On Sunday, Mer and I headed up early to Cleveland. Really early – we left the house at 5:00. I was on my way to run the 2013 Cleveland Marathon, and Mer insisted on coming to cheer me on, even though it is not a great spectator marathon since it is shaped like a bow tie, so spectators only see runners at the start, in the middle, and at the end. For comparison, Mer saw me five times in Birmingham last February.

We were supposed to meet my friend and running partner, Nate, near the starting line between 5:45 and 6:00, but we got snarled in traffic. Happily, Nate waited patiently, and we met up around 6:15. I guess last year I must have left the house nearer to 4:30, because I never hit traffic last year.

We wandered through Browns Stadium, and Nate used the bathroom. It amazed me how long the lines could be at a stadium that can seat eighty thousand people, but Nate guessed there were other bathrooms on other levels that were closed to us. We walked down the ramp from the stadium, and Nate and I squeezed into the starting chute just as the wheelchair racers were taking off at about 6:45. Mer watched us from the ramp until a race official cleared it of spectators, probably to help out with traffic flow. She found a spot higher up on the walkway and watched us start from there.

It took me and Nate a little over a minute to get to the starting line, and then the running lanes were still quite crowded. I was dodging runners even up through miles four and five, and the field did not really clear out until the marathon broke off from the half marathon around mile twelve. I had to stop and use the bathroom between miles two and three, and Nate kept going. He said he would stay on the right side of the road if I could catch him, but I figured out that I would not be able to, and I never did; Nate finished his half-marathon one minute ahead of my reaching the halfway point of my race.

The day started out humid, and when the humidity began to go down, the temperature went up pretty quickly. Most of the second half of the marathon was on streets with no shade, and the sun was out. I tried to run smartly – I was running the race as a fundraiser for a woman with cancer, and finishing the race was more important to me than getting any particular time. So, when I started to feel myself overheating, I started walking some, right around mile eighteen. By my best guess, I walked about one-and-a-half miles of the last eight miles of the race. I think it was the right call – I stopped to help three other runners who were tending another runner who was clearly suffering from heat exhaustion – he was staggering and panting. I jumped back in the race when a nurse showed up and took over and a police car was visibly on its way. Still, it was a hard reminder that the day was hot.

Mer was near the finish line cheering me, and that was a huge boost. One of the reasons to run the marathon is the rush at the finish, and the spectators were really into it. Mer had found a spectating friend based on the other woman having a map, but not being sure where she was. They had a good time chatting and moving a couple of times to get into place to cheer for me and the other woman’s husband. I was very happy Mer had found someone with whom to be companionable, and she was also smart to remember to bring a collapsing chair to sit on while grading while waiting for me.

I got through the finish area and worked my way over to sit in the shadow of the Great Lakes Science Center’s windmill, where it took me about thirty minutes to cool down to somewhere near normal. Meanwhile, Mer had gotten there just ahead of me and had not seen me, and had settled down to grade on the other side of the windmill. The result was that we missed each other until I felt well enough to get up and look around, about an hour after I finished. The extra rest time was not a bad thing.

So, I finished marathon number eleven. Nate is already taking about running the Akron Marathon next September, so that might be number twelve if I can manage it. Here are my 2013 Cleveland Marathon stats:

26.2 miles
3:44:32
8:34/mile
Finished 422 out of about 2800 finishers (top 15%)
Finished 45 out of 227 men in my age group (40-44) (top 20%)