1 mile skied, 2750 meters swam, 48 miles biked and 316.2 miles run in 2013 races
Race: Quad Cities Marathon
Place: Moline, IL
Miles from home: 1960 miles
Weather: 60s; bright sunshine
Writing this recap of the Quad Cities Marathon as it is a single race wouldn’t really do it justice. It was, more accurately, the final stage of my Dane to Davenport which I had started on the Wednesday prior. But as I am not quite ready to go into detail about that 160ish mile run just yet, I will treat this recap as a separate entity with a nod to the warm-up prior to it. Consider it nodded.
Race Morning:
I can count on one hand the number of times in 145 marathons run where I was even remotely close to not wanting to run a marathon as I was when I woke up the morning of this race. I was wrung out. I was sick. I did not want to leave the bed. Whether it was illness brought on from being tired or exhaustion brought on from being sick, I know it took everything I had to get out of the hotel. A little bit of dry-heaving seconds before I left definitely did little to persuade me.It also surprised the heck out of me. All I had was my usual strawberry milk and my body was rejecting it.
I found myself walking to the start with my expansive and numerous crew for the Dane to Davenport (my best friend, Shannon.) She was also running the marathon after safely helping me navigate my run and I can only imagine how tired she was. After making sure I got to the finish line of my 3-day trek, with just as little sleep as I had, all while tending ot every need I had, I knew she wasn't at her best either. But in spite of a bad foot, a week's worth of travel, and ushering me around the expo for both a book signing and a speech the night before the race, she was heading out the door.We parted ways at the corrals and I tried to steady myself for the upcoming 26.2. Could I do it in roughly a Boston Qualifying time? Would it take me north of four hours to traverse the course or would I be somewhere in between? I really and truly had no idea what to expect.
First Six Miles: 8:23, 7:42, 8:16, 7:37, 8:22, 7:56
If you don’t know about the Quad Cities Marathon you should really learn about it. It is truly a one of a kind race that needs to be run if you are a running aficionado. 4 cities, 3 bridges, 2 states, and 1 island, all along the mighty Mississippi River. It starts off with the first of these bridges in the first mile as you leave Moline, IL and head over to Bettendorf, IA. Here the largest of the not-so-numerous and far-from large hills await you. I was far from feeling well but after a few miles and a few hills, I hadn’t gotten any worse so that was a positive. While the starting temperature might have been in the 50s, there was not a single cloud in the sky. It was going to be an absolutely beautiful first day of fall, which means it was going to be far too warm for me running.
After a few ups and downs of hills, we found ourselves heading back to the Mississippi to run one of the very few miles of this great river which runs east to west. It is rather disconcerting for many who think of the Mississip as being north-south only. Personally, I needed a bathroom and wasn’t too keen on observing anything but where those wonderful blue oases might be located. During my run to Davenport I had randomly seen a portapotty on the side of the road and tried to use it. A padlock on the door kept me from doing so and I decided right there that was the cruelest thing I had ever seen in my life.
Running a pace much slower than normal for me, I was experiencing a totally different race. I describe this phenomenon of how two runners on the same race on the same day can experience two completely separate races in my book. Here, I was experiencing just that. While the portapotties were very plentiful, I was always getting to them right as another person was entering one or I could see they were already occupied. When you are one of the first runners and nature calls, this is not a concern. This was different.
Finally, around the 5th mile, a free bathroom awaited me. I far from hurried as I did my best to do what was necessary and also use it as a respite from my exhaustion. I was already drenched in sweat and it wasn’t even 60 degrees yet. I was curious if I could peel off at the halfway point and plead my case to the race directors at the end to give me a half finish and not a marathon DNF.
