Last year, on December 11th, I ran a marathon. Well, technically, I completed a marathon. I ran and walked and loped and dragged myself along 26.2 gorgeous miles of the Honolulu course. It was exhilarating. I trained for six months prior, through the National AIDS Marathon Training Program. On the very first Saturday of training in June, our coach- Oh, Captain, my Captain, asked us to run/walk/jog- at our own individual comfortable pace, for three miles. There were over a hundred of us at the Berkeley training site. None of us knew each other. As we started our jaunt, we spread out along the marina trail- the experienced, fit runners taking the lead, us novices, elders, more out of shape folks, filtered towards the end of the line. Oh, Captain, my Captain had urged us not to push ourselves too hard, to go at a pace we could maintain. I felt good, moving along the edge of the water, morning sunshine ahead, too many cars to my left. I reached the 1.5 mile marker, the turn around, and swiveled around to start the 1.5 miles back to the starting area.
Once we had all raced or straggled back in, Oh, Captain, my Captain split us up into pace groups. There were about six of us in my group, all women. We had trickled in within ten or so minutes of each other, and therefore were going to train together for the next six months. We introduced ourselves, shared our nerves and excitement, swapped emails and phone numbers, and went on our way.
The deal was this- in exchange for fundraising upwards of $3,000.00 a piece, we would receive weekly coaching and training every Saturday for the six months leading up to the marathon. We needed a water belt, (a glorified fanny pack,) a sports bottle, a watch that could keep track of split times, and good running shoes. They guaranteed that if we participated in the weekly runs, and did two weekly thirty minute runs on our own, at least 98% of us could complete the Honolulu Marathon that December.
So, we ran and ran, trained and trained, struggled to rein in our DD's with bras so reinforced that our breasts would have survived a missile attack, and ran some more. We learned to suck salt straight out of the packet, or to dump it in our water, our gatorade, whatever. We sampled various sports GU, a jello-like substance meant to keep athletes from depleting themselves. We got to know the names of the cheerleader volunteers who worked the mile markers and kept us in salty snacks, band aids and sunscreen. Our Saturday runs crept up from three, four, five miles, to eleven, fifteen, nineteen. Oh, Captain, my Captain ordered us to start taking ice baths after long runs. Egads. Hobbling from my pick up truck to our third floor apartment took a good fifteen minutes after a big run, my muscles were that done. They rebelled, and twitched, and wouldn't bend where they were supposed to. I was soo happy. When I finally made it to the porcelain tub, and started to fill it with icy water, sticking my toes into the cold, rushing water felt harder than running in the last mile had been. But I sucked in my breath, stripped off my salty stinky running gear, and lifted my sore bones into the tub. The time it took to fill to my waist line was sheer torture. After that, though, I was numb from the butt down, which was a great improvement. The idea was to stop my muscles from producing lactic acid, to tell my veins and arteries to shrink down, and stop pumping the cramp causing fuel, and go back to pumping regular old oxygenated blood through me. After twenty minutes in the cold cold water, I was free to add warm, or to take a shower. Taking a shower after hours of running, is about the most orgasmic feeling I can think of. Though I pretty much couldn't move, the clean water washing away caked on salt and sunscreen and sweat, the cleansing felt almost religious. So, the ice baths worked amazingly well. Though I inevitably moved in slow motion for at least twenty four hours after a long run, I had almost no actual pain. Kisses to the Captain for that little trick.
By month two or three, my pace group had dwindled down to myself and two others- Super Girl, and Green Lightening. We were the die hards. We had lost folks for a milieu of reasons- the $3,000.00 fundraising goal that loomed in the front or back of our minds, the physical effort, the time commitment. But the three of us were absolutely determined. We ran our tuckuses off every Saturday. We swapped stories from the week, and high fived new friends in other pace groups as we lapped them, or they lapped us. We got close. We whored ourselves out for money any way we could think of- we sent letters to everyone we knew, we walked up and down the aisles of BART trains selling donuts, we worked the city, I threw a fundraising party.... and all the time we ran.
In November, we had our "practice marathon" in San Francisco. This meant that our coaches had mapped out a 26.2 mile course through the city- through Golden Gate park, across the Golden Gate bridge, a full length marathon, just an unofficial one. On that Saturday, our one hundred East Bay runners joined forces with several hundreds of folks from the South Bay, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, all over. We had all been following virtually the same training regime, just in different locales with different coaches.
On that day, one of my pace group mates, Green Lightening, was ill, so our unit was down to two. We would start off with other runners of our ilk- with similar pace times, but ultimately, it would be the two of us, Clydeen and Super Girl, against the course. Our sickly Green Lightening was sweet enough to drive herself to several mile markers along the way, to cheer us on and take pictures of our first white, sparkly faces, then progressively our blotchy, pink and red, salt covered, sun exposed, frowny cheeks. We both wore running hats, and I shudder to think what our hair looked like under there. Luckily, the photos were hat-on. We ran for hours. Hours. Hours. San Francisco was alternately beautiful, and mocking us with her undulating, hilly streets. As we crossed the bridge, the world seemed calm. Breezy, foggy, we squeezed through the designated running lane with dozens of other AIDS Marathoners. We were a united front, stretched out from one end of the bridge to the other. We knew why we were there.
After what seemed like a lifetime of running, we approached the balloon arch of the finish line, and were hooted at and cheered on through the last quarter mile. We smiled tired smiles, and tried to push with our last ounces of strength, to shave a minute or two off our time at the end. Our shoes pounded the dirt path, we grabbed hands, and ran through the rainbow arch. We were greeted by coaches, who put AIDS Marathon medals around our sweaty necks. We grabbed melon and gatorade, and wanted to collapse. We knew better. We walked around, united with our sickly Green Lightening, and made our way ever so slowly to the edge of the ocean. We waded into the chilly water, shoes abandoned in the sand, and let the salty water lick up to our midriffs. It was freezing, and the wind had come up. We had entered San Francisco that morning before sunrise. By the time we found our respective vehicles and started home, it was nearly dark. It was a proud day.
........
After our early November dry run, we were given four weekends of eight mile runs, which felt like a cake walk after 26.2. Our coaches wanted our bodies to recuperate fully, so that we could power through Marathon day with all of our strength. Those last four runs together were sentimental and light. We would breeze through our eight miles, take a cool down walk, and go binge on the nearest decadent food we could find. Sandwiches, lattes, burgers, milkshakes- you name it, we ravaged it. We sat in our booth at the restaurant, stinking and sore and happy as clams.
The day before we were to fly out, I started getting a cold. It pissed me off to no end. After six months of build up, there was NO WAY something like a cold was going to keep me down. I sucked down Emergen- C drinks, took vitamins, rested, and willed myself to be well. We had a day and a half in Honolulu prior to marathon day. I forced myself to lay low, though I wanted to be out enjoying island life. By the time our pasta feed was to begin on the eve of the Marathon, I was almost back to normal. AIDS Marathoners had flown in from all over the United States, and hundreds upon hundreds of us converged on the pink hotel where the pasta feed/ motivational evening was to occur. We filed in, heaped dainty plates with as many carbohydrates as one can imagine, and settled around round tables, awaiting motivation. It was a precious evening. We heard from coaches from various places in the U.S. They explained the breakdown of how the thousands of dollars we had raised were to be disbursed, and told us how many bags of groceries, vaccines, medicinal cocktails each one of us had provided to people living with HIV and AIDS. There was not a dry eye on Oahu. I left the dinner with a glowing ball of emotions inside me. I felt like I was changing the world a little bit. We all were. We walked back to our respective hotels and hotel rooms, and set about laying out our gear for the next morning.
The pasta feed had started at six, so that we all might get to sleep early, as the gun time for the marathon was 5 a.m. the next morning. I got back to the hotel by 9:30, and by the time I puttered with my gear, pinned my official race bib to my official AIDS marathon wicking tank, wrote my name with black sharpie across the top, and laid out my supplies for the next day, it was approaching 11 p.m. From 11 p.m. until 2 a.m. when the alarm sounded, I laid awake, unable to turn off my busy head. When I stood up out of bed at 2, I was exhausted. I groped in the dark for everything that I had carefully laid out, trying to be as quiet as I could, so as not to disturb my sleeping wife. Once I was dressed, slathered in SPF 2,000, and had my water belt packed with supplies, I grabbed our camera, and took two pictures of myself in the glow of the heinous fluorescent hotel bathroom light. I wanted "before," evidence. 
I patted myself down, took a last glance around the room, grabbed my paper bag of dry bagel, salt packets, and banana, (handed out to us AIDS Marathoners the night before, following the pasta feed,) and headed out into the dark world to find my pace group girls. It was 2:30 a.m.
Green Lightening and I were staying at the same hotel. We met out on the street below, and walked the half mile up to Super Girl's hotel. We collected her, still half asleep, and the three of us walked the naked streets for the two miles down to the starting line. Along the way, we saw men dumping trucks full of ice into fifty gallon drums at what were to be our water stops. We saw workers closing off the main streets with yellow tape, setting up blockades so that no stray vehicles would venture onto the course. We saw race officials emerge from buildings along the way. We saw fellow runners making the same journey that we were, gathering numbers as we walked. We arrived at the starting area at about 3:30 a.m. The lines for the porta potties were already over a quarter mile long. Green Lightening, Super Girl, and myself claimed a vacant picnic table under a tree. It was sprinkling. Oh Captain, my Captain had urged each of us to bring a black trash bag to use as a poncho prior to the gun.
We huddled in our trash bags, which kept our body heat close to our torsos, while our bear legs stuck out into the warm but wet Hawaii morning. Super Girl tried to sleep on the table. Green Lightening munched on her dry bagel. I surveyed the scene that was coming to life all around us.
A large group of runners from Japan congregated between us and the line of porta potties. They had the same trash bag ponchos that we did, except clear, and they were pounding bananas into their mouths, and guzzling protein drinks. They stretched and bounced around as their coach barked orders at them softly in Japanese. American runners spattered the grass as well. The lines for the porta potties were now about a half hour long, and they were already starting to fill up. I had never thought about the amount of waste generated by that many runners, but it soon became evident that there were more of us there that weekend, than the island could accommodate. Someone had warned me back on the mainland, that after about mile seven, I would be better off dodging off course behind a bush, than trying to enter a porta potty already used by sixteen thousand people prior to my getting there. That was the truest piece of advice ever to be uttered.
At about 4:30, we got in queue with thousands of others behind the starting line. We were probably a mile back, and couldn't see fifty feet ahead- only a sea of heads and singlets. We could hear from far ahead the emcee for the race booming announcements over a loud speaker, followed by consecutive interpretation into Japanese. (Something like seventy percent of participants were from Japan.) The energy of the crowd amped up up up, and at 5 a.m. exactly, a gun shot declared the start of the race. Though we could only hear the gun shot because it was piped through the sound system, we knew that the African competitors from the year before had already launched, and were running their first mile. As we inched like cattle slowly towards the start, we watched a tremendous fireworks display overhead. Twenty eight minutes later, we crossed the starting line. We knew that the minute our left shoes crossed over and stepped onto the rubber mat, our shoe chips registered with the marathon computer brain somewhere, and our personal times were now being recorded. It was a little bit anti-climatic, only because we were still taking baby steps, wedged in on all sides by fellow runners. We walked the first mile and a half before the crowd started to thin out. The speedy racers made it through the crowd and got ahead of us, the slower participants fell behind us, and eventually we had room to move. It was still completely dark overhead.
Those first miles before the sun came up were the best. It was warm, as it had been when I had stepped outside at 2:30 that morning in my shorts, but there was no sun to zap my strength. Running in the dawning morning light was gorgeous. As we rounded mile three, about to hit our first water stop, we were forced to walk once more. The herds of runners who had come through before us, had left a sea of paper cups and amino drink eighteen inches deep across the course that we now had to wade through. Amino drink seeped into our socks as we kicked paths through the litter. We refilled our water bottles, and picked up running again as soon as we were through the station.
The first several miles were routed through downtown. It was Christmas time in Hawaii, which was just somehow hard to wrap my head around. As the temperature warmed and warmed, we ran past snowmen and reindeer and elves, adorning shopping centers all through the downtown strip. Winter greenery and Christmas trees to our left, surfboards and sunny sandy beaches to our right. So bizarre. We ran and ran, and loved it.
Wifey was stationed at mile eleven, with a backpack full of reinforcements for the three of us. Extra sunscreen, water, pretzels, socks..we stopped for a minute to say hello, and to scribble Super Girl's name on her singlet. She hadn't done it, and was regretting it. All the while we had been running, complete strangers on the side lines had been shouting, "you GO, Clydeen! Run on, Green Lightening!" It was amazing the amount of adrenaline gained from hearing bystanders cheering us on. So, we wrote Super Girl in big black letters, hugged wifey, dowsed ourselves in more SPF one million, and ran on.
By now, the sun was creeping up overhead. The previously misty air turned hot and humid and dry, all at the same time. I could feel the harsh rays of the early light beating down on my too white skin. We ran on, a little slower now. We crossed the halfway mark- 13.1, and did a little dance of joy, and smiled for the cameramen, who were suspended above us on a boom, taking every body's mug shot as they ran by. As we were running uphill on one side, the competitive racers were passing us on the opposite side of the ropes, descending towards the finish. We cheered as they blasted by, so fast we could barely make out their gender, ethnicity, or anything else. Zoom. Cheer! Zoom. Zoom. Cheer! We got stuck running behind a newsman hanging off the back of a Harley, trying to get footage of the racers on the other side. For a mile and a half, we breathed motorcycle exhaust, trapped by the media. Eventually, after they'd gotten sufficient footage, they sped off. We were thankful to breathe the island air once more.
The sun grew more and more intense. It started to suck my breath from my lungs. I slowed down. We ran through the neighborhood of Hawaii Kai on our approach to Diamond Head. (Oh, did I forget to mention that towards the end of the course, we had to run around the side of the Diamond Head volcano? That's right, uphill people. What were we thinking?) Locals had set lawn chairs out in their front yards, to cheer us on, hose us down, squirt us with water pistols. They kept us going. A little boy of maybe seven stepped out onto the course ahead of me. He tore off the corner of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and handed it to me. "Good luck!" He smiled. I felt tears well up in the corners of my eyes.
Further ahead, on a stone wall, a brother and sister, tanned to chestnut brown, sat topless, soaking in the Oahu sun. Their dark curls cascaded around their young faces, and their bear legs kicked in the breeze. They watched as marathoners crawled like an army of ants, on, around and through their streets.
We trudged on, the sun beating down, it was only 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning, but we had been going a long time. We talked less, ran slower, grabbed wet sponges from tables at the side lines and squeezed them in our hair, down our shirts, over our shoulders. The sun was rapidly becoming my worst enemy. I was panting, and feeling asthmatic. Eventually, around mile twenty, I told my girls to go on ahead of me. I wasn't quitting, (are you kidding? Never!) but I needed to walk to regain my breath. Reluctantly, they jogged on without me.
I crawled up the side of Diamond Head, slow and steady. I could breathe as long as I remained walking. If I started to run, I felt like my lungs might collapse. I trudged up the mountain, overlooking the transparent blue ocean, endless sky stretching out farther than I could see. I felt like I was meditating above the world. It was quite tranquil that high up. After climbing for a long time, I rounded a corner, and was suddenly descending down the other side. At mile twenty two, I found wifey again. I kvetched about my complete lack of melanin. She poured Super Block over all exposed parts of me, and gave me a handful of grapes. She was worried, because my pace girls had passed her a half hour before, and she didn't know what state I would be in. I was apparently purple in the face. She asked if I wanted to take the shuttle the rest of the way in. I had never been so sure of anything in all my life. NO. I was twenty two miles into a twenty six point two mile challenge. No was in hell was I giving up now. I stayed with her for about five minutes, eating grapes and assuring her I could do this. Reluctantly, she let me continue on.
The last four point two miles took over an hour. I had given up on the idea of running, and had resigned myself to walking it in. The amazing thing, during that four miles and throughout the entire experience, is that I never, not once, not for one step, felt alone. Every step I took, there were others in step with me. Some I knew, most I didn't, but all encouraging each other on. Tens of thousands of people, and almost no one gave up. Throughout the day, I had seen four ambulances, and a few people laying on the road side, or hugging their knees in the grass. The medic tents set every three miles were progressively more full at each leg. But the feeling of solidarity, of thousands coming together to complete the same challenge, to reach one goal, was like nothing I have felt before or since.
As I approached the last half mile of the course, the finish line came into view. I was reminded of the last moments of our practice marathon, back in San Francisco, when Super Girl and I had grabbed hands and made a last dash to the finish. This felt different. For over half a mile, on both sides of the course, four to six people deep, an endless line of finishers and family and coaches and friends- waving and screaming and calling my name. I ran the last quarter mile to the finish. Not fast, but I ran. I saw friends that I had trained with for six months, red in the face with hideous gold finisher t-shirts, shell necklaces, medals around their salt caked necks, all shouting- "Clydeen! Go Clydeen! You're there! You did it! You made it! WE made it!! Woooohooooo!!" I crossed over the line, and someone placed a necklace of white shells around my neck. I walked into the misters, and felt more proud than I could remember. Seven hours, twenty minutes, forty six seconds. I had hoped for a time around five hours, but it didn't really matter. I had done it. I had completed a freaking marathon. A real one. I felt big.
Wifey found me, and handed me a cup of amino drink. She took my hand, and led me to the t-shirt booth, the medal booth, and finally to the AIDS Marathon tent. We sat and ate and drank, took pictures of each other, consoled those who were emotional or hurt or just plain exhausted. When we were ready, we started the mile or so walk back to the hotel, disbelieving that the big day was over. Not yet fully feeling the end.
Back at the hotel, I drew my last cold bath. I eased my legs into the tub, sat down, and smiled as big a smile as you will ever see.
More Marathon
Okay, so there is a ton of interesting stuff that I neglected to mention in my first recounting of my experience of participating in the Honolulu marathon in 2005. It feels a little like a tag on, but I realized I left out a lot of the funny stuff. For instance, I forgot to tell you that there were a multitude of runners who ran the entire marathon in loin cloths- their Samurai butt cheeks flapping in the warm breeze. In training, we learned to apply an anti-chafing stick, (it looks like deodorant, and smells like feet,) to all of our intimate areas which might chaff from our clothing or our water belts rubbing our skin when we moved. We put anti-chaff, otherwise known as glide, on the soles of our feet to keep blisters away, on our nipples, to ease the bouncing up and down for hours, rubbing on our missile proof bras, under our armpits where our shirts and bras rubbed each other, and on the insides of our big girl thighs, because the curvier you are, the more places you have that will potentially be raw and lacking skin when you are through running. On our hips, where the nylon straps of our water belts bumped up and down with each step, we were slathered in non- greasy, SPF 15 ode de pies, every time we ran. We learned to depend on it. We heard about how the boys get bloody nipples, from their shirts rubbing with every stride, and learned about nipple caps, which could prevent such pain. So, to see the bare Samurai butts breeze by, folds of fabric creeping high up into their nether regions, made me cringe with thoughts of where those men would be chaffed after the run. 
Along the same torturous lines, some runners chose to run the entire course in traditional Japanese wooden clogs. By the halfway point of the marathon, people would run by, blood trickling down their wooden sandals. I doubt they could walk much the next day.
Other theme runners included a bride and groom, dressed in traditional white gown and tuxedo, respectfully. They wore running shoes that matched their dress clothes, and they each had a painted, "Just Married," sign pinned to their backs. They had indeed been married the day before. They ran together hand in hand, for twenty six point two miles, and counted it as their honeymoon. They rocked. There were assorted birds and clowns and fairies and bears sprinkled in among us all. Aside from costume wear, their were teams of AIDS Marathoners, united by their gold wicking tanks, Team in Training teams, in groups of pink or white, families running together, individuals, running silent, pictures of lost loved ones pinned to their backs, so that we could pay respects as we fell into step behind them. I had tears in my eyes more than a few times throughout the run.
........
As we ran the marathon course, the sidelines were crammed wall to wall with spectators and cheerleaders. Though the American supporters tried to show their spirit, the Japanese cheerleaders beat the Americans by a mile, or twenty. Where my pasty counterparts held neon poster board signs, with encouraging words scrawled across them, for each Japanese running team, there must have been an entire squad of pep rallyers. The Japanese cheering sections had twelve foot tall banners, machine made on big, billowing shiny white fabric, black or purple characters printed down them. While they pumped their banners up and down, they chanted in perfect unison, enthusiastic cheers spouting from their mouths. Though I sadly don't know any Japanese, Wifey has dabbled in the language. She said that from her posts at the eleven and twenty two mile markers, she could make out some of the cheers. Culturally appropriate, each line of each cheer ended in "Kudasai," meaning "please." "Run very fast, PLEASE!" "You can do it, PLEASE!" "You are almost there. Just a few more miles. PLEASE!" They were jazzy and coordinated, belting out cheers together, timed just right, ten or twenty cheerers to any given post. The sheer number of Japanese cheerleaders trumped the Americans. Their cheers were friendly and enthusiastic, and pushed us on despite the fact that we couldn't understand them.
........
One of the most amazing things to me about the marathon, was watching the wheelchair racers shoot past us on the course. Upper bodies of pure muscle, men and women swoooosh swoooosh swooooshed by, already rounding and returning to the finish, long before we were even half way along. The wheelchair racers started the race, they got a ten minute start on the African front line. The rationale was that by putting the wheelchair racers up ahead, the walkers and runners would not impede their race, and no one would have a toe sheered off trying to run alongside a wheelchair competitor in the impacted crowd. Those racers gave me much hope and many goose bumps as they swooooshed past. Not only were there competitors in wheelchairs, there were a large number of blind runners. Each assigned a sighted guide running partner, the blind and sighted duo would each hold on to one end of an eighteen inch length of rope. The sighted guide would give auditory information, as well as keeping the rope taught or loose, depending on what was in front of them.
Yet another racer wore double prosthetics. He had the amazing titanium running legs, the ones that are thin and sleek, with good bounce and support. He would bound wayy up ahead of us, and I would lose sight of him for an hour or so. Then, once I had forgotten and wasn't looking for him, out he would pop from up ahead in the crowd. He had a cell phone coordinated system with a friend- he would call them while he ran, and arrange to meet them somewhere up ahead on the course, curbside. When he arrived at the designated spot, he would veer off to the edge of the crowd, sit down on the curb, pop off his prosthetics, and switch out the foam pads that sit between the knee and the top of the prosthetics. As he switched the pads, his friend would give his legs a quick rub, towel him off, and watch him dash off on his way down the course, the whole interaction taking less than a minute. He and I leap frogged for the first fifteen or seventeen miles, after which I am sure he got far far ahead of me, though I didn't see him again, so I can't be sure.
Runners of all shapes and sizes participated in the marathon. That was really the most incredible part. Seeing the diverse spread of folks who had signed up, whether for a cause, or for a personal challenge, was inspirational beyond belief.
One of my favorite characters, not only from race day, but from the six months of training prior, was a woman who started out in our pace group, by the name of The Amazing Wonder Woman. The Amazing Wonder Woman was sixty seven when we started training in June, and she turned sixty eight two days after our marathon. She was as amazing as her name announced. She ran with us for the first two or three months, then decided to drop down to the pace group one slower than ours- giving her an extra minute of walk time for every four minutes of running. We missed The Amazing Wonder Woman in our pace group, and always whooped at her and stopped for hugs when our groups crossed paths on the trails. On marathon day, seeing The Amazing Wonder Woman at the starting area made me grin a goofy grin. "We made it, Wonder Woman!" "We MADE it, Clydeen. We are gonna run our hearts out today. What a way to end my sixty seventh year." I beamed with pride at just knowing The Amazing Wonder Woman. I didn't see her actually run across the finish line, but I saw her the next morning in the hotel courtyard, looking radiant sipping her tea and smiling. I hobbled over to her with my stiff but happy legs, and we had the best embrace there in the courtyard.
**Afterwards, (or after- words, heh) - a note**
* Do you see how much I love you, dear reader? My first ever blog pictures are pasty, revealing, unattractive photos of myself. That breaks all kinds of etiquette rules, I know. I did it for you, dear reader. Since you were kind enough to read through, I felt the it was only right to provide you with pictoral proof that I was indeed there, doing these deeds. Sadly, I only have a few pictures from the marathon, and don't have permission from the inhabitants of the photos to post them online. Hence, you got stuck with pictures of yours truly, sleep deprived and sweaty, sunburned and giddy. Wearing two different shades of goldenrod. Perhaps the least flattering photos of myself I could possibly come up with. But there you go. It's all for you. The gift of overshare. (And I did throw in the picture of Mister Badonkadonk... just for balance... I'm a giver.)
* Furthermore, you can click on any of the photos to enlarge my pores, or to get a closer look at Mister Badonkadonk's sunburn. Ouchy.
