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| Barry and I have been here before |
I had not planned to run it this year, but Andrew signed up and I told him I would run it with him. Unfortunately his plans to have someone work for him fell through and then a busy Saturday night of calls put him in no shape to meet the starting cannon.
Both Rebecca and Barry show up in time for the 0540 AIS departure. Road closures on the way to the MCRRC hospitality suite at the Rosslyn Holiday Inn are a constant fear of mine. With recent terrorist incidents, security might be ratcheted up yet again, and indeed, we have to contend with a few bits of detouring. But nothing overly difficult and we arrive timely and park in the usual place.
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| At the start |
The wheelchair racers go off at 0745 and at 0755 the M2A1 Howitzer blast signals the start of the race. Since we approached the start from the course end, we don't bother to walk back to our assigned corral, but rather wait for the corral to reach us. We watch for ten minutes as runners advance toward the start, and it gives one an appreciation of how big a race it is, (20616 runners will finish.) We decide it is time to go, and we step into the stream of runners moving toward the start.
No Hurry
Barry, Rebecca and I set off on a leisurely pace. We have a long way to go, and reason to hurry. Rebecca is coming back from an injury and does not plan to go more than eight or nine miles. I plan to goad her into pushing further. Barry, who runs quite a bit despite a cranky hip, plans to simply go.
We go along together for the first four miles, with Rebecca and I taking walk breaks to stay with Barry who takes necessary walk breaks. After going down Spout Run Parkway onto the George Washington Parkway past mile 3 I take them over to the edge of the road and urge them to peer over the low stone wall at the Potomac Heritage Trail, which runs between the Parkway and the Potomac River all the way to the American Legion Bridge.
Crossing Key Bridge beyond mile 4 Rebecca and I look back for Barry, but cannot see him, so we proceed onward. We get drinks at the water stop on M Street in Georgetown and I stop to tuck my extra shirt, which is tied about my waist, into my shorts, which are in danger of falling down. (No danger of embarrassment here; I'm wearing tights under the shorts.)
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| Rebecca calls it a day |
Rebecca and I make the turn and in a minute or two spot Barry headed toward the turnaround, so he's only a couple of minutes behind. We chat with fellow runners, and skip the orange slices offered by the Kennedy Center at mile 10. We catch up to and exchange greetings with 79-year old "Nick the Brit" (who finishes in 5:39) who we know from MCRRC.
When we reach the 11 mile marker Rebecca announces that she is calling it a day, as she has gone further than her planned 8-9 miles and has an eight hour ride back to Ohio where she is a professor of taxation.
The Blue Mile
Perhaps the one thing that sets the Marine Corps Marathon apart from all other races that I have run is the Blue Mile. "Wear blue: run to remember" is a national nonprofit running community that honors the service and sacrifice of the American military. The Blue Mile, always mile 12 of MCM, consists of picture after picture of American service members killed in action, arrayed chronologically. It is a somber stretch and it is common to see runners stopped to take pictures or stand contemplating comrades or family members pictured alongside the course. But the heart-rending scenes come closer to the end of the mile, where time has not had a change to soften the loss of a loved one. Grief, sorrow, tears are common, and runners stop to touch the pictures of their loved one who will never be with them again.
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| So many do |
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| Remembering |
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| Grief and sorrow on the Blue Mile |
Onward
I cross the halfway mat in 2:38. I'm neither pushing the pace nor slowing it down. Rebecca had noted that we were running at a 12 minute per mile pace and that's about what I continue to run. On Independence Avenue crossing Kutz Bridge over the Tidal Basin, I chat with a woman wearing a birthday banner. October 28 is her 60th birthday, and I joke that running a marathon is not much of a present. She says she ran it on her 40th and 50th and figured she should do it on her 60th. And then she tells me it is her 38th MCM.
On the eastbound side of Independence I scream at some oblivious runners to get out of the way of wheelchair runners being pushed by their team. Why people insist on running with blasting headphones while surrounded by tens of thousands of other runners and spectators is beyond me. Worse being unaware of warnings is a lack of situational awareness is dangerous to you and rude to others. I resist the urge to yank out the runner's earbuds, something I've done at MCMs gone by. Maybe I'm getting soft. Or mellow. Or just trying to be civil to the uncivil.
I continue my chatting with random runners as we pass the foot of Capitol Hill, return to Fourteenth Street and cross the Fourteenth Street Bridge into Virginia. I figure that if someone doesn't want me chatting at them they should run away. Or tell me to stop talking. No one does either.
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| Beer in Crystal City |
Around mile 23.5 there is a runner on the ground attended to by a police officer and a volunteer. He's cramping so I offer him one of the salt tablets I'm carrying. Just a bit further one three runners are on the sidewalk, trying to stretch out their cramped legs. I offer all of them salt tablets, and two of them accept.
I press on - relentless forward progress- with plenty of walking on the uphill on Route 110 beyond mile 25. I marvel how quickly the Marines have taken down the start line and cleaned up that stretch of the road - on the other hand they had nearly 4.5 hours to do so, so maybe not so quickly.
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| My 13th MCM Finisher's medal |
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| A treat from the North Carolina Watermelon Queen |
Results
Overall 13859 of 20613, 8077 of 11010 males, 95 of 218 in my age M65-69 group.
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| Swag: Shirt, Bib, Patch, Medal, Program Snack Box |
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