Jun. 15, 2008 at 9:56am

A Brutal Bitch of a Day

(a Sound to Narrows recap, mostly)

I reached Vassault Park a little after 8:30, confirming on my walk there that the Nike + sensor was mostly calibrated, more or less.  I couldn't find anybody I knew in the huge assembled crowd, and set out to warm up on my own.  Which bummed me out, because in 10 years this was the loneliest StN, and the sole warmup thing just kind of reinforced that.  Once again, I started crying (I had been a leaky faucet all morning.) and redirected my emotions through skillful manipulation of the iPod-- nothing like Rage in the Machine to turn those tears into something harder.

As I walked toward my start, I saw a former daycare person, and we talked, knew mutual people, and once again, I bawled in a weird uncontrollable way.  At the start, I happened to look to my left, and saw a flag on a house.  The single star made me cry.

This was getting ridiculous.  I needed to move.  I ran into (though, not literally) a friend, and we started off together with the bullhorn.  

The first mile or so was a blur, a downhill blur of some good tunes and the background sound of thousands of feet; looking around it was neat to see a river of people flowing through familiar streets.  

And then there was the first hill.  It pretty much summed up the race.  Going into the park, then heading up to the zoo, it's the hill that takes you up to the parking lots.  It seems to be gradual until you ride or run it; the fact that it winds around and just doesn't seem to end, and *then* gets steep, makes it kinda' nasty, with a kick to the gut.  That hill was my first near-puke cough of the race.

There were more hills, more near pukes, and more good tunes.  It was fun to hear Dave Matthews Eh Hee and have the connection, my kid is doing her dtress rehearsal with one of the dancers from this video.  And to make the connection, healthy living can get me a lean, lithe, dancerly body.  It was fun to listen to Blondie and think of my friend Lisa, whose lost over 100 pounds by being vigilant and focused, daily.  I thought about that focus as I slogged through the rough parts of that run, the long boring parts.  And it was fun to blip through and get just the right song, just the right rhythm, for every point of my run.  It made it easy for me to believe in my mantra, this is my run, this is my run, this is my run.

Toward the end of my run, however, I was less enthusiastic.  I began thinking about The Man, about the fun we'd had picking out the people in bright, early-nineties garb --alright, we'd say in tacit agreement with our eyes and slight nods to our heads-- let's take these guys.  I thought about that when I saw two fanny-hydration-pack runners (marathon, long training run? I get it.  7 mile run with three water stops?  Weird.) --I realized, however, that these fanny packs bobbed in time to whatever song I was listening.  The bobbing butt-bags (and the fact that the dudes were, like, seven feet tall and I am not) made me leave well enough alone and not challenge them; in the meantime I was coming up against the steepest of the nasty bitch-hills. The pair I call the hoopty hills when I'm on my bike, I don't mind so much.  They're honest, you can see they're nasty.  You just grind through it.  The down-hill, you stay steady, the uphill, you count eight-counts and tell yourself after the 10th eight-count, you can alter your pace.

But then there's Vassault.  It looks honest enough, with that one steep hill looming.  But after the near-puking on the hoopty hills, it's hard to muster up the attack energy for the steady, gradual incline leading up to the Big Hill, and for me what was exceptionally tough was not seeing the Man, kid, and canines there.  Even still, I pushed through (for near-puke number three) and managed to attack the finish, telling myself to stay strong, soon I could collapse.

Coming through the gate, stepping deliberately over the blue pad that was to read my ankle chip, I felt proud, really proud of myself:  1 hour, sixteen minutes, some seconds.  iPod said 1 hour, 10 minutes, some seconds (I was the third wave in, so it made sense.  I figured I would do the math later, after seeing the results that would be posted in the evening.)

Walking home, a kindly, older gentleman told me I looked good, strong; I kinda; did the smile and nod thing and he said, no really.  I was watching you.  You did great!  I smiled again and thanked him sincerely, and (of course) started bawling.  

Home again, I had some water, and got a phone call from a mil sounding a bit testy-- she'd been unable to just drop off the kid, and was weary of screaming girls.  I told her I'd shower and be right there.  We were done with the dress rehearsal by about one, then the kid and I had a really nice lunch at the Spar.  I ate my turkey, cheese, avacado, and bacon panini without the slightest guilt or regret.  We then headed off for pedicures, to the nail place we used to go to frequently.  Our senses were assailed in every imaginable way: every station was doing acrylics, the music was a bad blend of recent easy-listening covers and bad seventies love songs, and the water, when I finally did get a chair, was cold.  Apparently, when the place is busy, they run out of hot water.  That, and they were running really slow.

No worries, I had pretty toes and a friend came over and we Wii-ed, good times.  She left, and I made dinner, and set out to see my unofficial results.  Putting in my bib number, I got my name, age category, and race info.  HItting "get results" I saw, results not found.  WTF?  I went into "gender" and saw the complete list.  There were my friends' names.  I should have been there, right before that.  Consistent with my 1:10 and something seconds.  But I didn't exist.  Again, I started bawling.  I hooked up the 'Pod to download the run from there.  "no workout saved," said the 'Pod.  I couldn't hep it, I screamed this from-the-gut, bad, soul-baring scream that made both dogs step back a bit; the kid was Princess Bride-ing and oblivious.  I went downstairs, had a sob attack, and then saw an email from The Man.  Naturally, more waterworks.  I wrote him a brief synopsis of my day, and went in to snuggle the Kid.

At about 10, I got a response: lighten up Francis.  Be like the cool kids, come to the back of the bus.  Shrug it off.  You know you ran, you know you ran well, the details are just that.  Details.

Believe it or not, I cried more.

By now, I was head-achey, body-achey, tired to the very core of my bones. And then the dogs started barking b/c the neighbors decided to have a party.  At about 1:30, fireworks-- some big huge ones-- started going off.  Until about 2, though I couldn't get to sleep til 3 b/c the dogs were still barking.

I guess, all told, it was a fitting end to the day.

Today has got to be better.