Beat The Bridge : The Final Miles

Yes! Finally! I was at the 14th Street Bridge. This was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of the marathon. I had heard it from everyone; Ramon, Christine, even John Bingham. If you made it past the bridge and felt okay, you were good to go. I was trying not to think about the fact that I already felt like crap. In fact, my 19th mile was a 10:19 feel like crap.

I desperately wanted my coaches. In particular, Coach Steve. My coaches had been yelling and screaming and going crazy all throughout the race. That was all well and good. I mean, I felt great at the time. But now I felt like crap and I needed them to run with me. Coach Steve is especially good at this. He says just the right things, and runs with me, picking up my pace ever so slightly to what it should be so that I don't notice, and then I'm running all well and happy on my own. I knew he was coming up, because when I saw him at the 10K mat he said "I'll see you on the bridge at mile 20!" So I kept looking around, like "Where's Steve?"

This bridge...I don't even know what to say about it. It was like a bazillion miles long. All flat. But that kind of flat that drags on forever. Not like a pretty bridge either. This was a highway overpass. Gross. I HATE running on the highway. WHY does EVERY marathon have a section like this? At the END, no less!!!

Yay! I saw Steve. He was on a cellphone, like, coordinating with the other coaches. I heard him say that he saw me coming up and he got off his phone to run with me.

I honestly can't remember everything he said. But he did help me pick up my pace AND he was like "Uh, you only have one 5-mile loop of Central Park left. You can do that in your sleep and I know it because I've seen you run it a million times." And I was like "He's so right!" He also told me Mike (the coach from Brooklyn) was coming up, which made me happy. Another coach!

Back down to 9:54 for mile 21 AND off of the million mile long bridge.

Into Crystal City...our TNT Hotel HQ! For some reason (deliriousness) I felt like I knew this area, so it would be easier. I was thinking of it as my stomping ground even though I've never been to DC in my life and had only spent 1.5 days in Crystal City. Lots of crowd support, lots of pretty, colorful flags and...
what? A turnaround? I HATE turnarounds. Especially at this point, because they are always longer than you think. Plus, right before the turnaround, they had you duck into this circular driveway. What? Mentally this was horrible course planning.

It did make the miles go faster though (at least in my head. Not in timing.)
Mile 22 - 11:10 (OUCH). Uh. And that's when I had to go. Like really really badly. My stomach was in all kinds of knots and I knew I had JUST passed a port-o-let. My time was also bumming me out. I was like "TRY to get back to the 10s."

Mile 23 - 10:47. Come on. I really really have to go. Where was that port-o-let on the other side?
Found it! Not ideal, but I had to cut across the runners going the wrong way to get there. Needless to say, my mile 24 was a slow 13:08.

I was finally out of Crystal City, thank goodness, I never wanted to go back there again.

I was now on to...a highway. Seriously. I am going to beat whoever thinks that it is a good idea to put final mileage of a marathon on a deserted highway.

Yay! I saw Mike and I was so happy!
Plus, Mike had great news. He pointed to the Walmart truck and told me 1. There was a water stop. (Hurrah! I thought I had already passed the last one!) 2. That was mile 25.
I was super energized (well, as energized as I could be. I knew at that point that I WAS going to finish).

Now, in my mind I was kind of cheating. I don't think I really needed the water, but I needed to walk. And I was NOT going to walk this marathon. AT ALL. But...we all know I can't run through the water stops without choking. So the water stop was a perfectly valid reason to walk a little but then have to run as soon as the water was done. I picked up mile 25 to a 10:18.

And right around the corner? Coach Christine! I told her I felt like crap and she was like "What? You're kidding! You look great!" Now with most coaches I do not buy this at all. But she really for real sounded sincere. And I was like "Wait. I am doing great. I screwed up my entire marathon, but I'm still doing 10 somethings." So that made me speed up a bit.

Mile 26: 10:03.

And RIGHT at the 26th mile marker was Ramon. I was SO HAPPY to see him. He was happy to see me too. He grabbed my hand and started running with me and talking to me and asking how I felt. I was like "I'm dying!" And he laughed and was like "Of course you're dying. What? You think this is easy? Are you crazy? Look at all these people cheering. If this was easy, all these people would be doing it. You are doing awesome. You look strong. You are going to run up the last hill...NOT HARD, just real easy. Ok. You can do it." And then he squeezed my hand and ran away and I felt the hill in my calves and I was like "This isn't so bad. I CAN do this hill! This hill is nothing!" And then I looked over my shoulder to my left and I was like "OH SH*T. THAT'S the hill!!!" So I took it easy, felt my heart rate climb to a million beats per minute, looked at the overhead clock, saw it was 4:22 (my last ditch goal from the end of the season, my first goal from the beginning of the season) and sprinted (ha ha) it in as much as I could.

4:22:54.

NOT what I was hoping for, but pretty good all the same.
Plus, I beat Oprah. (And Al Gore and Ted Koppel).