GCM Race Report - rvelich's - VERY Long (Read 1121 times)

<slash>I'll have to check it out later</slash> and then post my Cowtown Marathon report from February. Thanks for sharing your marathon experience with us. Congrats again.

I am always amazed at race reports like this. How are you able to remember all that stuff that happened along the way? Anyway, nice read. Great job. Very inspiring to say the least!

Wowza, you had a lot thrown at you, crap weather, injury, etc... You got sisu my friend. Time to rest and drink beer, lots of it, well earned.

I loved reading your race report. Take heart that running a marathon is like childbirth, you'll soon forget how hard it was and want to do it again as soon as you are able to run. Hope all is well with your injuries. Congratulations.

CONGRATULATIONS again, MARATHONER!!!! Woo Hoooooo!

Note added later: I mention something about a "few details" in a second. Try not to laugh. Its long. I type fast. Oops. It's more of a marathonguide.com type review (shut up Trent) then a race report, since Rick already took care of that. I'll add some personal comments in another post. ------------------- Rick didn't leave much to be said, so I'll piggyback a few details onto his race report. Which, by the way, wasn't long at all. And included pictures, which is always good. Me likes pictures. Even when they trigger post traumatic hypothermia. The only thing Rick failed to do was convey how truly miserable the conditions were. Miserable is the word of choice. Miserable. As in misery. As in hours of bleak, depressing, painful, dreary, cold, wet misery. Hours of running straight into a 15 mph headwind with 25 mph gusts in 35 degree weather with rain and then snow and then rain and then rain and then snow. Miserable. In other words, a lot of fun. Awesome in fact. Miserably awesome. But however much I repeat the word miserable, the true miserableness will fail to be conveyed. Miserably failed, in fact. Almost as bad as the miserable sentence structure in that last paragraph. Some details - and I'll start with the few criticisms: The Ugly *Toledo, Ohio has the worst roads in the world. Okay, maybe not the world. I'm guessing there are small villages in rural Mongolia that may be worse. But maybe not. I can't explain how bad the roads are. I realized this long before the race, about the 10th time I almost busted an axle. They really suck. But they begin to really, really suck when running a long, miserable run in the freezing windy rain ... because as any marathoner knows (like, say, Rick, for example, who is now both a marathoner and a veteran of this miserable misery) ... the one thing you want to do in the latter stages of a marathon is pick your feet up as little as possible. In Toledo, running smooth was not option. Relaxing and forgetting your feet was not an option. Because every step involved a pot hole, a crack, a canyon, a fissure, or some other word for a crappy hole in the road. I almost fell twice, I saw people trip and fall, I saw one guy with blood running down his head from tripping and face-planting. It sucked. Worse yet, each of these holes was - you guessed it - full of water. 35 degree, icy slushy water. By mile 3, after I'd stepped in my third water hole, my feet were already completely soaked. At the end, I had the feet of a dead man. A drowned, dead man. White and wrinkly. Very sexy. * I hate marathons without closed roads. This one they had us run with traffic for some ungodly reason, meaning cars zooming up behind you the whole way. But wait ... it gets worse. Because of the rain and the crappy streets, there was water trapped by the curbs. Sometimes 10 feet out from the curb. So every hundred yards, you faced a choice. Do I run through the six inches of water here? Or do I veer out left into the street - and hope the cars I can't see behind me don't run be down? I tried both choices. They both sucked. Did I mention the word miserable? The Bad * The Toledo RoadRunners got quite a bit right with this one, considering the miserable - yes, miserable - conditions, and the miserably miserable roads which they couldn't help. (Note: the mayor fired the starting gun. He probably will next year. If anyone runs this next year, you might want to approach the mayor before the race and tell him to fix the freakin' roads. Oh - and if you go there, rent a car. Don't take yours. You'll thank me). But there were a few organizational problems - with the most glaring being the post-finish food area. It wasn't totally their fault; the host hotel was delayed in finishing some construction. Nevertheless, the area they crowded you into (if you didn't have a smart crew to take you elsewhere) was amazingly crowded for a small race, and - worst of all - was NOT in a warm area. Note to Toledo: move the food and drink ALL the way into the hotel, where its warmer. This wasn't exactly rocket science to figure out. * For the love of God - put my medal around my neck. I just survived your ridiculous roads and your delightful blizzard, but I can't feel my hands. My fingers were numb two hours ago. I earned that trinket, now put it around my neck. Seriously - the guy handed out the medals still stuck in little plastic bags. Little plastic bags that nobody could open because of frostbite. I used my teeth to get my own medal out. Think, Toledo. C'mon. Speaking of rocket science, this one reminded me - in some good ways - of Rocket City in Huntsville, Alabama. But if they really want to do it right, they'd be really smart to send somebody down there to watch how a small marathon can really be done. And now the good stuff - and there's plenty. The Good * Great swag! Why do cheap marathons always give out better stuff? The medal is nice (despite the above complaints), I got a cool glass mug, and the race shirt isn't a shirt at all - it's actually a pretty cool windbreaker sort of thing. I mean, its actually wearable. It looks good with jeans. Well done! (Of course, I should have gotten the hint when they gave out windbreakers. Usually, I mock the idiots who wear the race shirt on the course; during this race, I considered them to be the wisest runners. They were dressed just right.) * Great finish! Speaking of Rocket City, they did the same sort of thing: a big loudspeaker, a guy announcing your name ... all very cool. Great set up for the finish, too, right on the river. I'll forgive the brick road at mile 25 ... and I might forgive making me step off a curb 200 yards from the finish line ... because the finish was so cool. * The expo: tiny, tiny, tiny ... but pretty well done. * The host hotel: I didn't stay there, but it seemed nice. It will be when the construction is done. * The course: surprisingly pleasant, all things considered, if you ignore the road. Nowhere near as flat as expected - and I hate flat. Some gentle rollers, a few shorter steep ones. The biggest was probably the bridge right at the second mile. (Note: somebody's gonna slip on the metal parts of the bridge one of these days. Might want to think about that.). But there were enough hills to keep it interesting. Downtown is pretty ugly, but Maumee is pretty. Saw more of the river than expected, including the psychotic Midwesterners out walleye fishing in that weather. I got a kick out of the burger and cheesesteak stands set up for the fisherman near the turnaround point; I was sorely tempted to stop and get a sandwich. * Aid/gels/water: I came expecting bad on-course support and made sure to carry what I needed. I was pleasantly surprised - they had good 'ol Gatorade at every (frequent) stop, in different flavors which was always exciting - guessing what you'd get at the next table. Red was my favorite. Who knew? Best of all, just as promised they had plenty of Gu after mile 14. They needed it a couple times earlier in the race, but it was at every single table after 14. I was impressed. (Note to local race directors here in Nashville: I like Gu available late in my races ....) * The relay system. I thought the relay runners would bug me ... but since there were no spectators at all, it was actually very nice to have several spots on the race where the next leg of the relayers were waiting. It least that meant a few times there would be a bunch of people standing around. They were all good about cheering on the full marathoners, too. In fact, they made us feel like studs; I heard many comments like "wow, he's doing the whole thing!" That felt kind of good. The Beautiful * The volunteers and the police. The word "heroic" is way, way overused these days, but it comes pretty close to being appropriate here. There were almost no spectators. In fact, Rick's friends and family accounted for about 90% of them - and I'm not really exaggerating much. It was, by far, the loneliest, bleakest run I've ever endured. As I was just telling Rick on the phone, I don't think you could dream up a more miserable race without signing up for one of those miserably stupid ultramarathons that specialize in intentional misery. But the volunteers and the police endured it all and made it survivable. As bad as it was for the runners, at least we were moving; I cannot imagine the miserably miserable misery the volunteers had to suffer through. They were spectacular. Professional, friendly, and above all else - there. Just plain there. Volunteers are always the best part of any race, but in this one they were going above and beyond just by showing up. And that goes for the cops, too. Despite the traffic issues and the road issues, there were cops standing in that misery at just about every intersection. They did a great job ... and they were about the only spectators out there, too. A bunch of gruff, grumpy Ohio cops (almost all of them with mustaches, too, including the women) ... but just about every one had a kind word or a smile or a "what the hell were you thinking?" to offer. The cops and the water station volunteers single-handedly turned a miserable experience into a pretty good one. At your next race, don't forget to thank them. Especially if its miserable. ---------------------------------------- I'll add a few personal comments (a few, I swear) in a second.

Nice job JK, and congrats on a great race, especially considering the, uh (what's the word I'm looking for?) oh, MISERABLE conditions! You'll have to fill us in too on how your previous weeks' 42 mile "taper" run worked out as well. Glad to know you made it in one piece, albeit a frozen one. And also: Write a book. About running. For real. You have a gift, and no, it ain't running.