I’d like to thank the academy…
You know those acceptance speeches that actors and actresses give when they win an Academy Award? It seems like they thank anyone and everyone that they ever met in their entire life. Specifically. By name. Since the rest of us don’t know who Henry Gobs is it’s pretty boring to listen to. I decided that if I ever got to write an acceptance speech I would try to be more descriptive in my thanking OR I would just yell “I love you all!” and be done with it like Cuba Gooding Jr.
Until a year and a half ago I’d never really won anything, except a few games of monopoly, ‘’free tickets’ in scratch off lottery, candy BINGO, and competitions that were prefaced with the words ‘everyone is a winner’, hardly things worth preparing an acceptance speech for.
When I finally won an actual competition, a triathlon 2 years ago, it came as a complete shock. There must be some mistake I thought. I don’t win things. I’m just here for fun and the post-race food1. During the awards ceremony they did indeed call my name, proving it was not just an error. I went up to the winner’s table and collected my prize2. I didn’t take the microphone from the race director and give an acceptance speech because I was speechless (I hope somebody marked this down in the record books. It actually happened). I wasn’t like all of the Oscar winners that- gasp, place their hand over their heart or their mouth, then get up to the podium and say “This is so unexpected!” before pulling out a folded piece of notebook paper that they had tucked in their pocket with the names of everyone they have ever met on it… unexpected, sure. I really was shocked and completely unprepared so I didn’t get to give what I’m sure would have been one of the best acceptance speeches of all time.
After my speechless moment, I vowed to never be so unprepared again. That’s why, when I had the idea3 to run a half marathon I started preparing in more ways than one. I wanted to be physically ready but also ready with a completely ‘spontaneous’ speech to give when I received my finishers medal.
I selected a race based on timing (I needed at least 10 weeks to prepare) and the awesomeness of the finisher’s medal. There was a race sponsored by a running club in New Hampshire whose motto was “Run Free or Die”. I was assured in an email from the race director that yes- their finisher’s medals did say “Run Free or Die” on them and that no- sneakers with jet packs were not considered appropriate or legal footwear for the event. It seemed to me that having a “Run Free or Die” medal would somehow solidify my new identity as a New Hampshirite. I needed one of those medals- I just hoped that my quest to earn one would lead to Running Free… and not Dying.
The race was 13 weeks away and I needed to start training. I perused some old Runner’s World magazines that were destined for the recycling bin before our big move. I found an issue that advertised a 10 week beginner half marathon training plan. I made some adjustments to the plan by removing all references to tempo or race pace (I didn’t care how fast I ran, I just wanted to live) and scratching out all of the Saturday runs and replacing them with a workout called “Carb loading”. The modified plan seemed feasible enough so I decided to start training the very next day. I consulted the training schedule- a rest day… this was going to be easier than I thought.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t FDA approved.
I trained fairly religiously for the next few months. I had a couple of setbacks4 and some pain5. But I also got to spend a lot more time with my foam roller, Chip, AND I got to combine my favorite activity- eating- with running6. Before I knew it- 13 weeks, 190 miles of training runs, 10 trays of ice cubes, a bottle of ibuprofen, and one and one half tubes of a German pain relieving cream called Traumeel were all long gone. Race day was upon me.
The day before the race we drove to North Conway, NH, a beautiful little town in the Mount Washington valley (which desperately needs your help in their search for a missing teen girl named Abigail Hernandez. Please take a look at the photos here to see if you recognize her). We checked into our motel, picked up my race packet, and went out to drive the course. It was hillier than I thought and when we got back to the motel I cried about the hill at mile 3. The only thing that could fix this was more hill training, and since this wasn’t possible on the eve of the race I turned to the next best alternative… junk food.
What you eat for dinner the night before literally fuels your body for the race. I decided to fill my tank with pizza from a tiny alleyway pizzeria called Boston Brothers. I ordered a pizza with pesto instead of red sauce (cause who wants heartburn on race day?), chicken, black olives, and pineapple. The man behind the counter verified that I did indeed want to put pineapple on a pesto pizza, I confirmed my order, he made a face like he just threw up in his mouth a little, and then he told me it would be $17.95. Half a pizza, 2 chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies the size of my head, and a huge glass of milk later I felt fueled… or at least deep enough in a food coma that I calmed down about the mile 3 hill.
I got into the bed and shifted myself and my pizza baby around like a beached whale to get comfortable. I then miraculously managed to get some sleep. I normally suffer from insomnia but it seems to get even worse when I am nervous about something. Sometimes I’ll sleep only a few hours on the night before a race. My pre-race rest time is plagued with trips to the bathroom and waking up from strange dreams- which on this night may have included a dream where the road at mile 12 came to life, swallowed me like a giant tsunami wave, and spit my aching body back to mile 10… but it’s all a little hazy.
I accidentally hit the start button on my GPS watch when I turned it on. Thus we now have this map and the valuable data about my wait in the Port-a-Potty line and walk to the race start.
I woke, not quite rested, in the morning and drove down to the park 20 minutes before the race start. I saw some crazy people running around the park to warm up7. I shook my head and got in the long line for the port-a-potties. I waited in line for 6 minutes 40 seconds, sat completely still in the port-a-potty for 2 minutes 25 seconds, and walked to the race start in 4minutes 15 seconds at a max speed of 3.2 miles per hour, burning a total of 12 calories (See map inset).
At the race start volunteers held up signs where runners of different paces should line up. This cut down on jumbling at the beginning of the race since the faster folks were towards the front of the group and the slower folks towards the back. I walked to the 10:00 per mile group and hung with my people. I was appalled to see that there was a 6:00 per mile group at the very front. There is no way I could ever run a 6 minute mile, even if I was being chased by a bear, for just one mile- let alone 13.1.
I panicked when I realized that the discrepancy in pace per mile would deliver the 6 minute mile runners at the finish line 53 minutes before me… what if they ate all of the pizza? I made a mental note to add more speed intervals to my training for the next race and then shifted myself slightly in front of the other folks in the 10:00 per mile pace group hoping to guarantee myself a slice of pepperoni.
And then, with the sound of a gunshot, 435 bodies and 870 feet ran onto the course. We squeezed ourselves through the starting arch and spilled out onto the road, like M&Ms spilling out of the ‘big’ bag when it accidentally rips all the way down the side instead of just the corner ripping off at the top (they should really work on this defect… I’ve lost lots of good M&Ms this way). We all wore smiles as we ran past the park for the first time at mile 0.3. We were fresh and full of adrenaline, waving at our cheering friends and family members. 12.9 miles later when we came to that same spot on the road and headed into the park to run through the finish arch, few wore smiles, some wore tears (of joy and pain) and it honestly felt like everyone that got there was a winner.
As I crossed the finish line I was given a medal
(which I am still wearing right now as I write this) and this time I was prepared. Even though I was wearing sweaty spandex instead of something fitting for the red carpet I put on my best Oscar winner face and unfolded my completely impromptu acceptance speech:
(Reverb on microphone)
Thank you everyone for this great honor (holds up finishers medal and turns from side to side).
First and foremost I’d like to thank the Race Director and the Town of North Conway for laying out a beautiful race course (except for that hill at mile 12.5 that almost made me throw up) and hosting a well organized, safe, and fun event.
I’d also like to thank the following people who were out on the course today:
The North Conway police: for making stern faces, waving their arms, and not allowing people desperate for good deals to turn their cars into the outlet stores that lined the race course. I tried to thank each and every one of you as I ran by on the course but I probably missed some of you. And to the police officer who told me it was his cute twin that I saw and thanked a couple of miles back- it was only mile 4, I wasn’t quite delusional yet, I knew it was you again but I don’t mind thanking you twice- once for the safety and once for the laugh.
Those people at mile 8 with the sign advertising ‘Fresh High Fives’– I know you weren’t there specifically for me but I needed you more than you will ever know. Your enthusiasm and hand slapping carried me for a whole mile.
And a big thank you to all those back home that supported me during my training:
The Hill People Heckler– This mid-70’s local man lives on the dirt road opposite mine under the power lines. Each Sunday morning, right around the time I was out for my long run, he would take a quick trip (liquor store, bacon run… who knows) somewhere in his old beat-up pickup truck. After seeing me several weeks in a row, he decided to bestow upon me some sage running advice. He was headed home, he pulled his truck up next to me, rolled down the window, took the toothpick from between his teeth and told me “You might want to pick up the pace a little.” He then rolled up his window and drove away.
Eminem, P!nk, Kesha, and the 37 other artists that kept me company during my training runs and the race. I put a full listing of my audio support crew and the race playlist that could cause eardrum hemorrhaging in folks with good taste in music below. 
I loaded extra music into the playlist just in case things went awry and the race took me longer than I thought. Katy Perry Roar-ed me across the finish line… which, sadly, meant that I did not get to hear the epic back to back arrangement of Flo Rida’s Whistle and the Baha Men’s Who Let the Dogs Out?
Food– Training burned a lot of calories and I was always so thankful to have you around to quell my voracious appetite. Special thanks goes out to avocados, honey bunches of oats cereal, candy, and pie.
And last but not least those people that I couldn’t have done this without, I am forever grateful to each and every one of you:
Oh Magnum!
My physical therapist– She took the time 2 years ago to treat me like a person, instead of a babbling lunatic… which is how I acted on my first visit to her office8. She was like an angel of mercy in a Lole track suit and Saucony sneakers. She spent months scraping and taping to get me back up and running again. And then to solidify her place amongst the divine she told me where I could get these earrings.
My running mentor- An amazing athlete and an even more amazing friend who inspires me to challenge myself both physically and mentally. I have learned so much from her, about running, about life, and about where to get the best cookies, cakes, pizza, salami, ice cream bars, and stale candy.
My husband– I could write pages and pages about my most avid and dedicated supporter and how thankful I am for all that he does. But they’re starting to give me the signal to wrap it up so I’ll just end with the final words he said to me this morning before the race started. He gave me a big hug and said “You’re gonna do awesome.” I said “Okay”, not really sure if I believed it myself or not. Still hugging me he said “Your hair smells so good, how could you not do awesome?” He gave me a kiss and walked away.
He was right. My hair smelled good. And I did awesome.
(Cue speech ending music)
“I came in like a wrecking ball!”
I probably should have added that to the playlist.
1- I love that they cut race food into bite sized pieces. If there are 5 different kinds of muffins and bagels on offer you don’t have to commit to just one variety. You can try the double chocolate muffin, the apple struesel top muffin, the blueberry muffin, the everything bagel, and the whole wheat sunflower seed bagel (not speaking from experience). AND you can top it all off with a big swipe of cream cheese from that 5 gallon bucket at the end of the table… nobody is monitoring that thing. They might as well just put an ice cream scoop in there for portion control because that’s how much I’m sawing out of there with that little plastic butter knife anyway.
2- A pint glass… really? I just kicked some serious ass. Couldn’t we have taken the time since my finish to cast a life sized bronze sculpture that would forever grace the shoreline of the reservoir I just swam in? I was at least hoping for a medal- a big gold one, that I could wear every day for the rest of my life. Is that too much to ask when I just gave a gold medal effort? The pint glass sits in a place of honor, right next to the car token from my winning monopoly game in 1996.
3- Sometimes I have good ideas, but most of the time I have really bad ideas… that time I ordered asparagus as a topping on a pizza, that time I thought we needed a second cat, that time I thought I could rally car race over a concrete parking lot divider in my Nissan Sentra, that time I decided to play roller derby… I could go on and on.
4- I thought I was going to be some kind of sea level running phenom. I thought I would have an amazing aerobic capacity at this elevation, having been used to running at 4000 feet and then moving to 400 feet. Mel T. Cheeseman would be to New Hampshire running what Lance Armstrong was to French biking… except my weakness would be candy instead of steroids.
What actually happened was that I got to New Hampshire and had to repeat one of the weeks on the training plan several times as I became accustomed to the New England Flat terrain (described here).
5- Sometimes it was a lot of pain. There were entire weeks where I thought that the bones in my right knee, or my left knee, or both of my knees had been turned to dust and I kept waiting to collapse onto the pavement like a Stretch Armstrong doll. There were days that my legs were so sore I couldn’t stand up from the toilet without using my upper body strength to push myself up from the seat or pull myself using a grip of death on the wall next to the toilet… exactly how were the geriatric handicapped people that lived here supposed to get on and off the toilet? No wonder they moved out. This place is ill equipped.
6- I wanted to pack a picnic lunch with a sub sandwich, a bag of potato chips (the single serving size bag, I wasn’t going to overdo it) and a peanut butter cookie. I was encouraged by wiser, more experienced runners to pack an energy gel instead. Something about it digesting better…
7- How much energy did these people have? Did they realize we had to run 13.1 miles? I conserved as much energy as possible that morning, even debating whether the effort of lifting my arm to brush my teeth was worth it. I warmed up by layering fuzzy fleece pajama pants and a huge sweatshirt over my race outfit. I hastily stripped off the extra layers at the edge of the park and handed them to my husband 5 minutes before the race start.
8- I was fresh off of a visit to a podiatrist who told me that I had the arthritic feet of a 60 year old* and that there wasn’t much hope that I could ever return to running. I felt like a 4 year old racehorse being sent off to the glue factory. His ‘treatment plan’, which he told me couldn’t possibly heal the horrific condition of my feet, was meant to make me more comfortable by minimizing my symptoms. It involved the purchase of a cane. A CANE! I tried to relate this diagnosis to my new PT at my first appointment. Instead of speaking calmly and clearly, I cried and wailed incoherent sentences ending in “…cane” and “… old gluepot” as I gasped for air through rivers of mucus and tears. It was like I forgot the word ‘physical’ came before the word ‘therapist’ in her job description. She managed to glean enough information from my story to understand that it was my right foot (and not just my head) that needed help. I repeated everything else more coherently and she assured me that she would get it fixed.
*Did this mean that somewhere out there a 60 year old out was running around on my 30 year old feet? I always thought that the organ/body part thief story was just an urban legend. I dug deep into my brain trying to remember if I ever woke up in a bathtub full of ice with no feet after a night of hard partying in college… nothing was coming up. I knew I shouldn’t have drank the punch at those frat parties!
The Side Show 