Monday, May 10, 1999
Where agony and ecstasy meet
Marathoners run the gamut
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Wheelchair entrant No.110 negotiated the hills of Eden Park 18 inches at a time. That's the distance she rolled with each thrust of her arms. Push, 18 inches, push.
I first saw 110 coming up the hill toward the Krohn Conservatory, between miles 8 and 9 of the first Flying Pig Marathon on Sunday. It was nearly the last hill of the race. Runners passed her like fallen leaves passing autumn on the way to December.
They exhorted her as they passed: “Let's go, one-ten. Dig in, one-ten.” From where 110 was, hunched over, practically folded into her chair, she could see the backs of their knees. Her chair bore the ironic name “AIRBORNE.”
The essence of a foot race is to put one foot in front of the other until you are done. What if you have no feet? What if they don't work?
Push and release, push and release, 18 inches at a time. One-ten reached the top of the hill, just past the conservatory, straightened slightly in her chair, pushed even faster and rolled down Lakes Drive and out of
sight.
Anything can happen in a marathon, Julie Isphording had told me. In the beginning, you run logically, in the middle you teeter on the edge of make or break. The end, the last mile or two, when you stop feeling your legs and feet and the only thing that's working right is your head, is pure adrenaline.
“Vaseline! Vaseline!” A volunteer is holding the bottom of a cardboard box that is smeared with petroleum jelly. She is stationed at Mile 20. There were smiles in Eden Park.
There aren't at Mile 20, at the corner of Kellogg and Eastern. The stretch between miles 18 and 20 is a long, slow ascent. If you mapped the earnings of a blue-chip corporation over the last 20 years, the graph would look like this stretch.
This is where runners go to die. Or, worse, quit. They might not have trained enough or been sufficiently carbo-hopped. They might not have had enough fluids. Their bodies start seizing. They're afraid they'll have to stop.
“Vaseline!” the volunteer says.
Every so often, a runner will reach a hand into the goo and smear it beneath his arms or between his thighs. Bad things happen to people who run 20 miles; chafing is one of them.
I wonder if 110 will get this far, pushing and releasing up this long hill, 18 inches at a time.
At 9:27 a.m., a cop directing the one-way traffic on Kellogg said, “the first runner is at the finish line,” but there are people at this place who see the finish line as an impossible dream.
At 9:28, 110 passes me at Mile 20, hunched, her face hidden by a helmet. You can see the faces of the runners. Mostly, they are a stony mix of grimness and determination. One-ten looks down. She's as inscrutable as Buddha. What must her arms feel like after 20 miles?
Her chair has three wheels, two large wheels in the back, slightly splayed, one small one in front, for navigation. She passes me at the same pace as before. She wears black gloves. Push and release, hundreds of times per mile.
By the 25th mile, on Central Parkway, they ran from memory and by instinct, pushed by the fear of stopping. By the time they made the turn onto Ezzard Charles, they knew the finish line was near, but they couldn't see it. Masses of white-shirted spectators and bright sunshine blinded them to the finish.
A woman from Cleves named Christina Fogel finished in 4:26. It was her first marathon. She nearly stopped after 21 miles, until settling in behind a runner whose shirt bore the slogan Just Do It.
“I figured that's what I'd do,” Fogel said. “Just do it. Just put one foot in front of the other.”
The finish line was a zone of such mixed and competing emotions, it belonged on a battlefield.
A woman crossed after four hours and 23 minutes and threw up next to my feet. A man came in five minutes later, contorted with cramps and pulls. He couldn't go on because of the exhaustion. He couldn't stop because he'd cramp more. He started crying. It was terrible.
People helped runners across the finish line, the same runners who minutes and hours before had gratefully snatched cups of water and packs of carbo-loaded gel from volunteers. At a house in Hyde Park, spectators sprayed runners with a fine mist from a garden hose. Everybody helped, even if only to clap and cheer.
If people helped each other all the time the way they did Sunday, what a planet we'd have.
I last saw 110 on Eastern Avenue at Mile 21. Same steady pace, head down. Did she ever stop? If she stopped on a hill, would she roll back down? Without momentum, could she ever start again?
I went to the information trailer at the finish line. I looked up 110's name on a computer: Holly Koesters. She finished in three hours, 12 minutes and 29 seconds. In the knot of pained euphoria jamming the recovery area, she was nowhere to be found.
I know nothing about her, other than she raced, 18 inches at a time. And finished.
Congratulations, Holly. Wherever you are.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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