L and D.)

In 2006 I led off, L got the usual woman's leg and D anchored the effort. I ran my 9.7 miles in 1:17:23 (7:59), my first sub-eight effort ever at any distance over 10K. It was a breakthrough run for me. L ran her 7.3 miles in 1:01:55 (8:36) and D knocked off his 9.2 miles in 1:14:08 (8:03). We finished in 3:33:16 (8:08), 16th out 46 teams, or 6th out of 24 teams in our division. L picked up one spot for us after my 19th place effort, while D picked off two more teams. (Below: Volunteers at last year's race. This February marathon is often frigid.)

The next year D and I swapped positions. I didn't run very well. D put us in 15th place with a 1:18:35 (8:06), L knocked off two teams during her 1:00:49 (8:27) run and I went to pieces on the last big hill, losing one place while finishing in 1:17:32 (8:26). We finished fourth out of 12 teams in our division, in 15th place out of 29 teams with a 3:36:56 (8:17).

This year L dropped off the team and Sasha replaced her. I insisted on doing the short middle leg so I could "complete" the marathon by running all three legs in three years. D had to do the first leg since he wanted to do the full mary this year, so Sasha was given the hardest leg. She was imperturbable about it, shrugging off our warnings about "the hill." (Left: Despite suffering from an injury, D finished the marathon in under 4 hours, less than 12 minutes behind the team.)

D ran the marathon in 3:52:17 (8:52). Talk about consistency! He ran the first leg in 1:25:49 (8:51), passing off the red sash in 32nd place. Talk about guts! He was running with a stress fracture in his right foot, which has him sidelined indefinitely now after a visit with the doctor this week. (Above: Jessica and Ellen from the National Half Marathon training program, volunteering at this year's race. It's a long day for volunteers.)

I ran really well this year, doing a 58:35 (8:01) while trying to do sub-eights. Nobody passed me during the entire 7.3 miles and I picked up six places. Fresh, I ran by a lot of tired marathoners on their second loop. (Left: Finished with my poor man's marathon after three years!)

Then Sasha threw down a 1:16:35 (8:19), picking up a spot. We finished in 3:40:59 (8:26) in 25th place out of 43 teams, 17th out of 28 teams in the coed division. (Below: Sasha anchored the Gee Force this year.)

Marathon relays are a lot of fun.