Personal Worst

The leaves are flying, and once again Kenyans are dominating big-city marathons with their ‘we’re-just-better-than-you’ speed. Most people, of course, ignore the marathon in favour of big league sports. But unlike big league sports fans, marathon fans don’t just observe the sport from behind a bowl of Cheetos. We actually suit up and toe the line with the best in the business. Try that at the ACC. But, while regular marathoners are duly inspired by the velocity of the Kenyans, for most of us, the marathon is not always about fast times or PBs. Sometimes, it’s just about gutting out a solid effort in lashing rain or bone-chilling temperatures. Toss the watch; battle to the finish. If you’ve trained well and you run intelligently, you’ll be okay.

Probably.

A large enough sample size of most things will yield outlier results, good and bad. In marathoning, those bad outliers are where you’ll find your personal worst. I’m not talking about how, if you’ve run two marathons, the slower of the two is your personal worst. I’m talking about smoking-wreckage-over-the-cliff personal worst. I’ve finished 18 marathons. Some have been negative-split joys. Most have been decent for 30 km, then ever-slowing grindfests. Some have stunk. But my head-and-shoulders, worst-ever marathon was the one I didn’t finish: Sacramento, 2001. I’d trained like a fiend and was finally going to blow through the 2:30 barrier. My wife Elizabeth and I flew to San Francisco on the Friday and headed for Sacramento the next afternoon.

On the drive, the weather begins to turn. The sun slinks behind a grey sheet. Rain droplets, then torrents. By the time we reach our hotel, it’s a storm to sink the Edmund Fitzgerald. The weather forecast offers little hope. We head to the pasta dinner, hoping for a meteorological Hail Mary. After dinner, we watch television while the winds de-limb the trees. “It’ll moderate,” my wife suggests.

I head to the bathroom for my pre-race haircut. I’ve decided on a mohawk. I’m armed with a single-bladed Bic razor. Poor choices on both counts. Forty minutes later, I emerge with a jagged hawk, red flecks of tissue dotting my scalp. “That looks nice!” Elizabeth doesn’t say. As far as haircuts go, it’s a personal worst. It’s a bad omen that I miss.

Next morning: pre-dawn, six degrees, angry-god winds, super-soaker rains. It’s a point-to-point course, heading directly into the gale. Bubye, 2:30, I conclude, but how much should I slow my pace? Does the net downhill offset wind? I jog around a bit in the almost-hurricane. Then I strip down to my immediately-drenched racing kit and head to the start. Anthem time: “bombs bursting in air,” teeth chattering, hat pulled tighter over bad mohawk. The gun fires. We sprint away. Mile one: too quick, ease up! Mile two: calves tightening. Shoulda jogged the first mile to get warm. A group passes me. I latch on, until my calves veto this move. My race is done; my day isn’t. I’ve run six marathons before this one, each a personal best. I’m in uncharted territory.

Mile 16: I stop and squat down to massage my calves. When I stand up, my legs spasm and lock. I’d thought I’d jog in easily but now I can’t walk a straight line. I peer heavenward. The rains are abating but no other help is coming from that direction. I’m in glorified underpants with 10 miles left to run. I judder forwards, core temperature plummeting. A race marshall bikes up, gives me a head-to-toe assessment and wraps me in a space blanket. He tells me there’s a coffee shop a half-mile up the road.

“You can wait inside for the sweep bus. Think you can make it?”

I gurgle an affirmative, then stumble on, blanket flapping uselessly. One foot forward, sort of, then the next. Years pass. I travel 200 feet. The race marshall is back. He looks me over a second time and radios for help.

A police cruiser arrives and I’m bundled into the back. I know the police are helping me but it still feels disconcerting. The officer eyes me in his rear view. I feel shifty, suddenly.

“You should take off that soaking hat. Can’t be warm.” Sound advice; I demur. It’s only been three months since 9/11. I figure that if I reveal my DeNiro-in-Taxi-Driver lid, the only way I’m leaving the back of this cruiser is in leg irons.

We arrive at the coffee house and the officer helps me inside. I make a weird noise around my frozen slab of tongue by way of thanks. A waitress spots me and sprints over. She wraps me in a big bear hug. “My dear! Look at you! You’re a mess!” She gets me a towel and fusses over me. Someone else drapes a coat over my shoulders. I’m sent to the washroom to dry off.

“You should take that hat off,” someone advises, again.

“Its actually helping,” I lie. My mohawk is ashamed of me.

Someone brings me hot chocolate and banana bread. I smile my thanks, wrapped in a big towel, wearing a stranger’s coat. I fight back tears. It’s not that I’m sad. Yes, race was a disaster. I’d not felt a single moment of joy or elation, as I always had in previous marathons, at the sight of some volunteers or a group of clapping spectators, or just suddenly, while in full flight, immersed in the moment. This race had been a grinding bore, followed by an unnerving slide towards hypothermia. But then, unbidden, people had come to my rescue. I sit there, humbled, a painful-sweet lump in my throat. Eventually, the sweep bus arrives. I wave goodbye to these kind strangers.

“It was nothing,” says the bear-hug waitress. It wasn’t nothing.