I am convinced that the singular best, most exciting, and fun run I have ever experienced has got to be the April 6, 2008 Big D Half-Marathon. I have loaded a picture as a screen saver on my computer saving forever the glory of that 13.1 mile run.
I ran this race with five of my best and fastest running friends. Let me tell you they are really fast. It all started as a pretty simple idea. They, Lindsay Musielak, Biegel Macaraeg, Jim Hazard, Kellye Lubke and John Forbes decided on Monday before the race that they wanted to do an "easy 12 miles" on Sunday. Somehow Lindsay suggested the Big D Half-Marathon.
“Another mile or so is no big deal”, she claimed. So after a series of emails and text messages we all decided to hurry and register for the half. Just to tell you how fast they are, I specifically remember an email from Jim stating we'd run an easy 8:00-8:15 pace. Now for me, that is hard work and I have never run that distance that fast. And that's when it occurred to me, "if I keep up with them then I will set a PR". I had not made the leap on exactly how I was going to keep up with them. I just remember sending out another email stating the facts and the challenge was on.
My friends decided they wanted to pace me and assure me a PR. All I had to do was keep up. Now that sounds like a lot of work for me and it is. But, it is even more work for them. They're each perfectly capable of running in the upper 7's and still call it easy. With this in mind, I thought that we would all start together and after a few miles they would decide it was in fact too torturous to run so slow and take off and leave.
What I thought was going to happen never really happened at all. Instead they made me feel like Lance Armstrong or P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, Sean Puffy Combs, Sean Combs whatever we call him these days. They were my entourage complete with a bicycle manager, Wendy Hazelwood, riding along side and street support, Whitney Cahoy and JJ Pledger, in the form of beer, beer and more beer.
I remember John saying when Whitney handed him his second beer, “wow, I’m gonna be buzzed by the end of this race”. Of course, he was already buzzed enough that he couldn’t hold on to his beer and we heard a sudden splash followed by, “EXPLETIVE” only replace expletive with any curse word that starts with “F”. I was laughing so hard that I forgot we were going up a hill.
Several times during the race I had to shout, “hey stop making me laugh, I’m loosing too much oxygen”. I mean the whole time was filled with jokes, shouting, laughing and the occasional runner’s flatulence. In one of their often noted entouragie activities Biegel, Jim, John, Kellye and Lindsay would trade off forming human shields whenever the wind picked up. Picture this, three of them jolting up front while the other two flanked my shoulders on either side.
And I never even slowed my pace at the water stops. Instead these guys would ask me, “water or Gatorade”, then they’d grab my request and hand it to me while I’d be in full stride in the middle of the road. One daring handoff came at about mile ten...from her bike Wendy handed Jim her Spark bottle. Then Jim handed it to me. Seconds before that Biegel and John coordinated a water handoff from the left.
You have got to know I was soaking up all this attention. And since I had my dark shades on, I bet people running around us thought I was some celeb. We even adopted a few lone runners along the way. Some just excited to be in our atmosphere, others wishing our loud, obnoxious antics would just end.
Somewhere around mile 9 I was feeling pretty labored and this young kid we ran up on decided to keep pace with us. Honestly, every 2 tenths of a mile he would say, “how far have we gone”. Poor kid, maybe he was dying, but for sure he was killing me. After four of these request, I finally said, “2 tenths of a mile farther than the last time you asked”. With that I gave Biegel a nudge in the back so he would pick up the pace. Too bad, I still don’t know the kid made it in.
All in all a great day. We had breakfast at Ozona’s after and laughed even more when Jim and I presented John with his new coffee mug.
My friends saved my life and pushed, pulled and prodded me to a four minute PR over my last PR in Austin. I ran a 1:47 and they even ensured that I crossed first. Can’t ask for better running friends, that’s for sure. Thanks again, John Forbes, Kellye Lubke, Jim Hazard, Biegel Macaraeg, Lindsay Musielak, Wendy Hazelwood (with bike support), Whitney Cahoy and JJ Pledger (the Beer Team).
