Scalene

I slept in the spare bedroom the night before so I wouldn’t wake my wife or son. The alarm went off at 3:45 and I reached over, turning it off. The kitty was laying down on the carpet in the hallway, asleep. I walked downstairs and sat at the kitchen table in the dark, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, the blower to the furnace from the garage. I had 3 hours and needed to eat. I had a energy bar and a banana with some orange juice, in the dark looking out over my street. A possum crossed over the street on a telephone line towards my neighbor’s house. The energy bar was dry in my mouth. I finished it and the banana and went upstairs to shower.

I showered quickly and laid back in bed for another hour and a half, getting up around 6, putting my running clothes on. I wrapped duct tape around the insteps of both feet numerous times, around, around, tearing the tape with my hands, putting on my socks and running shoes. I tiptoed downstairs to my race bag, and fastened the timing chip to my shoes and pinned the race number to my shirt. I got a sports drink out of the refrigerator and got in my car, backing out slowly into the dark street, watching the garage close, looking up at my bedroom.

It was ten miles to the beach, but it was early in the morning and it took about 15 minutes to get there. Policemen were directing traffic into the city beach parking lot, I followed the line into the lot and parked my car, taking my car key off the key chain, untying my running shoe, pulling the lace out of a couple of holes, threading it through the key and back into the shoe, where it would be safe for the morning. I walked up the parking lot towards the street. The lot was full and there were pockets of people milling about, stretching, tying shoes, jogging slowly up and down the lot, drinking coffee, talking, laughing, waiting for an open bathroom. Over a rail and down onto Pacific Coast Highway a man was talking into a microphone from a cherry picker. It was cold and I walked, away towards Beach Boulevard, then back towards the starting line. I stood at the starting line, looking up at a electronic clock. Behind me, beyond Saddleback Mountain and through fog and mist the sun was rising, but all it did was make things less black and more grey. The highway was divided by a median; two different races were starting at the same time, the runners in my race were supposed to line up on the southbound side of the highway, the other race on the northbound side.

An announcer was talking, he was naming people in the race who had run it numerous times, or had conquered a disease. I was walking in place to keep warm, looking around, listening to music on a player I had strapped to my arm. It came closer to the start time and the announcer called everyone to the start line. On the left side of the street there were signs at 5 yard intervals with times on them. We were supposed to line up in order of our expected race pace. I understood what to do. I had run in crowded races with narrow start lines before, where the gun sounds and it takes you 5 minutes or longer to walk through the start line and as much as a mile before the crowd thins out enough that you can start running. The idea was to stagger the crowd with the fastest in the front. The sign for my pace time was towards the middle of the pack. I waited, looking down at my shoes, walking in place, listening to music. Most of the crowd was on the northbound side of the Coast Highway.

They began to play the national anthem. I took my headphones out and hat off, looking up at an American flag affixed to the bridge that connected the Hyatt to the beach parking lot. The crowd cheered. I turned on my footpod, an accelerometer that would let me know how fast I was running, and started my watch. It picked up my heart rate. I breathed slowly, feeling the air filling my chest, the pumping of my heart in my throat, looking at my watch, trying to sense my heart beating the 107 beats a minute my watch was telling me. Trying to feel it slow down as I breathed slower, speed up as I moved my feet. The announcer was counting down from 10. I stood up straight, checked to make sure my shoes were tied, turned up the volume on my music player, and started the clock on my watch as the horn went off, leaning forward, walking quickly, then jogging. I got through the starting line about 5 seconds after the start hearing a beep from the sensor as it detected the chip strapped to my foot. Beyond the starting line runners from the crowded side of the street ran across the median onto my side, it was slightly uphill on this section of the Pacific Coast Highway and I could see a sea of heads, bouncing as they ran. A faster song started and I turned up the volume, speeding up as I started to work my way through the crowd, tall, thin, old, young, some already walking, others passing me. I passed the Huntington Beach Pier and looked at my watch. I was going faster than I wanted but my heart rate was lower and I felt really good, moving in between people, the music loud, people watching from the sidewalks, the side streets blocked off.

I was moving. Music was playing and I was alone but not alone. I heard cheers from the sidewalk, a band was playing on a street corner. Heads were bobbing all around me, arms swinging, feet stepping, one in front of the other in front of the other. There was more room to move. I walked quickly through a water station two miles in, taking a cup of water, sipping it, looking at my watch. There was a bike path between the Coast Highway and the beach and a police officer on a motorcycle was riding it slowly, lights flashing. Behind him the leader was running, head back, wearing gloves in the cold. It was disheartening to see how fast he was going. I crested the bluffs at Seapoint and ran downhill, the lone runner becoming a steady line of runners coming back at me towards the starting line.

At the bottom of the hill arrows separated the marathoners, guiding them to the left and to the turnaround the leaders had already gone through. I circled the pylon, heading back southbound, and immediately felt the cold breeze. My pace slowed, my heart rate quickened to 165, and I knew now I was going too slow and was working too hard. I had 3 and a half miles to get back to the starting line, and another 19 miles to go once I got there. I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever finish this. The sun was still hidden behind the haze, to my left I saw thousands of people jogging, walking up the Coast Highway. Less than a thousand people were running the marathon and there were only a handful of other runners on the path near me. I felt like I was on my own. I turned up the music and tried to find the rhythm, in my stride, my breathing.

Time passed. I was trying to run 10 minute miles. I had picked up over a minute going out with the wind and had given it all back in two miles. I made the turn again just beyond the starting line at seven miles out and I was down by 40 seconds, but I was running with the wind again. This was a six mile stretch up Pacific Coast Highway, mostly downwind. I tried to move with the current. I found a good pace that would get me about 10 seconds a mile back and tried to settle in. I was running on the bike path astride Bolsa Chica State Beach. Many of the half marathoners were jogging or walking back in the other direction on the highway, but I wasn’t looking at them. I looked far ahead, focusing my vision on the top of a light pole in the distance, trying not to move my head, to move as quietly, as efficiently as possible.

People in campers and RVs were parked at the beach and I heard cheering, saw people moving across the path with surfboards, smelled bacon cooking, bonfires burning, smoke and ashes carried up by the wind into the clearing fog. A hard candy was handed to me to eat.

Twenty years ago I had run this path numerous times in cross country and track practice. I had run for a year in high school, and then had discovered cigarettes, and had smoked close to a pack a day for close to twenty years, until 4 months ago. I hadn’t wanted to quit, I just knew that I should. It had been a good run. I had gotten a long ride out of minimal exercise, poor diet, and excessive cigarette and alcohol consumption. This morning was payback. I passed by one last travel trailer, the owner sitting in a folding beach chair under an awning, a small dog at his feet on a leash, a cat sitting in the doorway of the trailer. I was thirteen miles out and made the turn, starting back southbound towards the starting line. The route crossed over to the other side of the highway, away from the beach and against some open wetlands. It was low land and the wind cut across it, hard in my face. My pace slowed down and I was tired.

I walked through another water station, remembering the cat I saw in the trailer’s doorway. He looked like mine. Eastern, long haired, numerous shades of brown. Right now mine would be home sleeping, moving from room to room with whoever was there, then falling asleep in a corner. If there was more than one person there who he loved he’d lay down somewhere in between them. Equidistant Kitty. Isosceles Kitty.

The course took me down the Coast Highway, and then inland towards Central Park. I was tired and hot. I had found some electrolyte drink and gel at a water station 16 miles in, and I felt better after taking them. I followed a girl in front of me, just staying behind her, letting my vision blur, my mind clear, trying to make time pass without thinking, without listening to what my body was telling me, without looking. I wanted to blink my eyes and be a hundred minutes in the future, done running.

Down in the park the wind was quiet, there were many people lining the race path, it was louder and the path changed direction frequently, looping through the park, it was easier to run here and keep your focus than it was on the highway, where you were looking at a straight road that stretched miles in the distance. There were things to do other than obsess over your breathing, your heart rate, the deteriorating condition of your knees, the blisters that had formed on both arches, the dryness in your mouth, the salt that was caking on your forehead. You could look at the path, where it was smooth, where rough, where cracked by earthquakes, where it widened, narrowed, where it was lined with people, where it was empty, where the next turn was, who was in front of you, whether you would pass them now or after the turn.

I followed the crowd out of the park, up a large hill, and back towards the water. This part of the course was shared by both races, and I was passing the last of the half marathoners, most of whom were walking. The wind seemed to be back in my face again, and I thought about how many different directions the course was oriented in, and how many of them seemed to be facing the wind. This didn’t seem to make geographic or meteorological sense. I was a minute and a half behind where I wanted to be, and could not fathom how to make that up in the last 5 miles. My heart rate was 185 and every step hurt. This was what the race was about, I thought. Ignoring everything your mind tells you.

Bands were still playing back on the Coast Highway, the sun was out and the clouds had gone and it was 70 degrees, the street was lined with people, many of whom had finished the race and were walking back to their cars, homes, friends. They had medals around their neck and arms around someone they loved and they were happy. I looked up and could see the finish line in the distance, the yellow readout of the clock a blur. I ran faster, passing people, in and out between them as the path narrowed. I turned my watch off as I crossed over the finish line and heard the beep as the sensor picked up the chip on my shoe.

A metallic poncho of some sort was handed to me, it felt like it was made of very thin aluminum foil. I received a medal and stopped while my chip was cut from my shoe. I had stopped while this happened and I found I couldn’t move again. My knees had locked up. I waited, draping the poncho over me. People were finishing behind me and I couldn’t stay where I was. I moved slowly, bending my knees as little as possible, swaying first onto one blistered foot, then the other, walking like I was on stilts around a corner to an area where water, fruit, and bagels were laid out. I ate a banana and some oranges, standing up, walking in place to keep my knees from locking up again. I had been running all day and just wanted to rest, but I had to keep moving. I felt like the race would never end. I couldn’t decide what to do about the blisters on my feet, or whether I should take off my shoes, or how I would get up again if I sat down to do it. I had to get back to my car and it was almost a mile away. I wanted to cry.

I untied my shoes and, taking a banana and bottle of water, slowly started moving back towards my car. I stepped gingerly, trying to avoid aggravating my knees or my blistered feet. I got to the car and got in slowly, taking off my shoes, seeing the popped, quarter sized red blisters on both insteps. I started the car, turning on the air conditioner, looking at myself in the mirror, my forehead white with salt. I slowly backed out and drove out of the lot, carefully around the finishing runners and their families.

I got home and squeezed my car into the garage and turned off the engine, the door sliding shut behind me. There was only room for the car door to open partially. I tilted the steering wheel all the way up and slid the seat all the way back, leaning to the side trying to get my legs out of the car. Bending my knees was painful. I slid forward, pulling myself up with the door and doorframe of the car. I leaned against the dryer, closing the car door, steadying myself. I took off my shirt and left it on top of the washing machine. My knees had stiffened dramatically since I got in the car and the two steps into the kitchen from the garage were difficult. I walked slowly to the stairs, stepping up the first one, leaning to the side to put weight on the handrail, trying to take weight off my knees. The pain was very sharp. I needed a shower but I couldn’t make it up the stairs just yet. I stopped at the third step and sat down, catching my breath, waiting for the pain to subside.

I went to the downstairs bathroom and washed up a little bit, then went into the kitchen and took a sports drink and a beer out of the refrigerator, and filled up two Ziploc bags with ice cubes, wrapping them with towels. The kitty had come downstairs, he rubbed against my leg as I opened my beer. He followed me as I went to the family room and laid on the couch. I turned on the TV. The Super Bowl pregame show was on. I sipped my beer. It was bright outside but the blinds were closed. The kitty walked out of the room to the base of the stairs, laying down on the cool wood, looking back at me, then up the stairs, then away, licking his paw.