Ecstacy Plus a Little Agony at 13.1 Miles

At the finish line, there could be only one exclamation – a primal, guttural rumble from depths I’d never before touched.

This barbaric yawp would have pleased Walt Whitman as much as it amused my fellow finishers at 2:28:35 Likely, that sound will never be heard again without similar duress.

It was that kind of half marathon. Every step in the double-digit miles was grueling, but much better than the first attempt on that sweltering October morning.

Rain pounded Nashville through the early morning and a completing the damp course in the drizzle looked likely. Thanks to the wave start – and jumping from my assigned corral (25) to that my of training mates (8), we were pounding pavement about 15 minutes after the Kenyan sprinters embarked on their 2:15 marathons.

Only moment of the course have stayed with me. With 100,000 spectators lining the course, no runner was alone. Maybe that makes it so bearable.

I nearly took myself out of it by fiddling my new knee brace around Mile 8 – it never fit properly for more than a mile in the last five. But that damned band held, even if it knocked me off a better pace (until Mile 8, a 2:15 finish was looking realistic).

Can I properly sum up the euphoria that struck at the finish? Months of training – nearly derailed by a knee injury and a last-minute sinus infection that endured till three days before race time – played out on the streets of Nashville.

For the most part, I cruised, never stopping except to adjust the infernal brace.

Minus a little singing along with “Salute Your Solution” by the Raconteurs and ELO’s incomparable “Don’t Bring Me Down” (“Don’t bring me dowwwwn, Bruce” or something like that – try not to hum along), I barely spoke.

Then again, I didn’t see any of the four dozen people I know in Nashville, not even Donnie Moo and his towering American flag Mad Hatter cap.

The only words in my direction were “Run, dam fool.” I encouraged it, wearing my technical shirt from the 2007 Dam Fool Four-Miler at the Alum Creek Dam. That shirt motivates me almost as the catcalls - I accept my foolishness for running this distance.

I vaguely remembering shouting “Guess what? I got a fever” to a guy with a cowbell past in Mile 12; beyond that, it was an ever-deepening chorus of grunts ever I passed a milestone or a photographer shooting official race photos.

Ever since the finish line, I felt nearly crippled, with my leg muscles only knowing relief during a two-hour window after hot showers.

On stairs, I totter like an old man, and wonder if the full marathon would have earned me a wheelchair.

Then I recall the post-race glow and the euphoria that a 13.1-mile run infuses in every sinew.

Every thought after that is about recovering for the next half-marathon – will it be the RC Cola and Moon Pie 10-Miler in Bell Buckle, the Philadelphia Long Distance Run in September, or the delightfully flat Columbus Nationwide Half Marathon.

Let the left knee stop aching, and I’ll get back to you on the schedule.

Two months soaking in a hot bath should just about do it.