M-Town Race Series

19 Generic, unnamed bibs work just as well. alarm clock for her. Despite being a very deep sleeper, Christina instantly awakens and perks her ears up at the very first note of any ringtone. She has learned that open eyes are totally unnecessary to listen in on a phone conversation. She had heard every word of my son’s and my exchange, as she always does.

“Are there any available hotels near the start line?” was her reasoned response. It seemed the only real challenge to going to run a marathon with less than twenty-four hours’ notice was the availability of suitable lodging. No one even thought to question otherwise.

So, we pulled out my wife’s cell phone and found a decently priced hotel less than a half mile from the start-finish area. There almost always seems to be lastminute cancellations at marathon host hotels, and thus available rooms. After a few well-practiced swipes on my wife’s glowing phone screen, lodging arrangements had been made.

“When does packet pickup run until?” I probably should have asked that question before booking the hotel, I thought to myself a little too late to really matter. We were already committed to going to Birmingham for the night.

“6PM,” he brightly answered. “And there are plenty of spots left.”

At that point, any sane person would have looked at the time and rolled back over to enjoy the rest of that glorious morning in bed. After all, who runs a marathon with no training, no planning, and no preparation?

We all knew the answer to that question. This wasn’t our first rodeo with a last-minute marathon. In fact, such spur-of-the-moment plans have become almost passé, like asking, “Hey, do you want to grab some breakfast this morning?” We just get up and do it. Sometimes it turns out to be a great idea, and sometimes it doesn’t, but you never know until you give it a try.

We rolled out of bed, packed up our gear, gassed up the car and hit the road for Alabama around lunch time. We knew the drill.

We arranged to meet Chris at the expo and signed up for the race as some of the very last participants to enter the event. They hand-wrote our names with a Sharpie pen on the back of the bib to insure we didn't confuse numbers. Most everyone else had printed customized bibs with their name printed in bold face on the front. Obviously there had been no time for that. Generic, unnamed bibs work just as well.

Unfortunately, my wife was dealing with a broken hand and foot following a fall from our porch a few weeks before. She could not run, but she was zipping around on a scooter-like leg support at the expo. The multitude of other runners at the expo wisely gave her a wide berth as she zoomed on her scooter from one vendor to the next.

I briefly wondered if she could run a half marathon with such a device. Would it even be legal to do so? Maybe I could ask the race director.

My wife knew my thoughts even before I uttered them. “Don’t even ask. There is no way I’m racing like this. I’m here to support you boys. I’ll run again after I’m healed.”

It was a commonsense answer, and therefore surprised me. There was no common sense anywhere else in the midst of this endeavor.

Still, a fall from that thing would have been The author at the finish line of the Mercedes Benz Marathon in Birmingham AL.