It's raining as I park the car. Since I'm here an hour and fifteen minutes before the start, I'm not concerned. I can just sit in the car a while, and let it subside.
I sit in the car a while. The rain doesn't subside. It's not coming down all that hard as I jog the mile over to the start.
When I arrive at Ontario Street by Quicken Loans Arena, I see the familiar (it was about the same last year) throng of people. I bump into Larry and Christine Orwin. CJ will be running, and they brought some friends. We chat whilst in the porta-potty line. My friends are running well these days, and I'm happy for them. I tell Larry how my Achilles is killing me, and I probably shouldn't even be here. In fact, I'm sure that I shouldn't be here. It was silly to sign up, but hope (that things would get better) springs eternal.
Soon thereafter, I am in my assigned corral, and the horn goes off. It hasn't stopped raining, but no one seems to mind. It's actually refreshing. It takes me a minute and a half to get to the starting line from so far back.
As much as I do enjoy the light rain, my Achilles begins to make itself well quite known by about mile five. By about mile ten, I still feel it, but despite that, I'm also running fairly well. I'm holding to a nine-minute pace. It would be nice - very nice - if I can only keep to this pace for the remaining sixteen miles.
The rain stopped for good after the first hour or so. I had been worried that it would get humid, but instead, it cools off a bit. This is about as good as it gets for a marathon in late May. I've lost count of the number of times I've done the Cleveland Marathon. It takes place in my Fair City; the place where I attended high school and college; the place where I've spent at least some time working; the place where my family likes to go for entertainment and sustenance. For some reason, some folks don't care for this race, but I think it's just fine. I think it's wonderful to see all the familiar sights and even a few new ones. And it's peachy to see so many running friends.
I see several such friends near the 17.3-mile turn-around. Some are spectating, and some are running. I stop for a porta-potty break on a couple occasions. Although quite necessary, this proves detrimental to my performance. I'd held the nine-minute pace through mile sixteen, but now things don't look so wonderful. Besides the lost time, the Achilles pain is now in the awful zone. I suppose a steady pace with no stops may have been better (had that been possible), but we will never know for sure, now will we?
Every step is painful in the waning miles. I catch up with Tom Bieniosek at about mile 25. This is surprising since I had been ahead at the turnaround. We surmise that he probably passed me whilst I was indisposed. I ask if he is trying for a Boston Qualifying time. He thinks our age group's standard is 4:10 or better; I had thought it was 4:15. (I later learn that it is indeed 4:10, and we have no chance; 4:15 or so is still doable, however.) Tom tells me to go on ahead, even though I'd try to cajole him into staying with me. (I later learn that he still finished ahead of me based on chip time. Oh well.)
My finish time is 4:13 and change. Even with the five minutes spent in stopped mode, this is still pretty lousy. But it's nowhere near as lousy as I feel.
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