Air Force Marathon Report

by Charles Cohn

The First Annual Air Force Marathon was held at the Air Force Museum adjacent to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base east of Dayton. It was scheduled to commemorate the founding of the Air Force on September 18th, 1947.

The previous day, I picked up my race packet. It contained a snazzy long-sleeve T-shirt and a jacket patch. I checked out the small expo. I saw a pair of Asics GT-2020's in my size, the latest shoe that Phidippides fitted me with. They were $30 cheaper than Phidippides' price, but I passed them up because I think their heels are a bit too high for good racewalking, so I'll try something else next time.

The pasta dinner was good, but I thought the accompanying band was too loud. To my mind, the dinner is an occasion to chat with other entrants and get acquainted, and the music made conversation difficult.

The marathon started and finished on the grounds of the museum. It consisted of a 7-mile out-and-back portion into the base, connecting with a 12-mile loop around the base. I heard that there were about 2400 entrants. There should have been more, but the event was not well publicized -- it was missing from many marathon lists like Running Journal and NYRRC.

Saturday morning Maggie and I left the friends we were visiting in nearby Tipp City and headed for the museum grounds. With everybody else headed in the same direction, it was a slow process to get all the cars in and parked on the grassy fields around the museum.

As a result, the marathon started half an hour later than the scheduled 8 am. That gave me time to do a few stretches and to get in the potty line. Unfortunately, the potty I used had no toilet paper. I only noticed that after I had my badly-needed bowel movement, so all I could do was to pull up my pants and hope for the best.

I got into the pack at the start line in the position marked for my expected finishing time. (They had them marked up to the 8-hour limit.) The cannon fired, and we were off, to the accompaniment of the band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" which followed us as we passed through the gates separating the museum from the base. This gave me a cadence just right for a moderate-speed start of 14:30 per mile. By mile 1, all the runners had pulled ahead, and nobody doing the full marathon passed me after that. (There was a four-person marathon relay that started 15 minutes later, so of course those runners passed me.)

The aid station at mile 1 had a stereo playing John Williams' "Olympic Spirit," one of my favorite melodies. This helped energize me for the 150-foot hill ahead, which dropped back 100 feet by mile 4. I had to revisit this hill on the return. There were no other major hills, but there were a couple of highway overpasses. By this time I had sped up to around 13:30 per mile.

I took Galloway walking breaks, which for racewalkers mean *slow* walking for one minute out of each mile. I timed these to coincide with passing the aid stations. There was at least one of these per mile. I drank water and Gatorade everywhere it was offered. Spectators were not allowed on most of the course, but the encouraging greetings of the many volunteers more than made up for that. I was impressed that they had plenty of enthusiasm left for the back-of-packers. I took a packet of GU or PowerGel about every four miles, washing each one down with a cup of water.

After passing by a corner of the Wright State University campus and going over a highway overpass, the course reentered the base. In the seventh mile it went past the headquarters building for the Air Force Materiel Command, with its row of flagpoles in front. I was impressed with the quality of the buildings throughout the base as well as the excellent maintenance of the grounds.

In the eighth mile I found a potty with no line. (That's one of the benefits of being in the back of the pack.) This one had toilet paper, so besides getting rid of my excess hydration I was finally able to wipe myself. (Luckily, my ass mess hadn't yet turned into a pants mess.) The whole business cost me three minutes, but I didn't have to make any more potty stops for the remainder of the trip, despite all the fluids I was drinking.

In the tenth mile I passed a small building labeled "Prime Beef Office" with the face of a cow on the front. (I guess those flyboys eat well.) I also kept seeing the long runway, which seemed to go on for miles. At that time I started passing people who were walking, and kept passing others until the finish.

At one of the stations here, a young person put a yellow plastic lei around my neck. This drew a comment from some guy further on that I was the only man that he had seen get lei'd on the course.

At mile 12 the course went around the end of the base and started back. There were a couple miles of woods with thick forests on each side of the road. The course then passed the base campground, with more friendly greetings from the occupants.

At mile 19 the course left the loop and I started back the way I had come. By this time I had slowed to over 14 minutes per mile. At the last aid station at mile 25, someone handed me a cup of Gatorade. There was a bee on the cup, and it stung me on the finger. Apparently I'm not allergic to bee stings, because it didn't slow me down.

In the 26th mile the course left the base and returned to the museum grounds. The last 0.2 miles went past a row of airplanes on exhibit. Here were many spectators, Maggie among them, and I finished strong and erect to their applause in a rather slow 6:11:52. They took my tag and hung the magnificent finisher's medal around my neck, after which I immediately started replenishing my glycogen with the bananas, oranges and bagels provided.

This is an outstanding marathon. The hospitality of the Air Force, the base, and the personnel was unparalleled. The long 8-hour time limit is especially good for walkers; you can have an official finish even with a slow 18-minute-per-mile pace. Since the course is entirely on base roads or on roads leading into the base, they are not constrained to a shorter time limit by the demands of local traffic authorities. When I get even older and slower than I am now, and can't make the time limits of other marathons, I'll still be able to do this one.

I want to do it again. The only problem is that it's just one week before the Georgia Golden Olympics. Therefore, I'd have to forego it in years when I'm seriously trying to qualify for the Senior Olympics.

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