St. Louis half: a super okay race

I think I owe a everyone poop story. Er, a race review.

The St. Louis marathon is much like the city itself-- perfectly fine, but not living up to its potential. On marathonguide.com there's some d-bag from Rochester that goes into this long tirade about how the city's been plummeting from its high point of 1904, but I'd argue that's true of the entire midwest. In a marathon review. And dude is from Rochester, which doesn't sound like a fun place to live at all-- now OR in 1904.

But I digress.

Race day was great. I got to the start line at 5:45 and met a long row of empty, clean portapotties. Like, really clean. So clean I was breathing normally instead of alternating between gagging and holding my breath. For someone who loves poop stories I have little tolerance for anything poop-related. Give me a puking person and I'll give you a trooper who'll hold back hair and clean up vomit chunks. But traditional bathroom god sacrifices? Ew. Anyway, I used the portapotty, ran into some law school friends/acquaintances, and stretched. Two of the school crowd went to go warm up, and I laughed when they asked me to join them. Of course, when you're going to run sub-8 pace like they did, a warmup is a good idea. Me, I saved it for the race.

I started near the 10:00 pace mark and enjoyed the atmosphere. It was a beautiful day to run. It was 45 degrees at the start, so I had on a long sleeve top and throwaway gloves that have never been thrown away; I almost wore a jacket too, but my shorts were navy and my jacket was black and I didn't want to clash. Seriously. It was a fortuitous concern because I was pretty hot by the time I finished; I'm a short sleeves and shorts kind of girl, something I continually and erroneously doubt. The gun went off and so did we, and 7 minutes (!!) later I crossed the mat.

And so it was. Miles flew by and my mile splits got faster, so I tried to walk more. It didn't help. I saw Sam finish (an impressive 12th overall) when I was passing the halfway point, and that was exciting, if a little sad he ran almost twice as fast as me. I cruised along happy as a clam with my tunes (a prudent move since I forgot my inhaler and my breathing sounded like a dying cow's final gasps). I walked water stations and some hills and mostly tried to have a good time, which was swell for the first 10 miles. Mile 12 turned out to be brutal, but this is hardly surprising given my longest run was 7 miles, and it was over a month ago. But I made it, and with decent splits:
First 2 miles: 20:20
Mile 3: 9:58
Mile 4: 10:40
Mile 5: 9:56
Mile 6: 9:55
Mile 7: 9:54
Mile 8: 10:03
Mile 9: 9:50
Mile 10: 10:07
Mile 11: 10:22
Mile 12:10:55
Mile 13: 9:42
Last .1: 0:58
Total: 2:12:20

Until mile 11 I thought I could make my midrace goal of 2:11, but that didn't happen. Oh well! I still came in the top half of my division and participants overall, which was all I was hoping for. And I broke 1000 calories on my HRM! 1054 baby! It took an average heartrate of 166 to get to 4 caloric digits, but I did it.

The postrace fun was, in fact, fun if disorganized and a little crowded. It's really hard to appreciate any post-marathon stuff after being spoiled by Houston, who does the best job with the finish line of any race I've seen. I wasn't very hungry on account of the tummy cramps I had from mile 7 on, so I just snagged a beer and headed home-- big recovery mistake.

After I headed home I worked on my last paper for the semester and lounged around. My muscles felt great! It was only my knees and a hand that hurt... til Monday. I got up for school the next day and did a little Frankenstein action; it was funny because it was deserved. After my Sunday mistakes, I iced, cremed, and medicated my legs, and I was feeling pretty good by Wednesday. This Sunday I have to hit the IM training plan for week 1-- five miles. I think I can handle it, but it's hard to imagine being IM training time already.

That was my race. Are you ready for the poop story? I gave the squeamish an escape hatch-- and color coding.
Onto the real action. Before I really get into it, let me just say that I'm not telling this story to be juvenile; I consider it a duty to inform the public. That and it's funny, at least to the people I've told the story to in real life. Not to build it up or anything.

Rewind to mile 4. We were running by the Nestle/Purina plant ((who knew they were one company? Not me) and I got a faint whiff of poop. "Ew," I thought. "What a pity that animal food production smells like feces." But I continued on. So did the smell. In fact, it seemed to get worse though we were running away from the plant; I decided it must be the part of the city we were in.

This continued until almost mile 6. The couple next to me mentioned how it smelled like "Turner's dirty diaper" (Turner? sigh), so I knew I wasn't making this up. And since the smell was getting worse, I was starting to get sick. I kept gagging and was afraid I was going to lose my experimental gel (I ate one 15 minutes before the race started-- something I've never done before. It was, by and large, a success-- no surprise since I'm so bad about eating enough calories before and during a race). Suddenly in front of me I see a woman with a spot of mud on her calf. I thought maybe she'd stepped in dog doodoo. I considered if I should go up to her and ask since I was seriously starting to get sick and there were portapotties everywhere along the course where she could clean herself off... but I didn't. I thought it was rude. A couple minutes went by and I looked back at the woman; this time there is an explosion of poo all down the back of her thigh. That was no dog doodoo. That was a woman pooping during the race.

(Interestingly, there was only poop down one leg. I've been speculating about this with many but it seems curious, no?)

Let me repeat that. There was a woman pooping herself WHILE RUNNING. On the course. The course with 13,000 people on it. My course. Now maybe I should have felt sorry for her, but I didn't then and haven't yet. We've all had running moments when an unplanned restroom trip seems inevitable. In an emergency, YOU WALK to keep from soiling yourself. Craig thinks that maybe she didn't realize it. As someone who slowly caught up to her over 2 miles, I can assure you that she had to know by the exxtreme smell she was giving off. Perhaps she thought she was being heroic? Perhaps. I think 10 minute miles with poop all over your legs is closer to heinous, even if it's a fine pace to run.

Anyway, once I realized there was a woman with explosive diarrhea running in front of me, the dry heaves got worse. I had to surge ahead of her or quit-- that's how disgusting it was. Unfortunately for me, the mile 6 water station was just beyond us, and I stopped to eat a gel. She kept running, past dozens of portapotties. I couldn't believe it. Who keeps running with poop down one entire leg? Who is so selfish to think that their half marathon time shouldn't be slowed by a trip to the restroom? I was mad. I don't know if she finished or not; I admittedly never saw her again after she passed me as I was eating a gel. But I did watch her run by 2 sets of portapotties without breaking stride.

It's funny. I don't pee on my bike or before/in road races because the thought of urine on the things I love-- namely, my bike seat and my running shoes-- is repulsive, the penultimate disrespect (after, of course, #2) to my possessions and other racers. I think the average packer is fooling herself to think such things are necessary for her race when we're not breaking any records and restroom stops are quick (and if you can minimize them by not overhydrating). But at least I can understand peeing on oneself even though I do not approve. Pooping, however, is another matter. It's icky and it's obvious. Why would one stoop to #2 during a race?

That's about all. Although I thought this went without saying before Sunday, please do yourself and those around you a favor-- take a potty break with #2 calls. It's not amazing or impressive to shun the most basic of hygiene-- it's stinky. And even worse, people on the internet will write long posts about you. And who wants that?