Race
Report
Big Man Run XII "The Good Times Continue"
“They are absolutely never going to
believe me,” was all I could think as I zoomed up the Merritt Parkway, my knee
wrapped in ice.
While riding in the car I was
following all the emails on the Clydie list via Blackberry, most of which were
King accusing Phat Ernie of some offense related to his weight or the quality of
beer in his fridge.
This I believed - everything else was
sandbagging.
Fast Freddie Kirk bemoaning his
Rhumba injury. Dr. Gill hoping that his legs would be reattached in time for the
race, owing to a tragic accident with a butter knife. A newcomer would have
assumed that there wouldn’t be anyone running who wasn’t infirm, palsied or 300
lbs.
I happened to have actually wrenched
my knee the day before, an injury leftover from summer league softball. If you
think it dangerous for a 275 lb man to run a 5 mile race while drinking beer,
ponder a 275 man playing centerfield while drinking beer. Hence, the knee
wrapped in ice.
I sent one quick note to the list
making reference to the injury, only to get an avalanche of crap back via email.
Ahh, friends.
As always, the ride to the race
officially begins when I crest Winter Hill from the other direction, get that
pit in my stomach and think, “This hill is freaking huge…..” Truth be told, I
had been doing hill work in anticipation of this years BMR, knowing how the race
had evolved. The addition of Magoon’s Pub had seriously changed the strategy of
Big Man, as for some reason they think that an orderly bar stop is in the best
interest of the race. One little table, small stack of beers, no room to move,
so if you do not get in the first bar early, you could be stuck forever. You
wouldn’t lose your place in the race, but you would get screwed for total time.
So, if you care about your time, you have to bust the hill. Ugh.
Spirits were high at weigh-in and
during warm up. Garlickman was being careful this year, only 3 pre-race beers, I
actually *did* a warm up, eschewing the runner’s maxim not to do anything the
day of a race that you do not normally do, like stretching. I still had
lingering muscle fatigue from the Sunday hill repeats, and the knee was gimpy (I
had brought crutches with me just for effect, but didn’t bring them out,) but it
all went back to the hill. I thought that if I could get into the first bar
before the line started, I had a chance to run well.
Matty jogged up the road with bib #
350, which I assumed he stole from a skinny at the last second, calling upon his
skills of taking lunch money from 3rd graders. (Thankfully, they didn’t press
charges at his hearing last week, but he has to stay away from elementary
schools until 2010.) Matty had reportedly been banned from the race for being
Matty, but he assured me he actually was registered for real. Papa apparently is
getting soft in his dotage.
The Flying Elvises were in abundance,
the old-timers swapped tales of the 1st Annual International Clydesdale Beer
Mile Championships (heretoafter called the Freddie Kirk Invitational Clydesdale
Beer Mile Championships. You gotta suck up to Freddie to be invited.) and we
almost started on time. Big Man! It was on like Donkey Kong.
Most people take the start easy, but
I knew the hill was the whole race for me, so while I usually hang back at the
start of a normal road race, I was towards the front this time, marveling once
again how we run *into* traffic to start this stupid thing. Bills flying from
the tie-dyed singlet, I punched the brand new running watch that I bought in
order to time the bar stops, and we were off for the 12th time. You’d think I
would have learned…..
The first mile or so, aside from
being almost entirely uphill, was an exercise of false strategy. Freddie and I
swapped running just behind each other’s shoulders, and Richard Carr, an
excellent Clydie runner in our weight class, was zipping in and out with those
goddamn quick strides of his, which always make you think he’s about to
disappear into the front of the pack.
Just as an aside, the notion of “our
weight class” is hysterical. When this thing first started, there was only a
226+ lb category for us fat guys. Then we added 250+, mostly for me and Cavage,
and now there was a 300+ category. Who says Americans are overweight?
Winter Hill sucked. I tried
desperately to call upon the repeats I had done, but I still started going
anaerobic ¾’s of the way up. Freddie had dropped back a bit, then waxed me on
the down hill to get into the first bar ahead of the pack. My buddy Dave was in
the bar at the same time (he of the Old Guy Timing Company, exclusive timing
company of the Freddie Kirk Invitational Clydesdale Beer Mile Championships)
Inexplicably, they were pouring beers
as people came in. Huh? This is a race, by the way. And, having a 3 foot table
with everything you needed on it just gummed up the works. I picked up a little
time by doing a reacharound to grab the dog ahead of the more casual people in
line, so by the time I could get to the roll and the beer, it was already down.
I found out later the King had the
killer strategy for the bizarre nature of the first bar stop– bring a camera,
pretend to take a picture, and go to the head of the line and grab your stuff.
That’s going in the arsenal for next year. Of course, we discussed at the end of
the race that the best way for me to go to the head of the line next year would
be to run in a Borat-style swim suit. Bring your camera.
I passed a bevy of folks while
heading to the door, put down the beer and most of the roll, and as I flipped
the last piece of roll in my mouth and nodded hello to Dave, someone puked in
the trash can at the door. First bar barf? Not a good sign…
Coming out of the bar I could see
Freddie a good 50-60 yards ahead of me. Knowing that once the racing part of Big
Man starts, there’s little movement of places between runners, I hit it,
figuring that I had no choice but to blow it out early and hope to hold on. It
was mostly downhill, so I didn’t lose much wind, and I was 10 yards back heading
into the Powderhouse, which was civil compared to Magoon’s. Nice quick
turnaround, and the road racing part of Big Man began….
One of the things to remember about
running in Somerville is that it’s an urban adventure. I almost got hit by a bus
again (see BMR X), ran passed people rolling fatties on their front porch, was
told by a guy on a bike, “My *%$#&% grandmother ran faster than you yesterday…”,
was side by side to a major car accident, and – no word of a lie – the race
course went through a road construction site in the middle of Davis Square,
complete with police tape, traffic cones, ripped up concrete and sawhorse
barriers. We just blew through it.
Dodging, weaving, sweating and
burping, I was absolutely beat by the time we made it to Razzy’s. Razzy’s, I
must say, is a bizarre place that looks like it was designed after the builder
took acid and watched the Lord of the Rings movies. You zip in a stone and
brickface entry, duck through a narrow doorway, up a small set of stairs, then
pull into a function room (I guess you would call it) 40 yards later, which is a
function room, I would assume, only because it’s so far buried in the alleyways
of Somerville that ankle bracelets won’t go off. I passed by a particularly
nasty looking succubus on the way in who had clearly seen way too many winters
and far too many drive-thrus, though she made sure to comment on the girth of
runners, and hoped that I had created enough space that I wouldn’t have to run
hard the rest of the way.
This turned out to be a turning point
of the race, in the end. I grabbed the dog and knew I had to make a decision
whether to dunk it in the beer to smooth the ride, or just ingest them
separately, which is my usual
modus operandi. I had zero wind
and a dry mouth, so I was worried about trying to put it down without the
moisture helping me, but I’m not usually a dunker. Ugh. Would I be Tommy Lasorda
sending up Kirk Gibson to pinch hit in the ’88 World Series? Or, would I be
Grady Little, failing to pull Pedro against the Yankees in the ACLS?
I went for the dunk, took a big bite,
and winced.
Pure Grady.
The dog wasn’t cooked. Nasty, nasty,
nasty. The beer was now befouled, the bun cold & gooey, and the hot dog just
plain gross. Nothing tastes quite like natural casing hot dogs that are still
chilly from the freezer. Raw haggis, maybe…
Still, I was in pretty good shape in
the race overall, and only needed to have a relatively smooth transition in
Razzy’s for have a decent time. Calling upon the eating heroes of my youth –
Kobayashi and Fink from Meatballs – I forced it down despite the occasional dry
heave. Easily the worst single “meal” I’ve ever had.
Back on the roads I was reminded that
you truly feel Winter Hill after the 3rd bar at Big Man. It’s simply survival at
that point. Pick ‘em up, put ‘em down, don’t get hit by a car on the on-ramp to
the Magrath Highway that we have to cross over.
Completely beat, I started doing what
I do sometimes near the end of marathons– counting steps. I bargained with
myself that I would allow some walking after 100 quick paces, so I sped up the
turnover, counted to myself, and then lied to myself when I got to 100 that I
could walk after one more set. 2 sets later and I took the turn down the
straightaway, where of course, I felt the urge to open it up. Literally
collapsing past the finish line, I was later to discover that I had finished
35th (after you take out the goddamn skinnies, 45th otherwise) with a time a
shade over 47:00.
Much frivolity ensued.
The band was too loud, the
temperature inside too high, the loudspeaker too soft and the hot dogs (hot
dogs?) put out for food mostly ended up being fed to Buddy, Paulie's dog.
Luckily, there was beer. In short, we had a blast.
One of the things that I noticed this
year that warmed my cockles was that BMR has started to have second and third
“generation” groups who come to participate and drive the event. For the first
5-6 years there was a consistent cadre of folks who would always come, but now
there are all kinds of people there who have made Big Man their own, they’ve
done a bunch of the recent ones, they bring their friends and they provide the
energy for the event that keeps it going. Us old-timers are now part of the
fabric, but it’s even better to watch the next crew keep it strong. There are
only four of us now who have done them all, and I had a little flash that the
carving on my headstone will read, “Did all 56 Big Man Runs...”
I somehow ended up with 5 BMR beer
mugs after the awards ceremony, which I promptly gave away, and Dave and I left
the party at the precise moment we would have done in college – when the police
arrived.
See you next year.
JDFatboy