Week 16 - "Mari"

Mari

"She's always a woman to me."

- Billy Joel

I have had a lot of fun over the past sixteen weeks running and writing. Sometimes those comments have been in fun about Mari.  She has been referred to as:

• "The Boss" or "TB"
• "TLMH" - The Lovely Mrs. Hailer
• "The Woman to Whom I'm Related By Marriage" - Stolen from the Tony Kornheiser Show
• "The Assassin" - A generous reference to her competitive running style.
• "Mari" - Her nickname from school that she would like to bury but I can't let go of for 47 reasons, or 47 years of my knowing her if you prefer.

When it comes to running, the two of us are like Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in the movie "A Star is Born."  I had the gift and then let it go.  She became the running star, and deservedly so.  Instead of me being exactly like John Norman Howard, Kristofferson's tragic character in the movie, and ruining my career, relationships, and life with drugs and alcohol, I chose Oreos.  Fortunately, Mari kept me from getting behind the wheel of a Swan Milk delivery truck and crashing head long into the wall at the local ACME Fresh Market in a drunken sugar high from mainlining Double Stuff, Fudge Covered, and Triple Stuff Oreos and while trying to score some more.

A picture of me in Oreo recovery:

Actually, this is me at twelve miles this past Sunday, on a fifteen mile run, that was suppose to be a scheduled twelve mile day according to the Hal Higdon schedule.  Why fifteen when it was only supposed to be twelve?  Well, Mari was not impressed with my twenty mile effort last week.  That was the run where I stopped to get an ice cream cone at fifteen miles and then kind of mailed in the last five and declared victory. 

Sunday was as if I was a running version of Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams." In my head I heard the voice say, "Go the distance." The voice sounded suspiciously like my wife's. I heeded the voice, Twelve miles was not an option. For all men not married to Mari Hailer, Hal's Week 16 schedule's final training day distance for the week was for chumps. I'm not making this up.  Mari wanted me to do twenty miles.  I went fifteen, or three more than my schedule,.......and I felt guilty that I didn't go further.  

When I did get home, I told her that that my legs were dead from Saturday's Roc the Croc 5K in Westlake where I improved my race time by three minutes over last year's race. I went on to explain that I "only" went fifteen miles. She just smiled and said, "Good job."

"...but she'll bring out the best and the worst you can be, blame it all on yourself cause she's always a woman to me......" - more Billy Joel.

Here's a photo from the Kent to Silver Lake Trail last week.  Mari was running in one direction and I in the other. This was the meeting point.

Mari has been an inspiration to my running going all the way back to my cross country days at Ohio Northern University.  It was sophomore year at a four mile meet on campus.  At about one mile into the race, I saw Mari talking to a really handsome and nice guy who she once dated by the name of Brian.  I didn't like it...at all.  I took the lead in the race wanting to get back to the finish as soon as possible. I didn't win but it was one of my best times of my two year college cross country career.  

I first saw Mari at the freshman welcome dance at "Northern" in September of 1968. I never had the courage to ask her out. Me? Yep. Me. She eventually asked me out four months later.  That of course was her first mistake.  

When you're eighteen, you can only base your choice of friends in college on who you knew in high school.  You have a choice. You either want to continue in that stream of lifestyle and friends that you knew, or you want to start over and change.  I stayed the same.  My dates in high school were always with some pretty wonderful young ladies who I remember to this day.  Each of them had various great qualities like good grades and high life standards and life values. Mari had all of those qualities in one person for me.  I count myself as lucky. Make that very lucky. 

Mari has been challenging me throughout the training schedule for Columbus. She's been supportive and been very much like a coach.  She of course has lead by example. She has the running resume to prove it. She set the course record this year at the River Run Half Marathon for 65 and over females. Mari still holds the record at the Roc the Croc in Westlake, Ohio 5K for 60 - 64 year old category. She is competitive as can she can be in a race. If you are close to her in a race, you better bring your "A Game" if you want to pass her.  No wonder why I call her, "The Assassin." 

My actual running coach David Cooper has been supportive and motivational for me. My strength coach Julie Oliver from Buckeye Gym has hung in with me.  Even they are impressed with Mari's drive to continually improve.  Now in his 50's, coach Cooper is no different; Julie likewise in the world of fitness and health. Both coaches are like Mari in that they are always looking to improve if they can. They know all about Mari and her positive affect on my running.  Add the encouragement that I have received from some running greats like Dick Beardsley and Randy Thomas, as well as running club members and friends, and I find myself successfully within the final two weeks of my training program. 

I am well over 700 miles of running since the end of April.  I am almost ready for Columbus.  Almost.  There's still work to do. There's the Lucy Half Marathon this weekend.  That'll be five more miles than what's called for on the final day of the week seventeen Hal Higdon schedule.  It'll be a good day to practice my Jeff Galloway run/walk system for Columbus. It's the race prescription for marathon day. "Run for two minutes and then walk for a minute, and then repeat as needed for 26.2 miles."  

I am sure Mari will be waiting for me at the finish line on Sunday. When I say the magic words as I finish, "That was five miles more than I was supposed to do," she will say enthusiastically, "Good!" I will know that she is right.  Her words can cut like a knife.  She brings out the best and the worst I can be.  The latter I'll blame it all on myself. When it comes to the runner I'm married to, she's an assassin on the roads to some, but the truth is, "She's always a woman to me."