'22 Houston Marathon

It felt like right before you're about to break or freak out and/or almost to the point of hilarity, but not yet. You're still handling it; you should laugh, but you can't. I professed a weakened resolve for weeks leading in. Understanding that my emotional/mental capacity to handle anything short of a blip was unnerving. I know what led to it, which is helpful, but, there wasn't much I could do about it, during, and in hindsight: A never-ceasing pandemic. A demoralizing departure from an employer I'd spent 7 years working for. Brainfry in learning a new job. Devastating flooding which affected/continues to affect people I care deeply for. Death & separation sentences. What felt like endless windstorms; yelling into the wind out of breathless desperation & then irritated at my inability to ignore the sensation of it. Two critical weeks of big snow, sad ice and slighted ankles. Plantar in the other foot. Cancelled flights and expensive re-purchases. Covid exposures and quarantines. A sickness - the eventual clutch of Covid. Mass outage of Covid tests; pharm's audible smirk on the daily inquiry. Did I have it? The CDC edited their standards. I communicated my sick to my close friends & teammates I'd travel to Houston with. After a week of "it," thinking maybe I had it, maybe/hopefully I didn't, no way to test, and their approval, we made the trip to Houston. 

I was irritated with Alaska Airlines. Empathetic enough to understand the difficulty in the Delta variant's hold, its affect on staffing, the snow storm grounding flights. But. they cancelled our flight without notification/communication in any form. We'd only found out through looking at the upcoming flight schedule and no longer seeing ours listed. And then the phone lines went wild and all of us were on 3-12 hour holds which ended in click because the lines themselves were tired. I only received confirmation of the cancellation after texting AA myself days before our trip, and then I/we had to buy last minute flights to Houston through someone else at a much higher cost. I felt a sort of entitled rejection - was I not the Courtney Olsen of 7 years' membership, with 45,503 miles flown (lol)?!

Thursday, Jan 13 - That aside, Thomas Two-Trainz, Derek D$, Coach Sloane & I boarded, flew & arrived in Houston. Car rented. Taco Bell gorged - stomachs extended. Our flat was in some faux-luxury medium-rise in the Central Business District, off Caroline (an excellent spot in relation to the race start/finish and eateries), but, and I've been noticing this a bit with Airbnb's across the states, these "luxury condos," which are a hybrid of renters and Airbnb listings, are bare bones and gaunt in comfort, s&p, and basically all basics. A fine-glossed glossary of photos and a fine first glance, but the garbage cans on property are overflowing, the hallways smell like weed, and the sleepersofa was like laying on stacked cattle guards. Poor Sloane folded the metal back into couch form and slept sadly, his knees bent in order to fit. Thomas & I had cute little twin beds side-by-side.

Friday, Jan 14 - We met with Ber who had flown in ahead of us, went for a shakeout and enjoyed the delicious sun. Picked up bibs at the Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Discovery Green. After weeks of quarantining, and living in Washington in general, it was weird to be at the expo, to see nurses in scrubs sans masks and infants being carted around amidst the unmasked - such faith in health, and/or such lack of faith in masks, and/or, simply, Texas. 

Craved TexMex. Walked to Cobo's BBQ for smoked tacos, cocktails & Lone Stars. Drove the course. Went for groceries. Was most excited for dinner, a suggestion from Derek - Pappasito's Cantina - walkable from our bnb. Pappasito's hadn't been on my radar, which is offensive, because it has a thick list of delicious & large margs. En route to our table & look, it's Ben Flanagan, Thomas' double, and he's drinking a marg, so he must be alright. Derek suggests the Fajita Famosas for the 4 of us. BEEF. Succulent. Grilled on open flame, flour tortillas, rice, frijoles a la charra, margaritas of course, and it was us in a cardinal glow, wanting just one more, asking, "Do you do Margaritas to go?" Surprised with the, "Yes, but we can't do 'open container,' so I'll have to get creative." And then she places a plastic bag with 3 blue-capped milk bottles in sweating blended margs, zip-tied at the top in front of us - it pleased me. 

Saturday, Jan 15 - Another thing about these faux-lux condos - though generally recent builds, they tend to shortcut the thickness/material of the walls. All of us woke in the wee morning to the sound of jackhammering concrete, the walls vibrating. After another shakeout and strides we toured a bit of Houston, between Midtown and Westmoreland, enjoyed Westheimer. Thrifted while the guys checked out beer can house (full of sound). Made plans to come back the following night, post race, to sample the libations. 

One of those unremarkable, slow-moving, anxious day-befores. Indecisively ordered takeout, where I made the not-so-smart choice of a vegetable-heavy pizza, drank my pre-race favorite chardonnay, while we watched 1960s-70s clips of mid-distance Olympic races.

Sunday, Jan 16 - Toasted bagels & coffees, thankfully no jackhammering. We text'd Ber to make sure she was up & found that she'd withdrawn, her desire to race absent, on a flight back early. It was weirdly out of body - like where is my friend? Why has she left? Is she ok? Am I ok?  A befuddled puddle of sad & mad and then complete compartmentalization for preservation. We got ready and it was frigid, black & windy. The wind had been likely, it tends to be there, then, and it had been through our entire build, which seemed to encourage its eventual probability. 

The benefit to our bnb being proximity, we were able to jog to the start line. My plantar wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst, and I believed that on a good day, if granted, I could run sub 2:37. As part of the Athlete Dev. group, we weren't afforded fluids or a bag drop, so I'd packed my bra full of Maurten & tossed my pants for good. Left a long sleeve top on covering my kit, and gloves, thinking I'd toss them along the way, but I never warmed, and for the race through I ran in an outfit that added to my feeling of not really being "in it."

It was a nice benefit that Derek and I got to start together. We had similar goals. We'd trained together for a large part of the year & knew what it felt like to run/feel through the nuance of concrete hours. We were bunched up several hundred people back of front. The gun blew. It took a bit, to cross the start, to find a stride. The first mile was disjunctive & slow. I thought that when I found the space, I'd also find the pace, but in all honesty I was strained from the beginning. I tried to dumb down, ease into it, lean into Derek quite early on. I think I was able to maintain that connectivity & delusion till mile 8? And then I felt him slip and he slipped and I wanted to go where he was going, but I couldn't. Fatigued, with intestinal cramping, I stopped, hoping that by going the bathroom I might find myself better sorted, but that turned into stopping every few miles to go to the bathroom. I'd try to dip back down to 6:00s and I'd immediately suffer gastrically. My butthole had a pace cap. In one stop I found a porto where there was a poo-splosion across the whole back wall, which puckered up my own butthole & I think I just puckered up and pace capped myself to the finish from there on out. I think I spent a good amount of time sad, but I also made up new goals (finish) (sub 2:50), and self-soothed and self-talked my way towards the finish line, baring a smile in hopes it reached me deeper, pushed me further. At the time, during, I figured it just wasn't my day, the sick had taken some from my reserves, that my resolve that was weakened was a part of it, that the vegetable heavy pre-race dinner was the culprit to my distress. I didn't think, Oh, it's covid - because who could run 2:48 with covid? That's not likely right? 

I crossed the finish line in 2:48:07 (33rd F), over 11 minutes off of what I had worked for, proud of something Lilliputian, and also dejected. Composure kept in seeing my friend & teammate waiting there for me. It's a small kindness that means a lot. You have to kind of pretend that you're not hovering, so that officials don't encourage you along. You have to think about someone else aside from yourself & what you've just accomplished. You have to want to share something. It was a chance to feel good for a second - to find out that Derek had achieved his goal of sub 2:40, running 2:38:03. And in his result, knowing that we had trained well & right. He could be the symbol of what I could have done, and I could feel gratitude in his ability to achieve it, in his success. I very painfully and butt-clenchingly hobbled to the meet up area, where I ate an ice cream sandwich in a sad way & caught up on the results of Thomas (1:12:21, not what he was capable of, but an ok day), Jay's other athletes, and  news of the Americans (D'Amato's 2:19:12 AR & Hall's 1:07:15 AR). Jay confirmed how I felt by allowing that I did not look in my true form early on (which I appreciate, because sometimes it's easy to think, Maybe I'm just not tough enough? But when someone says, Yeah you looked off - it's actually quite helpful). 

Full Results

Since I had lost my pants, I walked back to the bnb in my buns. At the bnb, in the shower, I sat down in my sadness. Had a sharp cry & grieved contemplations; cracked a beer and drank to the adventure with my 3 lovely men. It took a while before I averted the proximity between my existential pain & it's bodily response; had to excuse myself a few times for secret cries, but I came around. We dressed and met Jay's other athlete/s at a very sick brewery - 8th Wonder - in East downtown. The vibes were soul-soothing. Angst-lifting. The chalkboard list of availables ample. Creams and hazy's and Vietnamese coffee porters and Viet-Irish and haterades and dubbels and goses and french toast breakfast beer. I could have lived there. I had the Threat Level Cherry - a barrel aged red w/ cherries @ 7%. The graffiti was sick. The art sick. Houston-centric photographs, memorabilia & jerseys from the city's sports franchises sick. Food trucks sick. David Adickes' Fab Four (Beatles, 36 ft. tall, for sale) statues sick.

After, we headed back to our beloved Westheimer Rd./Montrose. To Velvet Taco for chicken & waffle tacos (crisp tenders, peppered bacon, peppercorn gravy, green apple slaw, maple syrup, red chile aioli & chives in a waffle tortilla) (woof) & one very good margarita with added tajin rim (bomb). 

To Present Company, a Palm Springs style patio bar with Bowie in a striped bodysuit by Kansai Yamamoto wallpaper and a room covered in disco glass, for sassy cocktails like Stranger Danger, Are Those Space Pants?, Don't Tell the Butcher {About the Milkman}, The Whispering Eye & Plan Bee. I had something pink lit on fire with a grapefruit garnish (?). 

To Pistolero's Tequila Bar, which wasn't very good, but looked like it should be, for below-average margs. To the much more sophisticated & lux Hugo's, where we should have been considered under-dressed & underwhelming patrons, but were treated to as kindly as the posh couple ordering endless chardonnay at the end of the bar (and who so kindly offered us all a round). Derek bought us mid-level tequila shots, we pounded and left. From here Thomas & I diverted to a tattoo parlor whereupon he was tatted (insert funny anecdotes). Reunited with D$ & Sloane, headed home, ordered pizza and beer for delivery, then slept for a few hours before we'd leave on an early flight back home. Shortly thereafter I was finally able to sneak a covid test in an obscure, cagey way (tests still unavailable for the gen public & the government's release of home tests not yet accessible), and there printed faintly was my positive result. Followed by: guilt, relief, sadness, awe, vulnerability, sharing the news with those I'd put at risk. Thankfully, I did not, as far as I'm aware, get anyone I spent time with sick, including my husband. I'll thank my full vacc & booster, mask wearing, tequila drinking, weird luck for that. 

It was full of dichotomy, to find out and that which came thereafter. I had to ask myself hard questions. Some were mad/disappointed and others supportive and non-blaming. I had to reckon with the question of selfishness, with honesty, with how I'd respond if it were someone else. I was mourning the work I'd done, and I was also, briefly aware that I had just run 2:48 with covid - what that meant about what I could handle. I'm still processing, still irritated, still hurt, still in self-reflection, and it was deep in all of that in the beginning, that we were also trying to go to Argentina a week after Houston.