Last weekend was the Paul Mailman 10-miler in Montpelier, which turned out to be the most hilarious and humiliating few hours I've ever spent in the Capital City.
I decided to run it thinking it was like a community fun run -- a few hundred people, some good runners, lots of poor schlubs out to see if they can finish. My training schedule indicated only 8 miles, which is the farthest I've run since recovering from the marathon, but I figured I could eke out 10 miles in 2 hours. Which I did. But the people around me? Yeah, different story.
First of all, there were only 80 people in the race. No where to hid among 80 people. I don't know who Paul Mailman is or was, but his followers are fabulous athletes - serious distance runners, and really fast. The first 1/4-mile of the race was around the track at Montpelier High School. By the time I reached the first turn I could already see how the day was going to go: I was second to last and losing ground quickly. Nice.
The out-and-back race gave me the opportunity to ponder and calculate, what mile will I be at when the front runners are heading back in? Mile 4, she wonders hopefully? Try Mile 3. Then the pack swarmed by, my friends among them. (Darn you, Heidi and Thao!) A very nice guy named Dan (Ben? Bob!) was the next runner ahead of me, and I kept his bright orange shirt in sight for several miles but lost ground on him as the race went on. He must have run 11:00 or 11:30 miles.
The volunteers were very nice and supportive. One asked me if I was "okay" with a look of concern on her face. By that I think she meant, "are you about to have a coronary because you're out here with no idea of what you doing?" I tried to be suave in saying, "Oh this 10 miler? It's nothing. I'm fine, this was my marathon pace last month. Yeah, that's right. MARATHON. Sit down, sister." (Note the expansive space around me in the photo above.)
At this point it's clear to every runner who's long since passed me, and every volunteer who's been watching, that I am dead last in this race and that I'm last by a long stretch. So when I saw a friendly volunteer waiting at the mile 7 marker I thought, "Gee, that's nice of him to be out here cheering me on." As I trotted by he picked up the Mile 7 board, chucked it into a minivan and drove off. At Mile 8, there he was clapping and smiling for me. "Mind if I take this?" he asks as he plucks the marker out of the ground. No, don't mind at all. This continued through Mile 9 as I headed back toward the finish line at the Montpelier High School track.
About 1/2 mile from the finish, Heidi and Thao were ready to run me in. They were funny and delusional in describing how I was all alone out here - just like Joan Benoit in the 84 Olympics: entering the Coliseum with no other runners in sight, a crowd of people waiting. Unfortunately, I was alone because I was last, and the crowd was waiting because they had finished 30 minutes earlier and still wanted to have the awards ceremony.
With about half a strait-away to go on the track, a volunteer told me there was 20 seconds left before the clock hit 2 hours. Heidi and Thao were screaming and yelling for me to sprint, and all the other runners milling around the finish line joined in. I felt like I was running my heart out, but it may not have appeared like much effort to these folks. I had an eye on the digital clock as I pushed toward the finish - 1:59:55, 1:59:56, 1:59:57... I thought that was my official time, as I got lost in the cheers of my adoring (read: bored) fellow runners.
I had to fetch my bag from a friend's car and when I made it back to the finishing area, the awards were over. Lo, I had missed out on the only award I had ever won from running: a bottle of BBQ sauce for finishing last.
And my official time, that's right: 1:59:59.
My friend was meant to meet me afterward to give me a ride up to Stowe. She doesn't know Montpelier and got pretty lost. So I gave her directions to the main highway by the school and walked out there to meet her. I was sitting on the corner with my tote bag as car after car full of runners left the school and slowed to ask me (again), "Are you ok? Need a ride?" Now, I realize that I ran about 1/2 as fast as the dude who won this race, and that my pace seems so pathetically slow to these people that I must have some kind of physical disability, and perhaps my choice of a bright pink tank top drew extra unnecessary attention to my performance, but despite that I am - in fact - capable of arranging for my own transportation.
And that is why I can never show my face among the central Vermont running community again.
