Approaching seven weeks of columnizing, it was time to see where my feet belong - on the road or in my mouth.
After I left Where the Wild Things Are Friday night, I remembered the looming commitment I made to run the Columbus half marathon Sunday. Just the way those overgrown stuffed animals frolicked on screen reminded me of the nearly two hours I would spend pounding pavement. Suddenly, a race was in my face.
When I got downtown, I realized the starting line wasn't much of one at all. Nine thousand scantily-clad movers and shakers assembled at the corner of Broad and Third Street at 7:30 a.m. in something I could only describe as a trifecta of running power. It was a balmy 32 degrees outside. If things went south in the throng of people and heat of the moment, I would take a wrong turn and amble the streets of Columbus.
I stood marooned in the middle of the intersection. Hailing from a suburb of a suburb of Youngstown, it struck me odd to wade through a sea of people enumerating twice as many as my hometown. Everything felt like a deleted scene from Cloverfield. Yet, the image of a Brutus Buckeye head descending on us was comforting.
Organizers spared us the ceremonial balderdash and just shot the gun. I crossed the line 10 minutes later, and began my life as a long distance runner.
By the first mile marker, I had hurdled two families of four, cut off three grandmothers and stiff-armed one elder runner getting a cup of Gatorade. On one occasion, I passed a corporate bigwig (sporting $150 Adidas 1 running shoes with a microprocessor in the heel) and his yes man, a skittish, corn-fed chinchilla-looking thing who visibly preferred sipping cocoa on the sidewalks.
The common misconception is that the half marathon is a race. In fact, it's more like an aerobic, sweaty shin splints-inducing movie. After each block's street performers fell out of earshot, the next band's bass sounded on the horizon. After ten or so miles, I questioned the logic of those wearing headphones
Mile 11 introduced the race's only hill, a lazy climb to the over the West Freeway. Gusts whipped down High Street, and I scoffed. The wind paled next to what Athenians face on the bike trail, and the hill was a mere speed bump after running on Blackburn Road.
Then Mile 12 came. Suddenly our cruise down the drag of Columbus became an inane round of Mario Kart - and somebody just used his thunder power-up. As one particularly dasypygal older gentleman phrased it, my legs were noodled. Worse still, I nearly slipped on three banana peels lined across the street. I scoured fore and aft of my group's position for a depraved desperado to send a green shell our way.
Then, lo, at the 13th mile marker, there was my song - Born to Run. It irked me the entire race that I hadn't heard it yet. Wasn't that the marathon song? In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream...
I gained a second wind and picked up speed. Half a block later, I was stifling a dry heave. Cheered on by my more than patient girlfriend and barely keeping my cookies, I crossed the finish line: one hour, 40 minutes, 13 seconds - a shrugworthy effort.
Thousands of runners enveloped around me. Some puked, some danced like heretics and some spoke in tongues. Strangers were hugging strangers. I saw babies kissed and Eastern European flags flown. I grabbed my aluminum foil solar blanket and free skullcap. Half astronaut and half children's book character, I was the king of the wild things.
Adam Liebendorfer is a sophomore studying journalism and Spanish and a columnist for The Post. If you have any marathon stories to share, drop him a line at al211307@ohiou.edu.
4 Opinion
Adam Liebendorfer
