The town better known for the witchcraft trials of 1692 hosted 400 runners the weekend of October 1 during its inaugural “Wicked Half Marathon” and I was there. The weather was beautiful as was the course but, alas, I was not able to work any magic.
The race started at 7:00 AM and the check-in process started at 6:00 AM, so I needed to wake up at 4:30 so I could drive the hour to Salem from my home. Normally this would have been a problem, but I had returned from Germany the previous evening and jet lag worked in my favor by waking me up without an alarm clock at 4:00.
It was a dark cold ride to Salem and in the distance I could see large flashing clouds warning of impending rain. But as the sun made itself known and I neared the original town of wickedness, I could see a fine day was on tap.
I arrived so early that the organizers were still getting organized. A few milled around the parking lot, near the entrance of the school that served as the starting point and in the hallways leading up to the number pick-up table. As I walked up to pick up my number, I sensed a bit of excitement on the young volunteer’s side (“Ooh, our first customer!”). I made my way out through a group of volunteers who were divvying up witch costumes and outside to the fresh air.
As others began to arrive, I searched through “the goody bag” and was impressed by the shirt given to the runners – it was first class Tek shirt, probably the best I’ve seen in any race yet – with the Wicked Half Marathon logo. Not much else of interest in the bag though.
The race start was nearing so I took a couple of warm up runs, did my stretches and looked around at the runners. One of the people that donated to my run was planning to do this race (Sean Daly), but I had no idea what he looked like. I wasn’t wearing my “Fund Autism Research” shirt, so he wouldn’t be able to find me (I couldn’t find it in the dark).
I listened as a group of people near me chatted nervously about whether they were ready or not, and a couple of them noticed that they had reverse numbers of each other 69 and 96. I was bored and didn’t feel like I could jump into anybody’s conversation so I went outside and took another couple of laps.
I heard the call to the start so I jogged over and positioned myself with the runners. Suddenly, I realized I hadn’t put on a “ChampionChip”, so I looked at the other runner’s shoes to ensure I hadn’t somehow missed it in the goody bag….no one else had one either. In fact, the starting line was very unceremoniously marked – there was no line, no balloons….very low key indeed. The start was marked by two man-made landmarks (e.g. a fire hydrant and a telephone pole), but it worked for the size of the running field.
We took off at the sound of the “go” down a road that was bordered by water, quickly went into downtown Salem and out onto a road leaving town. The elevation changes were slight, until we arrived in Marblehead (close to mile 3 or 4) where the road rose at a noticeable incline for a couple hundred yards. At the top of this hill, I started to feel pain in my shins but kept my planned pace according to my “pace budget”.
Running fairly flat neighborhood streets for a while, we eventually came to a causeway with a harbor on one side and the ocean on the other, leading into what seemed like a small island. This small island was Marblehead at its best – beautiful homes on expansive plots of land and beautiful geography. Unfortunately, this geography included several hills (4 or 5 steeper ones).
I fought on to stay on pace, but at this point (miles 4 and 5) it started to become more difficult. Leaving the island I reached mile 6, crossed back over the causeway (very flat) and back into the less breathtaking part of Marblehead, which was flatter.
The next two miles went by with effort (these were the fastest target paces – 9:15) but I stayed on pace. However, at mile 9, I started to slip from my target pace. By mile 10, I felt as if I was running at the target pace of 9:30, but when I looked at my watch, I was running considerably slower. By my mile 12, I was seriously struggling. The last mile, I was working just to finish.
During the last 200 yards, when I could see the finish line in the distance, a pair of female runners next to me were talking, and one of the obviously the stronger of the two ask the second “Here we go, let’s finish strong…you got anything left?”. The second said “No I don’t” and I thought “Me neither”. The first said, “C’mon, we’re almost there, can’t you give it a little push?”, the second: “No, there’s nothing left”. At that point I almost said “Dump your annoying friend and limp in with me…I’m dead too”.
My time turned out to be 2:11 and a few seconds, one of my slowest times and I really cant’ tell what caused me to turn such a stinker in…..except possibly for the fact that I’d just returned from Germany the night before and had been at Oktoberfest on Thursday evening drinking liters of beer and eating Pork.
But in the end, I enjoyed a beautiful day on a beautiful course and a great post-race massage. As a matter of fact, I have to say that the race amenities for an inaugural race were outstanding (besides the massages, the best shirt I’ve seen yet, mile markers every mile, “Gu” gel, frequent water and Gatorade stops, and a great medal for every runner). And I was done by 9:30, which left me the rest of the day to get everything else I needed done.
Incidentally, when I arrived home and checked the race results online, I found that Sean Daly – the donor that had told me he planned to run this race – had finished a few people ahead of me. Chances are we ran close to each other the whole race but had no idea of it. Perhaps one of these days we’ll meet up at another race.
Next race up: The Boston Half Marathon, one week from now.
I started to write this posting last Saturday shortly after I ran this race, but it’s taken me a full week to complete it. In fact, I ran the BAA Half Marathon today, but that story will come shortly.
Filed under: Half Marathons
