78 Minutes: Hyannis Chronicles - Diary of a Mad Dog

Same race, two perspectives -

by Tom Dmukauskas and Jonathan Wyner.

Ed. Notes: On Feb 24, 2002, Tom and Jonathan raced Hyannis half-marathon. They entered the race with low expectations, but ended up running low 1:18.xx (finishing within 6 seconds of each other), a breakthrough PR by more than 2 minutes for each of them. Here’s their stories.

Diary of a Mad Dog
by Tom Dmuskauskas

It really started very innocently. After the usual Tuesday track workout, Jon Wyner mentions that he’s doing the Hyannis half-marathon this weekend. My still oxygen-deprived mind somehow decides that it would be a wonderful idea for my body to race 13.1 miles this weekend. I have been getting a little closer to Jon in the track workouts over the past few weeks. Maybe I can hang with him long enough in the race to set a new PR. Yeah, it’s only February, but I’ve been training well, and my half-marathon PR is my oldest road-race PR in the books (Willamette Valley half-marathon, September 7th, 1996, 1:20:24 — isn’t it scary that I know this and I don’t even keep a log?), it’s time to wipe it clean.

Fast forward to Sunday morning. Sunny skies, a cool breeze and temperatures in the 30’s greet us in Hyannis. Outstanding! The legs feel great even during the warmup. The stomach seems content with the peanut butter & jelly sandwich and chocolate ice cream pre-race meal I sent through it last evening. All I’ll have to do is just tie myself with an invisible rope to Jon, and he’ll drag me to a PR. Yes, I think, I can hold back — a half-marathon isn’t so much a race as an endurance run, right?

Wrong. Jon and I start together and run in tandem a little beyond the first mile. We turn into the teeth of a moderate wind in mile 2, and I start playing the tactician, running in the slipstream of a runner just ahead until someone faster passes by, then playing the game over again. By the mile 2 marker, I settle in with a pack of 3 other runners, a good windscreen I figure. I now realize that I’ve dropped Jon behind me, and the pre-race plans are out the window.

Over the next couple of miles, the intermittent conversation in the pack makes me doubt very much the wisdom of what I have done. The others are talking about marathon PR’s in the 2:30’s. I’ve never played anywhere close to that league before. 4 miles down, still more than 9 to go…most of my long runs don’t even go that far, but the legs just keep churning. The mile 5 split comes and goes and it’s about as fast as I was racing 8k last fall. I start wondering which exact stride it will be that will break me and send my pace irrecoverably spiraling upward. There’s a 10k being run simultaneously, if I work hard the next 2k, I could set a 10k PR instead of having to wallow through an additional 7 miles. But no, I don’t take the coward’s way out, and I remorsefully pass the turnoff and continue along the half-marathon course. I’m absolute positive I’ll crash and burn and become Jon’s road kill. Next thing I notice is the 7 mile mark and I’ve run off the front end of the pack. Whoa Nellie, time to reign it in here. I rejoin the pack, but for not much longer.

My long awaited collapse appears to happen near mile 8 as we tackle a hill, moderate, but enough to leave a more severe stinger in me than for any of the other runners nearby. My right contact lens jiggles out of focus, somehow this seems in harmony with how my legs feel at this moment. Blurry figures slowly recede into the distance over the next 2 miles as I stumble to 6:15 pace. Some guy passes by like I’m standing still at mile 10. This snaps me out of my coma, I try to hang on, back down to 6:02, but another fast cat zooms by at mile 11. I sneak a peek back around a left turn, no Wyner. The motivating factor for the last 2 miles is no longer to PR, it seems like I’ve got that in the bag now, it’s whether I’ll beat Jon or not. Whether I meant to or not, I’d thrown down the gauntlet with my moves back at mile 2, and it would only lead to humiliation if he were to pass me back now. If it were an individual from another team, you just say, “nice race” in the finish chute, and that’s that. When it’s someone from your own team, bragging rights until the next race are at stake.

Mile 12 clicks by and the territory looks familiar — we warmed up backwards from the finish. The legs feel like they take another blow, but I amble towards the finish line like a lame horse. Some onlooker tells me I have only 0.3 miles to the finish. Why do I believe him? They’re never right. 0.4 miles later I cross the finish line in 1:18:08, big time PR. Not one step into the chute, I hear the announcer call Jon’s name. 6 seconds later, he’s run up my back in the chute.

Ladies & gentlemen, New Bedford is going to be one hell of a race!

posted by admin in Stories on February 24, 2002

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