My alarm goes off at 4:15 am. I pop out of bed. It's race day. My plan is to get to the start line by 6am. I go down to the basement and hop on the computer to post on Twitter (@dzlrunner) about my excitement and that I'm ready to go! I start to begin putting my gear on and I figured that I would allow my wife and daughter to sleep a little more. (This may have been a mistake... I started to hear my wife walk around upstairs at about 5:30am) No big deal. I figure a 45 minute drive to get to Towson from where we live wouldn't be too bad if we left between 6:00 and 6:10. I mean, we'd still get there before 7am, since the race starts at 7:30.
We're all getting ready and I lose track of time! I get a text from one of my running buddies, who's running the race with me. The text asked if I was at the start line yet. This is at 6:16 and I haven't left my house yet! I responded that I just left the house. (Technically, I wasn't quite in the car yet... I had to run back in the house to finish getting the rest of my things. Oh, you've done it too. That time when you respond to someone about a future location of where you should be now or something that you should be doing now and you haven't quite gotten to doing it yet. You're close, but not fully there... lol)
Well she said, "Geez... I hope you live in Towson!" At this point, I knew I was in some trouble. I don't live anywhere close to Towson. I live in PG County, a good 30-35 miles from the start line. I plugged the start location into my GPS and it said 58 minutes to reach my destination!! WHAT?!?! At the rate I'm going, I'd get there in the middle of the National Anthem, if not after the race begins!!
I load my family in the car and we get going. My wife and daughter are still pretty tired, so I knew I had to make time. You can guess what I did... Once we got on the road and they were sleep, time had to be made up some way. It was after 6:30am when I finally left my house.
I pull up to the starting location at 7:10am and I know I'm in the right place, because of the sea of neon colors in the street. That's something I like about being a runner and running in races. So many different colors, different outfits... so many different people! Such a beautiful thing! I pull into a parking space, so my wife can switch to the driver's side. I kiss the wife, kiss the baby and set out to look for my running buddy. We haven't seen each other in a few years... So we catch up a little bit, talk about our training and shortly thereafter everyone's moving towards the starting line.
The National Anthem is sung, the starting gun sounds and we're off! I wave to my wife and daughter and cross the starting mat.
I was prepared for the first third of the race to be tough. The Course Information on the website stated that the course was downhill. But, the elevation map on the website showed the first 3.5 - 4 miles being hilly. I was mentally prepared for that. I had already set my Garmin to run 12:30 miles, so I wasn't going to push my pace at all in the first quarter to first third of the race. I was just going to keep steady and negotiate those hills as gently and as smoothly as possible. (You can see my Pre-Race Strategy here)
Now these hills were not as bad as the hills I trained on, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, NC. No where close. But, consistent rolling hills can take a toll on you. Within the first quarter of the race, we ran thru some residential areas of Towson and passed Towson University. The first aid station was around mile 1.5. I didn't stop, because I had my trusty Camelbak hydration vest and it wasn't a part of the strategy to drink this early. I felt fine through this portion of the race and it was just a matter of sticking to the plan. I have run 4 miles so many times before, this was no different.
The second third of the race, miles 4 - 8, was pretty tough. This wasn't because of the few minor pains I began to feel. I could deal with that. But, it was mainly because, I like many other runners were thinking "downhill". For some crazy reason, when I got to the bottom of a hill or the end of a flat portion of the course, I looked up and there was another incline. I kept thinking that maybe I read the information wrong... Maybe it said that this was not a "downhill course" and I wanted it to be. I don't know. It just steadily frustrated me to think downhill and I am continuously climbing hills. A pretty sick joke by the race directors, if I do say so myself.
Oh yeah... I didn't even mention the fact that my Garmin only had 2 bars. In all my excitement, I failed to charge my GPS watch!! Unbelievable!! At this point, I'm not as comfortable as I would've like to have been. The race course was not what I mentally thought it would be and constantly hoping my Garmin wouldn't die on me was more than I wanted to be concerned with. But, just like life, sometimes you've got to just roll with the punches and work through it the best way you can. Everything won't always be exactly the way we want it... That's a fact.
Around mile 8, I had came up to a runner and said good job. She was doing well and returned the pleasantries... We ran about the same pace, so we stuck together until about the 8.75 mile mark, when she said "Ok, you brought me through... I'm gonna walk a little bit." I bid her adieu and continued my trek.
The final third of the race was where the battle between mind and body began. I was coming up on territory that I wasn't as familiar with. Sure, I'd run several 10 mile runs up until this point in my training, but only one 12 miler. This is the place, where pace no longer mattered and I just wanted to finish. This is the portion of the race where all mantras that have ever been thought of, begin to flood the mind. Mantras like, "One foot in front of the other" and "a body in motion wants to stay in motion" and "trust your training" all begin coming to mind at once. These thoughts mixed with the desire to stop, but the desire to finish were becoming annoying. I remember thinking how much I wanted the finish line to just magically appear in front of me or right around the corner.
But, no... it wasn't going to be that easy. I'd have to work to get to the finish line. There were no shortcuts and no magic carpets to get me to the finish. All there was, was my desire to finish and the training I had put in. My Garmin, didn't even keep me company as it saved my run at mile 8.49 and showed a blank screen.
I resolved in my mind that I would, in fact, finish this race and I was finally able to quiet the unnecessarily loud noise of mind and body, when lyrics to "She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes" came to mind. Eventually, those lyrics turned to "He'll be coming 'round the harbor when he comes". The Baltimore Harbor was where the race ended and not a point sooner.
I was at about mile 9.5 and my new running buddy, that I met at mile 8 showed up again. She said something like "I told you I'd catch up with you." This was much needed company at the time. We ran a little further, talked about our training and at about mile 10.3 or so, she needed to walk again. I said my goodbyes and kept on trekking.
I knew that I was getting close to the finish. There were several winding turns between mile 10 and 11 and we were in downtown Baltimore. At this point, I was wondering why I didn't have much and I was running on fumes. It hit me... I forgot to take my energy gel at mile 9! That's why I felt like I was running on empty. I took the hot Gatorade that they gave at the aid station for electrolytes, but it didn't seem to help. I was already in a hole that I couldn't crawl out of. Once again, I had to roll with the punches and work through it the best way I could.
At about mile 10.9, I was feeling like I needed a second wind. So I decided that I would walk this last tenth of a mile to the 11 mile marker and I would run the rest of the way. This was slightly disappointing, because in all of my training runs, I've never even walked a hundredth of a mile. I usually run the entire distance. But, that's the funny thing about races. They make you do different things and feel different ways. It was time to recommit. I tapped mile marker 11 as I passed and got back on my horse. I made the choice that I would run from this point to the finish line. No stopping.
Finally, I could see the harbor. I had reached the harbor and all there was to do was to get down the boardwalk, past the Maryland World Trade Center Building, past the Phillips and Barnes & Nobles and hang that left into the finisher's shoot.
As I ran down the boardwalk and saw other runners who had already received their medals, a feeling of hope came over me. I was almost there! I ran past the Spirit of Baltimore, past Ripley's Believe It or Not, past the USS Constellation, in between the Cheesecake Factory and the Baltimore World Trade Center. I got to the finishing shoot and guess who's running towards me... My 2 year old daughter. I couldn't have asked for a better finish to this race. I picked her up and carried her through the finish line, with my family cheering me through!! All the pain and lack of energy I had subsided for that short period of time. It was one of the greatest feelings in the world!!
(Video of race route and footage of my personal finish, can be seen below...)
My official chip time was 2 hours 29 minutes and 19 seconds. Thank you Charm City Run for a great challenge in the Inaugural Charles Street 12. I will definitely come back to finish better and stronger next year!!
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