Reflections on the OBX Marathon 2009, Part 1

I wasn't sure I was going to like the ride today. I rounded up the really warm clothes, the water bottle, pushed extra air into my tires. I mounted my fixed gear bike for the fourth straight day. Forty-two degrees. West cross wind jamming my spokes at a solid 35 knots. I rode north on Bay Drive along Kitty Hawk Bay once again---the usual route---the one offering some wind cover in trees and among homes farther north. I settled in finding my work tempo. The wind ripped over my ears. It all sounded like high volume, close-in roaring that only I could hear.

Training rides can be introspective when it's like this. You carry with you a private place to consider a multitude of things. Today as I toiled, I thought about the Outer Banks Marathon this past fall and its spell still lingering over me like a veil, a vision. I was one of many locals who helped with the event. Rick Godsey and I were to lead the elite male leader of the full marathon through the course on our road bikes replete with water bottles, gels, cell phone, and Gruppo Sportivo Outer Banks racing kits.

Although a tremendous honor, I failed miserably with my assignment this day. I had even done this before in an earlier race. But I still blew it.

We gathered with the throngs of runners at the north end of Woods Road near Dominion Power at 6:30 a.m. The phrase "beehive of excitement" comes to mind. Runners everywhere warming up and trying to stay warm. People introducing others to their friends and chatting all nerved-up before the monumental challenge they were about to engage. New friends made on the brink of tremendous efforts. The only place I've witnessed greater hope, greater anticipation is in a Little League dugout before the first pitch of the first inning of the first game. The day started cold and sharp but warm among the runners.

We positioned ourselves some 30-40 yards out in front of the start line in the pavement's center, bikes pointed down the road, heads turned back to the runners. In pairs, all our cyclists had different lead runners to lead, male and female runners in both the full and half marathon. The starter's gun cracked the air. Here they came. We pedaled forward nervously with the thousands of runners and the energy they rode so close behind us.

I've ridden in many road bike races. I know well the gamut of emotion and roiling nerves which seem to bind you like a guilty prisoner until you're snatched up by the focus required to race. You become given completely to the sweet moments as they stream past with you and all around you in their embrace. But leading a leaderless race you're not contesting is quite another thing. Peace rests at your center but hope reaches for someone who has not yet emerged to challenge the field. Who will it be? To witness up close a whole marathon alongside the leader, to observe the suffering and embedded joy all at once apparent on the runner's face would leave me with an indelible memory and a bond unlike any I've ever experienced.

By mile one a solo runner had nosed out by ten and then twenty yards. He was sprung, gap growing. So this was our guy. We let him settle in and then drifted back to let him know we would lead him through the course to the finish. There were two or three Africans in this marathon who were known contenders. One, Philip Cheruiyot, had won the 2006 OBX Marathon the day after winning the Chicago Marathon, slipping backwards cracking his head on the street as he crossed the finish line. His feet were laying over the finish line when he fell. I remembered seeing his beautiful, steady open stride, as he passed me that day. He was back there somewhere.

We rode onto Kitty Hawk Village road, a curvy two-lane affair. Our guy was steady at it while it appeared a pair of African runners separated from the unseen following main field somewhere further back. The miles unrolled as we passed clapping, cheering bands of locals all along the course. This event is huge in our community. In my opinion, there is no other land event which unites Outer Bankers like this one. Everybody was out there.

I was told last year every traffic cone possessed by the North Carolina Department of Transportation comes to Dare County for this event. Roads were blocked with them and later when we emerged from the backstreets onto the U.S. 158 By-Pass, we saw the runners' lane they marked for miles going south through Nags Head, across the causeway and bridge to Roanoke Island and Manteo.

Our leader was Bobby Mack, a young, former North Carolina State track athlete. He told me his goal was to beat the course record. He looked down at his watch and at mile 15 said, "Everything's good. I'm doing 5-21 to 24 splits so far" (1-mile splits at 5 minutes 21 to 24 seconds). Poker-faced, I turned around in the saddle and dropped my head in disbelief. I looked at my computer: 11.3 mph. I was astounded!

The course record for the 4-year race is 2 hours 24 minutes and 15 seconds held by Mike Wardian of northern Virginia, set in the 2007 race. He had come in third behind Philip Cheruiyot's first place the previous year, the first Outer Banks Marathon.

Fans were strung all along the route, some dressed in costume. Cow bells clanged as we passed. "This is Bobby from Raleigh our full marathon leader!" I called out swelled with pride. A runner from our state was leading. The knotted crowds along the route lit up when they heard this I believed, for the same reason.

(Part 2 to be posted soon.)