I’ve never looked good in hats. Not baseball caps, not a top hat at Prom, not a sombrero… okay, maybe I looked okay in a sombrero. And I did wear a giant foam cheese hat for a race in Wisconsin once. But novelty hats sometimes excuse my poor chapeau show.
May 4, 2013 – Wisconsin Marathon, Kenosha, WI
The point is, I just can’t do hats. They hurt my head (not because I’ve got a big brain, but because there’s so much hot air in there that the noggin bulges). And I never know what to do with my hair — tuck it under the brim? Leave it curling out? I suppose in this regard it’s a good thing I wasn’t living in the 1940s. I’d never have been able to pull off a fedora.
But it being the annual Dwarf Festival here in Wroclaw, I felt like I should at least try and wear the paper red cone hat they gave me. Besides, my charming AirBNB hosts said they’d try and come out and cheer me on so I wanted to be easily recognizable — all the more reason to put a red cone on my head.
Running with my Gnomies… or Dwarfsies?
At the start line, I was surprised to see I was the only one wearing a dwarf hat. I later posted to Facebook that this must have been incredibly embarrassing for the other runners. I’m glad I wasn’t in their shoes, not because I have no idea if they wear a size 10.5 or 11 for overpronaters, but also because they must not have known it was the annual Dwarf Festival. As the kilometers clicked by, I had a number of people cheer me on specifically as either “hey! Pinocchio!” or “Krasnale!” which I think is Polish for “dwarf,” but like every other Polish word I have no idea how to pronounce it… and this despite trying to download audio files of various key phrases like, “hello,” “good-bye,” “thank you,” and “I’m a dumb American and can barely speak my own language and am totally at a loss speaking Polish. Do you happen to speak English (please say yes!)?”
And so I bargained with myself regarding the hat:
I’ll wear it until mile 4 because Jan and Marta said they’d try and see me around 6k…
I didn’t see them… well, it’s on my head… I’ll wear it to the halfway point…
I made it this far, how about 3/4?…
aw, hell, now I’m all in. Gotta get a photo at the end.
Besides, can you imagine what the hat head is going to look like?
And thus when all was said and done, the hat made it the full 42.195 kilometers. My time was a disappointment (more on that in a moment) but we take our victories where we can… no matter how small. Wait, shoot. I didn’t mean small. Is that culturally insensitive? I don’t want to be even a little insensitive here. Aw, crap.
***
I have a rule that as long as the pain moves around my body from day to day, I don’t worry too much about it. But if it concentrates and lingers in a spot, I should probably re-evaluate and re-examine what’s causing what. Well, sad to say, the same pain that’s been haunting me since Pikes Peak reared its ugly head in my left hip and back legs. It hurt from the countdown to go and thereafter for kilometer after kilometer, mile after mile. It’s all a bit troubling and I may go into greater detail tomorrow as so far there’s been no luck in booking that Auschwitz trip. Maybe that’s for the best as I’m feeling a bit down anyway. And I suspect, despite that prior reviewer’s commentary, that this would be a tough emotional trip and not exactly “enjoyable” but quite possibly “necessary and important.” I’m still hoping Tuesday might work but… well… it’s not looking promising. Which is also kind of a bummer.
Meantime, here’s a bunch of photos from the day. Rather than narrating along I thought I’d just let the photos speak for themselves… with just a couple of instances of context to help set the scene.
It was an hour walk to the start from my AirBNB.
Should “Pulp Fiction” be renamed “Pulp Factual?”
Preview of coming attractions as I walked to the start line.
The road to the start.
Entering the stadium for the start line
Empty. I should’ve slept longer.
The start line — a woman in camo pants and wearing a bullet proof vest yelled at us to leave the area… which was weird as we got back to the entrance and were told to go line up in the corrals… back to where we started.
Would my Disney Dwarf name be “Thumbsy?”
Garden Gnome?
They were unpacking the medals… maybe that’s why the flack jacket woman was giving us flack.
Here’s another assault team member who is moments away from telling us to go back to the corrals.
Lining up… again.
Waiting at the start…
Arrivals
I was overly optimistic on my anticipated time.
The corrals are filled – somebody said there were about 5000 runners today.
A view behind me. Many of these folks would pass me on the course.
And we’re off!
Crossing the bridge…
Wearing a hat…
It was a proper city marathon, sending us round and round the place.
Another bridge.
The streets of Wroclaw.
Sightseeing by foot.
The city.
Still wearing my hat.
On the road.
The aid stations had yellow isotonik which tasted just like fully-loaded yellow gatorade… and which means I kinda hated it.
Bananas which I couldn’t eat and water.
Hey — my hat isn’t like a shark fin — it’s like that structure down the road.
See — twinsies!
The road…
More of the road…
And the road with no u-turns.
I worried I’d hit my head — didn’t know what the max headroom was.
Water, water everywhere — and super chalky. I found out why at the end — it was vitmain enriched water, billed as “water-plus.” I kinda hated it but what can you do when you’re dehydrated? You drink it as best you can.
Not great but pretty good half marathon time. It was all downhill from there. Not on the course (which was mostly flat) but for my speed.
The halfway arch.
A Dwarf checks his time.
The temperature rose as the day wore on.
Outside the stadium
Rounding the stadium
And here’s when I got passed by the 3:30 pacers. I wouldn’t see them again…
Or would I? This was a different set of 3:30 pacers… who also passed me.
And a third 3:30 balloonatic passing me.
Trying to keep it positive… despite the pain and the slowing and the whole 42.195K.
29 KM!
Clouds and sun.
30K!
I stop for water…
And here’s a fan of my hat!
I don’t know if this was a first aid station or just an enterprising soul setting up his own massage service.
This kid was pretty non-plussed at high fives. I don’t know if he was unimpressed with my time, my hat, or just life in general. He’ll make a great teenager.
These folks liked my hat!
This is Jan, or Marta and Jan, of my AirBNB hosts. He came out to cheer me (as well as his friend who was running)… but I like to think he was mostly there to see Run Kevin Run.
Wish I had as much energy as that smokestack.
Fans of the hat!
Moving along.
Ugh. Really starting to hurt around here.
And a guy pushing a stroller passes me.
It’s somewhere in here where I felt like I personally was smelling of death and decay…
…I don’t know if that means I was dying or my body was consuming itself trying to get some more energy.
37. Too many k’s to go.
I wanted to capture a frame within a frame as I ran … I don’t know if this works.
Slower than a speeding metro…
But trying to keep it in perspective.
A freakin’ bridge? Oh, man. Seriously?
Thankfully cheers for Kevin the dwarf kept me kinda going… slowly going but going at least.
On the bridge — walking it, in fact.
40 K – the kinda, sorta home stretch.
Roads, roads.
41K — which meant I was parallel to my walking route to the start from this morning.
The first arch to get through to the finish.
The canopy of trees leading to the second arch
I mean not look good in hats, but people appreciated the effort.
Another arch approaches…
Another arch is passed.
A loop de loop to get to the Olympic Stadium…
Cheering spectators
So close… but so far.
Entering into the final turn…
Why is it so far away?
The crowds cheering runners to the finish
So that happened. A painful run to be sure. But I finished.
The hat stayed on for the full 42.195K. Small victories, as I said.
The finishers chute.
Here’s why that water was so chalky crappy. Ugh. I wished I could’ve gotten a “water-minus.”
The pasta bar at the end.
It wasn’t great… but it was edible at least.
Much like the paper “M” I ran with for a Chocolate Race one year, the paper hat distinegrated as I went along… this is it’s second to last resting place (as I assume the trash will be picked up and deposited into a landfill or something and THAT will be its final resting place.
The Wroclaw Panthers? Is that copyright infringement on the logo?
The finish festival
I was too tall to ride these. Which is ironic as I was dwarf.
Stairs… to get over the course to exit we had to take the stairs. The agony of victory?
And that, folks, is my post-dwarf hat hat head. I’ve looked better… but at least I’m no longer wearing a hat so it’s an improvement anyway.
