The one unconditional given was the 103rd running of the Boston Marathon, a regular ritual I would not want to miss; but around it were a number of interesting races that I had done often before with a few new ones I had wanted to try. A number of these races were scattered around in geography, time, length and height. I began formulating an itinerary that would have me running longer, higher, and at shorter intervals than any I had proposed before in the spring to comprise my "Serious Series of Six in Six." Come on along for the run!

During a few of the long runs of winter, I had begun to make the commitment to a spring series of races from 10 K, 10 Miles, 25 K, Marathons, and Ultra Marathon distance. Not only were these races successively longer but they were run from coast to coast at sea level and along the Great lakes watershed, then at successively higher altitudes, up to the Rockies and continental divide, finishing the longest and last at 9,700 feet. This could be considered a "training program" for the fall marathon season, which included not only the same autumn "twofer" as last year’s, but also a "run-up" on the Roof of the World. I would be going from the Rockies to British Columbia in later summer, then on to Nepal on a volunteer medical mission and would be trekking along the world’s mightiest mountain, then climbing the Kumbu IceFall and running from Mount Everest Base Camp just before my repeat appearances in Washington and New York this October. It may not have the intent of "blood doping" but it certainly would not be objected to if the effect was shared. I had not talked to many advisors regarding any advice they might give, since I had already summarized my own consultation’s advice: "Why not?"

I first mentioned it to my running buddy Joe for whom I am guide runner. I had invited him to run the St. Paddy’s 10 K race in downtown Washington, either the first of spring or the last of winter, depending on whether you were looking around at the start or the finish of the race. Joe, of course, may not have been looking around at the start of the race but could sense the cool morning that would lead to a fast pace. We were positioned at the front of the pack (no longer as important with the chip) but got off ahead of the crowd. "Good start, Glenn!" Joe had said as we past the first mile marker ad the time keeper called out a sub-six time. "Joe, that is better than I am!" I said, expecting to back off from the brisk pace with which we had started to warm up. Along the way it began to snow, large wet flakes that stuck to eyelashes and the steel plates over potholes and road way excavations for downtown construction which I thought might be an excuse for us to slow down for safety sake. But we were running well ahead of the pack, and I might have slowed down except that I was tethered to Joe. We sustained a seven minute pace to the finish, which surprised me more than it did Joe. "You know, I think I will do it!" I said abruptly. "That does not surprise me either!" replied Joe.

I had run the Cherry Blossom Classic a half dozen times or more, during half of which a world record was set for this distance. The most recent was last year’s record breaking performance by Colleen de Reuck who was using this race to prep for a challenge to Boston’s women’s record, a race fifteen days later in 1998. After chopping off almost twenty seconds from the female world record ten mile mark, she faded to a disappointing finish in the unpredictable hills of Boston.

This year’s Cherry Blossom Ten-Miler would be eight days ahead of the 103rd running of the Boston, and a staple entry in each race had come in to make it special this year. Bill Rodgers was going to try for the record for fifty-plus runners in each race. "Boston Billy" had won the Boston four times, as he had the New York City Marathon as well, and had won the Cherry Blossom Ten-Miler multiple times as well. I had dinner twice, a week apart in each venue, with Bill, who was featured as the speaker at each banquet and got to know him a bit better in discussions afterwards. "What would you suggest, from your perspective as a senior masters runner, should be a "Decent Interval" for someone--not yet named--to be doing a series of endurance runs?"

"Well," he responded, "You probably should not be doing more than one or at most two per year, and give yourself time to recover, with several full body massages a few days after the last race. I have entered 55 marathons, and got a ‘DNF’ in six of them, usually because I had come back too early form the prior race."

"OK;" I replied. "I am all right so far this week!" He got to talking about my itinerary and was fascinated by the series of marathons and particularly the "Ultra Finish" (I hope there are only a few of the right meanings to this term!) I said that I had entered quite a few races in the past decade, 36 of them marathons, and had not yet failed to finish any run that I began, though in a couple of non-memorable instances, that would have been the wiser and far easier thing to do. Billy Rodgers said he would see me next week in Boston, but wanted to hear from me as the "Serious Series of Six in Six" unfolded, with particular interest to the conclusion in the Big Horn Ultra in Wyoming.

I drove in early on the cool morning of April 11 as the wind was whipping cherry blossoms into the Potomac River, and parked my vehicle in the enclosed parking garage under my office in the George Washington University Medical Center. I had stayed in my office until just before race time, so I was unaware of the dramatic change in the weather that greeted me on my emerging to run down to the starting line. It rained. No, it poured. I had time only to take off the warm-up togs and place them in the MCRRC tent on the Potomac River bank and dash on into the starting corrals where there was over the ankles puddles at the start. At the sound of the gun, I took off at a rapid pace to warm up in the steady rain, soaked in the singlet I was wearing, flying the MCRRC colors of a masters team.

The course goes across the Potomac River twice and then up and back along the Rock Creek Parkway. This way, we can all see the front-runners several times. The pack of Kenyans were flying by, and I spotted Billy Rodgers, struggling a bit, and using the leading women as pacers for the time he had hoped to set. He acknowledged my cheer with a wave, but came in well short of the goal he had hoped for; after all, next week was Boston! I can say I felt the same way, but did not threaten the purse in this or any of the races in this series; I just wanted to do my best performance and stop just short of injury. "There is no tomorrow" is hardly the attitude to have before the start of the Serious Series of Six in Six, which would fit within the next two months bracketed in the 19’s of April to June.

We may complain about it a lot, particularly after the engine has been turned off at the finish line and we stand there soaked shivering in the cold, but we runners do better in the rain that in a balmy day in which the temperature rises and runners slow down if not fall out. The Cherry Blossom Classic was a far better race to run than to watch. I was thinking of my prior rainy runs and have to confess that the heavy rains probably improved the times (even if the price were paid in blister potential) of such races as the Marine Corps Marathon which seems to have been blessed with downpours in alternate years, or in my personal record deluge during the New York City Marathon of 1998. The rainy run of the Cherry Blossom Classic was also a fast pace race as my "Boston Prep" and might have been even faster had I not been conscious of damage limitation for the upcoming series to follow this race: I maintained a seven minute pace or below to the finish. I do not believe there were a lot of people standing around for the random award drawings afterwards, however; I would have to be first or second, but definitely not third to stand and wait for the check and trophy and would congratulate the heroes who would cheer as spectators along the way in such a race.

These early spring runs are warm-ups races for the itinerary I have committed to for the "Serious Series of Six in Six" which begins with the venerable Boston, run on Patriot’s Day, 19th of April, 1999. Are you ready to run on, and into the series that follows such an illustrious starting point? I do not know if I am either, but I am willing to give it a good try and we will surely find out together, from Sea to Shining Sea, and from the Prairies to the Mountains!

Boston is just a race, rather like the Mayflower was just a boat. Everything about this classic race is special, and especially for me. It was the first Marathon I had ever witnessed. As a sleepy Harvard surgery resident coming home on Patriot’s Day after the customary all night mayhem, I had stood (briefly) on a corner of Commonwealth Avenue shivering in a sleety rain with a small well-bundled boy upon my shoulders; we were both watching perplexed, when my son Donald asked "What are those funny men doing, Daddy?" [He was right; at the time there were no women allowed to participate, a true "suffrage" officially admitted six years later.] "I don’t know, Donald, but some day we may be able to understand, and maybe even come to join them!" I responded to him. Perhaps this kind of activity would have a special appeal to a surgery resident, whereas it would most likely have to be an acquired taste for more nearly normal mortals.

Donald did it first. He was the first marathoner of the father and sons. In fact, it was about twelve years ago when I tried to get him out of bed on Christmas Eve to run in preparation for his forthcoming first marathon in Jacksonville, that I said "Follow me!" "Yeah, right!" quoth he, and my son Michael added "I’ll be there to watch!" So, father and number one son ran around nearby Lake Needwood, as number two son followed on is bicycle--a three mile circuit that became my standard gauge of running, until I entered my first run or race of any kind--the Marine Corps Marathon that same year. I remember saying to myself as I passed the ten mile sign in Georgetown near a bagpipe band, "Well, this is twice as far as I have ever run before, I might as well go the distance!" When I searched for the twenty mile sign (being convinced that there were two halves to this race in energy requirements, the dividing line coming after a twenty mile slog, and preceding a 10 K race) I was oblivious, never spotting it.

When I came over the 14th Street Bridge a big black marine standing at attention in BDU’s uttered in a 60 decibel sotto voce in my ear "Two miles to go, Suh!" "Well, now" I said to no one but me, "Let’s kick ass!" I did. So what that it cost me my toe nails, I finished in a magic time: I had qualified for Boston! Not only have I continued to repeat that race annually, (proudly sporting my "Ten MCM Patch" during the last couple of them), any time I start flagging in any run, I utter a mantra "Just remember, Boston!"

OK, I lied. I really use a quite different image in my mind, but well within the spirit of Boston--I hear the Women of Wellesley. Could I deny them a reason to scream their sweet young larynxes out without me? No way. So, this was my seventh consecutive start in the Hopkinton corrals. Everything about Boston is special--the city, the course, the friends who are the regulars, the rituals and meetings around the event. I had hoped to do a father and son Boston at some point, but, although I go running with each son in Gainesville, Florida and San Antonio, Texas where they live or they with me in Derwood Maryland where I live or wherever we are traveling, Donald has outgrown the distance after a few marathons and Michael just completed his "first and final" (doesn’t everyone say that?) in a very respectable time in Austin Texas

The 103rd running was as good as any prior run (although it would be hard to surpass the historic 100th in 1996 for which I had come "Out of Africa"--the same way almost all of the front runners had to!--and left me making plans for the 104th. These are scenes from a "moving picture" passing in a blur as the film stays where it is and the runner is spooling: The little kids in Hopkinton reaching out, hoping to get low fives from a passing marathoner, the elderly in Ashland pushed out in their wheelchairs and propped up to cheer on the temporarily able-bodied, Camp Calvin at Natick, the wild women of Wellesley (is it only I who can hear them a mile before I see them?) an on to the Newton Hills. At Heartbreak Hill, I turned to salute the statue at its base, Johnny Kelly in bronze as youth and elder a 56 time finisher. I pulled away form the sides, where I had been working the crowds, slapping high fives to little kids and any handicapped person I saw on the course, and got serious in the middle of the road during the hill climb. My friend awaiting me in the Harvard Club looked up to see national TV showing Heartbreak Hill and one earnest runner motoring up the hill--mois!

When I crested the hill and relaxed a little I heard my name called. I looked to the side and there, in the Medical Tent, lay Billy Rodgers, wrapped in a Mylar Blanket and propped up on one elbow while swigging rehydration fluid, waving to me and yelling "Good luck in the Ultra!" Make that now seven DNF’s after being well on target for beating the fifty year-old marks at each of his splits, realizing he would not make it beat by the heat, he had walked back to the tent after cresting Heartbreak. Next in the fast forward blur came the Boston College students, getting closer every year to the decibel level of Wellesley, and a gang of blue-coated Randolph Massachusetts Reebok workers who went bananas with their cowbells upon spotting one of their test runners, That happy din gave way to the Boston crowds on Boylston, the passing of the Harvard Club after Kenmore Square, and the turn toward the "Pru" for the sprint to the finish. OK, it was only two toenails this time and well worth it!

Everything about Boston is special, but especially to me. The city, the course, the crowds, the history, the regulars with whom I attend the events from pasta parties to the rituals and meetings we all enjoy. I was already making plans for the 104th when I piled into the taxi to Logan Airport and said to myself "And, this is just the beginning of the series!" It is hard to surpass a headliner for your opening act!

On return to Washington, I acted as marshall for a couple of the MCRRC road races, including their signature 10K event, "Pike’s Peak." I had firmed up all the travel itineraries to put me through all the intricate paces of my coast to coast, Chesapeake to Great Lakes, Rockies to Canyon River runs, and worked on the mountain trek/run/climb plans for later in British Columbia, the Andes and Nepal. I now had another "Guide Run" to pilot, and I was looking forward to this favorite!

I summarized this one succinctly right after I ran it: "As Good As It Gets!" If there were a scorecard on how to judge race careers’ apogees, this one would score right up there as bell-ringer. I had been running with Lee Dutton, now a graduating senior medical student at GWUMC for the four years of his being at the institution, a training period that was enjoyable for each and would intensify just before the Boston in the last two years. We were looking for a good race to remember this by, and he was intrigued by my piloting Joe, which he had witnessed at the St. Paddy’s Day Race. So, we three planed to run as a team, with Lee ahead to "block" for us and Joe and I running linked behind him. I had registered early and had talked with each to tell them about the venue of this interesting run, in which the runners are bussed out to Kent Island, and then run westward over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on the day that the bridge is closed to motorized traffic for the Governor’s Bay Bridge Run, managed by the sister road runners’ club, the Annapolis Striders. We had planned to go together for a race I had done often, but which would be a new and very different venue for them.

The race is run over a unique course from Kent island since, the start line is at the Chesapeake Bay sea level of Kent Island, and then runs up the bridge approach for two miles and up the steady incline to the East towers of the suspension span. At that point the run flattens out at the high pint of the bridge between the towers in the suspended span of the bridge and the runners can look down between their running shoes on the metal grids as they are suspended 355 feet over the waves in the Chesapeake Bay. This view spooks out most runners except for Joe who cannot see the sail boats, container ships, large tankers and fishing boats directly down through a lot of air between the running soles and the Bay.

At the starting line on Kent Island, several young runners came over to investigate what this team of linked runners were doing as "guide runners". Joe explained how we run, and two of them wanted to try to be guide runners which I had encouraged. One of them kept up with us to about half way , and I learned later from his mother whom he brought over at the finish to proudly introduce her to us that he had won last year’s race for his age group. At the sound of the gun, we got off to a quick start, and "threaded the needle" through a lot of traffic at the front (uphilll) part of the race. Generally coming up behind densely packed runners, with a polite "Excuse us" with intent to pass would get most solo runners tossed off the bridge, but when they spotted Joe tethered to me by his daughter’s shoelace, and figured out what was happening without further exploration, they parted the way with a cheer.

As one runs along high above the Bay, there is a lot of air swirling around the deck of the bridge, which makes the early morning run a cool one in the sea breezes despite the rising sun at the back of the pack. Arriving at the West tower coming off the crest of the bridge, I could see a long way down as we would give back the potential energy of our 355 foot climb over the same two miles we had run in gaining it. I described to Joe what I could see and the split times we were putting in at the half way point; most of the runners were behind us.

Lee ran ahead of us as a "blocking back", and we opened up on the downslope sliding through the much sparser group of runners at that point. A group of Naval Academy plebes saw us coming and with the Marine salute " Ah Hoo Yah!" they jumped aside and cheered for Joe louder than even the spectators did when we reached the Western Shore of Maryland where the crowds gather along the route into Sandy Point State Park,

When we cruised across the beeping chip map at the Finish Line, I clapped Joe on the back when I saw the time--not yet official--but which looks to be within seconds of the fast time we had put in at the St. Paddy’s two months before. But, the proudest achievement came later when the two young men crossed the line and brought over their mothers to meet us, each saying: "Isn’t this neat! We want to be guide runners when we are a little bit older!"

MAY 8, 1999

This was a very special race for me. Besides being the first time I have run this distance, in the 22nd running of this now classic national championship race with a bank sponsor that supplies a purse big enough to attract the Kenyans and other world class runners, it was my first "home run." I had never run any race in the home town where I was born, and had heard about this River Bank Run for some time and tried to arrange my travels to fit the schedule for this race. This year it worked. My sister and her family would even come along to cheer me on--I usually do not have a private cheering squad for my runs, especially those far away from most family. My sister Shirley, who would have been there but for her attending the homecoming of her daughter’s brand new baby 100 miles north in Mc Bain Michigan, had once heard the tape and seen the pictures of an early Marine Corps Marathon finish. She asked: "With half a million people lining the whole race and cheering for their own specula runner, who was there cheering for you?"

"I thought they all were!" I had replied. This time I had not only my sister Milly and her husband Doug, and my niece Cheryl (who had run this race last year, but backed out of it this year) cheering as family for me, I did not realize what this meant when I said that this would be a "family race" in my "home run", I did not know just how true this would be! A coincidence occurred near the finish of the race that one of my friends who read about the conclusion said that it verified her mother’s repeated observation that "Truth is Stranger then Fiction."

I had rented a Ford Explorer in Detroit’s Metro Airport and driven up to the Grand Center to pick up my packet and registration bib, and pinned on the number and prepared for the early morning start. I went down with Milly and Doug to the Grand Center for the final stripping of the warm up outfits and lining up at the starting line, recognizing a couple of Kenyan acquaintances from my last several Boston Marathons. One, who comes from Nakuru, a town I have visited several times, wished me well as he unwrapped down to his singlet, as I was doing the same. My singlet was labeled "Calvin", which I knew would be better recognized here than in Boston where I had last worn it. We were lined up in the front echelon when the gun went off and the dark skies rolled over the course.

We ran out fast with an intent to warm up, and had gone only a few hundred meters when the rain hit. It rained hard and steadily throughout the race, with a lot of puddles to be splashed through toward the later part of it. Partly because of the cool temperatures, the early fast 6:22 minute mile pace was maintained. I was surprised to see the split times at the relays, since a 5 K relay race is run as part of the 25 K event which had totaled 9,800 runners. As I looked through the wet hair flicked from my eyes, I saw that we had reached 5 K in under 20 minutes, and had passed 10 K in under 43 minutes.

A fellow pulled up alongside me who was a sophomore Calvin student who had noted the singlet, and identified himself as on the swim team. He asked when I would graduate. I said 1964. He thought I was kidding since he said he would not have been born for another seven years if it was that 1964 I was talking about.

I saw the only other Calvin singlet I saw in the race, and pulled alongside. I asked where he was from and he said Ontario. Without my asking another question, he asked, "Did you run Boston again this year?" I said I had and wanted to know how he recognized that. "Since I know your name; you and I had our pictures on the same page of the Spark in 1998, the last time I ran it." His name is Peter Slopstra, and I ran across the half way point at 51 minutes after crossing the Grand River entering Johnson Park. I had pulled around the little disposable Kodak flash camera I had carried, and was going to take his picture, when a runner came up behind us and asked "Would you like me to take your picture?"

I said "Thanks! Could you take our picture together?" and handed him the camera. He splashed ahead, and took a picture of Peter and I in rainsoaked Calvin singlets, running through the rain, which I planned to send to either Peter or the Spark. I saw the 10-mile mark slip by at 72 minutes. I pulled ahead and entered John Ball Park, which I seemed to recall from childhood was a very long ways away from home---since it was on the west side of the Grand River and I had measured all distances then as how far I could comfortably travel on my bike by round trip before dark. Strange how perspectives change, since I was now running as far as would have been the distance to "The Big Lake" as Michigan was known, and the later races would have been that distance by round trip. I had said to Peter that this race was only 25 K, but I was going to average it in with the others of my Serious Series of Six in Six, since the last was not a marathon either, but two of them, so I felt justified in pooling the mileage to count as a marathon series. I had somehow erroneously figured this race to be rather like a half marathon, and the extra three miles seemed to be redundant in the continuing sheets of rain--another race I would prefer to run than watch, feeling sorry for the spectators gamely cheering on the runners as they stood under umbrellas wrapped in parkas.

The last miles have a corkscrew pattern in Grand Rapids’ "West Side Story" until I finally reached the Civic Auditorium, as it was once called back when that Calvin graduation I had referred to earlier in the race to a younger fellow runner had taken place there. I had just crossed the Grand River when I saw my family waving signs and cameras just before the turn into the Finish Line, at which I punched my watch at 1; 53. As I chilled out in the continuing rain after the engine was turned off after the medal was hung around my neck, I saw Peter come in and he and I congratulated each other, promising that we would be in touch. I walked along passing the goodies distributed to feed and rehydrate the runners, looking for my sister who would have the warm-up bag with the Boston Marathon jacket which I would appreciate this time for its waterproof qualities over its reflective dazzle.

When I saw her, she said as I put on the jacket "Did you know your cousin was in the race?" I had heard my name called, and looked up to see a Japanese-American woman who obviously knew me. Betty Geelhoed was our family war bride, and a quite accomplished woman in her own right, but I had been unfamiliar with her and Don Geelhoed’s children, who were all growing up when I had moved away from the home base. One of those children named Tom Geelhoed had graduated from both Calvin and Michigan and was now a lawyer practicing in Grand Rapids from an office about three hundred meters from the starting line of this race, I had been told. I heard my name called again, and saw a fellow coming over to see me, whom I vaguely recognized when he told me why: "I’m the one who took your picture on the run!"

"Well, how do you know my name?"

"I have been looking for you all my life! For 42 years I have known about one "famous Geelhoed" whose name is "Glenn" and I saw one registered in the race that I thought said he was from Missouri."

"Could that be MD for Maryland?"

"OK, that’ it! But my name is Tom Geelhoed, and I am a lawyer in Grand Rapids, and everyone always asks me if I am related to you, and now at last I have been able to meet you, Cousin!"

AND THE SECOND ROCK ’N ROLL MARATHON

"It’s like flying on an airline that has just had a crash," I explained to the fellow standing next to me in the packet pickup queue in the San Diego Civic Center. He had told me he had done the first ever running of the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll Marathons last year and that it was a mess. It started almost an hour late, because they had not got all the streets secured; runners had to skirt around the famous California active freeway traffic in places; many residents along the proposed course did not even know a marathon was going to occur, and were bitter protesters when they found themselves barricaded inside their houses during the event; they ran out of water at some of the stops; because of the late start the later finish was really hot and people were suffering. "For all those reasons, this year’s events should be a vast improvement, as promised!" They had changed the course in a double loop figure-of-eight to end in the huge Naval Training Station, a surplus military base to be closed next year and converted to a second extension of the pretty Balboa Park.

Almost all of the runners ( or walkers, or crawlers, or just wannabe associates of marathoners) had signed into a giant charity fund-raising scheme, having their way paid by "Team in Training" to come to this initial race by milking their Rollodex and putting the bite on all their friends to pledge money to support leukemia research. Now, I am all in favor of charity running (all of my race fees go 100% to the charity being benefited, since no one is paying any of my expenses in getting here or being put up at the site), but the over 15 million dollars said to have been raised for leukemia by last year’s event is not quite "Truth in Advertising" since most of that had to go for the administrative support of the race and its managers, and the friends, families and office mates of everyone who had solicited them should know that what they are contributing to is essentially the costs of getting their friend --and significant others, depending on the level of contribution!--out here to join in the happening of the marathon, and to rub shoulders with a large number of other beautiful people, some of them even runners! The popularity of the marathon has enticed a large number of wannabes to come and associate, even if they have never run, since it is a big happening event (as I know well) that has the public image of health, happiness, and an almost unmitigated good thing to do. So, they impose a second marathon-like event on the run---a fund-raising marathon, coaching those who sign up in how to solicit funds, they will write and send the letters to all your friends and help administer the collection of the funds. Oh, yes, and then there is the run. All the pledgers are furnished the tee shirts that have them running in a pack for encouragement, a good thing as well, unless you happen to be a real runner trying to pass a large group of slow run-walkers with linked arms. Why not attach a fund-raising marathon to a Guiness Book of Records event, such as how long someone can ounce a ball on their head, or pole-sitting, and let the run be carried on its own merits with spin-offs for charity (as already occurs in most races) rather than having the run an incidental disturbance of a slick high-powered campaign to raise money that has nothing to do with the running?

A woman I know only through distant acquaintance through a second marriage had sent me the computer-generated letter saying how she was hoping with my support to be able to "do the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon again this year." Later in the letter, I read that she had walked almost half of it last year, and this year was hoping to be able to walk the whole thing, if I would forward a check. And, if I was extra generous, she would be accompanied by her husband, whose way would also be paid; and for just a bit more, she would be designated a team captain from her state, and get that much more highly burnished halo for having really taken a bite out of a killer disease. It is probably not the best of PR to send such a professionally generated fund-raising solicitation to a real marathoner, all of whose fee goes into the charity without any subtracted payment for just participating in the event. I made a call and said I would try to encourage her attempt: "Meet me at the bandstand with Hootie and the Blowfish." I never did see the many people who had sent me repeated notes form a variety of sources urging my further support for their efforts.

The "Health and Fitness Expo" that precedes the Suzuki Rock ‘n Roll Marathon is huge. It seemed to me bigger than either New York City’s or the Boston’s---institutions who have been at this kind of event for just 26 and 101 years longer, respectively. Besides continuous Rock ‘n Roll bands belting out Golden Oldies, it had one other notable feature---probably the largest disproportionate number of breathtakingly beautiful young women I have encountered at any such event, which are usually populated with the healthiest specimens the planet can offer. I had to go back three times to be sure that this observation was accurate. I confirmed it each time.

I had rented a comfortable air conditioned car, an Oldsmobile Intrigue, and had driven it to the Bayview Hotel where I stayed, taking the reservation number from the runner’s information I had received with my confirmation some weeks earlier. I met a woman from San Francisco in the same Hotel who was here to do her 55th Marathon as she was puzzling over breakfast on how to get away right after the finish to catch her flight to San Francisco. I had the idea of driving the car over to the Naval Training Station Finish Line area, and parking the car, which should allow us a fast getaway after the race. This we did on Saturday night, and hailed a taxi on the street to carry us back to the Bayview. This "fast exit" strategy made it possible for us to study in exquisite detail the next area of major improvement that the third Rock ‘n Roll Marathon will have to work on.

In the misty, sprinkling rain of pre-dawn, the runners from the Bayview walked together over to the Balboa Park starting line. This is not as easy as seeing the site on the map six blocks over. As I later learned along the course of the run as well, one would need a "topo map" as well as a Freeway outline to determine the complex pathway that would be the shortest distance between any two points in San Diego. Canyons and freeways are barriers to be negotiated around by knowing where the "passes" might be to cross. I had seen "roadsign racism" on my earlier drive, with a sign that showed a swarthy man carrying a sombrero in one hand, pulling his wife with the other, and she had yanked a child off her feet in tow behind her, each in full flight across a multi-lane freeway--a sign designating potential alien roadkill. The canyons and freeway overpasses in San Diego would be confusing and frustrating to both immigrant pedestrians and road-runners alike. The Wheel Worship of Southern California means that the race course has to be very carefully laid out for both runners and spectators to keep each from under the wheels of the mobile drive-by society.

This course was well planned. On several occasions, I was aware of another layer of life saluting the runners by hearing a train’s wailing Doppler from a trestle over head or the cacophony of horns form a freeway of traffic, saluting the runners on suspended on a concrete layer over another deck further down. It was a multi-level market.

There were lots of spectators at certain points along the race, and I remember a couple of them vividly, not having brought any of my own along for the crowd around this race. There were 26 rock ‘n roll bands along the course, most of those in the front half, and I felt sorry for the spectators who had lined up ahead of the high decibel woofers or reverbs from these bands. One memorable placard was held up by a disgruntled spectator, who obviously remembered last year’s event, "No More Mayor’s Marathons! Runners Stay Home!" This was memorable because it was in distinct contrast to the overwhelming majority of well-wishers who turn out for any race. Many of them are there to look for one special person to cheer on ad scan the crowd to see where in the mass of bobbing heads this---to them, unique--individual might be. Eye contact is made by a large group of scanners of we the passerby. It is as though the audience in the movie theatre is running past a stationary unspooled film. There was one frame, particularly, that remains burned in on my retina.

I was coming up upon the turn that marks the halfway point overlooking the mostly dry San Diego River floodplain. I was approaching the outer loop of the turn when I looked up into the dark eyes of a young haunting beauty. Often, the quick glance is all that is required to show that I am not the Cousin Sammy they are searching for, and the gaze is averted. But her eyes locked on and followed me through the turn, with a Mona Lisa smile beneath them. I looked away only briefly to see the split time clock showing 1:44:10, and glanced back. There they were, these magic eyes still tracking me along. As I faded into some distance, I heard a lilting Hispanic alto sing out "I looove you!" I wonder if I should go back to recross the halfway mat to make sure my chip had registered there?

Let’s see now...where was I? Oh, yes, the race, and about two thirds of the way home by now. It was then that I realized the value of the overcast grey sky and even the scattered sprinkles and the early start to the race. Last year’s late start and delay while they cleared the roads cost the race a considerable time factor, since the sun rose hot and heavier than it had before this point today, and there was no cloud cover to protect from the glare of the sun blazing down just north of the Mexican border but at sea level off the San Diego Bay. Today stayed relatively cool until I crossed the third hour of the race. I was startled to realize how far I had come in that time since I was passing the 22 mile post when the three hour point was showing on my runner’s watch. I had picked up a kindergarten teacher from Havasu Arizona doing her second marathon for about five miles, and when she fell back, a young bearded fellow in Colorado shorts, doing his first. He was with me for about seven miles, overlapping with the teacher for about the first three, until he said he could not keep it up at this pace and would look for me at the end. Both were interested in the next marathons I am running, especially those at altitude, and were fascinated to hear that I would be going to Nepal in September. About the time we got started into a few stories, my audience faded, and not because they had wasted too much breath from talking on the run.

Then, I started to pull a serious fade. The sun had broken through the clouds, and was overhead as we threaded our way across the causeways over the Bay inlets among several islands with picnic areas in parks. I soaked up more fluid and took the Gu offered, but could feel myself heating up with an urge to back off the pace. That is not quite accurate: I wanted to walk. I promised myself I would walk at the next water stop, but would run through it promising the next one. Only this rather bizarre bit of trickery kept me going, with the trickster and the trickee being the same person, a game that the third person observer watched with enough distraction to not notice the hot miles piling up. I knew if I could get down to the "short" mileage from the finish which I knew to be at the navy Training Center off harbor Boulevard, then I could kick my way home and still do a not unreasonable sub-four pace. My earlier seven minute mile pace three fourths of the race had faded into nine and long in the last quarter, so if I walked in, I would be over four. I willed myself not to walk, when I saw the Naval Training Center coming up, but we had to run around the full distance to come in the back of the walled and gated compound. I stopped working the crowd, and pulled out the final stops, passing a fellow who was pulling two young girls in a rickshaw who were leukemia survivors; I gave them high fives and passed the running rickshaw puller a water bottle that had been given to me, but I would need less than he would and sprinted when I saw the 26 mile sign. There were quite a few walkers and slow shufflers between me and the finish line and they must have felt that this fellow was somehow bizarre in putting on this burst of speed at this point, but I was ready for this race to be over. I jumped up and high-fived the finish line sign after remembering to return to drag my foot over the chip mat to record the finish whit a final beep and looked at my watch as I punched out. My Ironman read "3:49:04". Good enough!

I got wrapped in the snazzy Mylar blanket, and walked into the chutes as the sky clouded over again and a little rain spritzed. Who would have thought that I would come to San Diego to get rained on! I was grateful for the overcast during the run, but now the engine had been turned off and I was ready for a bit of warmth. I sucked down two liters of the Fiji water handed to me, and one bottle of the Nantucket nectars. I bowed my head and was crowned with the "Heavy Metal" of the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon Medal. I was hungry. I got a banana and a bag of chips and followed someone into the wide open area where there were booths with pizza and a lot of Suzuki products parked everywhere as in a trade show. There were huge alphabetized areas for family rendezvouses, but since I was meeting no one there, I went over to where the car had been parked after picking up my checked I warm-up bag. There was no sign of the San Franciscan veteran marathoner Marion Lyons, so I left her a note under the windshield wiper and walked back under my Mylar blanket, as the sun came out again.

It came out with a vengeance. It got hot. Only an hour later did Marion come through, only two hours before her flight time. The check out time for each of our rooms at the Bayview had been noon, and we would have only fifteen minutes to make that. We did not. In a stifling heat that frayed the tempers of even runners, but especially the noon-runners trying to drive out from the one gate that was open from the Naval Training Center we were gridlocked for two hours with cars over heating, bladders over filling, and muscles stiffening up. Occasionally shouts were heard from frustrated unmoving motorists, mixed with the congratulations of the wannabe walkers or T ‘n T supporting groupers for anyone they passed who was wearing a medal. When we finally got moved out, thanks to the traffic directing efforts of a runner, in shorts and still wearing his medal, I drove passed the airport where Marion wanted to hop out, salted and grubby and wearing her Mylar blanket to make a run for her plane hoping the Bayview could mail her the carryon bag she was going to leave rather than miss her cheap Southwest, no reserved seat, flight. I went on for the two minutes that it took me to get my bag, hop into the shower for a quick salt solubility shower, and turn in my key getting the hotel receipt.

I hopped into my Oldsmobile Intrigue, turned on the A/C and cruise control and made the drowsy drive up I-5 north to Fountain Valley. As I crossed through the desert wastes of Camp Pendleton, I saw again the desperate road crossing sign, and in making a stop at a rest area to take care of the bladder distention that rehydrating with four liters in an hour had told me was going successfully, I saw two signs; one in English: "People are dying! Slow down and watch for crossing pedestrians"; and one in Spanish: "Por l’ Amor de Dios! Nunca tras la Autopista!" (For the love of God, never cross the Freeway!) I wonder if the same people who made the sign on the extra galactic Voyager trying to communicate with extraterrestrials have had to include such warnings on their space craft in case the aliens with their superior technology and intelligence come back to land their spaceship near Southern Californian Freeways?

I arrived at my sister’s and her husband’s interim ministry in Fountain Valley in time to participate in their farewell from the congregation they have been serving for the last four months, as I had in sending them off from the last three---in Red Deer Alberta, and Washington DC, as well as Southern California. In packing up for a leisurely day before their early morning departure from John Wayne International where I put them on their outgoing plane, I had then driven up to LAX to pick up my cousin Bonnie returning to Loma Linda for her graduation from medical school in which I will be participating as the only other Geelhoed to have preceded her to an MD degree. As I lounged around relaxing and eating, my leg muscles felt better, my cervical spine got worse, and I felt ready to run again in three days. Just about time, too, since the next marathon is only ten days away, and a mile and a half up, about a thousand miles from where I am basking in sultry Southern Californian ambiance!