Run Joe, Run: Joe’s hilarious letter to his running friends

Do you know Joe?

Joe is a friend of the Girls (and our hubbies), and a very funny guy.  Now I realize he is also crazy, but in my book that’s a mark FOR him, not against him.  A few days ago, Joe sent this letter out to his running friends. It’s so funny, I just had to share it with you.

So if you don’t know Joe…you will by the end of this letter. And you’ll see why we like him so much…

~Melanie

Hello Gang…………..Greetings and Salutations!!

First of all………… a hearty congratulations to everyone for the phenomenal races that each of you ran. What an amazing, accomplished group of runners. It is so nice to see that everyone achieved or exceeded their race goals. It looks like PR will have to charter a couple of planes to get the troops to Boston and New York!! WOW!!

I must admit, I am quite envious of all of you as you continue to get faster and faster and I just get slower. This speaks volumes about the rigorous training that has to be done to run at your level.

I really do miss running with all of you,………… the laughter, the camaraderie, and even the violence (Patricia?)

I can’t believe that it has been a year since I ran my first marathon in Victoria in 2008 – I still have that $5.00 that Ray gave me to finish, framed in our house. Shortly after that inaugural, life changing race, my wife opened a new pharmacy in December and unfortunately, my ability to train took a drastic downward tumble.

I attempted to run the Vancouver marathon in May and probably wouldn’t have finished if Carolyn, Camille and Ian had not pushed me through the last 4 miles. After that race, work and the kids continued to keep me busy and I was only able to run two or three times over the following 4-5 months.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the groups’ many, many, many, many emails. It was those emails that inspired me to try running again.

There was quite a bit of email chatter about a half marathon race that a group of you were doing in Bellingham. I didn’t know that Bellingham even held a race and was surprised to find out that there was a full marathon option as well.

Since I was turning 40 this year, I decided at the last minute to push myself and try something out of my comfort zone – and I came up with……………….. running a marathon without any training.

I obviously didn’t want to tell anyone and was hoping to operate in stealth mode………………….that however did not pan out as planned.

I was so excited to get to Bellingham that on the morning of the race I arrived well over an hour and a half early. I had already made the trip across the border the day before with Caitlin (our 8yr old) to pick up my race packet so I simply sat in the truck and waited, and waited, and waited.

Lo and behold, just before the start, a familiar face soon lifted me out of my stupor. There was Raghbir warming up in front of my truck. After surprising him, we walked to the start where I was very excited (and a little dismayed…..ohhh those hormones of mine!!) to see more people that I knew – Taryn, Camille, Patricia and Linda…………………No more incognito………..I had to come out and own up to my foolishness.

Raghbir was kind enough to let me pace with him initially, however, I was too slow for him as he was running the half and after the 5 mile mark, he left me to fend for myself (the nerve of him!!).

The Bellingham course is quite hilly and there was a lot of trail running. Unfortunately, I died at the 15mile mark and walked/jogged the rest of the way (I really, really, really wanted to quit but the thought of a DNF did not sit well with me, especially since I wasn’t actually injured, just suffering from cramps and a lack of endurance)………. Plus, I was afraid that the ladies would all beat me with their water bottles if I quit………… Final time, something over 5.5 hours…….yeesh!!

By the time I finished, everyone was probably already back in their homes in Canada putting their lunch dishes away.

I didn’t have anyone at the finish line to take my picture with so I did the next best thing, created my own by joining someone else’s picture……… gotta love that stealth mode.

Four days after the Bellingham marathon, I had to travel to Whistler for a three day conference (i.e. from Thursday to Saturday).  It was on the Thursday night that my neurons misfired a second time and I said to myself, “recovery seems to be going well, perhaps I should push the envelope a bit and try a second marathon”.

This said, I faced several challenges that somehow had to be overcome:

1. There was no race day packet pickup in Portland.
2. I was scheduled to work a pharmacist shift the Sunday of the race.
3. On Saturday afternoon at 4pm, I was still going to be in Whistler at my conference.

Well, as the ole saying goes………….where there is a will, there is a way!! I was determined to run…………my inner Forrest Gump was acting up.

In regards to the race packet, I managed to get a hold of my cousin in Portland who rearranged his schedule to go to the race expo and pick everything up for me. I also emailed, and phoned every pharmacist I knew and finally someone offered to cover my shift.

And on Saturday at 4pm I left Whistler and got home at 7:30pm………… I then jumped in my truck at 8pm and headed for the border (and onwards)……………. I got into Portland at 2am……………..then woke up 4 hours later at 6am and started my marathon run at 7am.

I must admit though, Portland was one of my most favourite races. I highly recommend it to everyone to try at least once. The entire downtown core is blocked off and there are thousands upon thousands of people lining the streets cheering you on. To be honest, I felt like a rock star and actually had a tear in my eye as I ran the first few miles of the race.

Anyways………….. My momma always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

And that brings us to this past weekend………………….by Thursday, I was feeling the need,……………the need for……………(well not speed)…………..but the need to be freed!!

I told my wife that I wanted to try one last marathon. She told me that the suitcases were packed and she was taking the kids and leaving me………….I replied, “oh well, can you at least give me a ride to the ferry terminal!”

Kiddin’…………..When we got to Tsawwassen at 2:30pm on Friday, the sailing wait was already until 8pm at night due to the generator fire aboard one of the ships that morning. Well, I wasn’t going to let that stop me……………..I had a race to get to………….. so we parked the car and luckily, were able to easily walk on board.

The Royal Victoria Marathon was (is) an absolute beautiful race and should definitely be on everyone’s list.

I had two highlights during my race. The first one was hearing these very heavy footsteps, an eerie recognizable gait……….alas, it was Patrick blowing by me at the start……..indeed, he was going so fast, that he did not have time to stop to chat and discuss the weather.

And then there was my good friend Cris who I saw coming back at me when I was at the half way mark. I took great pleasure in yelling – “Hey Cris B!! You better move your butt before I catch you”. Now there was no way that I was ever going to get to him as he was already almost 25 minutes ahead of me at that point. Nonetheless, I would like to take some credit for his phenomenal run since I am sure that the fear of “da Joe” catching him scared the crap out of him.

For me however, like my previous two races, endurance and cramps got the better of me and I was simply happy to crawl to the finish line.

And that my friends, is the end of my adventure.

MID LIFE CRISIS (OR LUNACY?) = 3 MARATHONS in 15 DAYS with NO TRAINING!!

It wasn’t really planned however, the story kind of wrote itself. There weren’t any record breaking runs; in fact, the times were so slow that I think the marathon walkers even beat me. Even so, I like to tell myself that my medals look the same as everyone else’s and more importantly, I gave it 150% and I went as fast and as far as I could go,  under the circumstances.

As I stated in the beginning, I really do miss running with all of you. A BQ for me is 3:15 (not achievable) and next year that only moves to 3:20. A PB for me would be anything better than 4:19.

In order to achieve my next goal…………… to run a sub-four hour marathon, I will definitely need to do a lot (and I mean a lot) of training.

But for now, I am simply going to rest….and look into trading my three new marathon finisher shirts in for perhaps, this one……………