I left the house at 5:03 a.m. headed for downtown Greenville. When I arrived and parked, I headed out in the cold dard to find packett pickup and make it to the shuttle bus. At 6:30, we were on our way to Lake Village, Arkansas. The half-marathon starts at the Cow Pen. The full-marathon starts on the bridge at Wiskey Chute Bayou which is just past the causeway bridge on Lake Chicot which I have swum under so many times.
The last time I did the full, there were fires, maybe twelve of them, in the open field beside where the busses parked at the start of the race. This time there were no fires, but there were porta-potties: fourteen of them. You think fourteen was enough? I went to the ditch like we all did back in 2016, I think it was.
At 8:00 a.m., we were on our way. It was only a mile or so before I settled in beside an old man who looked pretty steady. It's always good to have some help with pacing if you can find it. I found it. Or so I thought. After two miles, I started talking to this guy. He was John Leonhart (pronounced Linhart if I heard it right). About three miles in, I asked him how many marathons he had run.
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| My buddy for the day, John Leonhart. |
"Two hundred and twenty-six," was his answer.
What!?!?!?!? "Are you kidding?" was my response.
He wasn't kidding. He told me that he lacked eight states from doing a marathon in all 50 states TWICE. And he was 71-years old. Dude, I thought I was old. Then we wound up running with another man who was 71. Imagine, three men running together, and I am the youngster at 66.
At mile four, I had to take a pee in the porta-john. It took awhile to catch back up to the guys. Then one of the 71-year olds noticed the fat lady ahead of us. She was doing run/walk which drives my friend Vicki Jee crazy. But I learned a long time ago that to survive a half-marathon or a full, you have to leave the fat ladies alone.
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| The fat lady who caused so much trouble on our run. |
The other 71 year old man took off after the fat lady. When we got onto Highway 82, about seven miles in, we caught back up with him, and he confessed that he had burned himself out in the process. Somewhere about that time, I heard my long lost pride calling my name from somewhere deep within my soul. I, however, refused to anwser.
I had to duck into the next porta-potta and then we caught and passed the fat lady who was wearing shocking pink leggins. A lovely sight for sure. Us passing her that is. At mile ten, I hit the potty for the third time since we began. It took me .75 of a mile to catch back up to John. When I did catch him he asked, "Do you have a prostrate problem?"
"Probably," was my response.
Somewhere after mile eleven, I asked him what his PR was, and he told me 2:32. Dude, that is blazing. I also asked if he went through something when the PRs stopped coming. He told me he did, that it happened in 1981, that until then he PRd every marathon he ran. He failed to PR in '81 and never did again. I didn't ask anymore questions. Men are not comfortable talking about their feelings, and I was a stranger although an imperfect one.
Around mile twelve, I chatted with a 66-year old woman from northern California. She had forty-five of the 50 states marathoned. Then we got to the Mississippi River at 13.1 miles. Did you know it takes two and a half miles to cross the beautiful bridge? You climb for over a mile. It was here that John began to pull away from me. First a step, then two, then five. "That's okay," I thought. "I'll catch him on the way down." But on the way down, the gap only grew. And he was running with the lady from California.
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| Mile fourteen happens on the river bridge. |
Once you get across the bridge, you have six dreadful miles on the arrow-straight, almost treeless, flat and windy Highway 82. It was just past the sixteen mile mark that my right knee began to hurt. It felt like illiotibial band pain. Oh boy. So at mile seventeen, I took a walk break and clicked off my watch. I had decided ahead of time that if I walked, I would trun it off and record only what I ran.
I used a few more porta-johns, and the walk breaks became more frequent and much longer. Eventually, by around mile nineteen, I could only shuffle .05 at a time. Then the pain, which vanished when I walked, would get the best of me. So I did short shuffles and long walks as the miles slowly clicked off. My goal became just to finish and hopefully to run twenty miles. I did both. Near the end, a police car with his blue lights on pulled up behind me. Did that mean I was in last place?
I didn't care. Remember when my long lost pride called my name? It called again and flipped me the middle finger. I ignored it and kept walking with a shuffle here and there. When I crossed the railroad track on Washington Street, I think it is, I could see the finish. Slowly I drew closer. Then the cop that was following me, pulled up beside me. "You made it," he said. "Congratulations."
For some reason, that touched me. I fought back tears. That always happens. When you empty the tank, the last thing to come out is a cup full of tears. I crossed the line. They gave me my finisher's medal, a nice one, and pointed me to the food inside the building where we picked up our packets. Inside I sat down. Several people came by and chatted. We talked like long lost friends, and we didn't even know each others' names. Shared suffering does that. It creates a bond, a brotherhood, a sisterhood.
I sat a few minutes while an engraver engraved my medal. You could get three lines for free. Mine now reads:
Zane Hodge
Time is Classified
February 4, 2023
Then I grabbed two pieces of pizza and left walking slowly and gingerly back to my truck. Will I do it again? I don't know. But if I were a betting man, I'd take odds that
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