I am always tired from work by Fridays, but leading up to this run I had an unusually demanding workweek with several nights of disturbed sleep.  However, I did make a point to 'carb up' on pasta with Carpinelli's Family Secret pasta sauce, and grains (in contrast to the many missed meals the week leading up to the Jan.27th Charlotte Marathon which I ran low on fuel).  

At 3:10 am on Saturday morning after dozing on the couch for less than two hours, I drove out of Rocky Mount.  These things always have glitches.  I tried to get money from the bank box for the trip but apparently this was just after the apprentice of a man who performs residential services with pipe wrenches (is that sufficiently vague?) cashed a forged check, 'allegedly' stolen during a service call at my home - in competition for the dumb criminal award, he dated this check from later in the checkbook to predate the date of service by two days and he made the notation "for labor".   The foolish, alleged perpetrator even misspelled the name on the forged signature but the bank passed it through!  The bank assumed the liability on the problem and reversed fines levied for 'bounced checks' consequent of this forgery so it is resolved as far as I am concerned. It is especially unwise to steal from a bank in this society...

I arrived in Charlotte at 6:40 am, parked downtown near the Charlotte Observer building, ran to get my registration packet, ran back to my car to strip off my street clothes.  I had my running duds on underneath.  I slapped on abundant suntan lotion, put on my shades and donned my Richmond Marathon hat for good luck and shade.  I arrived at the starting line just one minute before the race began. 

Since I had a computer chip affixed to my shoe to mark actual time between the starting and finish lines, I did not think I needed to jockey for a good starting position.  I soon realized the fallacy - it was a very crowded field of about 2000 runners.  I was among throngs of slow joggers who appeared to be taking it easy.   People tended to run in blocks, unintentionally impeding anyone who wanted to go faster.  I spent over the first mile zigzagging around boxes of runners and darting or leaping through transient openings between people.  I realized the fallacy most clearly when the volunteer at mile one called out the time as well over 10 minutes!

  By and by, I caught up to and gradually passed the 1 hour 57 minute pacer.  For the first 10 miles, I walked for 10 to15 seconds at every pit stop to gulp water and Gatorade but after that, I just ran solid.   Charlotte, North Carolina, what a beautiful place to run!  The course began with a five-mile stretch on which we were to return after running an approximately 3 mile loop through Park Road Park - now that has a nice duck pond!

 As I reached the end of the initial five miles, I saw the 24-year-old lead runner passing me going the other way - he went on to complete the race in about 1 hour 9 minutes.  After I exited the loop through the park, I saw runners still going toward the park for yet about one mile, putting me about 3-4 miles behind the lead and 4 miles ahead of the rear - I am becoming more and more of a centrist as I mature anyway! 

The trek was more rolling with frequent inclines up and down than I had expected.  I stretched out my stride on the downhill sections to withdraw as much as possible of the energy I had invested in the gravitational field going up.  I imagined the Voyager spacecraft, coursing near the large gaseous planets in a sling shot strategy, gaining momentum from each planet's gravitational field as it neared the edge of the solar system.  I lost no speed on the uphill stretches and tended to pass folks more than being passed.  I finished the race with a final sprint in well under 2 hours, achieving my goal. 

Out of 2000 runners, I was 835 with a time of 1 hour 55 minutes and 3 seconds.  As far as I can tell, there were 33 runners who were 49 years old and I placed 11th among them.  Learning to pace oneself without burnout or holding back too much is quite a skill.   I must admit in retrospect, that I didn't run with as much heart as I should.  I have been running too easily, as though I am afraid I will burn out or get hurt.  What is it they say? - words to the effect:

sing like nobody is listening,

dance like nobody is watching,

eat like you will never have to do the dishes,

and love like you've never been hurt,

but run like hell or somebody's

going to nail you!

I threw a few extras in there to keep it from being totally trite.  For me in Charlotte, I certainly did not have to pretend that nobody was watching anyway.   At any rate, I am resolved to run my next race with my shoes smoking.

Driving Through the Desert in Mexico, 1967

When I was 16 years old, I traveled to Mexico with a buddy who had a car. 

This was one of many Jack Kerouac-like trips I made as a teenager (though

I did not know anything at the time about beat poet and writer, Jack Kerouac - ironic that he lived probably little understood, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina for a time!)  At one point, I was driving across the desert south of Monterrey.  My buddy nodded off to sleep and I had the universe to myself.  I decided to see what his car could do.  It was nothing special, just a 1965 Oldsmobile sedan with a clutch and shifter on the column.  I gradually pushed the pedal to the metal until the accelerator was depressed solid against the floorboard.  The Olds sped up to 100 mph pretty readily but then, speeded up only gradually.  Progressively, the speedometer eased up to 108, then 109 and then finally, to 110 mph.  Beyond that, "she wouldn't do no more!"  With no other vehicles in sight, I cruised at this wonderful speed down a long, flat, straight ribbon of hot asphalt, watching the mountains in the far distance coming closer ever so gradually.  Every once in a while, I would see a scorpion or something small scramble the hell off the highway as I came streaming by like hurricane force wind.  It was one of the most exhilarating experiences I had ever enjoyed up to that point.  Needless to say, we made damned good time getting across that long, empty valley.

I have pushed my body hard before, running until my 49 year old heart rate maxed out at 186 - like pushing that Olds to 110 mph across a desert highway in Mexico, nothing else happened at that level of exertion.  My heart and body just hit a point where it wouldn't go any faster, though it maintained that level of exertion until I decided to let up after several minutes.  I shouldn't be afraid to push more in these long runs.  Next time I won't.

Charlotte after the Race Festival

After completion of the half-marathon, I took off my long-sleeve shirt and stood in the sun eating an orange, banana, and drinking a bottle of water.  After I cooled down in my salty wet running clothes, I went back to my car .  Out of sight in the back seat down in the parking garage, I covered my lap with the tee shirt the race had issued and surreptitiously stripped off the cold, sweaty running clothes and quickly slipped into street clothes and tied my tie. 

I returned to the race area, walked about looking at faces and watching runners coming in from their 10 k jaunt.  I began to feel as lonely as the Voyager spacecraft.  Ihad encountered thousands of people back when I ran a solo ENT surgery practice in Matthews until I closed it down in May, 1998.  Nonetheless, I never saw one familiar face that Saturday in 'uptown' Charlotte.  I tried to connect with an old friend but he was not to be found.  I walked up to the nearly empty downtown public library and The Discovery Place Science Museum where I had taken my children so many times as a resident Charlottean. A sense of sadness began to haunt me. 

Finally, I drove out to Matthews to have a regular tuna "all the way" at Jersey Mike's where I often took lunch in the old days.  As I sat there alone,

I thought of how different the social experience was for this half-marathon compared to full marathons in which I had participated.  During this event, I had spoken to different people from time to time without response.  While running over speed bumps in Park Road Park,  I joked to the other runners nearby how these speed bumps slow you down! -this seemed to draw nothing but blank faces.  I think the distance of 13.1 miles is below the minimal threshold at which people let down the walls and look at fellow runners as neighbors with whom they are going to spend a large part of the morning in an intense, demanding experience.  Socially, this run was about as friendly as driving on Providence Road during rush hour.

Finally, I left Matthews and southeast Charlotte, thinking of all that was around me and all that I had known so well that was once again near, yet now unattainable and distant, even unconcerned and disinterested in my presence.  I drove alone, straight back to Rocky Mount, not having had a single conversation with a single individual the entire morning.  Tired as I was, I stayed on the road quite well until the last 30 minutes on 64 east of Raleigh.  There, with no traffic and my car on cruise control, I struggled to dispel hyopnogogic visions - dreams flashing momentarily full screen before my sleep deprived, wide-open eyes, blocking all view of the highway and reality.  I began to apply potent stimuli to the reticular activating system of my brainstem: slapping my face, putting focal pressure on the transverse process of my first cervical vertebra, thumb pressure on the supraorbital nerve where it crosses the brow, all manner of non-injurious painful stimuli to the face to promote wakefulness.  

Pain can keep you going when your brainstem or body says 'enough!'  I survived this parasomnia. I don't take orders from my brainstem or body, preferring the insubordination of the consciousness.  

So this is how I spent Franz Kafka Day.