"The two Terran commanders are captured alive, and subjected to whatever fiendish new experimental torture methods that Kerrigan has devised. Some of which no doubt involve tickling."
-greyhoundbus
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| Step Off | | | Author: | | | IP: | 1Cust71.XXXX | | Date: | 04/08/00 03:04 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 5, Max: 9, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Mark4: 8.6829 |    | This is not a starcraft battle report. You’ve been warned.
Introduction
I woke up at 5:40 this morning. A bad time to get up any morning… I stumbled around my two buddies sharing the hotel room with me and commenced my morning preparations. A glass of orange juice and a bagel later and I was ready to roll. Jimmy and Aaron hopped in my car and we were off to Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune.
So what’s a nice army boy like me doing heading towards a Marine base at such an ungodly hour of the morning on a Saturday? Running the Lejeune annual marathon. Don’t ask me why, because my only answer is that I’m a moron. We all checked in and picked up our race packets. They had some cool stuff in there, including a microchip transmitter that kept track of where we came in, a protein tube, a nice t-shirt, and my registration number. 222… good enough to run under I guess. We all started getting prepped for the race. Band aids over our nipples to prevent chafing (sounds silly, but if you don’t do it your nipples might be bleeding by the end. I really really don’t ever want to bleed out of my nipples). Power aid gel packs strapped around my waist with duct tape. This has a few advantages over a belt designed for it. First, it only costs $1.50 for a small roll of duct tape, and second you can take it off and throw it away when your done instead of carrying the damn thing the rest of the race. Breath Rite strips on our noses. Every little bit helps I guess. Jimmy used the old vaseline on his privates trick to prevent chafing, then tried to shake my hand. I reminded him it was 96 miles back to Fayetteville and it would be a long way to walk after a marathon.
Start your engines
Finally the waiting was over. At 8:05 they let the wheelchair guy start. Yup, one guy. Well, at least he was going to get first place. 8:10 they started the regular runners. I was hanging around the front of the crowd with my buddies who are both significantly faster than me. End result was a lot of people passed me in the first half mile or so. I wasn’t worried. I wanted only one thing. To finish.
Mile one went down easy. I was running around 7:30 when I hit the mark, which was a little too fast for me. I can run significantly faster than that for short distances, but I’d only trained for a marathon for a month and a half, and I’ve found that I’ll generally be running an average of 9:15 for twenty mile distances. I cut back just a little and started running 8:30. Might as well get the easy part over quickly. The second mile I started hearing explosions. I identified it as mortar fire by the sound and started getting a little worried. It sounded pretty damn close and I don’t trust Marine artillery all that much. Hell, this being the weekend it was probably Marine reservists…..(shudder). Where the hell was the impact range that I could hear it this clearly anyway?
A little after the third mile I spotted the source of the explosions. A hand grenade range off to the left. I felt better about the whole thing immediately. If I couldn’t see the marines throwing the grenades, there was no way they were going to be hitting me =]. The miles were starting to go by, every one a decent effort, but my legs felt reasonably fresh and I was breathing easy. Sporadic machine gun fire sounded from the left as I passed a few more ranges, probably M60s by the sound. 7.62 sounds a lot deeper than 5.56, and that’s pretty much your choices in the man portable rifle department.
Mile seven I was starting to slow down a little, hitting about 9:00 minute miles. A few people were passing me, but I had to run my own race. Finishing was the goal. Mile eight an old lady passed me. =[ She looked to be about sixty or so, and was trotting along nicely.
“That old lady passing me is sucking the will to live right out of me” Mark4
“Me too” Random Marine
I ended up playing tag with the little old lady for a while. They had water/gatorade stations every two miles for the first twelve miles. She would stop at each of the stations and walk while she drank her water, then start running again. I only walked for a second or two and started running each time. Eventually I passed her far enough behind she didn’t catch up. The first twelve miles I was drinking all water.
Mile nine I cracked into my first powerade gel pack. It tasted like pudding. Good pudding. Mmmmmmmm. At the ten mile mark I washed it down with some water and spilled the rest over my head. The gel kicked in and I started feeling good for the first time in this race. My time dropped down to about 8:30 again and I started passing the people who had passed me before. A short loop around mile twelve put me on my pace again, and I started to get into the groove. Thirteen and the rush from the gel pack was gone. I started to hurt a little. My hip flexor muscles were feeling sore, my thighs getting heavy. Not a good sign. At fourteen I realized I was halfway through! Then I realized I hurt pretty bad and I was only halfway through. Bleh. I was pushing through pain now like a blanket wrapped around my head. Nothing crippling, but a steady sucking away at my will to run. My mile time was creeping past 9:30 now.
Marine Corps Babe!
Mile fifteen I sucked down the second gel pack. Water stations were every mile now, and I made it a habit to pick up and down a gatorade cup, then dump a water cup over my head. A Hot Marine Corps Babe (HMCB) started running with me at about this point. At mile sixteen I started talking to her to take my mind of the pain.
“Say something motivational so I don’t quit and curl up in a little ball on the side of the road.” Mark4
“There’s not much around here. You’d probably lie in the hot sun and die unless someone picked you up.” HMCB
“Good point. I’ll keep running.” Mark4
Damn, I think I’m in love. There’s just something about a babe who can run sixteen miles as fast as I can and still make witty remarks. It didn’t hurt that she was pretty too. Mile seventeen the old lady passed me again. God I hated her. I quickly formulated a plan to kick here in the kneecap to prevent her from pulling that crap again. Unfortunately she was moving a good bit faster than me and I wouldn’t catch up to her again all race. #$!$#@$! I can’t believe that I’m putting in the part about the old lady smoking me. It’s probably just as well I didn’t catch her too. If she could outrun me, she might have been able to outfight me too. Bleh. I’ll just consider her the fastest old lady ever to walk the face of the planet and make myself feel better.
Mile eighteen comes up and I’m really starting to hurt. The HMCB has slowly fallen behind, and I’m running on my own now. Pain is shooting through my legs with every step and when I try to run faster than 9:30 I get short of breath real fast. I stop at the next aid station and walk for a good minute as I drink my gatorade. I tell myself I just have to make mile twenty and I can coast my way in. Lying to myself is the only motivational strategy I have left I guess.
Mile twenty. I’ve never run this far before. In training you only run twenty miles at the most because running farther results in muscle tears that take a while to heal. I’m varying my stride now to try and ease the strain on my legs. I want nothing more than to stop and quit…except to get this over with. Why the hell run twenty miles only to quit? At least my legs aren’t locking up like they did on one of my training runs. I start running with this old guy. He runs faster but takes longer breaks. Plenty of marines still behind me. Gotta keep going.
Dying might be slightly easier
The miles start blurring together. Pain is like a fog all around me. To my left is the ocean somewhere around mile twenty two. Only four miles left. I can run four miles can’t I? I know I can physically do it, but the mental determination is staring to waver. The twenty third mile is the longest one yet. Probably the longest one I’ve ever run in my life. I keep going, somehow persuading myself to start running after my water break walk.
“Come on mother$$##$@#!, you got two more miles in you” Me talking to myself.
The Marine road guard gives me an odd look, but not too odd. I’m probably not the first one to talk to myself at mile twenty four. The pain lifts a little as I finish the twenty fifth mile. I can think a little bit and do more than just feel pain. I'm sunburned on my arms, face and legs, and dehydration is almost a factor. Good thing I hit every single water point. One mile. I’m not going to quit with one damn mile left. I pick up my pace a little even, getting to about a 9:15. I round the final corner and see the stadium. Enter the doors and make my circuit around the track. Jimmy and Aaron yell encouragement to me and I pour what little I have left into a final sprint towards the finish. Jimmy and Aaron immediately change from cries of encouragement to accusations that I was sandbagging it to have that much energy left =].
I pass the finish line and collect my little medallion that says I finished the course. Four hours and fifteen minutes. Not the best of times but I finished. Damn I wanted to quit! =]
So why the heck did I bother writing this? Well, thinking about how I’d write it took my mind off the pain while I was running. Not really a battle, except between me and 26.2 miles of road. Hope you liked it anyway.
Mark4
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