Good morning all you crazy marathon runners!

Niagara Falls International Marathon, October 21, 2012

Strange, I remembered, in my sleep, that I had to run a marathon the next morning. And I was not dreaming. So I waited, in my unconscious state, for the hours to pass. None the less, I had a great sleep. An unusually-peaceful night at a hotel without disturbance.

I slipped into my running armor I had prepared the night before. One piece at a time, they were all accounted for. It was 5:30 a.m. We heard a slight stir of activities in the hotel hallway. People were getting ready for the long day of races ahead, be it 5k, 10k, half or full marathon. A woman runner was already in her garbage bag, a known disposable piece of equipment to keep her warm before the race. Since there were still 5 more hours to go, it was far too early for us to put on our garbage bags. Beside, being steaming wet inside the plastic is not a very good idea before a race.

Little by little, the hotel lobby and the dark street were filled with throng of runners waiting to board the shuttles to the marathon start in Buffalo. The yellow school buses arrived and runners filed in orderly. We settled in our seats just behind the driver. The good spirit was reinforced when a runner said, "Good morning all you crazy marathon runners! But you all know the reason why when you cross the finish line!" Laughter erupted. It felt great. The transportation coordinator wished us good luck and off we were, down Queen Elizabeth Way to cross the Canada/US border at Peace Bridge, to the start.

The custom officer collected all our passports and went into the office to scan each of them. About 15-20 minutes later, a different officer came back and called two runners in for interviews. So we waited for another 10 minutes or so. It was nice to see them walking out of the office. We welcomed them back to the bus. The officer handed us back the passports like a stack of pancakes, and asked us to distribute them among ourselves. Now you can imagine the mess. The four of us sitting on the front row splitted the stack and started calling names. After a moment of air space competition, name pronunciation struggle, and arm-waving detection, all passports floated down to the lawful owners among the sea of hands. It was a nice pre-race teamwork exercise.

Our 45-minute bus ride ended at the local Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where we would keep ourselves warm until the start time. It was a neat little gallery with some famous painters' work like Paul Cézanne and Salvador Dali. However, putting marathon runners in an art gallery was proven, at least this time by us, to be not a very bright idea. A place where runners couldn't eat and drink, which was so important for pre-race hydration and fuel-up, where they were being chased out to the court yard or front door for their carb and fluid intake. They should consider putting runners in a regular gym instead of an art gallery next time, nowhere near the building patrolled by food and drink security.

Our clear bags with passports in were loaded into the secured trucks for safe storage and transportation to the Canadian side while we ran. There were close to 1,300 marathon participants. A small number, to keep everything well controlled and organized.

The American and Canadian anthems were sang and we readied our GPS tracking app on our iPhones. Then the race started in a joyful atmosphere. Zoran and I followed the crowd and occasionally pulled ourselves back a little when we realized we were running faster then we should have. We were all very excited. But I paid for it big time later in the race and regretted not running even slower in the first half.

It was 6.5k from the start to the Peace Bridge where we crossed the border from the States back to Canada. The loop we ran at Fort Erie felt very long. It was added intentionally to lengthen the route so we would finish exactly at the Niagara Horseshoe Fall. After the winding roads, we were back on the route that lead us straight to the finish. But this stretch would last for the next gruelling 30k.

The volunteers were amazing and the water stations were sufficiently placed along the route. We were running a 6-min per kilometre pace, and often well under 6min/k. Without a watch to pace ourselves, it was hard to control our pace to maintain the pre-planned 6:20 min/k. It was sunny, not a single cloud, the wind was refreshing, and it was exciting, but I was too excited. A group of runner/walkers was following us and using us to gage their pace. Every time they resumed running, they would catch up with us. It was getting annoying and stressful, so Zoran and I sped up a little just so they wouldn't be able to catch us on their approximately 10th running interval. We lost them, successfully at 25k, but that was the point when the pain in my left knee started to flare up.

I had to slow walk at 30k, but when I started again, the knee was so stiff and painful that it took good 20 shuffling steps to regain the jogging form, and I was not even running. We were jogging slowly with walking intervals for the next 10k. Every switch from walk into jog was hell for me. Then a woman called out, "2 more miles! You can do it!" So 2 more miles is a round 3.5k. I couldn't do a painful switch anymore, so I told Zoran I would rather jog through to the finish without stopping for the walk. It wasn't easy.

During those last 3.5k, I saw people who were running along side with us just moments earlier, now standing on the grass watching the runners passing by. I knew how they felt and I gave them my silent wish to come back to finish the course. My left knee was giving out, and for a moment I saw myself not finishing the race. I felt disappointed in myself. I was in a lot of pain. My battle had turned from physical to mental. Then I remembered what Zoran told me during his agony at the Chicago Mararthon. He was with the medic who was bandaging his torn hamstring at 16k, when he saw a senior runner passing by and his t-shirt read, "Pain is temporary, quitting is forever." My mind was set.

I hunched, my arms tight against my body. I tried swinging them with the biggest efforts I could make to propel my legs, but it was trivial. It felt like my feet were dragging two car-tires. My knees, quads and calves were burning and cramping. The painful steps took away my awareness to the surroundings. The thoughts of failure came on like heavy raindrops hitting the ground, "Am I going to make it?", "Will I have a heart attack?", "I think I'm going to die and will never cross the finish line.", "May be I should stop..."

The agony and disappointment overwhelmed me. Zoran said, "No, no, no. No stopping now! You'll finish it!" I choked and fought back tears. I whispered to myself, "Ok, ok..." I was miserable, but I wanted to get it done. "I can see the Falls! Come on, you can do it!" Zoran exclaimed. I didn't believe it at first. I thought the finish couldn't be that close. But I was wrong. I could really see the finish arch just hiding behind the curve. I wanted to speed up, but I couldn't. My joints were in flame and the pain was excruciating. I was moving like a snail, but glad I was still able to.

When we finally reached the finish, I heard the DJ calling our names. But nothing else went through my ears. Later I found out from Zoran that he said, "Zoran, you better let her finish first or you'll never get the end of it!" So he paused just before the time sensor and let me pass the finish first. I stumbled across, accompanied by a swell of tears from what I had just accomplished. "Way to go! Nicely done! Congratulations!" the DJ concluded.

In my delirious state of mind, I realized I have to walk over to one of the medics, so he can put a thermal blanket on me, and a little further down a volunteer hung the finisher's medal around my neck. I sat down on the curb to switch off my running tracker. And there I saw my brother and sister's comments during the race. I knew they would be cheering for me in cyber space. Zoran, who was there with me, for me, despite his hamstring injury, congratulated me. He is my coach, my kick in the rear end. He was running with me to make sure I was ok and that I finish the race.

The Niagara Falls International Marathon marked my journey and now I can proudly call myself a marathoner. But the medal and title aside, the most important thing I've come to learn is to respect the distance. Running 42.2 kilometres is no easy challenge and should not be taken lightly. It involves a lot of time, training, sweat, injuries and healing to prepare your body and mind to tackle the distance on race day. The journey was long and hard. It was a valuable experience not about how much you can run, but how much you can endure when you can no longer run.

Lance Armstrong is (still) a champion

an essay

Stripped--On Monday, Oct 22, International Cycling Union - UCI - stripped Lance Armstrong of his 7 Tour de France Titles. "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," said Pat McQuaid, the president said of the UCI. "This is a landmark day for cycling." (Image borrowed from this blog)

Lance Armstrong is the seven-times Tour de France winner!

Many of us witnessed that super-human feat, curtesy of detailed TV broadcasts. I remember rushing home to watch the highlights of some of the more intense stages. Sometimes Lance seemed so cocky, so untouchable that I cheered for anyone but him. Yet at the end, seeing him hoisting the trophy seemed right. He was the greatest. He made cycling sexy.

I remember a conversation I had with a colleague during his seventh triumphant le Tour. He asked if I thought Armstrong was doping. I said without hesitation that yes, I believed he was. Did it make his victories any less amazing? Not for me!

I believe everyone on that level was taking something. It was not only the race of strength, grit and stamina, it was also the behind-the-curtain chemistry contest. The team with the best dope-lab stood the best chance to win. And, since I think that everyone was doping, the field was level. Armstrong was simply the man with the best legs and the best chemist.

Time and time over, the names in the closest competition with Armstrong were banned for using forbidden substances. The most recently remembered one is the man who was supposed to take the winning torch from Armstrong - Alberto Contador. It only proves my reasoning right.

As an amateur marathon runner - admittedly non-competitive, but no stranger to exhaustion and grueling pain of an endurance sport - I could only try to imagine how much work goes into the making of an elite cyclist. It isn't enough to sit on the couch and inject something with capitalized letters into your vein to make you an instant champion. Especially not when the other guys are doing exactly the same thing. You still need to pedal thousands of miles, sweat and bleed to earn the crown.

At the end, unless Armstrong's alchemist discovered an extremely potent and unique formula to be injected into Lance's system, it must have been a combination of strength, experience, tactics and probably most of all determination that took him over the other, lesser cheats.

Now, when the man has retired, and the cleanup of the sport of cycling is under way, some smart bureaucrat decided to make him an example. Armstrong's grip on the sport he dominated for a good decade has lessened and the minions who doped along with him found the courage of the pack to break the vow of silence.

What did it all do to the sport of cycling? It forever tainted it in the eyes of many fans.

See, Armstrong was a hero! He won that race seven times! He was never caught doping. That doesn't mean he was clean, but it means he outsmarted everybody trying to get him. In that matching of grits and wits he won - seven times! Stripping him of the titles is ridiculous.

Today, he is being vilified in the media around the globe. The same reporters who praised him to heaven are kicking him in the groin, now that he'd been brought down. Hypocrites decided to destroy the legend in the name of the "fair play", while already a new cheat must be laughing behind their backs.

You will notice that I haven't mentioned Armstrong as a cancer survivor and his accomplishments for his cancer-fighting cause, which are also halted by the action of the righteous bunch. Even focusing on the sports and cheating aspect only, I can argue that the right is actually wrong this time.

In conclusion, stripping Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles, doesn't build the trust in the fairness of the sport of cycling. It's a pathetic effort to show that something is being done to clean the sport, but the cleaning should go forward in time, not backward.

To all of you who participate in this crucifixion of Armstrong, I congratulate your newfound, if hypocritical, sense of right. I may be just a sentimental fool, but I'd rather have a tainted hero than no hero at all.