(photo from Miami Herald)
The only bad thing about going to Miami in January is coming home. Nothing like leaving 75 degrees for single digits.
While I did miss my family while I was gone, I discovered this amazing thing: sleep! Friday night I slept so soundly, with no elbows, knees, and feet in my sides. No requests for waters. No bad dreams. No snoring husbands. Just me and my bed. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Friday night went so well, on Saturday I treated myself to a nap. And then, while I had trouble falling asleep on Saturday night (“I need to be awake in six and a half hours! I need to be awake in six hours! I need to be awake…”), once I was out, I was completely out. This is the first marathon where I didn’t wake up every fifteen minutes thinking, “Is the alarm about to go off? I don’t want to wake everyone else up,” because this was the first of five marathons when I didn’t have three others in my bed. I could just sleep and not worry and let the alarm wake me up.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I did do a few other things than sleep, but not much. A friend came down with me, and we went out for a nice breakfast at Front Porch with Teener Tuna and her man. I spent a while at the marathon expo, collecting shwag and buying an awesome running jacket. Dinner at cousin Ollie’s, massive amounts of pasta, birthday cake for his 41st birthday, and a little hot tub action, hanging out outside in his new tub, which overlooks Biscayne Bay with amazing views of Downtown Miami. Lunch at Versailles on Sunday was incredible, despite the tiff my mother got into with the counter person when she refused to serve my very blond friend because she wasn’t Cuban (she was served). And, of course, I ran 26.2 miles.
My cousin Ollie, his sister’s husband (A), his brother (R), my friend (S), and I all ambled to downtown at 5 a.m. on Sunday. Found a parking spot easily enough and headed to the American Airlines Arena for the start. It was so clear who was a local and who wasn’t: I had on my shorts and a tank top; Ollie peeled off his long pants, but kept on his long-sleeved black Under Armor shirt. But could you blame him? I mean, it was 61 degrees at the start! Brrr!
Ollie and I kept ourselves busy with the Portapotty line, and the next thing I know, the start went off right on time at 6:15 a.m. We were way in the back, so it took us about 11 minutes to cross the start line. But boy, did those miles just melt away. The race starts going across the MacArthur Causeway, and it is the most amazing start to any race I’ve ever run. As we headed up the causeway, the Blues Brother’s “Going Back to Miami” blasted, which quickly segued in the theme from Love Boat as we passed the cruise ships all lit up, which moved into Madonna songs as we passed Millionaire’s Row. The sky was still dark with twinges of pink in the distance; the new Miami Beach fire boat tooted at us from the Bay; the billionaires on Fisher Island were forced to wait for us to pass. A beautiful site indeed.
Running along the Beach is always amazing–up Ocean Drive where Stoney and Claudia gave us the first of many shout outs (thanks, guys!!); past my high school, Beach High, which bears absolutely no resemblance to the school I went to with it’s beautiful new buildings and a law-abiding administration; past the old Publix of my youth as opposed to the new shippish Publix (that was for you, Ms. O and Teener!); down the Venetian Causeway, where my parents live and where I grew up (not the same places, by the way–and what’s up with my good old Dilido Island–known in the day as Dildo Island–becoming Di Lido Island, as if it were suddenly better than us?; Those were the days when the S in San Marino Island was usually spray painted over with a D). We saw my parents and friends and I swear, the first ten miles were the shortest miles I’ve ever run. Oliver and I agreed that instead of running a marathon, we were going to just do a warm-up run of about, oh, 13.1 miles to the starting line for a half marathon.
The bands were great, the scenery was beautiful, and I had the same urge I had last time at mile 12.8: I wish I had a camera. Two arches awaited us, the one of the left read “Half-Marathon” and the one on the right, “Marathon.” As I said to Oliver, “This is where we split the wheat from the chaff.” Okay, that’s not exactly what I said. Because I didn’t know it was “chaff.” So I said, “The wheat from the chafe.” Which was kind of right, as by then, the Body Glide had sweat right off my body.
Moving on! The road suddenly got reaaaal quiet and I felt some serious superior feelings over those folks who were running only 13.1 miles. Because in the sold-out marathon of 15,000 people, only 3,000 folk chose to do the full marathon. But Oliver and I had our own cheerleading squad and A.’s wife and R.’s wife came out twice (with signs! I love signs), Oliver’s family was out at least four times, Teener Tuna and Claudia and Stoney were out many times, and we cruised.
At mile 16, I was giving Oliver the standard pep spiel, which he was rapidly getting sick of, when a woman, Heather, nearby overheard me saying, “We’re right on pace. You’re doing great. Just stay on pace. We’ll get in easily under five. Remember, one foot in front of the other. Slow and steady finish the race,” and she asked if she could join us because she wanted to finish in under five hours and her running partner injured herself the week before, which was pretty much the death knell for Oliver. Because as much as I could tell Oliver just wanted me to shut up, she asked me to keep the talk going. Let’s think about this: One person wants me quiet; one wants me to chatter on. Which do you think I did? Oliver actually started hanging back so he wouldn’t have to hear me, but Heather was just a glutton for punishment. At one point her knee was bothering her, so I gave her the standard, “You know, you really have to pay attention to your body, and if you need to walk, then do it,” but she gave me a look, so I asked, “Or did you want me to just tell you to suck it up?” She said, “I want to hear ‘Suck it up!'” Which pretty much replaced “slow and steady” as our mantra for the rest of the race.
The only brutal part of the race was a couple of miles in the hot, hot (okay, about 74 degree) sun on the Rickenbacker Causeway. As we looped back to Brickell, we knew we were in the home stretch, and I have to say, I didn’t think the race got hard till about mile 23. That’s when my leg started spasming. But I ignored it, and we kept going. I warned everyone that the last mile is the longest, and it absolutely was. At mile 25, Oliver said to me, “Is this where we can pick it up?” and I thought, “Dear God, I’ve got nothing in my to pick up!” but I said, “Sure! This is absolutely the time,” but I was greatly relieved when he started laughing and said, “This is my pick up!”
C
oming down the home stretch was amazing. At 26 miles, Heather went for the last .2 on her own. Ollie and I had enough oomph to give it a good sprint. As we were coming down, in the next chute, were all a zillion (okay, 4,000) young kids in orange shirts who were running the last mile of their “Run for Something Better,” in which they ran 26 miles over the course of several weeks. We crossed the finish line–beating our goal, with a clock time of 4:58:18 and a chip time of 4:47:24 (I was a second behind Oliver)–and while the bodies were bruised, we both (I think) felt strong. We collected our spinning palm tree medals, and then I nearly passed out. I stretched for a while on the grass and let S. (who qualified for Boston, beating her old PR by over ten minutes!) bring me bananas and cookies while I let the blood flow back to my head.
We found A. and R., who did amazingly for their first marathons, especially given that A. hobbled the last two miles with an aching knee. I will say, if anyone is considering a marathon, I think the Miami Marathon is a fabulous, fabulous race. It’s flat. The scenery is the best. There are more Portapotties on this course than even New York (laugh if you like, but this is an important fact!). The support is amazing. Multiple gel stations. Multiple Fig Newton and banana stations. Pretzel station. Parrot Heads giving out orange leis. Sponges. School bands and cheerleaders. Rock bands. Music blasting. Did I mention the scenery? Go sign up now. You can run for half price in you register now.
And now I’m back. And the prediction for Wednesday is 3 to 6 inches of snow. And my quads ache. And I have to pick paint colors.
Better start training for the next marathon. Hawaii anyone?
