'Twas the Night Before the Marathon
by Donna Wise
'Twas the night before The Marathon when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even my spouse;
The Zensahs were hung on the back of a chair,
In hopes that by morning they'd be dry enough to wear.
My running gear was nestled all snug by the bed,
While visions of BQ-ing danced in my head.
And you in your capris, and me in my shorts,
We'd all settled down hoping for good weather reports,
When out in the yard there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew in a flash,
As if I was racing the Jingle-Bell Dash.
Oh, was I surprised when nothing appeared
And said "it's just my heart pounding with fear".
I went back to bed, hopefully to sleep,
When next I knew the alarm began to beep.
It was time to get ready, I must eat, I must pee,
You never know how long the potty lines will be!
With everything packed and ready to go
We jumped in the car and yelled "Let's do this show!"
We arrived at the start--Which corral do we enter?
Look there, it's our running group, and our coach--our mentor;
"Now, don't rush! Don't start off to fast of a pace!
Or you just might find 'The Wall' in your face!
Thru the first mile--warm-up! Thru the second, stay steady!
Now pace yourself! Pace yourself! Soon, you'll be ready!"
As trained runners, we are here all ready to run,
But first we must wait for the loud starting gun.
So as we approach the Start mat it draws near,
We boldly repeat "No fear...no fear".
And then, with a BANG, we're off, through the streets,
"Slow down, slow down" is the phrase I repeat.
As I focus my gaze, down the tangents I run,
With resolve I think, "This is going to be fun".
We're now at mile five and warmed up, head to toe,
And starting to think to ourselves, "let's go!";
But with 21-plus miles to go in the race,
We must, we have to, hold onto our pace.
The crowd--they're all cheering! They're really excited!
We'll need them all later, every one--united.
Mile 10, now 11, the Half's getting near,
And the gels that we eat are so precious and dear;
Of the liquid hydration, we can't drink enough,
As the aid stations pass, and we huff and we puff.
Mile 20, your tank's getting empty, you'll find,
If your glycogen stores you didn't keep in mind;
For that last 10k is truly the test,
And the hills that are left need you to be at your best.
With a turn in the road, I'm at mile 23,
Why does it go up, up, up...Oh, I've gotta pee!
I don't talk to others, but keep at my work,
I'll conquer this big hill, but no smile, no smirk.
My legs are near numb, and my hamstrings are sore
But I've trained with Runners Edge--we're pretty hard-core.
We run in the cold, we run in the heat,
Good grief! What's that? ANOTHER repeat?!
And looking ahead, through the crowd (friends of mine),
I just catch a glimpse of that glorious Finish line;
"It's going to happen", and I stay in pursuit,
As we go under the banner and right through the chute.
We've made it, we've really accomplished our task,
We ran and we ran and no oxygen mask!
Our group is all crying, how happy we are
Now, time to find the very nearest bar.
We all gather 'round, we've run well today,
We'll celebrate--hey, it's time to play!
For as we thank our Coach for all that he's done,
We know he was right! That bald son of a gun.
And now my day's done, I relax in my bed,
With Skins for recovery and feeling well-fed,
I replay the moments of racing the course,
And realize that my friends are all very hoarse.
I must say, it was hard, we did more than survive,
Thanks to every and Coach, and to all, "High Five!"
