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Running through the Quarter

Mid-race, in the Garden District

Going into Audubon Park

Passing mile 20

PR in sight

Crossing the line

The night before running the Seattle Marathon, an ad caught my eye in the Seattle Marathon flyer.  The Mardi Gras Marathon was scheduled for 5 February, with all net proceeds going to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. 

Many people have very strong feelings about what happened in New Orleans in the wake of the hurricanes.  Never in my lifetime had a major U.S. city been rendered uninhabitable.  Most of the infrastructure that defines a city was decimated.  Estimates are that about 1/3 of the population had returned to the city.  Major questions remain about how the city will be rebuilt.  These questions are complicated by the highly charged socioeconomic and racial dynamics, exacerbated by the dismal government response to the disaster.

I had some concerns about going.  It was unclear to me how much of the city was actually functioning.  Did I need to worry about clean drinking water?  Were there people to provide support on the course?  Other family members expressed concerns about air quality.  It’s stunning to think about New Orleans as a developing country, isn’t it?

After thinking about it a bit, I decided that I’d be able to adapt to any situation that I found there.  I’d eat and drink carefully until learning more, and would be self-sufficient on the course if I needed to be.

Then the day before my departure New Orleans was hit by a couple of tornadoes that ripped roofs off buildings and knocked power out at the airport.  I double-checked to confirm that my flights were not disrupted by this latest unplanned natural phenomenon, then packed up and left.

On the Road

While traveling, I heard the first of many stories from people displaced by the storm.  It’s one thing to hear these things on radio or television.  It’s another to speak to people much like yourself, with kids about the same age as yours.  On my flight into New Orleans were a mom and her 5 yr old daughter returning home for the first time.  They’d left only days before the storm, and were reuniting with the little girl’s dad who had been working there.  I watched them as they waited for their bags.  The little girl was beside herself with excitement, almost as if they were simply returning from a long vacation.

I heard this same theme a number of times from people describing how coming home felt to them.  They’d speak wistfully about all that had changed.  About people who had relocated they’d say “well, they haven’t come back yet”.  It seems hard for New Orleanians to call another place home.

As we approached from the north, we could see the blue roof tarps forming a patchwork throughout the city.  We came in over Lake Pontchartrain, with the vast wetlands visible to the east, the bending Mississippi to the south, and some of the numerous canals to the west.  During the storm, many neighborhoods along the lake were underwater, and I found myself trying to envision what it would have been like for the big lake to claim the land around it.

Arriving

I checked into the hotel, I dressed for a run, then headed out along St. Charles for a simple out and back run.  Part of my routine before a race is to go out for a short (20-30 minutes), and to mix in several minute-long accelerations.  I mostly take it easy, but also to stretch my legs out a bit, and remind myself how to pick up the pace a little.  I passed the bleachers that had been set up for Mardi Gras (several weeks hence).  Many of the businesses along the street were still closed too.  It was warm, and the wind was stiff, coming from the west.  The run was just okay – I felt tired and achy, not too confident of a fast race.

I passed time the day before the race taking pictures around the French Quarter.  This part of town had no flooding, so the beautiful old buildings were still intact.  With fewer tourists in the Quarter, it was definitely quieter.  My camera led some people to believe that I was affiliated with a magazine or newspaper, so several came up and volunteered their stories as I walked along Decatur and Royal, stopping in some museums, galleries, and antique shops. 

As the day passed, I developed a feeling for just how much of a treasure a city like this is.  There is a tangible sense of place.  The wonderful (and largely undamaged) houses in the Quarter and the Garden District have a real sense of atmosphere.  There really is no place quite like this.  This felt clearer because the tourists and inhabitants are fewer.  The people I spoke with expressed true love for their city.  It is a hard place to live now – the rebuilding efforts bring a thousand pieces of red tape on top of the profound loss people have experienced.  You have to love a place to live like this.

One Last Adventure

Let me say now that I hate the last few days before a marathon.  By then, I’m not going to make myself any faster.  And there are about ten thousand ways to screw the race up.  One could turn an ankle running on a trail or sidewalk.  It’s possible to eat some bad food.  Maybe you don’t get enough sleep, and get sick.  Or – you could discover a new adventure entirely, as I did.

As the afternoon waned, I began walking back across the Quarter, taking pictures as I went.   I paused for a minute on Bourbon Street, looking across at a picturesque balcony, decked out with flowers, and something blew into my left eye.  I worked at it for a minute, and dislodged my left contact lens.  It flew out, landing on the sidewalk.  Before that moment, I couldn’t have imagined kneeling down to touch the ground on Bourbon Street (yick), but that’s what I did.  Rather than carefully feel along the sidewalk, I went down on one knee and heard a crunch.  And that’s how I came to run this marathon with one good eye.

As there was not much to be done about it, I simply dropped off my camera, then headed back out to eat dinner.  I found a good plate of pasta primavera at a place along Royal.  This is a tradition (or superstition) of mine, eating the same thing the night before each key race : pasta with vegetables, in plain olive oil.  It’s pretty tasty, if bland.  And it seems to do the trick without taxing my system too much.  Stomach full, I headed back to my room, laid my things out for the morning, and fell asleep reading a good book.

Race Day

The alarm went off at 5:45 AM, effectively 3:45 for me.  I woke up, dressed, and ate.  Then had a cup of tea, and did a little bit of stretching in the room before heading out. 

Going outside, I joined a crowd of people for the walk to the starting line in front of the Superdome.  It was chilly out, probably about 45 – perfect for a mossback like me.  The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and the weather was nice and clear.  I arrived with only a little time to spare.

As we lined up, the announcer told us that people from all 50 states and 11 countries had come to New Orleans to join the 41^st running of the Mardi Gras Marathon.  Not surprisingly there were more out of towners than locals.  We packed into the starting lanes, counted down, and then we were off!

Running the Race

We headed south on Poydras through the business district.  The crowd was pretty thick, much the same as the first mile of the Seattle Marathon.  As we ran, I noticed that many of the businesses were still closed.  This is where some of the looting occurred.  The water levels here were pretty modest.  As we turned onto Peters Street, we passed the first mile marker, and people began to settle into a regular pace.  I had decided to keep my heart rate down below 150 as much as possible for the first 10 miles, even at the cost of slower splits.  Overall I felt okay, although I was running on tired legs.  I’d raced several times in the weeks before, probably a mistake. 

We traced the southern edge of the French Quarter, along Decatur Street.  The crowds here were pretty loud, and I enjoyed looking at the beautiful old buildings.  We passed St Louis Cathedral, and then French Market before turning north on Esplanade.  At the turn, I noticed the old U.S. Mint building, now the Lousiana State Museum (still unfortunately closed).  The two miles up Esplanade took us up to City Park, and into some areas where the flooding had been pretty severe.

As we ran along the edge of City Park, the crowds thinned quite a bit.  We were running along the side Bayou St. John, and the houses just to the other side were deserted.  There were no cars, no people, no signs of ordinary life in a city neighborhood.  The other runners were pretty quiet here too, as people seemed to notice how things around us had changed. 

Passing over Bayou St. John at mile 6, we ran a short out-and-back leg through a neighborhood.  Until last August, this had been a pretty nice place to live.  There were a mix of older and newer homes, some of them pretty big.  Some of the houses had trailers in front, but there were very few people along the road here.  As we ran passed the empty houses, I thought hard about how things would have been after the storm.  There was seven feet of water here, taller than me and deep enough to do a lot of damage.  We’d heard that the standing water was pretty nasty stuff too, including raw sewage and petroleum-based toxins among other things.  The folks along Mirabeau Avenue probably lost everything they’d had to leave behind.  When allowed, they’d come back to a thick layer of smelly silt covered their furniture and other belongings.  Their pictures and other keepsakes were gone.  And – as the locals I’d spoken to had told me – their hearts were broken too.

Returning to City Park, we ran to a turnaround at mile 8.  My splits were pretty steady, although unimpressive, and my heart rate was holding in the low 150s.  Despite my misgivings, things seemed to be going according to plan.  As I turned to the south, I began scanning the crowd of oncoming runners.  Backtracking south went pretty quickly, and we turned back into midcity towards the Superdome.

Just before the half marathoners split off to their finish, I was joined by a young buck named Richie, running his first marathon.  He’d been a chemical engineer in New Orleans prior to the storm.  A proud graduate of Tulane, he’d relocated to Florida and become a bond trader.  While he enjoyed the new line of work, he really missed his hometown, and talked about how he planned to come back when he could.  He told me how the city “pulls you home”, and complained that Tulane was cutting some of the academic programs they needed most (all the engineering programs but chemical engineering).  We agreed that they were missing a huge opportunity for engineering internships as the city rebuilt, as well as driving away sorely-needed talent.

Shaun, another first-time marathoner joined us around mile 12.  A chemical engineering student, he and Richie chatted about professional opportunities, and then we all talked about first marathons.  Both of them had a goal of finishing in under four hours.  They’d only gone up to 18 miles in training, and were nervous about “hitting the wall”. 

As we wound around the Superdome, and split from the half-marathoners, I noticed my heart rate starting to creep up towards 160, so I backed off a bit.  We made the turn into the Garden District just past mile 14, and the setting changed.  We were now running along tree-lined Pyrtania Street, amidst beautiful old homes untouched by flooding.  The next four miles were really nice.  There were intermittent crowds, police at every intersection controlling traffic, and these wonderful houses to look at.

By the time we turned into Audubon Park just before mile 19, I was definitely feeling tired.  Richie had fallen back a little by then, but Shaun and I were still running together.  The loop around the park was a little disorienting.  I probably ran a mile before realizing that we’d turned around and were heading east again.  As we hit mile 20, I decided to try doing a minute-long acceleration.  It was something I’d tried a little during training, and was very effective for shaking the late-mile complaints out of my system.  As I picked up the pace, I said to Shaun “… and now the race begins” (he probably thought I was insane). 

For that minute, I was able to pick up my pace significantly.  I thought for a while about doing this at each mile marker until the end.  Doing this at mile 21 was harder though.  In examining my speed/distance/heart rate plots later, I saw that I was going from a 8:45 mile pace to around a 7:00 mile pace during each acceleration.  It’s not surprising that I was worried about having something left in my tank after doing this a couple of times.  The thing I didn’t notice until later was that I’d run my fastest mile so far going from mile 21 to 22, by nearly 25 seconds.  That’s another reason I must have felt the strain.  Shaun tried to make conversation with me, talking about baseball (I love talking about baseball).  I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good conversationalist though.  At this point he went ahead by about 25-50 yards.

My pace from mile 22 to mile 25 was sort of ragged.  Sometimes I was able to pick it up to nearly an 8:00/mile pace, other times it was more like 9:30.  My hips were misaligned, so I was pulling a bit more on my right side, feeling like my left leg was longer.   

By now my heart rate average was going into the mid 160s.  In that range, I’m definitely going to feel it after a little while.  I tried to stretch my stride a little, lean forward a little, and feel some momentum going into the home stretch.  I didn’t allow myself to look at my overall time, just the individual splits.  But as I passed the late mile markers and heard the time called out, I calculated that I was within range of a PR, and certainly able to break 3:50.  The key was to keep myself within reach, but to leave enough for a good kick at the end. 

Going from mile 24 to 25, I had my second-slowest split, so figured it was time to get moving.  I picked up the pace gradually, as we ran north on Girod Street.  I approached the Superdome and spotted one of the final turns, then gave it what I had left.  I started passing more people, and heard the announcer at the finish.  As I came around the north end of the Superdome, I could see the finish.  Because I had only one good eye, I couldn’t quite make out the time until I was pretty close.

The race clock ticked past 3:47, and I was pretty sure I had a PR.  Crossing the line, I clicked my watch off, and saw that I’d finished in 3:46:12, beating my previous best by about 55 seconds.

That’s just over 2 seconds a mile.  All those seconds add up, don’t they?

Barely able to breath, I ducked to receive my medal, and turned in my chip.  I walked around a bit, and then sat to enjoy what had become a beautiful, sunny day.  A few minutes later, marathon maniac Steve Supkoff of Issaquah, greeted me.  He’d heard me announced on the way in as he recovered from his superb 3:30 effort.  I reconnected with Shaun and Richie, each finishing strong around 3:50.  Richie’s dad had finished the half, and was beaming with pride over his son’s first marathon.

It’s difficult to describe how I felt just after this race.  Although I’d struggled a bit during the race, I felt proud of my race strategy.  In addition to staying “on plan” the whole race, I’d also negative split (if only by about a minute).  And I was a small part of the first non-collegiate sporting event in the city following Hurricane Katrina.

There’s a fair parallel to draw between rebuilding the city and running a marathon.  Both of them take many hands to do well, and are accomplished one step at a time.  Going through the process we have to tell ourselves to ignore the negative messages we’re hearing, instead pulling the best effort out of ourselves and others.

Visit New Orleans and be inspired by their rebuilding spirit.  They put on one hell of a race too.

Charts and Graphs for Geeks

Below is the plot from my heart rate, and speed/distance monitor, followed by a chart of my mile splits plotted with my average split.  The heart rate monitor was flaky for the early miles (notice the big dips on the red line - I wasn't walking, nor did my heart stop beating).