"Just put one foot in front of the other" Kris Kringle from Santa Clause is Coming to Town
Millions of footsteps, thousands of miles, hundreds of towns, scores of people, and one epic journey of survivorship! Christian McKvoy made a promise to run across America in honor of cancer survivors and on Saturday December 16, 2006 Christian kept that promise by running his last 26.2 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is one long word that dribbles from my mind, made famous form the movie Mary Poppins, the song describes using the word as a miraculous way to talk oneself out of difficult situations, and even as a way to change one's mood. While I ran along over the weekend I got the same effect by simply replacing this word with ChristianMcKvoy and repeated this to myself many times throughout the day and will continue to do so……
The Day
With the temps reaching the 50’s and my dad accompanying me on the road to Westerly, Rhode Island the day was already going well. As the runners gathered for the start my nerves settled down when I saw Christian in the crowd and I remember the reasons behind the race. With a quick shout out and good luck from Christian we were off. The first few miles always go by fast; I was feeling good running at a nice comfortable pace with the idea to save some energy for the end. At mile eight I puked some of my pre-made Cytomax all over the road, I definitely made it to strong, my stomach was a mess, my mouth and nose where burning. I kept moving and at the next couple stops I made sure to add some more water to the mix and things got better. Mile 15 my I caught up with my dad and he ran along with me, helping pass some time and gave me some very encouraging words. Over the next few miles the course continued to go up and down and by mile 20 I was beginning to feel the affect of the hills and the pounding of pavement in my legs. There was also a half-marathon start at 12:30 P.M. and it was around this point in the race that many were passing. I got the opportunity congratulate a runner with the words Badwater Ultramarathon tattooed on his calf, he mentioned running it in 2005 and we talked briefly about Vermont 100, he said it was a wonderful event and a good first 100 miler, he’ll also be running Vermont again this year. As the day progressed I continued to push my pace and I was now moving as fast as my two legs would carry me. I was very happy to see mile 24 come and go. 25, 26, .2 and finally the finish line! As I came down the shoot I missed the official clock, funny I walked away from the finish line with no idea what my time was, at that point I was more interested in the food tent! My dad and I hung around to watch Christian finish and it was a grand sight; he continued down to the beach and dove into the Atlantic Ocean, what a finish! I was humbled to be among the running crowd at this weekend’s Coast to Coast: A Run for Survivorship Marathon. It was one awe-inspiring day!
Results
Of course later that evening I checked cool running’s website for the results and was pleased to read a 3:40 next to my name, 18 minutes faster than Boston, overall a nice improvement and wonderful way to end the season.
Headline News
Marathon Maniac #433 locked, sealed and delivered
I’m not sure how they found me but somehow they found me and over the weekend I was committed to the InSane AsyLum “I’M A RUNNING MANIAC” Mwahahahaha!, Muhuhahaha!, Mwahahaha!
Run on!
