How Did I Get Here?

Sunday

Quote of the Day: “An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

How many times have you been here before, Grose?

Well, if you count the two ultras, this is the 21st time.

So it should be easy right?

Nope, still tired. That alarm comes damn early.

But this is the first time in LA. And the first time waking up with two women in the hotel room. If this is the first time reading my blog, let me explain. One was my wife and the other is a good friend of ours in the other hotel bed. I don’t want to give the wrong impression here. That would be HORRIBLE! (childish snickering….)

We all got up but Paola didn’t have to be downstairs until 0600 because she was only running the 5K. The marathoners were due in the lobby at 0500 so that’s when we showed, first on scene, waiting for everyone else, not getting frustrated… calm down, Jason, you know you get all grumpy this early.

The firefighters were getting us to the race and like in Miami, we thought maybe they would have more pull to get us past barricades and as close to the start line as possible. We did end up getting through but were challenged at every step. It was like not one of the security people had EVER talked to ANYONE else of their kin so we had to talk our way through at each point. I stayed quiet because I didn’t think my particular brand of logic would be appreciated at this point especially when it involved many curse words.

We got near the starting line but when we all tumbled out, it was like we were invading in the eyes of the organizers. The runners, me included, were promptly told we had to turn around and go all the way around with all the other runners so that’s where I had to part company with the group. I ended up walking with Nelson, a blind runner, and his guide. Nelson was the only one I knew and I had only met him on this trip.

I figured I would chat with them (although I wasn’t in the mood) until we got to the mass of humanity that was the start line and then I would once again stake out on my own. After a few minutes though, I was being asked question after question by the blind runner and along with Nelson whom I liked from the start, I kind of started to enjoy the company.

They all wanted to stop at the port-a-johns and I think the blind guy’s disability helped him out because he couldn’t see the enormous line we were signing up to stand in. I didn’t think I would make it to the start line on time but I had kind of morphed into one with this group and there was no backing out now, especially when the blind guy started using my arm as a guide while he spoke to me and we edged up to the start of the bathroom queue ever so slowly.

We did end up getting to the front of the line and I was thankful after all because I was able to achieve that most-sought-after situation before a marathon: relieving oneself of a full bladder. This may seem silly or unimportant but the timing of a good piss right before a marathon when thousands of people are seeking the same relief is not something to be discounted.

We made it to the start line but when we got there, the others told me that they were hanging out in the back and were going to wait until most of the runners left before starting. I guess when you are blind, this is the thing to do for good reason.

I bid my farewells and edged up toward the front but was soon nudged up against the mass of humanity. I got on my toes and saw I was a few hundred yards from the start and all I could see was a solid block of people between me and it. The sight was mesmerizing and a bit claustrophobic if you let it be. I fought against it and tried to take in the moment the best I could. This was the LA marathon I had watched on TV for many years and now here I was.

It took about a half hour before the race began and when it did, the first few miles were elbow to elbow. Not much different from any other race but the crowd seemed to stick together for a long time. I wondered when I wouldn’t be watching each step and zig-zagging around slower runners before I became the slow runner.

You would think for such a long time running (over 4 hours) that I would have a lot to say. But by its very nature, a marathon is a very monotonous adventure. So why is that fun, you ask? Good question. I think it has to do with entertaining yourself so if you want to know how I did that, well, you have years of blogs to the right to pick from.

The other mental game of a marathoning is dealing with the pain. I will tell you the truth, I didn’t feel ready for this marathon and where I really started to feel it early was my core. I had been sick the week before so not a lot of running was done in the final days. None, to be exact. You would think I could call this my taper but to tell the truth, I don’t taper. I think the psychological advantage I get from running the normal weekly mileage before a marathon outweighs the rest my body gets from tapering. If I take the recommended rest, I feel fat and slow at the race.

So by mile ten, the heat combined with my flailing mental confidence in my running and my weak core caused things to go bad quickly.

There is never a question that I will finish the marathon. I never have come close to NOT finishing and I know I would walk or even crawl the entire course before I drop out so that is never a factor. It’s just how long it will take me and what levels of Hell I will have to endure to get to that finish line.

Ten to fifteen sucked. Fifteen to twenty was a nasty bucket of bile. By this time my stomach was tired of being sloshed around (an indicator I had a weak core and was not able to keep my gut tight and thus prevent lateral movement) and I had horrible stomach aches. Not cramps, thank God, but just a general nastiness and pain like I was running with a watermelon in a papoose.

I went from yo-yoing people to just barely keeping up. With my run/walk strategy, I would pass the same people, get ahead, and then they would pass me when I hit the walking portion. This continued for many miles and I got used to seeing the same runners. But as I shimmied into the upper teens, I started falling back from the Usual Suspects.

Then I started falling back and had a constant parade of new people.

I got a surge at mile 22 for some odd reason and caught up to some people who I hadn’t seen in a long time. I realized they were struggling just like me but just a little farther ahead.

By the end, every mile seemed to stretch out. I was not having fun anymore and wished nothing more than to just get this shit over with as soon as possible but there were still unending miles to go.

This is when you have to be really careful. You cannot let yourself succumb to the depressing thoughts that invade your mind.

“You’ve done this 18 times and this looks like your first one ever!”

“That lady is fat and you are behind her.”

“If you can’t handle this, how will you do the 50 miles in a few months?”

“50 miles? What about the Badwater? You have to do this 7 times in 120 degree heat uphill through Death Valley!”

At mile 15 I grabbed a bottle of water and it stayed with me almost until the end. I alternated from drinking it and pouring it on a sponge I found on the ground and put in my hat. It wasn’t sexy, folks.

Farther and farther I fell back and the new company that came from behind was looking sadder and sadder. But at that point, I didn’t care. Just get me to the end of this and we must never talk of this again.

Shuffling, walking, and trying to stay upright, I reeled in the last few miles. Once I passed 25, I remember thinking logically that a little more than a mile was child’s play. But at that moment, it seemed to stretch out across an abyss.

It was about this moment when I heard my name being called. I turned to see the blind runner and his guide coming up behind me. They were connected by a string which I guess makes sense but I had never thought of it. They ran tethered together by a string no thicker than a shoelace.

I had mixed feelings of embarrassment at getting caught by a blind runner who started way at the end of the pack, happiness at seeing someone I knew, and not caring much about anything but getting to the finish.

I joined step with them but they seemed to be going fast. In fact, faster than I thought I could maintain for the last mile and I had a little anxiety attack about if I could keep up with them even though I really wanted to.

I tried to inspire the blind runner… OK, maybe it was for me… by telling him I could see the 26 mile banner and we were almost there. But I had been pushing myself past my current abilities and dropped back, letting them bolt ahead. I would just ride it in without my normal end-of-the-race sprint. I felt lucky just to be moving forward at this point.

Somewhere there is always a first in every marathon. For this one, it was incoherence at the finish line coupled with disappointment. I’ve had incoherence at the finish line but never to this degree and never coupled with such crushing emotions noir.

I stumbled across and through some supernatural coincidence, I saw my wife and Paola right away in the crowd. It just so happened that the fence that I lumbered toward and leaned on with both arms was in front of the them and also happened to be where they took off my chip for me. And where I dropped off the remnants of my soul.

I couldn’t talk. I didn’t want to talk. I was racked with pain and completely drained of anything resembling life force. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to drink. I didn’t … you fill in the blank. I just “didn’t want.”

The distance between the finish line and the hotel was about a mile or so but it was an arduous trek not only because of the distance and my condition but because there were approximately a million stupid people milling around and making chokepoints where I had to put both hands on my wife’s shoulders to shuffle through like some gimp moron. Me, not her.

We ended up going through, well, let’s say the part of town that had roll down aluminum doors and no windows. There was a lot of touristy shopping and bums, not to mention actual pimp clothing stores. I was a bit worried because if something happened, I was in no shape to protect Carrie much less myself. And my flight instinct would consist of a brisk crawl to safety.

Carrie had not eaten all day so we swung by McDonalds which was on the way back to the hotel. For me, it was the sweet salvation of sitting down and getting stared at by the local populace. It was obvious I had just finished the marathon if not by my completely exhausted, haunted look but the big medal around my neck and the salt stains on my face and shirt. It was lovely, folks.

Just when I hit the depths of my sorrow for myself, I noticed there was a bum in there enjoying a hearty helping of free ketchup. I don’t have much sympathy for the homeless so when Carrie suggested she give the rest of the fries and her Big Mac to him, I scoffed but didn’t put up much of a fight. In my state, it was impossible.

She gave it to him, he took it, and devoured it before we even made it to the door.

Walking back to the hotel, Carrie got a phone call and it seems that everyone else had finished the race (they were on hand-crank bikes) and were already at the BBQ at the fire station. They wanted us to get there right away because the special guest celebrity was going to leave soon and they wanted us to meet him.

I won’t draw this out but just point it out there. A few months ago, the organizer of the Achilles Track Team, Genna, met Jon Voigt in New York. Here are the pictures she took.

(Genna is on the right. Jon is the one NOT in pink.)

(Genna is STILL on the right. Jon is the one on the phone asking his agent how he got roped into buying Quiznos for strangers.)

Ends up he gave her his number and she called him during the planning phase of the LA trip. He agreed to join us at one of the functions and it turns out this was it. He had been there for over 3 hours and was just hanging out with the team but unless we got there soon, we would miss him.

Great, so this put an urgency to getting to the hotel, showering up, changing over, and getting to the firehouse. Here is where it gets funny.

I fix myself up as good as I could and we headed down to get on the road. Meanwhile, Genna was calling us telling us to hurry and I tried to express to her that hurrying at this point is akin to asking the Moon to get its ass over to the other horizon most rikki tik.

Paola had got some half-ass directions and was iffy on the exact route. Where we ended up was not the best place in LA: the roll-up door neighborhood again that, because of the race, was still choked up to a standstill. The phone rings and we are once again told that we are going to miss Jon if we don’t get there right away.

We are stuck in traffic where it turns out the completely wrong part of town. I get on the phone with one of the firemen and he gives us directions out of the mess and over to where they are. But traffic is still an issue, the phone keeps ringing telling us we are going to miss him, and the whole situation is more stressful than the marathon!

At one point I’m talking to Genna who I had just told to tell Jon to just go ahead. I didn’t want to keep him any longer. She says, “Just a minute, someone wants to talk to you…”

I knew what was coming.

“Hello, Jason. This is Jon Voigt.”

Silence.

What do you say?

“Hi Mr. Voigt. How are you?”

Yeah, that’s a perfect thing to say to an Oscar winning actor. Any other dumb-ass thing you want to pass along to the Midnight Cowboy, Jason?

“Where are you?”

“Um, I think we’re about 10 or 15 minutes away depending on traffic but please don’t stick around just for us. I know you have to get going.”

“No, that’s fine, just hurry up and get here.”

“Roger that, we’re inbound.”

When in the hell did it turn into a military situation report, you ask? I was wondering the same thing.

We finally made it to the firehouse which was in another spectacular part of town. We came through the open roll-gate to see a few fire trucks and in the corner, a bunch of people having a BBQ. We parked the car, got out, and as I started walking toward the crowd, Jon Voigt let out a thunderous “They made it!” as I raised my arms as in victory.

“We made it!”

Everything was against us and with the traffic, the wrong directions, the intricate alternate directions, the stop lights, the 3 or 4 OTHER fire trucks rushing to an emergency thus making us miss lights and pull over, it seemed like a bridge too far to actually get to where we were going, much less under the pressure of having a deadline. Many times I gave up hope we would make it there before Jon left but in the end, we somehow managed to make it to the station on time if not a bit late.

It was like a joke everyone was having wondering if we would actually make it there on time and Jon was the ringleader.

What I discovered is he is a really personable guy. Not only did he spend 4 hours in the bad part of town sitting in a fire station parking lot talking to the team but he had absolutely no airs about him. He stayed around and talked to us and played football catch with a few of the guys. I guess before I got there, he played basketball with some of them (losing $40 when he bet on a shot that one of the Marines sunk) and slid down the fire pole with the others.

A funny moment came when he was playing football catch and the firefighters being firefighters and with their sense of humor said something to effect that he had pretty good hands for an old man.

He looked over at him with a mock anger (after making the impressive catch) and growled “You son of bitch…” with the “bitch” trailing off with gritted teeth. This got a big laugh from everyone.

I got a chance to sit down and talk to him about his movies, specifically Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance, Tomb Raider, National Treasure, and the one where he played the Pope.

I asked him if he ever did another movie with Dustin Hoffman and he said no but they keep in touch. I joked that a sequel would be out of the question since Hoffman’s character died in the movie. I slay me.

I also asked him if it was strange playing his actual daughter’s father in Tomb Raider and he told me it was a great experience because they weren’t getting along at the time and they kind of bonded during the movie. Unknown to me, because I don’t keep up with Angelina Jolie all that much, they are currently estranged.

Oops. Probably shouldn’t have brought her up at all.

Before he left, he went to his car and brought back a box of glossies of movie stills. He signed them for the others earlier and asked if we wanted one.

Um… YEAH!

He was out of Midnight Cowboy pics but I got this one.

(“Jason & Carrie, It’s great to be with you both today! God Bless! Jon Voigt”.)

He seemed impressed when I told him Carrie and I were coming up to our 19th wedding anniversary and asked how to spell her name when he was signing the picture.

Paola even got into the autograph fun and kept pestering the poor man until he signed one for her.

(“Paola, Criminy, leave me alone already! God Damn You! Jon Voigt”.)

(He refused her to request to sign body parts right before this picture was taken)

He hung out for a little longer but couldn’t be in the sun. Tomorrow he starts filming on National Treasure 2 and his character is pale so the make-up artists told him to keep out of the sun.

When it was time for him to leave, he went around and thanked everyone and then went to his car. No pomp or circumstance. Everyone thought it was weird that such an accomplished actor just drove himself around in an SUV. I mean, how weird would it be to come up to a stop light, look over, and Jon Voigt is sitting there in his car?

We stayed at the BBQ for a bit longer but had to get going so we could pack up to go home.

I didn’t get a chance to nap because we had rushed to the BBQ and checked out before we left. We thought we would just be going back to the hotel, load up the rest of the bikes and luggage, and head back to San Diego.

But the firefighters had one more surprise for us. They wanted to take us back to the hotel on the big fire truck. We all hopped on and got a first hand look at rolling down the streets of LA in a fire truck. They took us around to a burnt out crack house they recently put out and blew the sirens a few times so we’d get to see the reactions from people.

When we got to the hotel, we thanked the fire department profusely and I found it funny that a fire truck can always find a parking spot. This time it happened to be right in front of the hotel and while we were saying goodbye, it was obvious that the traffic nor the hotel didn’t appreciate the parking job but they were the fire department. Who was going to ticket them, the cops?

We finally got everything loaded and made our way south. Genna drove with Carrie and me because she was going to stay in San Diego for a couple of days before flying home to New York. She wanted to do some networking at the hospital to drum up support for the team and see the other Wounded Warriors.

We drove to the hospital because my car was parked there and Genna and me hopped in Uranus (old joke) so I could take her back to the Depot where I had reserved her a room. She had never been to MCRD so I had to explain what it was and why it was so special. By the time we got there, she was in sufficient awe to understand the significance of the place she was going to stay at. Even at night, she was mesmerized by the palm trees, the Spanish Colonial architecture, and the general beauty of the base.

I thought she was going to have a regular BEQ room which is probably comparable to a Motel 6. But it ends up the reservation was for the Transient Officers Quarters (TOQ) which was a few steps up. When I took her there, by the marina, she was really happy with the accommodations. I was glad she got the “best foot forward” treatment and said my goodbyes.

It was a hell of a day and I was understandably exhausted beyond description. I made it home and wondered how I would make it through the next day. I had to go to work and knew I would be…. a little peaked.

Yeah, a “little” peaked like the Pope is a “little” Catholic.

Now I’ll leave you with some pics I um… found …. on the web of my adventure.

Here I am in the red with some EXTREME false motivation. I think this was around the halfway mark.

Instantly I’m back to misery mode.

This almost looks like a picture worth getting but I really don’t want to pay $20 to remember this performance.

Suddenly at the finish line, I found religion.

Maybe I can fake my way by use of a heroic pose I don’t really possess at the moment.

Screw it, I give up.

Free Advice for Today: “Change air conditioner filters every three months.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.