Ode to a Running Partner

"There's a bench up here, let's just sit down for a second." It was the middle of the night, 80 something miles into the Boulder 100 and my running partner was tired. "There's no bench, Matty, let's just keep going." I said, worrying that if we sat down we'd never get up. It was my pacing duty to keep him going, to make sure he made it to the finish line, but he was determined to take a break. He sat down on the bench and managed a laugh. "You thought I was hallucinating this bench didn't you?" And so the story of the bench that appeared out of nowhere became legend. "And we're running along and I saw this bench and I say we should sit down for a second and Clythie thinks I'm hallucinating because she couldn't even see it! How did I end up with a pacer who can't even SEE?" And I would try to say that I just thought we should keep going, and the story always ends with him explaining to the audience that I was the one who was so tired I couldn't see the bench and that I was convinced he was hallucinating when he was completely fine. And we always laugh, at me. I've learned to laugh at myself a lot over the last 6 years that Matthew and I have been running together. Maybe that's what I've given to him. A lot of great laughs, mostly at my expense. I tell him he is awful and he says "You're laughing too." And I say, "Well, if the story was about someone else, I'd be laughing so I guess it *is* funny." And we laugh more. 

We met at work at a winery in Virginia and together with a group from the winery, we joined the Fauquier Running Club. During the day we would haul cases of wine, count wine, clean the winery, pick grapes, bottle wine, plan events, present tastings to customers, whatever the winery needed. And at night, we'd run. Neither of us had been runners growing up, but we were fascinated by it, and we wanted to get better and faster, and soon all we talked about was running and runners and more running. On Tuesdays we'd join for a group run, and on Thursdays, speed work or hill workouts. Before we started training on Thursdays we'd run The Fast Mile. It was an insane mile, starting out from the track downhill through a parking lot, with 2 big turns and then around a baseball field and through the woods, back to the track. We would all run our hearts out. Matthew was always in the top 3-4 finishers. And I was nearly always in the bottom 3-4 runners. And he was always there waiting at the end of The Fast Mile to cheer me in. And after track work or repeatedly climbing Hades Hill, we'd go back to the track and cool down and talk about our lives at the winery and our running and our shin splints and our aching backs and the sun would go down and we'd go home to sleep and wake up for another day of wine and running.  

Soon we signed up for our first race, a 5k in Front Royal, Virginia. Matthew finished first for his age group and I did not finish last and this became somewhat of a pattern for both of us. We've always been unlikely running partners. Not matched in age or pace or gender, but we shared a similar schedule and a love for running and a friendship like no other was born. 

Front Royal 5k. The real genius of this pic is the fact that we were both running in gigantic gym shorts.  

At another 5k, a mountain 5k, which was also our first trail race, by the time I was coming up the last hill, I was exhausted and near tears. Matthew finished racing and came back for me, as was now tradition, and started shouting. "YOU CAN CRY LATER. FINISH FIRST! RUN NOW! RUN!" And that day we both won age group medals. Full disclosure, his was first place and mine was for 3rd place in a field of 3 women in my age group. But I wouldn't have even made it to the finish line without him. That medal means more to me than 3rd out of 3. It's the one that reminds me to run through the pain, cry later, finish, run NOW. 

This picture was taken moments before they called my name to come pick up my medal. Needless to say I was surprised. 

We flew out to California and ran America's Finest City Half Marathon, the furthest we'd ever run in our lives at the time. My brother and Matthew finished and came back to run me in. Matthew would do that again for me a couple of months later at the Annapolis Half, a race which gave us both Half Marathon PRs and dual hangovers - the Annapolis runners know how to throw a great after party.

Big smiles after our first Half Marathon

And even bigger smiles after our second Half Marathon, double PRs and a few beers too.

I crewed for him at the Bull Run 50 Miler and when he started training for Boulder 100, I'd do my long runs (for Half Marathon training for Reston and Chicago) on Saturdays and then pace him with my bike on his long runs (17-30 miles) on Sundays. 

Between races, we'd run trails, always creating a great adventure out of a run. We'd start and end at the same place and run our own paces and then report back afterward. "I had a great run today, Matty!" I'd say, excited about how great I felt. "Yeah? Do that for 3 days in a row and report back to me again," he'd reply. Or he'd give me sage advice, "You, know, Clythie, if you want to run faster, you're going to have to run faster." He always pushes me, always encourages me to be better, work harder, not to let up. And I've always, I don't know? Been there for him?  Laughed with him? I can't keep up with him, even when he's tired. But we somehow help each other out. 

We've run many many miles on the Appalachian Trail, on the W&OD, the C&O Canal, through Rock Creek Park, in the mountains in West Virginia and at running camp in Colorado, and too many races together to recount. Despite the fact that we rarely run the same pace, we always run together. There's more to running together than matching pace. We're each other's running support system.

And now, in four days, I'm moving to San Diego and Matthew and I will no longer be running together. For 6 years we have run together and now we'll be 3,000 miles and 3 hours time change apart. How do you say goodbye to the best running partner on the planet? Hopefully with more laughs than tears but it won't be easy.  

I suppose it won't be that strange after we get used to it. After all we don't really run together. At least, that what I've been telling myself. And I'll have my brother and my sister in law, who are both amazing runners, and I have a group of wonderful running girlfriends in California. And I'll join a new running group. And Matthew has his friends in Woodley Ultra Society and other friends who  he runs with as well. And we'll plan running vacations and meet up for races and we'll see each other, not every day like we're used to, but we'll make it happen as often as we can, and we'll be there for each other as much as possible, like all running partners are. And we'll run at our own paces, and catch up with each other at the end and he'll likely elbow me and say, "Remember when you thought I was hallucinating that bench at the Boulder 100?" 

   

Race to Win: The Tale of the Ohana Holiday 5k

“How much Champagne did we drink last night?”

My sister in law and I were pulling up to the start line of a race we had decided to run the night before. It was a sparkling wine fueled plan that we had brilliantly laid out around 10PM, as we topped ourselves off with fermented grape beverages that make you do silly things like sign up for races that you haven't trained for.    

Why not drink copious amounts of alcohol and then go run a race the next morning? Um, don’t answer that.  And before you say, “It’s just a 5k," watch some videos of people properly racing 5ks. It’s a tough distance to run well. There’s no room for error. Or hangovers.

To be fair, it wasn’t completely the fault of the Champagne. The plan was hatched in part because of a certain obsession I was having with a little game called RunChatHunt. I had yet to find a race start/finish line to complete the scavenger hunt. So, the Champagne flowed and the Ohana Holiday 5k beckoned.

We had a beer afterward, to seal the plan if you will. And I managed to post this little missive in my running group's Facebook chat:

December 20, 2015 near San Diego, CA 

 Soooooo...my sister in law, and I decided about 45 minutes ago that we're racing the Ohana 5k tomorrow. We decided this after a few beverages. We are racing to win. Having one more for the road. Here's my 3D Clythie because I don't yet know what I'm wearing to race so I can't post a Flat Clythie.

A few hours of sleep later, regretting perhaps most of our decisions from the night before, we arrived at the race start and groggily approached packet pick up. We saw two lines:

1.             Registration - with a Toy

2.             Registration - without a Toy

“We’re we supposed to bring a toy?” We casually approached the table marked, Registration - Without a Toy.  

“Hi, I registered last night…”

The lady loudly asked me, “DO YOU HAVE A TOY?”

I horrifyingly whispered, “Um, no, sorry, no.”

She confirmed to everyone in the general area,  “NO TOY. 

SHE DOES NOT HAVE A TOY.” 

I slinked over to my sister in law. "I think we were supposed to bring a toy."

Smile and pretend that we weren't just humiliated for forgetting to bring a toy for a needy child.

This was to be my sister in law’s second race ever. She had previously run the Temecula Half Marathon a couple of years before, but she hadn’t raced since.  

“What’s the race plan for a 5k?” she asked. “Run like hell,” I said as if I know anything about racing 5ks.

“Ok, maybe I’ll do that. For my Half I kind of eased into it, you know, paced myself to be sure I had enough left for the end…” Claudine was thinking out loud. “RACE TO WIN!” I shouted, immediately regretting it – the loud noise hurt my foggy brain. 

The race began and we were off. The course ran along a paved path beside Mission Bay, an out and back with a sharp turn around. As I made my way there, I saw Claudine racing back toward me. I shouted to her “RUN RUN RUN! RACE TO WIN!” And immediately regretted it – the loud noise hurt my foggy brain.  

A bit later I came across the finish line, and hugged Claudine, happy to have sweated out nearly all the Champagne.

As it turned out, Claudine won her age group, and was the 8^th woman, 21^st overall. I didn’t come in anywhere near last and I beat a bunch of guys and most important of all I got my finish line picture for RunChatHunt.

Things felt a bit backward

It was time to pop the Champagne and celebrate.

Drinking It All In: My First Open Water Swim Competition

“Um, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one here without a wet suit,” I squeaked nervously.

“Nah, look at them, they don’t have wet suits on, you’ll be fine!” My friend Tatania said as she pulled on her wet suit. There were a few who weren’t wearing wet suits but the majority of the rather large group of people standing on a dock by the Potomac River on this particularly cool Saturday morning were clad in neoprene. I stood there cold and sleepy, feeling out of place wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. 

The day before, Tatania had posted a request for people to join her on a long run on Sunday. She was training for the Louisville Iron Man and planned to do a long bike ride on Sunday followed by a long run. I told her I was in. I mean, if she had already ridden her bike for hours, and I was fresh, I thought I had a chance to be able to keep up on the run. At least for a little while. 

But then Tatania had another idea. “Listen, instead, there’s a swim competition on Saturday that we could do.” I told her I had not been swimming in nearly a year and besides, I really needed to do a long run. “How far?” she asked. “11 miles.”

“OK, great. I know you're a swimmer. We’ll go do the swim and then run. Bring your stuff. We’ll change and go. It'll be fun.”

She made it sound so…possible. We would change and go. And it would be fun. But I was not prepared. I hadn’t been swimming in forever. “There are lots of distances. You can choose the 500 meter race if you want. Whatever – we’ll just go and have fun!”

So, with less than 24 hours notice, I was convinced to join an open water swim competition and then “just go run” 11 miles. And we would have fun. Day drinking is my idea of fun. But I said OK.

“Oh, and don’t sign up ahead of time. We’ll sign up tomorrow after they test the river. A lot of times these races get cancelled because the river is so polluted.” What? Day drinking was sounding more fun by the moment.

But instead I found myself standing on a dock at sunrise looking at the Potomac River, wondering if I would get giardia or just drown, wishing desperately for a wet suit.  

This is me thinking, I'm going to drown but I'll just smile anyway. 

The race director declared the river to be clean enough and before I knew it, the race went off in manual waves: 10k, 5k (which Tatania was swimming), 3k and 500 meter splash. I had chosen the 3k. Listen, I wanted to swim the 500 meters but they called it a “splash” and while I’d like to think I didn’t care, it took me one second to decide I wasn't getting up early to do a “splash” and that the respectable thing to swim would be the 3k. Which made no sense. 

As the 10k and 5k swimmers were jumping (a long way down) off the dock into the river, I was wishing I had signed up for the 500 meter Splash. Why did I think I needed to prove that I could swim the 3k? There was really no more time to worry though because the whistle went off and it was time for me to swim.

5k swimmers headed for the first buoy

So, the first open water swim competition that you ever do that happens to begin by jumping from a dock high above the water with a ton of other people who then start to kick you very hard in the head and body, is really disturbing. I was so freaked out that before I knew it, my entire race field was way out in front of me and I was still treading by the dock trying to figure out if I had all my teeth.

Here's Tatania in her warm wet suit intelligently waiting a bit before jumping in so she would not get kicked in the head. I could learn a thing or two from this girl. In fact, I have. 

Fucking hell I thought, now I’m in last place and have to get going! Three times around a 1,000 meter loop. Get going! I headed toward the first buoy. My thought process was something like this: Do not drown. Where is the buoy? I cannot see anything. How the fuck do people do this? Do not drown. Where is the buoy? At least there are no sharks in this water. Do not drown. At least there are no sea lions in this water. What about germs? The river is so polluted. Do not take in water. Do not drown. Where is the buoy? 

Everyone was shooting for the buoys in order to keep from swimming out (or in) too far, and each time we would come around a corner at one of them, there would be a jam of swimmers kicking the shit out of each other. I was both kicker and kickee. I apologize to whomever I gave broken cheek bones to or jammed fingers or black eyes from my kicks. And I forgive all of the kickers who got me in the face, jaw, hands, feet, legs. 

It’s as if being in a sport where you have to hold your breath and you can drown isn’t nearly tough enough so in open water swims, there’s an added element of brutality. If synchronized swimming is the ballet of the sport, then open water swimming is MMA.

As I came around the 3^rd turn on the first loop (of 3-but-felt-like-30 loops) the chop went right in my face. I drank the river. I mean, it was a big gulp. A super big gulp. It was a beer bong of river water.  I wondered for a moment if I was going to die and then…continued on. That’s the thing about open water swimming. You can’t really DNF unless you’re near a boat or shoreline. Cause you’ll die. And I had an 11 mile run to do, and we were supposed to have fun, so dying wasn’t really an option. 

I hit the second and third loops with a bit more clarity. I calmed down. I tried to think less about germs and more about my form. I would work my heart and soul out and pass people and then others who seemed to be floating by in slow motion with no effort at all would pass by me. And so on.

Each 3^rd turn was met by The Chop. The wind was blowing toward my left, which I favor for breathing, especially when I’m tired. Hey, I’m really tired, and I’m trying to keep my body afloat and holding my breath and avoiding being kicked in the face by these other people swimming near me and when I turn to the left to suck in what I think will be air instead, it’s a large wave of river water, yay! This happened more than once. I think I was too tired to remember to breathe just to my right on that portion of the course.

It occurred to me at some point that I would not likely survive a shipwreck. And I think I felt fine about that. But I did survive the race. In the end, I won my age group (and so did Tatania), I received a fancy medal, a gorgeous long sleeved t-shirt and a face full of river gunk. And ears filled with river gunk. And creases of skin filled with river gunk. So. much. gunk.

 Behold! A face full of river gunk. I was so happy to be alive that I didn't even know I had so much gross dirt on my face. 

3k and 5k AG Winners! 

Before we could change our minds, we toweled off and began to cross the river again, this time on foot, on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, for 11 miles on the Mount Vernon Trail. We talked about Tatania’s upcoming Iron Man (to be her 3^rd) and her previous athletic achievements like running the Blue Ridge Marathon 2x. In one day.  

I don’t know who’s idea it was but at the end of our 11 mile run we came upon an outdoor boot camp that had various tires for flipping, monkey bars to cross, and...hula hoops, so we laughed and flipped tires and hula hooped and then ran the rest of the way to a bar with outdoor seating (perfect for river swimming runners) and cold beer and celebrated our feats with some day drinking.

The Spring Thaw: REV3 Adventure Trail Race Series

The start was as intense as the carnage that followed. 200 meters in, a girl in front of me face planted, tripping over a shoe that became stuck in the mud by a runner in front who was apparently now continuing on semi-shod.

Tough Mudder? No. Spartan Race? No. We were running an incredibly tiny race, the first of the Spring Thaw Trail Series, a mountain biking and running series of three 5 & 10ks which, while incredibly muddy due to weather, were not supposed to be Mudders nor Spartanesque, nor were they, despite the event organizer’s name, REV3 Adventure, supposed to be particularly adventurous.

I signed up at the suggestion of my running partner, Matthew, and before we knew it, our good friends Alyson, Scott and Tora decided to join us. REV3 sponsors all kinds of adventure races, and people compete by boat, bike and on foot, both in shorter distances and multi-day orienteering races. Those are not the kind of races I'm trying to do. But this series was just a set of regular running and mountain biking trail races. And it was billed as rather benign: 3 trail races close to my town, on familiar terrain, described as semi-technical, but similar to what we run on locally every day. You could cycle or run, or do both, with two short distances to choose from. Racers would win points for placement in each race, and most important of all, there would be beer and burritos at the end. It would be fun to train through the winter, plus the distance might favor the foot that I had broken and re-broken last year.

I chose the 5k series, which the description said would be 5k, or longer, or maybe a little shorter depending on the race. The first “5k” would be 3.8 miles.

Over the winter I ran my heart out in what felt like strangely different training blocks with 4 and 5 mile “long” runs. In my heart I knew I would never become a competitive short distance runner, but I figured I would go for it the best I could, and post race, I would partake in my other favorite sport: enjoying alcoholic beverages.

Not long into the first race, as I watched Matthew and Alyson cruise off into the distance, the 5k (no, not just 5k, but longer! 3.8 miles, not 3.1 miles! It’s important to know that!) and 10k routes split, and we were plunged into mid-calf deep mud and snow.

In honor of the first race of spring, Mother Nature had created a small snowstorm followed by a freeze, then a thaw and a finally an incredibly warm sunny race day. This meant that we were sliding and picking our way through a deep ice bog. At some point I wondered, how could we be running over this terrain and still be upright? Or mostly upright. But as faster runners moved along in front of me, I just tried to keep up, figuring if they could run on this mud slick, uh, I had better make my best effort. It was the opposite of running across hot coals, but the intensity and terror was similar. Not that I’ve run across hot coals, but I’ve seen people run across hot coals on TV. And I can kind of understand choosing hot coals over deep mud and snow. Maybe.

I ran down a hill to the first water crossing. I’m pretty sure the creek would have been a mere trickle in an optimal situation, but in this case there was a line of runners, waiting to attempt to leap across knee deep ice water onto a muddy 45 degree slope. There was no way my short legs were going to clear the creek, plus I'm a badass, so I ran through the creek. This allowed me to get in front of several people, which in any race is a miracle for me. Being in front of ONE person in a race is a miracle for me. Good plan, I thought, and I implemented this method at the next two crossings as well.

My Salomon Cross-Max were draining perfectly and my feet and legs felt good but ohmyfuckinghell short distance races are tough and there's no time to breathe or to stop breathing, which is what I felt like doing. And then lie down. And heave. Or just expire. And we still had a half mile to go.  And it was so slow.

Each step consisted of one of the following:

1.   Land and slide 6-8 inches on top of mud, ice or slick meadow grass.

2.   Land and sink beyond your ankle into mud or snow, then attempt to pull your foot out as it becomes sucked into the vortex of cold wet mush.

3.   Land and feel incredulous that neither of the above happened, causing you to forget that you're on precarious terrain, landing again to either #1 or #2 on the next step.

4.   Run through ankle to knee-deep water, washing off a lot of caked on mud, but sending a shock of coldness up through your body.

Give me a Half Marathon any day of the week and I will crush it. Slowly. Happily. This 5k racing stuff uh, hurts.  

I ran up the last hill, and across the finish line, purple faced and maniacal. Alyson greeted me with the news that she had won her 5k age group and we watched Matthew come across the 10k line as his age group winner as well. Tora came in triumphant a few moments later and we all celebrated as we waited for Scott to race with the mountain bikes. And it wasn’t a Mud Run. And it was longer than a 5k. And we all made it. And we laughed about it afterward. And the beer tasted really nice. 

In Race 1, I managed to meet all my goals:

1.   Do not get injured

2.   Finish

3.   Do not finish last

4.   Chick at least one guy (sorry to the one guy I beat and also thank you)

5.   Have fun

To give you an idea of how slow this race was, the winning time for the (long) 5k was 24:29. I placed 41^st out of 49 people total, with a time of 47:20. We had two weeks to get ready for Race 2.