Part II: Global Warming at Twin Cities

Monday, Oct 1

I check the weather in Minneapolis, and it looks ideal:  lows in the 40’s, highs in the 50’s, cloud cover.

Wednesday, Oct 3

Hmmm…now the forecast is for a high of 70.  Still, with a cloud cover and an 8:00 a.m. start at 54 degrees, it’s reasonable.  Heck, I ran the L.A. marathon in 80 degree weather and did well.  Piece of cake, I tell myself.

Friday, Oct 5

Dianna and I fly out of LAX.  The flight is on time, we tolerate the adorable kids kicking our seats the entire time (mother is charming, beautiful and apologetic), and we’re upbeat.  A teacher friend from Minnesota picks us up at the airport, we check into our hotel, and he and his gracious girlfriend take us to dinner.  We eat well, drink a bit of red wine, and go back to the hotel to sleep like princesses in our “heavenly beds” (a Westin trademark, and they ARE). 

Saturday, Oct 6

Both of us are registered as elites, which means we get amenities like free massage, our own bathrooms and warmup area at the start, a hospitality suite in the race hotel where we can basically eat and hang out, and bottled water on the course.  Cool.  All of this is explained to us at a special meeting we attend in St. Paul at official race headquarters near the finish line.  After the meeting, I turn around to say hello to Melissa Marsted, and surprise!  There’s Lauren Udden, who came along on a whim, and to visit his parents, who live here.  Comforting  to see familiar faces.

Dianna and I take a bus tour of the course (a beautiful greenbelt course that winds around several lakes), shop the expo and nab some good running tops, return to the race hotel for a light massage, then head back to Minneapolis.  We go out for a nice little Italian meal, and are stoic about the weather reports, which sound ominous.  It looks like it may get up into the high 70’s during the race. 

Oh, well, we figure…it is what it is. 

Race Morning, Sunday, Oct 7

When I get out of the shower, Dianna asks, “Do you want to know?”  The answer is bad.  It’s already 75 degrees at 6 a.m.  When we get to the building housing the elites, we’re sweating from a quarter mile walk.  Because the Twin Cities Marathon is the Masters’s Marathon Championship, we are required to wear back tags with our age group.  Dianna and I are both 50 this year. I scope out our competition, making a mental note of the colors they’re wearing.

At the race start, it’s 75 degrees with 87% humidity—the hottest start in the history of the race.  We find out later the race directors were considering calling off the marathon, and came within 1.5 degrees of doing so.

We wish each other luck, and the gun goes off.  I stay on my planned pace—7:25—for exactly two miles.  Dianna moves ahead, and I lose sight of her by mile 3.  I forget trying to pace myself according to my watch, and just run by effort.  This crawls progressively up to an 8:00 pace by mile 9.

The “cloud cover” everyone kept predicting?  Never materializes.  Direct sun the entire time. Humidity stays in the high 70’s and 80’s, as does the temperature.

It is odious; the absolute worst racing conditions I’ve ever endured.  Carnage everywhere–people stopping, walking, laying down, cramping, and even throwing up.  When some of the Kenyans drop at mile 10, we know things are bad.  I walk through all the water stops after that, and take several unplanned walking breaks. 

I stop hitting my splits at mile 16, because it is just too ugly. Water is a big problem…there isn’t nearly enough, and we don’t get the bottled water as promised for elites. I’m sure people are just grabbing them off the tables, and the volunteers just can’t control it. I see elite after elite dropping.  It is all I can do not to slog over and collapse into a chair under the increasingly tempting “drop zone” signs.

I cross the river into St. Paul and see Dianna at mile 19, surrounded by medics–holy smokes!–and stop to check out her status.  Of course if she is in serious distress, I will drop and stay with her.  After questioning her and the medics, and after she THROWS HER ICE BAG at me and demands I keep going, I know she’ll be OK, so I lurch on.  I don’t care about time, I just want to finish.

And then, the most amazing thing happens.  The slight headwind running downriver gives me just enough of a break from the humidity to stay consistent, and I start to run with purpose.  I take the hill just before mile 21 with more oopmph than I’d had the previous 10 miles, and pass people like crazy.  I run up Summit Avenue, the 2 mile climb, better than I’ve run for miles.  No one passes me, male or female, and I pass gazillions.

And then, with about .7 mile left in the race, I spot her.  A woman in a purple tank with a 50-54 back tag, just within my vision, someone I had scoped out at the start. I estimate she has about 150-200 meters on me.  I have a big chat with myself, and it goes something like this…

“OK, Mag, here’s your chance.  You always talk about how you want to race until it hurts, until you suffer, until you want to hurl, and you NEVER DO IT.  You let ‘em go.  So walk the walk, girlfr’en!!!  SUFFER, and GO!”

And I do.  I know I have to pass her like a train, make her think she’ll never catch me.  I find a gear I didn’t know I had, and charge.  I work my arms like pistons, and I am breathing so hard and loudly I actually apologize to a runner next to me.  I pass the purple tank top and don’t look back, and the whole way, people are yelling my number and screaming at me to “Go, go!”  I do this for about 5 minutes, and it is heaven and hell.  I pass dozens of people, and at the end catch and pass 3 MEN.  That’s for you, girlfriends everywhere.

I am in that tunnel.  I am in pain, and I know I am going to win, and I keep going and going, even though it is unbearable.  I finally did it.  I broke through!

And guess what?  I took 3rd, and the purple tank top took 4th.  I reversed Carlsbad!  I put it on the line, and risked it all, after 25.5 miles of abject misery.

I finished in 3:38:27, my worst time in 7 years.  But I’m happy.  I really raced.  

Cruel irony:  Monday, the next day, as we make our way to the airport, it is 57 degrees with a slight drizzle at 10 a.m.  I hear the running gods snicker.