Dress Rehearsal

Saturday, 2.10.2007 - 20 miles

I wish it had been race day. Everything was right. Temps in the 30s, no precipitation, wind lacking. A good turnout, meaning plenty of friendly support along the way. I ate breakfast and decent lunches and dinners every day that week, taking special care to have oatmeal with banana, my superfuel foods, two days out. I paid special attention to hydration too, drinking my bottle down at least three times a day at work and about that many at home.


The twenty-miler is a dress rehearsal. It's a marathoner's ultimate test of endurance and skill before going the full 26.2 on race day. We started with a six-mile base in August and safely, slowly built up to this distance. This is it. Research shows that practice distances longer than twenty miles do not provide enough aerobic benefit to outweigh risks of injury. Coaches and other experts say that if you can finish twenty, you can do 26.2.


Methinks the twenty-miler is actually harder than the full race. It has it's own special set of mind games. In the high teens my body is tired and hurting, and thoughts creep in like, "Gee, if I feel this bad at seventeen, how could I stand to go another almost ten miles on race day?" Those wonderings can usually be whittled away with friendly chatter and song lyrics sung on the inside. Thank goodness for my beloved Indigo Girls and myriad other folk musicians whose poetry I memorized years ago during countless drives between Arkansas and Oklahoma.


Worse thoughts manifest near the end of twenty miles when I add up minutes and miles and hours and feelings. "If this were marathon day," a whisper says, "You would still have to go another six miles. On a good day, that's another hour...and likely it'll be longer."


Bleh.


On race day, excitement fills the air, spectators fill front yards and parking lots, and really really nice volunteers give away free stuff and cheers along the way. That extra hour isn't fun, exactly, but it is feasible. On twenty-mile day, I just have to suck it up, get it over with, and prepare for three weeks of wondering how race day will go. That "extra hour" lingers, crowding thoughts at unexpected times. Inside there, in my mind, it has a dark gray color, like a sky heavy with rain on a day when I have big outdoor plans and need, really need, to know if rain will ruin everything.


But that's where I am now. More on that in coming days. As I said earlier, Saturday actually went well.


Before we left, (meaning, before I was awake), Tom got hold of my arm and strapped his Garmin on, so I could track our mileage and pace. We would start in front of the Capitol and run nearly the whole race course, save a mile or so in North Little Rock and the lonely out-and-back miles by Rebsamen and Murray Park near the river.


It was awesome....awesome...to be part of the team that morning. There were over a hundred there, and when Tom held up real race medals to show what they look like, a cheer went up that no one who's not part of this could understand. I thought about where I was three years ago, about to set out for my first twenty-miler, nervous and scared (and sick, but that's a different story), and I felt for the folks who were going on their first long outing today. I've come a long, long way in these three years and gotten stronger than I ever knew I could.




Tom and Chris, who were only scheduled to do nine since they have a 30K race this week, started out with Jenna and I, our little pod weaving in and out of walkers and runners through downtown. SuperCoach Tom is quite popular and we always wait on him to finish answering everyone's questions and end up starting last. It's ok. It's kind of fun to start in the back and reel people in for most of the run. Somewhere near Broadway, Chris and Tom ducked out for a pit stop and we never saw them again until we passed the Capitol around mile ten. We later learned they spent their last two miles chasing us down but never quite caught up.


I quickly learned that the Garmin's pace indicator is wack. Sometimes I'd look down and see 9:15 pace (yeah right) and seconds later it would read 12:30. It didn't really matter; I've pretty much learned what 10: pace feels like and can tell when we're on it or off. Jenna and I were steady, stopping just once in front of Central High for a porta-a-potty stop. Everything in my body got tired, but nothing felt injured. Feet, shins, knees, IT band, hips, back...all good. Like I said, I wish it had been race day, because everything felt right.



We crossed the finish line having gone a little long, 20.5, but staying on pace. 3:30.