Colin Powell Elementary School 5K Redux

The gang post-race.

“So, um, where is the start?” I asked, while surveying the rapidly filling parking lot. Our eyes followed the outstretched arm of our friend who pointed to a folding table and chairs just off the sidewalk.

About two months ago, this same friend handed Mrs. OTBR and I registration forms to sign up for his school’s annual 5K fundraiser. Not ones to turn down a race – and honestly a chance to go out to breakfast – we promptly handed them back to him, check paperclipped to the top.

There was something refreshing about a true, small, local 5K (no more than 125 registrants), that didn’t come with the pressures of packet pickup logistics, starting corrals, timing chips, and that general D.C.-type A aggravation.

Our group of nine shifted from foot to foot as we cracked jokes in between our friend spotting one of his students and moving off to chat with them. I shook my arms and legs in random intervals, hoping to shed the logy-ness that weighed me down on my warm up loop. I surveyed the runners around us and quickly realized the absurdity of sizing up the dads and siblings for an elementary school 5K and allowed myself the chance to go “run for fun” rather than to compete.

A woman with a bullhorn emerged from the throng of elementary school kids and their parents, who wandered around us. “Let’s get moving to the start line!” she called, and we herded toward the folding table and chairs. But before we lined up, the bullhorn summoned us toward the school’s sign to snap a group picture.

Moments later, we shuffled into position. A little girl next to me looked up at her dad, motioned for him to lean in, and whispered too loudly, "Help me win!" Adorable.

The woman with the bullhorn yelled, “GO!” and in a few loping strides out of the parking lot, I shot to the front of the pack, err, horde of children. The course circled the school and surrounding neighborhood twice, and runners were instructed to run on the sidewalk, following the well-placed directional signs.

I slipped into an easy rhythm and – after a short and steep uphill – tried to push the pace toward a PR on the long stretch of downhill on the backside of the school. Then, I gave a quick glance over my left shoulder and startled to see a kid dressed in all white not too far behind.

“Not again,” I thought, having settled in to the idea of a pretty comfortable run alone. Then came the spark of adrenaline, and thus, the competitive fuse lit.

I dropped a 5:15 first mile and chuffed a little harder through the first loop checkpoint than I anticipated. Kids waved bright orange and yellow flags and there was a smattering of applause as the bullhorn squawked, “Here comes our first runner!” I managed a smile then went about tackling that short, steep hill again.

While I shortened my stride, I listened behind me for the announcement of the all-white runner and it came a little too soon for my liking. When I hit the top of the hill, I thought, “Run through it,” and though I breathed hard, I let my feet continue to turn over on that long downhill while my breath caught up.

I started to come up on the parents and their kids still completing the first loop and heard “Wows!” go up behind me. A father tried to stay with me for a short time before abandoning the idea. I kept my eyes up, looking for the street light that would signal the final left turn to the finish.

Finally it appeared, marking a half mile to go, and I allowed myself a quick glance at my watch: 5:25 pace; and another over my shoulder: all-white was nowhere to be found. A potential PR hung in the pre-thunderstorm humidity on that final straightaway and I threw in whatever kick those marathon legs could muster.

I ran by the cone marking the finish line and clicked my watch, sucking in a cool lungful of air. I looked at my wrist and saw: 15:45 and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. Then I looked up further on the watch and saw 2.86mi. Ah-ha. That explained it.

I stuck by the finish line to cheer in and high five the kids and our friends. We tried our hand at the raffle and then collected our age-group prizes. Our friend had essentially brought in the ringers as we captured every one of them from 21-49.

And of course, then we went to breakfast.

Angel Kisses 5K Redux

Our crew post-race.

More than *gasp* 20 years ago, I have vague memories of toeing the line as a fourth grader for a local one mile run while my dad took off in the opposite direction to tackle the morning’s 5K (I won that mile while my dad brought home an age group victory). That same 5K has undergone several iterations over the years, and I have since graduated to running the full 3.1 miles. And each year, I creep higher and higher in the standings.

This race always held special significance to me, as it winds through the neighborhood I grew up in, and I return every so often, my mind heavy with nostalgia. This year, I salivated at the thought of taking on a 5K, particularly this one, on marathon-hardened legs. When I spoke with my coach about strategy, he said, “Don’t worry about the time, just go run to compete.”

It was with this in mind that I jogged the four miles from our house to the start line, a generous warmup. I worked my way through the crowd to the front and began eying up my fellow competitors. At first glance, I hoped thought that perhaps I’d be running alone. But then I caught a glimpse of a short, shirtless runner in split shorts. “Just go run,” I said to myself, trying to calm the sudden butterflies in my stomach.

After the gun, I surged forward and watched shirtless sprint to the front along with an even younger kid in a gray shirt, whom I wrote off immediately.

The first half mile climbed up a house-lined street and I focused on my form and maintaining contact with shirtless. As the road leveled into a false plateau, I noticed gray shirt was still with us and showing no signs of fading. The three of us traded positions as we reached the apex and flowed into a steady downhill. I let my breath catch me here and focused on settling in and making the effort look like no effort at all.

We made the turn onto the main road and the three of us flew by the first mile marker. I didn’t even bother to look at my watch. “Run to compete,” I thought. I went to the lead and listened to the footsteps behind me tuck in.

The course turned into my childhood neighborhood and I turned a quick sideways glance at the house I grew up in, the only one that ever appears in my dreams. The pace still felt comfortable and the steady rhythm of my pursuers’ footsteps pounded behind me. As a vet of this race, I knew the course well and it made up many of my marathon training runs. I knew then that the backside of the 5K would draw us mostly uphill, taking away the easy declines we flowed through so easily in the beginning.

The orange cone marking the turnround appeared ahead and a smattering of applause from volunteers clapped around us. I went into the turn first and caught a glimpse of the rest of the field: gray shirt and I had opened a gap on shirtless and no one else was near. “This is the podium,” I thought.

We began the climb out of the neighborhood back to the main road. Gray shirt overtook me and I let him work the lead for now. I hung on his left shoulder so he knew I was still there, but controlled my breathing so as not to reveal my hand. My friends and wife flashed by headed out the opposite direction and called to me. I managed a slight smile before going back to work.

We turned back onto the main road and I pulled even. We ran side-by-side with three-fourths-of-a-mile to go. My head became a mess. I wrestled with doubt, with not being able to close, knowing it was going to hurt, knowing that I was running on marathon legs, not 5K legs. The competitor in me finally silenced the doubter and brought forward the image I’d burned in my head: pulling away at the final uphill to rocket away to the finish. “See it,” I thought.

 

I settled in again, ready to compete to the finish. We arrived at that final hill. Gray shirt and I still ran side-by-side and he made no indication as we started to climb that he had begun to falter so I put my plan on hold. Just as we neared the top of the hill, I watched his shoulders creep up to his ears and his stride begin to chop. My mind screamed, “GO!”. And I went.

I pulled ahead and knew in that moment that I was all in. I would either break him here or burst into flames.

I made the penultimate turn off the main road and pushed up the final hill. I took the last corner and flung myself into the final stretch to the finish: a rollercoaster drop of a downhill followed by an interminable straight away. I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder.

Mrs. OTBR still proud of me.

Arms pumping, legs churning, I went hurdling down the hill. I had a feeling he would be back. The finish line appeared around the bend and I started to let myself believe. My breathing turned ragged and I blew flecks of spit from my mouth on each exhale. Still, the finish line got no closer. A haze started to seep in around the corners of my eyes. Closer. Cement hardened in my quads and time slowed down, like a bad dream. I was two mailboxes away when I heard him. His breathing as ragged as mine. The footsteps growing louder, the panic rising inside of me as I withdrew. One mailbox. Slapping of shoes behind. I reached deep inside me for one last gasp…and there was nothing.

We came to the finish line together. Only we didn’t. He was half a foot ahead of me. “Could be a tie!” the announcer called. But I knew.

I put my hands on top of my head and sucked in the cool air, regaining my wits, and fighting to keep from going hands to knees.

I forgot to click my watch and didn’t know my official time until they called me to the stage 30 minutes later to collect my second place medal. 17:11, matching my PR from more than two years ago.

Gray shirt, I later learned is 15. And though he nipped me at the line, I know there’s only one more spot for me to move up to…next year.

2013 Boston Marathon Redux: Part II -- After

In the midst of a past national tragedy, I still remember the opening lines I wrote in a column for my college’s newspaper. It began, “Where were you? The truth is, you’ll always remember.” On that day, I had just settled in to an American Government class and then spent the remainder of that cool autumn day riveted to the television and my computer with my roommates and friends searching for answers. When I think back to what happened this past Monday, the truth is, I will always remember…

…that I had just hung up the phone with my parents. The faint sound of cheers filtered in through the window as runners prepared to make the penultimate turn onto Hereford Street. I lingered over a glass of champagne and tilted my head back against the chair to let my PR wash over me. Then I flicked my phone back on to begin answering the text messages and e-mails I’d received during the race. My wife, father-in-law, and friend had stepped out for a moment to go get us cupcakes to continue celebrating, until it was time to head back to Boylston Street to meet up with Boston-area friends and let the party really begin. A crush of sirens blazed by the window. As I pecked away at my phone, I thought, I hope everyone is ok, thinking it would be a heart attack near the finish line.

Photo my wife captured of runners halted on Commonwealth

“So proud of you bud! You killed it!” a friend out in L.A. sent me two hours before. I nodded and wrote back, “Thank you, sir! So ecstatic right now. :)” at 3:05 p.m. Seconds later, I received the following from him, “Dude are you okay? Explosions near the finish line, people hurt”.

My face fell and I fired off a quick reply to him, then made for the TV remote. The door flew open, my wife and crew returning, “Did you hear what happened?!”

We spent the next three hours alternating between watching the coverage unfold and putting messages out to friends, family, Facebook, Twitter, any way to let people know we were safe.  Our phones would cut out and suddenly come back to life in a series of dings and alerts like slot machines and we would jump to use those brief communication windows to put out information.

We managed to connect with a friend who had just passed mile 25 and been halted with the mass of runners who would never make it to Boylston Street. She came to our room after connecting with her parents, and the eight of us stared at the footage, trying to somehow process what had happened just a half mile way, trying to figure out what to do next.

Information trickled in: other devices may be in the area; fire at the JFK library; two dead; stay inside. We discovered other friends had been at Fenway. Another had been eating on Boylston Street and felt the concussion, and would later be awoken in the middle of the night to a firefight outside her apartment in Watertown.

At 6:00 p.m., my wife and friend were the only ones left in the room. We had had enough coverage for the moment and descended to the hotel’s restaurant for dinner. The waiter brought us three Sam Adams 26.2 brews and we clinked glasses, though we weren’t sure what to toast to. I sipped at that beer trying to reconcile my fleeting excitement that always dissolved to guilt. I received messages from friends, saying, "If you are not ready to be proud of what you accomplished, I am," and "Go outside, and have a drink. It's a middle finger to whoever did this."

We would return to the room and alternate between staring at phone screens and TV screens, finally deciding that we needed to watch something else. Once in a while, someone would look up and we schemed what we could do to help at a time when we felt helpless. At 11:00, weary and raw, we turned the light out and tried to fall asleep to the sound of more sirens breaking up the night.

On Tuesday morning, we emerged from the hotel. To the left, it could have been any Tuesday, commuters in the streets and on the sidewalks. To the right, yellow tape cordoned off streets and soldiers and police with rifles stood guard, a jarring reminder.

The three of us climbed into our taxi to the airport with…with…I’m not sure what. Sadness? Loss? Grief? Guilt? Confusion?...We were emotionally frayed, constantly on the verge of tears, and exchanged hugs that lasted just a few seconds longer and were just a little tighter than usual. The day after, it had somehow become more real. More permanent.

Flashing lights and sirens became a common occurrence
Monday night.

Mine is not a story of survival or heroism. I was simply there, sharing in what the WashingtonPost’s Mike Wise called “the crown jewel of the running community.” Where for one day each spring, runners lace up their shoes from all over the world to celebrate, a 26.2 mile parade of perseverance, of overcoming, of accomplishment.

While I fought back the tears in the airport, I began reading Dan Shaughnessy’s column in The BostonGlobe, where he said, “Yesterday was a day you realized just how connected you were to people.” And it’s true.

I had originally been overwhelmed by the support I received from friends who said they stopped working to check on my status during the race, the meticulous tracking and posting of times that occurred on the Runner’s World Loop, the outpouring of congratulatory texts and e-mails that awaited me, the excitement in my mom’s voice knowing that this one was somehow more special than the last eight.

But then it all changed, a distinct line in time. These same people suddenly looked for confirmation that we were safe. And then the additional outpouring of support from family, former and current coworkers, friends from all corners and years in life, neighbors who stopped me while walking my dog (many of whom only know me as “the runner guy”) to say I was the first one they thought of when they heard the news.

I struggled for the past two days about how to put these feelings and the strength of Boston and the running community, into words (and perhaps still do) but can sum it up best by recounting the call I had at work yesterday. It was a simple, weekly status call that my project has every Thursday. I sat in the office with another coworker as we huddled around the phone. My manager kicked off the call by welcoming me back and telling me how relieved they were to hear that I was safe. I started to give a quick summary of the events for them, when I found my thoughts and my words taking me here, causing me to dab at my eyes by the end of it, words that I quickly realized are also meant for all of you:

“I was so humbled and overwhelmed by your support and concern on Monday. It makes me realize just how much love exists in communities like ours and how much we depend upon and support one another. It’s days like Monday that make you realize how grateful you are for the friends and family who contribute to who you are as a person. I can’t thank you enough for giving me that feeling.”

I still feel a stab of pain in my gut every time I see “Boston Marathon” associated with this act of cowardice. It’s simply not the way it’s supposed to be. But, those who did this only have the power that we give them.

So...

Despite the countless times the explosions that racked Boylston Street played on TV, I refuse to let that hallowed stretch of pavement be tarnished for myself and for those who still – and will always – let it play in their running dreams. The magical half mile when you emerge from out of the overpass on Commonwealth Avenue. The crowd is four and five deep on the sidewalk, a cacophony of “Let’s go’s”, “C’mons!” and, “Finish strongs!”. You make the fateful right turn onto Hereford Street and let yourself start to believe. The final left turn pours you onto Boylston Street where the buildings reach for the sky and the cheers rise up even higher. The pain melts away. The spectators on either side of the street lift you from the ground and carry you the length of the street to that big blue and yellow arch. A smile creases your salty, sticky face and your arms instinctively pump harder, until, at long last, you raise them above your head. Because whether it’s your first or fiftieth time, in record time or not, you just broke the finish line of the world’s greatest marathon.

The truth is, that’s what I choose to remember.