Mile 9
Honoree: Nannette Johnstone
I was marveling a little at how I was feeling, and felt that I was doing a good job of holding the pace. I’d gone to the card a couple times just to look at the names on it, squeeze the edges and focus on the spectators and the miles ahead. I thought that the Gu table as going to be coming up sooner than it actually said on the map, and after seeing a couple packets on the ground I was concerned I’d missed it. The music switched into “California Love” by Tupac and Dr. Dre, one of the greatest cadence running songs ever (and made all the more appropriate by the new destination that Nannette’s headed to next year) and the sun had started to warm things up ever so slightly, even though I could still see my breath.
Mile 10
Honoree: Michelle Kmetz
The Gu table was right in front of Treasure Island. I grabbed three packets of Blueberry Pomegranate Roctane, the most appealing of the flavor choices, and threw them into my pockets. There was a giant boom crane hanging over the course with a banner reading “SMILE FOR THE CAMERA…RACE PHOTOS!” I focused on holding my pace as other people put their arms up, started yelling, et cetera. I also started moving slightly to the right, making sure I wouldn’t have to scurry over when it was time to make the turn. (The fun music coincidence was the emergence of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”)
Mile 11
Honoree: St. Baldrick’s Foundation/LIVESTRONG Foundation
I made the turn at the Fashion Show Mall, grinning and pointing at cheering spectators along the rail who were holding a sign with a large glitter checkbox reading, “Run a marathon…what next?” In my head, I knew what it was; it just wasn’t the time to think about it right now. My legs were starting to get a little sore, my foot had a twinge in it, and we started to head slightly uphill alongside the mall. I could see people walking along the curve, considering giving up on running and walking when they could, and I wasn’t even entertaining the thought of doing so until mile 15. We were moving into the far less visually exciting portion of the course, fewer spectators, but there were cheerleading squads at the intersections, screaming and giving out high-fives. I grabbed another Gu packet as I paced through the aid station, getting my legs ready to start cranking out more miles.
I was getting a weird “zap” sensation in my left arm when I went to drink anything, which was leading me to believe that I had my fists clenched too tight at my sides as I was jogging. So every once in a while I’d shake out my arms along my sides, roll my shoulders, shake my head left and right, anything to keep my upper body loose so that I wouldn’t get hurt there.
The pedestrians had disappeared. The spectators in this area were few and far between, generally looking for individual runners and looking cold. As usual, it was dismaying to be running in shorts and essentially a T-shirt while everyone watching was wearing scarves and hats, but I forced myself to remember how much colder I would be if I had to stand still.
Mile 12
Honoree: Sam Gold
I made my way past the Rio after going under the I-15 bridge, worried that the wind would be howling through the tunnel and was pleasantly surprised it was no better or worse than the rest of the course. My quadriceps muscles were staring to sing a little bit as I went down the incline, and I watched some of the other people who elected to walk it. This was the first mile where I saw people stopping on the side of the road to stretch out their hamstrings; it was a lousy time to try to fix cramps or have any sort of soreness.
I had a hard time doing the geography in my head; we were turning on Decatur; what stoplight was that? As I was looking down the hill I could see hundreds of runners, like picnic ants, following the cones and going downhill, so I could see I was only a few blocks out. I was no longer amazed that I was feeling great, I was satisfied with knowing that I didn’t feel any worse than I usually did after running this far. I skipped one of the water stations because I felt that I’d had enough to drink over the past few miles and would be overdoing it to grab any more; it’s not as if I was going that fast and I was used to covering this kind of distance without a lot of beverages. (The usual hydration plan for the Silverman half-marathon course that I train on is to eat a Gu packet after about the 7-mile mark, do the last of the loop, grab a Gatorade at the 7-Eleven after mile 10, then close out the last 5K and grab a bottle of water from my truck.) Knowing there would be twice as much activity, I was making sure that hydration or cramping wasn’t going to be an issue.
Mile 13
Honoree: Julie Lyden
…and no sooner did Julie’s mile come up than a very, very old Kool Moe Dee song from about 1990 came on. I grinned and looked out at the straightway. We were running between sets of apartment complexes with lots of people watching from the balconies; it was certainly a different pace and location than the Strip. I saw one of the 4:30 sign runners pass me by; I knew that was my goal time but I wanted to make sure I stayed at a pace that was comfortable to me. They seemed to be moving a little quick and the goal of this race was going to be survival. My foot got a little tighter, and I could feel a slight cramp in my stomach. I was getting ready for things to go badly. The “wall” that everyone talked about was supposed to be at twenty miles; could things really go downhill that fast? I kept my legs moving and headed for the corner. This was the time to just go with blunt force, push through whatever discomfort was there and pick up when I took another Gu packet, at the next water station.
Mile 14
Honoree: JoLynn McCully
JoLynn would holler at me if she knew I was thinking of walking when I could still run. (I didn’t know if this was true – she might well have said, “Sit down, you idiot, you’re making good time,” but it helped my race to think of the former.) The first significant hill of the day was ahead, and they shifted the course over into the right lane. Several motorists who knew nothing about the marathon looked frustrated to be sitting in traffic delays that were three blocks back. At Silverman, I resisted the temptation to yell at the stalled motorists while I was riding by on my bike – “Wow, traffic’s a BITCH, huh? You’ll be stuck here for a whole episode of “Two and a Half Men”!!” I found out later that Mile 4 honoree Brian Mascheri was one of the people caught in traffic, in this exact neighborhood because his daughter was cheering for us at the corner of Tropicana and Decatur. I remember the shouting but didn’t realize I should have been looking for Alex, so I didn’t. There was a pretty significant hill as we made our way to mile 15 and the last portion of the course.
Mile 15
Honoree: Mark Tsujihara, Adam Crook, Peter Rufa, Pete Franzen, Jon Fredrickson and Kathy Fredrickson.
It was some more uphill as soon as I got onto Hacienda, which was loaded with runners in both directions. Speed guys running a three-hour pace were dropping the hammer on their 23rd mile while I was coming through the intersection. It felt really good to be on Hacienda, knowing that this out-and-back was the last portion of the course. I slugged down a Gu packet a little ahead of schedule, but the stomach cramping had me nervous, as did the overall feeling in my legs. Gu is also laced with lots of sugar and caffeine, and if the people represented on this mile joined me for anything, it was lots of sugar and caffeine. I forced my legs into a stride they could live with and kept running, picking my knees up a little bit to generate more pace.
Mile 16
Honorees: John Quitano and Ashok Yadav.
Ashok once ran his leg of the Brass Challenge in hiking boots; seriously, how bad could this possibly be? I was starting to find out. My quads were getting really tight. Blisters were announcing their arrival next to the balls of my feet. In a new development, my right foot was now hurting in the same spot as the left, and for the fourth or fifth time I’d been running on a slight incline and smacked the heel of my right foot against the inside of my ankle, luckily not tripping over my own feet but, unluckily, causing abrasions on the inside of my sock and causing the ankle to swell. My hips were starting to check in and register complaint. My breathing was fine, so I knew I wasn’t running too fast. But everything was starting to gradually increase in terms of the pain I was in. I gritted my teeth and kept pushing myself.
I was ten miles from the end of the race. And I started taking a very honest assessment of how I was feeling – awful. It all hurt. But what I realized most acutely was that stopping wouldn’t make me feel any better.
Mile 17
Honorees: Johanna Aqui, Julie Benedict, and Sudha Sunkara
This mile was where I hit the “wall” they were talking about, and my legs, which had now been running for three hours, started walking a little bit after the aid station. They had to. I couldn’t push my quads any harder than I had already. My legs didn’t want to lift my feet any more, didn’t want to push forward any more, and my shoulders were starting to strain. I could hear Zoe’s advice – “Run with your arms when you start getting tired” and tried to imagine the bands connecting my left arm to my right leg, pushing everything forward.
Besides, this was the mile where I had to look human. Jenn and Ed were going to be watching at the intersection of Tropicana and Rainbow, and if there’s one thing that I really hate, it’s letting people see that I’m in any kind of pain. Knowing they would be located somewhere along this mile, I made sure to pick up my knees a little bit and assess the relative amount of agony that I was in, to know where I could safely walk and be justified in doing so. I knew there was a water station on this block, so I could walk through there and get loaded up with CytoMax and water, then look decent as I went by. I saw them pointing at me as I approached the turnaround at the end of the block. We exchanged high-fives and I got myself around the corner. (I found out later that they were extremely nervous when they heard an ambulance go by, thinking that I was in it because they hadn’t seen me yet.)I was near the three hour mark with nine miles to go.
Mile 18
Honorees: Elynore Lyden, Chris Wrobel, and Janet Javurec.
Grandma, Chris and Ken’s girlfriend never knew me when I did any races at all, but I think of them a lot and what they would have thought. And it’s usually at about the three-hour mark of a race, particularly on a hot day of training, that things start getting weird. If you ask me to remember anything after this point in a race it’s going to get a little vague. I had to explain this to Lisa when I got lost on the Silverman bicycle route (I later found out that a portion of the trail we rode in the race was closed).
“Didn’t you know where the route went?”
“No, I blacked out after the aid station. I just kind of followed the cones.”
I moved myself to the right side of the road, knowing that my legs were probably going to seize up every once in a while, but the goal was simple and the same as it always was in every race; don’t stop moving forward. Stopping is quitting. Walking is occasionally tolerable. I also knew that I wasn’t going to feel any better if I stopped and that my legs would probably get tighter.
There was a set of Porta-Potties just down from the aid station so I stopped quickly. I pointed the toes on my left foot to see how flexible I was; my left calf immediately started to cramp up. Pain started creeping up my leg on the outside of my knee. I flexed my foot quickly and thought, “Don’t even think of doing that again.” I got back out on the street and started thinking about my nutrition plan. From now I was going to double up on Cytomax and make sure to drink one water, to over-hydrate to try to fight off the leg cramps; that little point-the-toe exercise back there showed me far too much of what was ahead.
The good news was, I could see a band right ahead, a tent, and that had to be the turnaround. Once I made that turn it was a 10K, a 6.2 mile run home, a distance I’d covered before, the same run I had at the end of every triathlon.
The bad news was seeing that once I got to that tent, the road wasn’t straight like it was on the map. The turnaround was downhill and I could see the last tent in the distance. A sea of red shirts – the official giveaway shirt of the marathon – stretched out for a mile in front of me. I winced and walked for ten steps, then ran for a hundred.
Mile 19
Honorees: Chris Alioto, Kim Low, Elizabeth Gorski, Mandi Hellyer, Maria Cappiello Kiely, Allen Lev and Armando Madrigal.
I was going to count on the fellow runners on Facebook to haul me through this part, because everything started to hurt here. Things I didn’t expect to hurt, like my shoulders and ribs, were starting to get a little sore. I clumsily kicked my ankle again and cursed at myself under my breath. This was the least visually interesting part of the course – giant walls to the north on my right shielding the residents of Spanish Trails from the public, and two blocks’ worth of undeveloped scrubland to my left. I spent most of my time watching the people in front of me. One runner had a shirt that read, “Why couldn’t Phiedippides have died at Mile 20?” (The story of the marathon is Phiedippides ran from the city of Marathon to Athens over this distance to report the news of an Athenian victory in battIe, then promptly croaked upon finishing.)I took a few “ten steps” breaks, grabbed a Gu packet earlier than I was supposed to for the caffeine bounce, and tried to power through any of the ancillary pain. It didn’t matter anymore when the turnaround came; the race was about to get small.
Mile 20
Honorees: Cami Coy
“Run to that light post.” “Catch up to that guy.” “Run to the water station.” I wasn’t racing for miles anymore, but I was racing for feet, a few dozen of them at a time, setting little tiny goals for myself as I passed the 20-mile mark. Cami Coy has been taking my bad advice as a fitness client for nearly a year, and as I rounded the corner to head the last 6.2 miles back, Nickelback’s “Rock Star” came on my MP3 player. This is the song where she was assigned extra laps for singing it aloud when it came on at the gym. This is the song that’s the default ringtone on her cell. This was more than coincidence, but some sort of sick version of destiny.
I turned around and could see the towers that marked the race’s finish. Once upon a time the one on the right was “the big gold building that stole my husband.” They seemed a lot farther than six miles away. But I wasn’t about to give up, 100 steps at a time. I ran through another photo checkpoint and picked up my stride, smiling and making sure that history wouldn’t recognize me as suffering.
Mile 21
Honorees : 2nd Lt. Anthony Smith and the Challenged Athletes Foundation/Operation Rebound.
This was for tougher guys than me who did tougher things than I did. I grabbed three more Gu packets from the table, and the suffering continued. The blisters on my feet, now full-blown, were screaming. My quads were in pain. The muscles along my knees (the iliotibial bands) were killing me. Both of my kenns and ankles hurt. I had more than five miles to go.
Mile 22
Honoree: Cole Kostrszewa
I remembered from looking at the card that this was Cole’s mile, and I followed Karen’s advice, embraced the pain and kept fighting through it, picking up my knees a little bit and actually shuffling instead of running. In the middle of an intersection on this mile, I looked carefully at what I was passing on the side.
It was two kids, probably 8 or9, dressed up as Jake and Elwood Blues, and when I got close enough, I realized what they were singing. It was “Sweet Home Chicago.” I laughed and decided I’d had enough fun for one day, so I started to shuffle as fast as I could towards the water station. When I shuffled my back hurt, so I got my stride back under me. Next water station, I thought.
The pain was incredible. My body didn’t want to run any more, but I knew that in the cold I would just tighten up – those leg cramps that were sidling up to me a few miles ago would return with a vengeance if I slowed down. I passed the hospital and saw the towers looming closer.
Mile 23
Honoree: Mike Lamoureux
Mike was back there at the finish line, having been up as long as us and getting around on one bad hip and one replaced hip, taking pictures, taking in all of the scenery. I then realized that I had two Advil Liqui-Gels taped together in my pocket, below the Gu. I’d taken a couple before the race. They last for four hours. I was four hours into the race right now. As if by magic, I realized that I could take some more of these and I probably wouldn’t hurt as badly! Combine that with the fact I had nothing in my stomach, and these would dissolve as quick as pop rocks! I started striding through the aid station and fumbling with the tape on the pills. It’s only when I tried to do fine-motor-skill work (and again, I’m the guy who kept kicking myself in the ankle) that I realized how badly my hands were shaking. So I started to think.
I’m going to drop the pills.
And then I won’t have any.
And I’ll hurt even worse.
I’ve never seen a warning label on Scotch tape.
Not even a “Keep Out of Reach of Children.”
This won’t kill me.
I threw both of the pills taped together in my mouth, feeling the corner scratch my throat as I gulped down Cytomax. I thought to myself that next year I’d use Elmer’s glue; little kids eat that stuff by the pound and it’s never done anything.
A very large hill was coming into sight. I thought to myself, I didn’t remember anything that extreme existing anywhere in town until I saw it that second. It looked like three flights of stairs. I urged my feet to keep moving towards it. The finish was on the other side. A crowd of us were alternately walking and running, trading places back and forth, trying not to stop.
Mile 24
Honoree: Johnny Lopez
Only a 5K, I thought. You’ve done dozens in reality and in training.
I knew Johnny had to be close to finishing, and I really felt that the walking that I’d done on other peoples’ miles was a betrayal, but not Johnny. When Johnny saw this absolute stiletto-heeled bitch of a climb that seemed to stretch for a day or two over the Union Pacific railroad tracks, I knew that he wouldn’t argue with my choice of ten-step breaks. I finally made it over the bridge and got a decent set of light poles in as I was running downhill, but that was no more comforting than up; the tightness in my quads was becoming intolerable and I could barely lift my knees anymore. My foot was stinging a little, but I knew I wasn’t far. The most exciting part of this mile is this was the first one where I was certain that I wasn’t seeing my breath.
Mile 25
Honoree: Lisa Zelazny
I hadn’t seen Lisa during my whole day on the course, and I could see the pockets where we might have missed each other, so it wasn’t impossible that she was still having a good day just a few blocks behind me. I made sure that the leg that was dedicated to her would have an awful climb as well, and this one did, a couple stories’ worth of up and down over I-15, but the good news was very close at hand. I had a mile and change to go as I passed the self parking exit for Mandalay Bay, where in a minute we would loop back underneath Hacienda as we ran along Frank Sinatra Drive. I turned the corner and things started feeling more crowded. I started seeing runners walking around with medals already around their necks; I knew that now we were on MGM Mirage property, we were just about finished. The bridges were done, there would be nothing that bad again. We were minutes away from the end. A grimace that I’d been wearing for several miles turned into a very pronounced smile. The Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run” came on and my feet moved almost involuntarily to the rolling snare drum, like something out of “Weekend At Bernie’s.”
Mile 26
Honorees: Jarren and Jayson Lyden
Everything hurt but it was closing time. I remembered in my head that this whole complex was the epicenter of my life following the move, getting this giant gold building to behave like a marble-clad tower in Chicago or a sleepy warren of villas on the edge of Scottsdale. I was coming up on the edge of the parking garage where I’d left my car for dozens of hours at a time, and the last water station was right in front of me.
My knees wouldn’t lift any more. If you would have taped matches to the soles of my shoes they would light with every stride. I didn’t need much more, though. One step closer, that would be all it took. Don’t stop. Don’t even think of stopping now. In less than 10 minutes it will all be finished.
We came to the aid station, where they had cups of ice water. I threw the whole thing into my face, shaking and growling, the cubes bouncing off the lenses of my sunglasses, gasping and grunting from the shock and throwing the cup over my shoulder. (I hoped I didn’t hit someone but I don’t think they would have noticed.) Thankfully the water shocked my legs into responding, and my knees lifted and I got a good jog going rather than a shuffling slog. My shirt was soaked. The spectators in the area raised their eyebrows and watched me grit my teeth.
I rounded the corner and closed out the kids’ mile in a decent fashion. The crowds had started to build. I wanted to finish the race with no indication of the pain I was feeling, and that was made easier as the people got louder. Once I turned the corner for the last 400 yards, I was already laughing and pumping my fist.
Marathon Finish: .2 miles
Honoree: Me
A lot of people cross my mind during a race, some of them for their assigned miles and some of them for far beyond. There is a sequence and an order that I contact people in afterwards, and everybody who wants to know what happened knows as much as I know within about a half-hour of the race finish. I normally finish most of my races alone.
But finish lines are mine, all mine, and I have a photo of one in particular, blown up and hanging with all of the numbers in my office. 2006 had been a horrible year, and people told me later that the real battle that particular year was just showing up to race at all, much less improving on my time from the prior year. But I saw that I had gotten better, and as I came down the final 100 yards, I told myself that no matter what happened to me next week, next month or next year, this moment was all mine and no one could ever take it from me. And that, in and of itself, was worth celebrating. Thanks to the fortuitous work of an ASI photographer, the picture captured me in mid-air, screaming my lungs out and punching my right fist in the air. The expression on my face is a perfect cross between angry and elated.
So finish lines are mine.
There were people lined up four deep on each side of the road past the convention center loading docks, and they were each looking for their individual runners. I knew none of these people were looking for me, but even as my headphones were blaring “Panic Switch” by the Silversun Pickups, I don’t get many chances to be the center of attention. I figured I’d scare them.
“C’MON, GIMME SOME NOISE!” I screamed; the crowd went crazy. It was cheap but it was worth it.
40 yards to go.
I was in the chute for the finish. My fists were clenched tightly as I did everything I could to stagger across that line. I couldn’t stop smiling and was determined to look good while I was doing it.
20 yards to go.
Dozens of people were stacked along the fence. I could see Mike taking pictures. Johnny must have been nearby. I had to make the jump. It’s how I finished every race in forever, (the obvious exception is the Brass Challenge where I’m handing off a baton) but I couldn’t feel my feet any more. All of it was numb.
I remembered the advice Zoe gave me as she had me doing wind sprints across the parking lot – run with your arms. Well, this time I was going to have to jump with them.
10 yards to go.
I saw the preliminary timing mat and the actual finish line. I closed as quickly as my legs would take me any more.
The MP3 player was playing Van Halen’s “Right Now.”
5 yards to go.
The cheering was deafening. I heard the race announcer rattling off names.
Line time. Launch time. The card said, “Closing time, Lorenzo. Show ‘em how it’s done.”
I reached backwards with my arms to generate a little bit more forward momentum than what could topple me over. With everything I had left in my race, my legs, my body, my season, I threw my right arm up to reach the decorative archway and my left arm out and across for balance. I touched the word “TEAM” above the digital race timer and ducked my head under the canopy. I landed, pumped both my fists, and screamed in complete elation.
I survived.
EPILOGUE DUE SUNDAY 12/20
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