Taking Care of Business

In the fall of 1993 Al, Val and I were running 20 miles religiously every Sunday.  There were exceptions, of course.  Three if you’re counting: Running a marathon, running an ultra or death.  Other than that we all knew the drill, a drill we would continue well into the next century.  

Val and I ran the 1993 Atlanta Marathon together stride for stride and fast enough for her to qualify for her first Boston Marathon.  Al met us at the finish line and the two of them agreed they would be in Beantown the following April and wanted me to be there as well.  There was only one problem: I did not have a Boston qualifying time and up until that moment was perfectly content with my one Boston Marathon—a PR, by the way so why jeopardize that kind of karma? — back in 1987.

But they insisted on me being with them for Val’s first—and Al’s third Boston Marathon.  They immediately began looking at race calendars to find a possible marathon for me to run a qualifying time.  It wasn’t long before all of us were signed up for the 1994 Tallahassee Marathon: Our first ‘business trip marathon.’

The ideal business trip marathon is completed within 24 hours.  Here’s how Tallahassee played out:

·      Pack a bag with running gear and place in trunk of car on Friday morning.  (This is considered prep time; at this point the 24-hour clock hasn’t started.) 

·      Friday, 6:00 p.m. - Leave for marathon destination after end of work day. (24-hour clock begins.) 

·      Friday, 11:00 p.m. - Check into hotel; spend the night.

·      Saturday, 5:30 a.m. - Wake up.  Eat breakfast at hotel (optional, and only if complementary). 

·      Saturday, 7:00 a.m. - Run marathon.

·      Saturday, 11:00 a.m. - Return to hotel.  Shower (ask hotel staff for late checkout if needed).

·      Saturday, 12:00 p.m. - Drive home.

·      Saturday, 5:00 p.m. – Arrive home.  (Mission accomplished; elapsed time of 23 hours.)

I would be remiss in telling about our first official business trip marathon if I failed to mention our hotel accommodations.  I won’t mention the hotel by name but I will tell you (a) it was not part of a chain, (b) there was a life-size white ceramic Brahman bull in front of the hotel and (c) the towels in the rooms were so old and worn you could (literally) see through them.  Anyway, Al and I shared a room and Val had a room to herself.  The hotel manager agreed to let us have a late checkout, but only in one of the rooms.  After the marathon Al and I quickly grabbed our bags and a couple of towels from our room as the three of us had decided to take turns showering in Val’s room; the one with the late checkout.  When we went into the lobby to pay the hotel manager tried to charge Al and I for two towels as the maid had already reported them missing from our room.  

Getting back to the story…

Two months later the three of us made the trip to Boston and would go on to run many more marathons in the years ahead, most of them of the business trip variety.

This past weekend was the first time Al and I ever took a Business Trip 5K. But this was no regular 5K: This was the 37^th running of the Kiwanis Melon Run 5K in Monticello, Florida.  Al just so happened to be the Race Director the first year the race was held back in 1979.  But this particular edition of the event had a special affinity for Al: It was the first race he could run as a 70-year old.  As for me, it was sort of a cosmic calling to return to the area where we ran our first business trip marathon over 20 years ago (Monticello is about 30 miles from Tallahassee).  Contrary to what some people might think, the fact I was now a 60-year old and in a new age group as well had nothing to do with my decision to tag along.  (In other news, I’m prone to lie to embellish a story.)

Here’s how our first official Business Trip 5K turned out:

·      Friday, 5:30 p.m. - Leave for Monticello after end of workday. (24-hour clock begins.) 

·      Friday, 11:00 p.m. - Check into hotel.  Turn on air conditioner in room because it’s easily 120 degrees in a room that’s been baking in the 100-degree sun all day long.  

·      Saturday, 5:15 a.m. - Wake up.  Take quick showers after six hours of sleeping in a sauna.  Eat complementary breakfast in hotel lobby approximately the size of a walk-in closet (the lobby, not the breakfast) under the watchful eye of the front desk clerk who makes sure none of the guests take more than one muffin or yogurt cup.  (I took one of each; I was asked never to return.)    

·      Saturday, 7:00 a.m. – Arrive at race site; pick up race number.  Run the course as a warm up; make mental note that this could possibly turn out to be the toughest 3.1-mile route I’ve ever run. 

·      Saturday, 8:00 a.m. – Find unattended restroom; make mental note what a stroke of luck the restroom remained unattended the entire time I was inside.  (*TMI?  Perhaps.)

*Too much information

·      Saturday, 8:15 a.m. – Race begins.  Course takes a 90-degree right hand turn after only 80 meters; I note two runners—a husband and wife—who are both pushing baby strollers are ahead of me.  I curse silently to myself. 

·      Saturday, 8:22:15 a.m. – One mile down.  Just like that--BOOM!  I am now in front of the baby stroller being pushed by the dad.  Mom will be next.  I haven’t seen Al since the race began; I wonder how he’s doing. 

·      Saturday, 8:30:20 – Two miles down.  The course is beautiful; I already look like crap (the race photos I receive later will prove me correct).   Mom with baby stroller is nowhere in sight.  I look back over my shoulder and notice the same thing about Al.

·      Saturday, 8:something (*TNI) – I have 400 meters to the finish line: Every one of them is STRAIGHT UP A HILL!  I doubt my ability to continue running to the finish line and wonder if this will be the first 5K I fail to run the entire way.

*Time Not Important

·      Saturday, 8:something – I cross the finish line, proud of myself for running the entire way but disappointed with my finishing time.  However, the relief of finishing the most difficult 5K course I’ve ever run overshadows the aforementioned disappointment. 

·      Saturday, 8:something but pretty darn close to 9:00 a.m. – Al is navigating his way up the 400-meters to the finish.  I can only imagine what his race photos will look like, but it’s a pretty safe bet he won’t want to see them.   (Later I am again proven correct.)

·      Saturday, 10:30 a.m. – Awards ceremony.  All age group winners receive a medal and a watermelon; second and third place in each five-year age group receive a medal.  I won third place in my age group and receive a medal for my 20-something minutes (again, TNI) of work; Al finishes fourth in his age group and his former dentist who is volunteering at the race gives him a Monticello Watermelon Festival baseball cap.  I’d much rather have the baseball cap than the medal. 

·      Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – Towel dry, change clothes and head home.

·      Saturday, 3:45 p.m. – Arrive home.  (Mission accomplished; elapsed time of 22 hours and 15 minutes.)

Now that the dust has settled and I look back on our first Business Trip 5K, it made me think back to the times when we were traveling to run races that took more than one day to complete.  That was followed by a subsequent step down to traveling only to races we could finish in the same day they began. 

This weekend we traveled to a race we could finish in the same hour it began.  

Even if it was only by the skin of Al’s teeth…