Long Beach Marathon (SUB4ORDIE) : Part 1

I mentioned a lot of my race faux pas and how I managed to completely BLOW my Goal Race in the  “Lessons Learned From a Completely Terrible No Good Race” post.

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details, continue reading.

If you only want to hear about the race itself and all of its disasterous crapshoot, come back tomorrow.

If you’re interested in telling me how much I suck and am not “as awesome as I think I am”, feel free to proceed directly to the comments section.  You’re only adding fuel to my Sub4 fire.

And thanks, I feel completely validated as a blogger now to officially have haters.

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Race Eve – Sweaty Emily and I shake-out ran, hit up the expo, and carb-loaded like champ, and got to sleep at a respectable time like good little runners.  Read her posts for more D’s – I’m just gonna hark her photos and let them do the talking.

p.s. thanks Julie for the bag of candy – carb trifecta COMPLETE

p.p.s Danica, I still feel really bad about the exploding Sprite.  Swear I wasn’t trying to make your life anymore miserable than it already was.

Race Morning – Everything early goes as planned.  Alarms functioned, intestines cooperated, and we got on the road on-time despite Brian hiding the car down the road and around the block.

(he loved the frantic “WHERE THE F IS THE CAR?!” call I’m sure)

I had pre-paid & reserved parking, and had a general idea of how to get us there…

When we hit horrendous & unexpected traffic a few miles from the exit, I started to worry but knew we had a time cushion and should be fine.

And then (for some unknown god forsaken reason) I veered off the highway early, got lost around the piers, and ran into every closed on-ramp in the county.  After 20 minutes (?) we made our way back into bumper-to-bumper and started throwing up hail marys while lacing shoes/attaching time chips/stripping sweats in our seats.

Conversation quickly went from anxious excitement to anxious fear/dread/ourlivesareruined.

<10 minutes until gun time – I threw the car into a spot and we hit the pavement running before the engine even shut off.

Took the stairs two-at-a-time out of the garage and sprinted across the street to Subway, per our devised plan to avoid the porta-potties we were sure had mile-long lines.

Homeless man : “no bathrooms here! Ya gotta go down ___ st and turn at ___ st and…”

S & E : “AHHHHH NO TIME GOTTA GO OHMYGODOHMYGOD”

We continue our sprint – Em considers squating in the City Hall bushes but we keep going – my business was nothing I’d leave in even my worst enemy’s landscaping.

On our downhill sub4 (minute/mile, not hour/marathon) sprint Em caught sight of Auld Dubliner’s barely-cracked-open door and shoved her way inside.  I figured no way in hell an Irish Pub would be open before 7am on a Sunday, but by some stroke of our first good luck of the day, a (very startled) bartender looked up as we stormed inside like a heard of freaking buffalos stressed runners about to miss their race.

E : “CAN WE PLEASE USE YOUR BATHROOMS OMG PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE”

Permission granted, and we plowed through the ladies room door – completely void of concern that we gave the male janitor inside a heart attack (and wasted no time waiting for him to exit before dropping trou and taking care of business in record time)

Our sprint to the start continued, straight through the restaurant throwing ‘THANK YOU THANK YOU YOU SAVED OUR LIVES NO WE’RE NOT BEING OVERLY DRAMATIC BYE!’ over our shoulders to the nice barman.

The course came into sight just as the wheelchair gun went off.  Em needed to get in wave#1 (the corrals were self-seeded) if she was going to have any fighting chance at her PR.  We got to the start and I left her to hop the gate while I continued my “warm-up sprint” further down to corral#2.

I got to the opening just after wave#1 was released, thankful we were both safe and sound in our respective corrals.  It was one thing to jeopardize my own race, but I was sick thinking my poor planning could have cost Em her PR.

…And then here she comes – running outside the corrals, cutting in front of me, and diving into the back of the already moving wave#1.  The Corral Police wouldn’t let her in.  I watched her weave and push towards the start until I lost her ponytail in the crowd.

And then I keeled over and died.

(I wish.)

With my stomach in my shoes I moved with the crowd for the wave#2 start (waves were staggered at 5 minute intervals).  I choked down a mini Snickers just as the gun went off, and realized Garmin was still strapped around my tank top (in an effort to ensure I wouldn’t forget it during our haphazard in-car dressing in traffic) and hadn’t started locating satellites yet.

So I pulled off to the side, a few feet from the start line, while hoards of runners pushed by me until it finally had signal.  I took a few steps, crossed the first timing mat, and just like that Marathon #4 (ska SUB4ORDIE) was underway.

…to be continued.

Sarah OUaL