"You know that you're over the hill,
When your mind makes a promise that your body can't fill."
-Little Feat, Old Folks' Boogie
This has been a year themed with me learning my limits, realizing I’m not forty anymore, can’t run as hard as I once did.
This weekend has continued the extended life lesson of my growing limitations.
Friday I worked a normal shift at the computer, a shame because Peg had the day off and we shared visions of making good use of that gifted time together. Instead, other than a leisurely morning lying in bed talking, and then sharing coffee, for me it looked like pretty much any other weekday. I have a big hearing in Dothan on Monday, and preparation is complicated, with remote coordination between local counsel, client, and your author. I couldn’t rightly announce that I had better things to do.
Meanwhile a bored Peg swung into housecleaning mode ahead of what we anticipated might be a houseful of friends on Saturday. We brought an eighteen pound Boston butt back from Perry on our last trip because might prices at the Perry Winn Dixie and the Corning Wegman’s occupy polar ends of the scale, and with this new smoker we saw an opportunity to fix a massive pile of delicious smoked pork, with Carolina style mustard and vinegar based barbeque sauce. A Southern delicacy beyond compare.
So by five or so Peg had cleaned the house to perfection, or what I considered perfection (Peg’s never so sanguine when it comes to dust bunnies and the occasional, innocuous pee spot on the toilet rim). I declared my paying work done for the day, and we walked together down to CMOG to pick up my race packet.
I was there because Peg convinced me to avoid forfeiting my $140 and run the Wineglass Half Marathon for which I’d barely trained, having become convinced there was no way my schedule would permit me to be in Corning this Sunday morning for the race.
But things cleared, except for the Alabama hearing, so I would in fact run 13.1 miles for the first time in a decade.
Saturday’s RSVP list ebbed and flowed as folks’ plans changed. Two guests took ill and cancelled at the last minute. Another new set of acquaintances begged off after lunch because an elderly parent had commanded an audience at supper. Another who was on the fence chose to stay on their side. So now we had eighteen pounds of pork and five folks total there to enjoy it.
We had plenty of wine, homemade chopped liver, and a bottle of Slane to share as well, although two of us were careful about imbibing because we were scheduled to run the half in the morning.
As I was about to pull the butts off the smoker after ten hours, there was a knock at our door. A smartly dressed fellow introduced himself as a neighbor who was running for city commissioner, and wanted to summarize his platform in the hope of earning our vote. I explained we were Floridians and couldn’t vote for him, but would be happy to send him a check. Peg appeared at the door and invited him in for a glass of wine, and to my surprise he accepted. Once he was handed a glass and had joined the festivities in the kitchen, I gestured to the piles of pork I was about to slice, and asked if he’d like to stay for supper. He said he’d love to dine with us, and walked the three blocks back to his home to gather up his wife to join the party.
Much wine was consumed, much pork and macaroni salad and cole slaw and smoked red potatoes kept us chewing as the dining room filled with conversation about Corning, politics, and whatever else was on everyone’s mind. Recognizing that race day was only a few hours away, we broke up the gathering at a respectable time, and called it a night.
I slept poorly, as I always do with an early wakeup and the possibility of missing an appointment, in this case with the school bus that would drive us to Campbell and the start line for the race. And I felt lousy, just tired. And I hadn’t trained. And I’d been wearing a heart monitor four days before. So with little sleep and muddled head, I left P to sleep and shuffled down the hill to the marshaling area to ride in darkness over to Campbell-Savona High School and sit achily on the gym floor for over an hour waiting for the race to start.
Parked next to me on the polished hardwood was Louie, a paunchy young fellow with braces to correct what looked like teeth that had been traumatically rearranged. Louie moved up from Brooklyn to take care of his ailing parents, and lamented the Trumpiness of the hills around Corning. There’s no getting away from it, I reckon. A national contagion among the white and poorly educated.
Finally it was time for the race, an electric moment when thousands of folks lined up to spend the next 2-3 hours tramping down the valley from Campbell to Corning. An angelic young lady sang the Star Spangled Banner and I teared up, as usual (what’s up with that?), then with “Sweet Caroline” blasting on the sound system and the crowd singing along, we pressed on into the brisk early morning.
And the race course was simply beautiful.
I felt okay at first, but it’s not those first few miles that call you out as a fraud for not training. At least my ticker wasn’t skipping.
Three miles along I came up on Peg’s coworker Kumar, running his first half and worrying about his progress, as is his wont. Kumar’s been training diligently for months, and managed to carry on a conversation for the next nine miles, as I became steadily quieter while the muscles in my legs used up all their glycogen, then my brain started to follow suit. Peg says at that point your liver takes over to keep the energy flowing, but mine had been a little too busy the night before and announced it was shagged. Finally Kumar broke into what approached a sprint at mile twelve and left me in the dust, plodding along with concrete blocks for legs.
The bridge at Wegman’s might as well have been Mount Everest as I struggled over the crest and down to Market Street and the finish line.
But I did finish, by God, in 2:20 or so as near as I can tell. In my prime I was a 1:40 or 1:45 guy on these 13.1 mile runs. I’m not in my prime, however.
Peg was waiting there at the finish line, wearing my Georgia Law sweatshirt and looking as angelic as I’ve ever seen her. She helped me crawl into a fleece, patted me on the back for surviving, and sat with me as I groaned on the floor at Tara, afraid to eat anything lest I see it again immediately. The cats appeared concerned as well.
But I rallied, crawled into the Columbia, and flew down to Dothan through the remnants of Ian that brought a little rain but also 35 knot tailwinds. I fought to stay awake.
The landing at Dothan was pretty froggy, with about nine knots of wind shear sending me back and forth between the cusp of a stall and too fast. Somehow I greased it on. “Nice job!” came the call over the radio from the tower. I blushed a little, or maybe it was the nausea returning from the race.
The FBO in Dothan is fabulous, and they had me out the door and into my rental in maybe ten minutes, with a bathroom break. Try that on a commercial flight.
Yesterday rounded third with two hours of hearing prep, then a solitary supper at the bar in an overpriced Mexican restaurant, then engaging in a little more hearing prep in the hotel room, this time with no pants on because I was so chafed from the run. The glamorous life of a trial lawyer.
In a few minutes I’ll pull myself together and get ready for a nasty, complicated hearing in a foreign courtroom. Then I’ll fly the Columbia down to Panama City and work the afternoon in the office before heading out for supper with good friends.
Definitely getting too old for this. Whatever sort of iron man I was in my 30s, when I ran on caffeine and adrenaline and little sleep, I’m not that guy anymore. 2023’s going to have to be different, or there's a literal or metaphorical crash-and-burn just over the horizon.
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