Fear. Trepidation. Panic. Dehydration. Heat stroke. Butterflies. Muscle spasms. Leg cramps. Abdominal cramping. Ear lobe cramping. Fever. The shakes. Ingrown toenails. Deviated knee joint spontaneous combustion. Nausea. Indigestion. Frizzy hair. Anxiety. Terror.
Abject terror!
No, this was not the result of my marathon training. (For the record, I’m training to run the Marine Corps marathon in Washington D.C. this Oct. 28.)
Rather, all these feelings and reactions hit me while walking around the block last weekend right after my neighbor John yelled out to me from his porch: “Hey, you hear they canceled the Chicago Marathon mid-way through because of the heat?”
Then, for added effect, “Someone died.”
Actually, it turns out that the individual died from a heart condition, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Death from heat during a marathon or death from heart condition during a marathon: which do you prefer? Any way you look at it, he DIED … in the marathon. (Here come the stomach cramps again!)
It was innocent enough how he informed me of this news, yet there was something about his voice that also seemed to be informing me that I was a crazy imbecile for even considering such a monster as a marathon.
As much as I hate to admit, as I walked off down the street, I was kind of thinking the same thing.
In Chicago, a freak heat wave had turned the temperature up to 88 degrees by race time, and some say humidity made it far worse. Water stops were overwhelmed by runners, and I read somewhere that there were so many heat-related emergencies that ambulances from the suburbs had to be called in.
About 3 1/2 hours into the race, they canceled, forcing hundreds and hundreds of people from the course. By doing so, they probably prevented a lot more rescues.
When I read that police had to order people to stop running, it occurred to me that I belong to a cult of maniacs. It’s almost 90 degrees out, there’s next to no water, people are dropping left and right, and yet there are still crazy runners (I would have been in that camp) still trying to trudge through it. What’s wrong with us? Is there something amiss with our DNA?
It reminded me of beached whales. Whenever you have beached whales, good-natured people put their own safety aside and wade out into the surf to try and push these big mammals back out to sea. But the whales resist. Why? Staying on shore will kill them. Why aren’t they smart like us? Now excuse me while I go run 26.2 miles and see if my feet fall off.
What am I thinking? I’ve done three 20-mile runs in preparation, and one weekend I did two runs for a total of 30 miles within 12 hours. I was smiling through it all. (Probably from lack of oxygen to the brain.)
But I wasn’t nervous until I heard about Chicago. What if it’s that warm in D.C.? What if my shorts melt to my waist and need to be surgically removed? What if I get so dehydrated that I look like a prune for the rest of my life? What if I spontaneously combust?
The last marathon I ran, it was about 50 degrees and it rained the entire time. What will I get this time around? What if locusts fall from the sky? What if there’s an earthquake? I’ve never run in an earthquake before. What if it floods? I don’t like getting my running shoes wet. They squish! What if there’s a dragon? I’m really starting to freak out about this.
It’s enough trying to convince your mind to go out and put one foot in front of the other for 26.2 miles. Now I have to worry about the weather, too.
Just a couple more weeks to go, and then I’ll join my pod of maniac running cultists, all a bit short of oxygen to the brain and desperately trying to beach ourselves.