Bobcats and Boston

Bobcats Gone Wild
Just before school started this morning, one of the students noticed a bobcat in a tree. The bobcat then moved from the tree to the top of the ramada next to my classroom, where it climbed onto a post and settled in. And so, we went into “lockdown” mode and herded all the children into the library, commons and MPR so that they wouldn’t be attacked (not sure there was much chance of a student being attacked, but in this day and age, you can’t be too careful). Meanwhile, just about every adult on campus came out to the commons so they could get a look at the bobcat, who was not a happy camper. And so, we spent the next couple of hours waiting for someone to show up and take care of the bobcat. First, a deputy from the sheriff’s department showed up – all he seemed able to do was to stand guard and make sure the bobcat didn’t escape (not sure how likely this would be, but he did have a gun). Next, someone from Game and Fish showed up, scoped out the situation with binoculars, and took some video (with a camouflaged video camera). At that point, we were asked to “clear the area” and I’m assuming he went and got the tranquilizer gun. After that, I’m not exactly sure what happened, because we weren’t allowed outside, but the bobcat moved from the ramada onto the roof of the building, where it hid behind one of the air conditioning units. Eventually (two hours and forty minutes after the first sighting) the guy managed to tranquilize the bobcat, and once it conked out, they boxed it up and hauled it away, and we were finally released from our “lockdown.” Ah, the excitement of dwelling in the desert.

The 114th Running of the Boston Marathon
Having participated in several marathons now, I have to say that this one was unique in several ways. There’s a kind of a cultish ambience surrounding the whole thing that grows more pervasive the closer you get to Boston. We got up early Saturday morning to drive to the Tucson airport, and as we were waiting for our flight, spotted several other Boston runners (they were easy to spot, because they were wearing the official Boston marathon jackets, which are bright blue with yellow stripes – apparently, this is a badge of honor, and just about everyone seems to have one of these). As we made our way across the country, we imagined a wave of these bright blue jacket wearers converging on New England from every direction (except from Europe, of course, which was inaccessible because of the giant cloud of volcanic ash), and by the time we landed at Logan airport, the bright blue jackets with yellow stripes seemed to be everywhere. And the people wearing these jackets all appeared to be really, really fit. This was especially apparent at the Expo. Normally, there are a fair number of people who you can tell are serious runners just by looking at them, but there are also plenty of people who you would never pick out of a line-up as a marathon runner – they just look like ordinary folks you’d see at the mall, or the movies, or just about anywhere else. Not so here. Seriously, it was like a gathering of Stepford Runners (wearing bright blue jackets with yellow stripes).

The next big adventure was making it to the starting line. Actually, this was kind of a “marathon before the marathon” scenario, because it actually took about half an hour longer for me to get to the start line from my hotel as it did for me to get from the start line to the finish line during the race. First I had to hop on the train and ride to Boston Commons, where the buses were waiting for more than 20,000 of us to load up. And if you’ve never seen 20,000+ people try to load onto school buses, well, suffice it to say is that this process involves a lot of standing and waiting in line. It was a serious mob scene. Once on the bus, it was then an hour-long ride to get to the starting area, where there were the usual long lines for the porta-potties and lots and lots of people milling around. Thankfully, the rainy weather from the weekend had cleared out, and though it was windy and chilly (in the 40’s) it was dry. Within about an hour, it was time to strip off layers and turn in my drop bag, then we had to walk about a mile to get to the actual starting line where we were directed into our corrals so we could stand around and wait some more. As the clock ticked closer to 10:00, you could feel the tension building, they played the national anthem, and a couple of jets flew over (the announcer told us that, just in case we were interested, these jets would be reaching the finish line in approximately 12 seconds – like I needed to hear that). And then the race began. Like most races of this magnitude, there’s a corral system, and you’re assigned to one of them according to your time, with the faster people lining up in front of the slower people. I was back in corral 12, which meant there were 12,000 people in front of me, so it took around 10 minutes of shuffling forward before I actually reached the starting line. With that, the first “marathon” ended, and the real one began.

From the very beginning, it was obvious that the people I was running with were pretty fast. More to the point, I spent almost the entire race getting passed by other runners, because I was running at a slower pace than my qualifying time (on purpose). Strangely enough, though, I found that I didn’t really care, because there were spectators cheering us on from the moment we crossed the starting line, and it never, ever stopped. The course runs from town to town, and since it’s Patriot’s Day, it’s a tradition for people to come out and cheer on the runners. And they take this tradition seriously. Thousands upon thousands of people lined the course, and since I was wearing my purple TNT jersey, I heard lots and lots of “Go Teams” as I piled up the miles. The weather was perfect (in the 50’s with a nice little tailwind), I felt good, and the miles slipped by. Earlier in the week, I had decided that I was going to try to run this race like Tiger rather than Phil (if you happen to be a golf fan, you may know that Tiger snarls and Phil smiles - Tiger stalks and Phil saunters - Tiger glowers and Phil waves - Tiger curses and Phil laughs – and then there’s the whole other issue, that we won’t get into here). In the past, I’ve kind of had a Tiger approach to marathoning (this is not as bad as it might sound, so read on) where I go inside myself and focus completely on running as fast and as hard as I can so I don’t leave anything out on the course. This works well as far as running as fast as possible, but it takes a lot of concentration and I find that I almost get angry as I’m running in this mode. Instead of that, for this race, I decided I was going to try to focus outward and enjoy the experience without worrying so much about how I was doing time-wise. I wanted to run a decent time, but I didn’t feel any need to run as fast as I could, so I waved at people and high-fived little kids and chugged along at a reasonably comfortable pace. And then we reached Wellesley.

At around mile 12-1/2, the route passes by Wellesley College, and this particular stretch is known as the “Tunnel of Love” because all the Wellesley girls come out and scream (and yes, I do mean scream) for the runners. And many of them are holding signs that say things like , “Kiss me, I’m Jewish,” “Kiss me, I brushed this morning,” “Kiss me, I should be studying,” “Kiss me, I’m drunk,” and so on (are you seeing a theme here?). At this point, I was faced with an obvious choice. As in, who, and how many, was I going to kiss. Here’s the thing. I haven’t kissed very many girls in my life. In fact, you could probably count the total number of girls I’ve kissed on one hand (actually, I think you can count then on one hand). So here was my opportunity to double, triple, maybe even quadruple that number. The girls were practically begging for kisses. But then I remembered – I’m Phil, not Tiger (plus, I’m way too shy). So instead of passing out kisses, I smiled and waved and slapped hands as I continued to run, but I never kissed a Wellesley girl.

After that, the course continued over rivers (the Charles), through woods, past lots and lots of cheering spectators (and probably houses belonging to grandmothers), and though I started feeling fatigued, I was still chugging along at a pretty steady pace. We entered Newton, which is where the famed “Newton Hills,” including the most famous one known as “Heartbreak” are located between miles 17 and 21, and ran by Boston College, where lots of students who were, shall we say, “celebrating the holiday,” were screaming, yelling, and carrying on like college students who have been celebrating a little bit excessively, and after that , it was pretty much a straight shot into downtown Boston. During the last three miles, the crowds grew even larger, and the course was lined three-to-four deep on both sides as we made our way down Beacon Street to the finish line. It was like the final 200 yards of some of the other marathons I’ve completed, but this was for three continuous miles, and the cheering never let up. Once I spotted the giant Citgo sign that marks the one-mile-to-go mark, I knew I was going to make it, and I cruised along the homestretch feeling tired but good, and watching my pace to make sure I made it over the finish line before the 4-hour mark ticked off.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing experience. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to do it again (or, for that matter, that I’ll ever be able to qualify again) but I’m very grateful that I got the opportunity to run it, and I’m really glad I was able to finish feeling good and with a respectable time (almost exactly my goal when I set out).

Time to go, so until next time, may your carry-on always fit in the overhead compartment, may your luggage always reach your destination, and may your flights always depart at their scheduled times.