The long road to Capitol Hill began on July 27, 2004, when I declared that day as my first official day of training. The marathon was to be run on Halloween, which allowed me 13 weeks to train. I am not much on training, as I do not have the discipline or desire to do a lot of it. Guess I am just lazy? To get ready for this marathon, I averaged 4 days a week of running, half of those consisted of Hash runs. For those of you that don’t know the Hash is “a drinking club with a running problem.” My average run distance was 5.17 miles with my two longest runs at 13 and 14 miles. For my last marathon, I followed about the same training schedule and finished in 3:59. Ninety percent of that marathon was run under the canopy of the redwoods and the temperature was in the 60s.
I flew out on the Thursday before the marathon and my friend John picked me up at the airport. He was kind enough to put me up at his place and entertain me for the weekend. After picking up my race packet Thursday evening, we went to the Rhino Bar in Georgetown. There we met up with the ‘Everyday is Wednesday’ Hash House Harriers and consumed many beers. Never too soon to start loading up on those carbohydrates. We stumbled into his pad around 1am.
Before I knew it, we were up at 6:45am Friday morning to play golf at the University of Maryland Golf Course. We managed to finish our round of golf despite a few scattered showers throughout the day. One could only hope the cool weather would stick around for Sunday. After a late night and a round of golf, I needed some couch time in front of the television before heading out Friday night. It turned out to be a relaxing night as we just went out to Gordon Biersch for dinner and a couple of beers. On the way back to his place we stopped at the Chop House for a final beer.
Saturday, we slept in until nearly 10am before heading out for our next adventure, which was to attend the Maryland vs. Florida State college football game. What’s a college football game without a little tailgating? John and I met up with some of his friends in the stadium parking lot and partook in the pre-game festivities. Today would be the day, which Maryland would beat Florida State for the first time ever in the fifteen years they have been playing each other. After the game we went to some hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant for my pre-marathon pasta dinner and a couple glasses of wine. I managed to make it to bed by 10:30pm, but did not sleep too well because I was a little worried about waking up on time and getting to the start of the marathon.
I was up at 5:15am Sunday morning and riding the Metro train to the marathon by 6am. I was able to make it to the start, which was located at the Arlington National Cemetery, in plenty of time. As far as the scenery goes, this is definitely a great marathon to run. From the start, we ran across the Key Bridge to Georgetown and on out to Rock Creek Park. This was about the only part of the course where shade was to be found. From Rock Creek Park, we made our way to and around the National Mall where all the monuments, memorials and the Capitol building could be seen. By this time, there was no shade, it was very hot and the temperature reached into the mid 70s. This is something I had not experienced in prior marathons. I think I suffered a little heat exhaustion and dehydration. Even though I stopped at every aid station, I did not have to use the restroom from 9am until 7pm that evening. As we rounded Hanes Point along the Potomac River, I began to cramp up around mile 19. The cramps would only get worse and stay with me for the rest of the race. At mile 21, we crossed back over to Arlington where a much-needed beer check awaited at mile 22.5. I hung out for about 10 minutes and had several Dixie cups of beer. Finally after 26.2 miles, the last 0.2 being uphill, I finished in 4:45:04. The finish line was at the Iwo Jima monument, where marines awaited to place our finisher medals around our necks.
After a couple hours of resting, John and I met up with the White House Hash House Harriers for a hash. I took the walker trail which had a beer check at mile 1 and the total trail was only 2 miles long.
Monday morning I took it easy and managed to make it to the Native American Indian Smithsonian Exhibit in the afternoon. I met with my friends John and Melissa at the Rio Mexicana Restaurant for dinner. Tuesday morning, I was on a plane headed back to sunny Southern California. Overall, it was another great trip to our nation’s capital.