If you're a follower of TheAndie (all 9 of you), you've read the first paragraph of the Buller Gorgeous Marathon entry below. You might want to refresh yourself on that Onion article because it's about to happen again.
Also if you're a follower of TheAndie, you'll remember the Great Wall Marathon exactly one year ago this weekend. I still remember being in school in the early 2000's in Columbus Ohio and reading about the first Great Wall Marathon and thinking it would be cool to run it someday. Luckily, eleven years later, I met Beth while living in Bangladesh and she was the impetuous to make that someday happen. After China came 'wouldn't it be awesome to run a marathon on all 7 continents' which led to Buller Gorgeous (what else would I do in my last months in Dhaka than train for a marathon?) So when Beth moved to Haiti and sent out a feeler on social media recruiting to join her for the 2013 Lima Marathon, I jumped on board and a recruited a few more (3) friends to join in the fun. We each registered, bought flights, trained, designed matching shirts (see below), and traveled from DC, Port-au-Prince, Anchorage, and Mexico City to meet in Lima.
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| The Fab 5 from L to R: Beth, me, Hughesy, Engi, and Jenny Renny |
Before I get into the marathon, I'd like to take a moment to give some shout outs to these four amazing women.
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| Beth and I post Great Wall Marathon |
Followers will know I met Beth while living in Bangladesh and I am very thankful our lives paths crossed there. I can always count on Beth to provide incredibly interesting book recommendations, inspire social justice, and share in overdoses of trail mix. Now living in Haiti (after Afghanistan and Bangladesh) I'm happy she not once (China) but twice (Peru) sparked plans of mulit-continent marathoning. I wouldn't be in a hotel in Cusco typing this if not for her adventurous spirit.
Kristin Hughes who I affectionately call Hughesy-doodle, is as fun-loving as she is giving and a superb planner to boot. With a friendship established in DC in 2007, we've been through many soccer games, happy hours, and morning runs. She also provided more support to me during my time in Dhaka than she realizes through Skype dates, e-mails, and g-chats for which I am endlessly in her debt. Given her knack for organizing people, I knew once she was on board for Lima, she'd get my other favorites on board as well.
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| Hughes, Engi, and me after dinner in DC |
Which brings us to Robyn Engibous. Describing Engi as hilarious is an understatement. Having Engi around means never-ending laughter. Not an always telling jokes type of hilarious but a larger than life personality, I'd love to see the world through her eyes type of hilarious. More than that she's incredibly kind and a supportive friend. After meeting briefly in DC years ago, I am thankful my friendship with this fellow Libra and middle child continues to grow though we live on opposite coasts (did I mention Engi lives in Alaska?) Don't let her blonde and always fabulous looks fool you, Engi ran the fastest of the group completing 13.1 miles in 1 hour 50 minutes. What a speedster!
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| Jenny Renny and her birthday waffle. 2009 |
Finally and certainly not least, independent and care free Jennifer Renquist (giving her the nickname Jenny Renny will forever be a source of pride for me) broght the mac daddy combination of positive energy and Spanish language skills to the weekend. Time spent with Jenny Renny is never time enough for me. The last I saw Renny was at her wedding in July 2012 at her family's lake house in Minnesota (you may remember reading about it in the post 525,600 Minutes). Though it is unlikely that we will ever live in the same city again (but who knows!) I will continue to admire her ambition, passion, and ability to find humor in everyday life from afar and will be forever grateful that our paths ran parallel for a few unbelievably marvelous years in DC.
So going into the race my lack of strategy was really saying I have no idea how my body will react to this. Maybe my Dhaka training will pull through? Maybe the flat course will have added benefits? The gun went off and we trotted toward the starting line, I glanced down at my watch and my Garmin satellite signal I'd previously secured had been dropped - shoot! I pulled off to the side with my arm extended for a minute or so trying to get a signal before crossing the staring line. I looked up and the only few people left to cross were doing the same ridiculous arm in the air, face of the watch toward the sky motion. By the time Beth (who was graciously waiting for me) and I crossed the line we were at the very back of the pack. So much for strategy!
Three miles in I was ridiculously drenched in sweat. Lima is much more humid than my training city and right on the coast so a cloudy fog had rolled in that morning and was sitting patiently right over the city leaving a lot of moisture in the air. Beth and I trotted along for the first 12k (7.5 miles) chit chatting, catching up on life, and recognizing different international race motivation techniques. In the U.S., it's ironic signs - "run like you stole something," "be the bunny" next to a photo of the energizer bunny, "channel your inner Kenyan," the list goes on and on. In Lima, motivation was choreographed dancers in spandex - think backup MTV dancers on videos in the 80s - on float like platforms. I should also mention that crowd support is a whole lot more supportive when you understand what they are saying. Thank goodness for the Obama campaign I understood 'si se puede.'
We ran through an old residential neighborhood with traditionally South American style houses, iron gate fences, balconies, and palm trees. In this neighborhood, about the 6 mile mark, while admiring the scenery, I made eye contact with a women standing in her big picture window with her St. Bernard. I smiled waved and pumped my arms in the air, she did the same, laughed, and clapped encouragingly. I enjoy running for many reasons but that small, wordless, 5 second exchange reminds me what I love most about running. The excitement at the beginning of the race, the anticipation of pushing yourself beyond what you think is physically possible, and the complete stranger who encourages 10,000 runners at 7:30am on a Sunday morning. I'll never see that woman again, in fact I couldn't pick her out of a line up, but our short interaction reminded me about the best qualities of the human spirit and stayed with me for the next 20 miles.
There is a point in every race when running moves from enjoyable to hard. First it's a comfortable hard, pushing through the pain, followed by an exhausting hard, testing your mental toughness ultimately ending with an impossible hard when you move from running to a shuffle and all of your goals for the race boil down to just one goal of not puking on your shoes. It's different for every runner but in the marathon, ideally and in my opinion, comfortable hard would come around mile 18, exhausting hard in the last few miles, and impossible hard would not be reached. In Lima, I reached the early stages of comfortable hard around mile 10, way too soon.
Remember Kirstin of team Sprit McBoehm in Buller Gorgeous? Kirst's best friend from High School's husband, Mike (did you follow all of that?) just so happened to be in Lima for work with his hotel right along the marathon course. If you're reading this and ever contemplating the idea of going to see a friend run a race but are on the fence - do it. Knowing Mike would be around mile 15 easily got me through the next 5 miles and was a great excuse for a walk break. I knew I felt more tired than I should at that point but trudged on. The next 5 were hard, around mile 20 time started going by slower with each passing mile. My last 4 miles took me over 50 minutes. I degreased from running to what my family calls 'the pop-pop shuffle' (named after my 5 year old nephew Jake doing an impression of my dad running). And, as in any walk of life, going into a task unprepared and without a strategy doesn't yield the best results. In the end it wasn't a PR, but it wasn't my slowest race either, I learned from the race, had fun, and I didn't puke on my shoes.
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| Exhausted. Marathon on continent number 4, completed. |
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| Showing off our matching T's before the race |
GREAT post, as always, Poling! So impressed by your continuously adventurous attitude. So lucky to have you (and by extension many of these amazing women) in my life!
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