Down but not out

It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up. Vince Lombardi

In the lore of marathon running, there are many stories of fiascoes, disasters, and catastrophes. Yesterday was a perfect storm of all of those for me.

Things went pretty much as planned up until about Mile 13.5, which is when my leg muscles stopped cooperating. I was making slow but excruciating progress until total disaster struck at Mile 18. As I was pulling out a gel from my pocket, I realized that my hands were about three times their natural size. I looked and felt like the blueberry girl from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. At about the exact moment that I realized this, all of the muscles in my legs seized up at once.

Now, we have previously determined in these pages that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. But even I am capable of recognizing that fluid buildup in the extremities and systemic cramping are bad news indeed when one is trying to complete a marathon. Muscle spasms and water retention are both signs of hyponatremia, a potentially fatal condition in which your blood becomes too diluted and your sodium levels drop off the scale.

I stumbled into the nearest medical tent, sobbing too hard to tell them what was wrong. It didn’t take them long to figure it out though. Two very kind EMT’s put me in the shock position for a few minutes, measured my vitals, and then proceeded to have an extremely comical stage whisper conversation about me behind the tent wall. One of the EMT’s lost the coin toss, and came back into the tent to tell me what I already knew. They did not want me to finish the race. For the first time ever, I would be a DNF: Did. Not. Finish.

I continued to cry like a baby as they led me to the gimp bus and found me a seat. I sat on that stupid yellow bus for about 5 minutes with a few souls more stoic than I, sobbing into my singlet and sending pathetic text messages to my husband. Suddenly I heard a voice from within my head say: “You know, no one has ever died of hyponatremia when walking a marathon.” I must have said this out loud, because a voice to the left of me said, “There are aid stations every half mile between here and the finish. If you continue to have problems, you can check in with one of those.” This voice came from a very kind third EMT, who had come on board the bus to check my vitals and who had apparently not received the DNF memo from her compatriots. I stopped crying and thought about this for about 2 seconds. Then I stood up, gave my beautifully styled mylar blanket to the nice EMT, put my tear soaked singlet back on, and walked my newly corpulent self off that stupid yellow bus, heading due east.  After a few minutes of walking, I realized that if I walked fast enough, I could complete the marathon in less than 6 hours, thereby having an “official” time. Finally, I started cobbling together my speed walking with short downhill jogs, and came across the finish line at 5:47. Truthfully, the finish line came just in time. Had it been a mile further, I would have ended up in another medical tent, and I don’t think they would have let me go this time.

I wish that I could tell you that my time at the medical tent was the only humiliation of the day. But dear readers, that was not to be the case.

Some of you may recall the matter of a certain clown. A clown who mocked me last year as he passed me on Heartbreak Hill, and who ultimately came across the finish line before me. A clown who has consumed most of my waking thoughts and haunted my dreams for the past year. A clown that we all thought was going down on April 20^th 2009.

I myself never saw the clown. But he was there. While I was sitting on the gimp bus, crying my eyes out and entertaining auditory hallucinations, the clown was making his move. He chose that moment to pull ahead of me, thereby destroying any chance I had of victory. Were it not for this stunning series of surveillance photos taken by my husband, I never would have known of his presence on the course at all. Note, in all of these photos, the presence of the gentleman in the pink wig.

That this is the same clown is indisputable. My husband managed to site him close-up and confirmed the identification. Also, note that when we expand the magnification on this image, the visage revealed is none other than our friend from last year.

I’d know that clown anywhere.

I have to hand it to the nefarious evil doer. He is far cleverer than I ever gave him credit for. The pink wig disguise was brilliant, totally unexpected. And the strategy? Nothing short of Machiavellian. Wait until your quarry is injured, then pounce. I can see now that I underestimated my foe.

I know what you are thinking.  Perhaps it is time to throw in the towel on this one.  You’ve run 4 marathons now, not one of them under 5, and you haven’t figured it out yet.  Call it a day, give the clown his due and move on.

Ha. Ha. Ha.  I think not.  In fact, I hereby throw down the gauntlet…

Hear me now Mister Clown: You may have won the battle, but you shall not win the war. I’m giving it one more shot on April 19^th, 2010. Should you again beat me, I swear, on my honor,  that I will become a card carrying member of the Marathon Clown Cotillion. Should you again beat me, I will finally consider you victorious, and will, from that day forward, don a clown wig for every remaining marathon that I run.

But don’t count on it…

363 days…

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