Crystal Coast Half Marathon and 5-K

Delbert McClinton did not disappoint us last night.  The 76-year old is a multiple Grammy Award winning musician and we had second-row seats in the packed Carteret Community Theater; his tight working band (Self-Made Men) was on full display, "the finest band he has ever had" according to him:  Bob Britt (one of the finest blues guitarists I have ever heard), Kevin McKendree (keyboards), Mike Joyce (bass), Jack Bruno (drums), and Quentin "Q" Ware (trumpet).   A young woman named Dana Robbins was also sitting in, playing a searing jazz saxophone.  As his website describes, Delbert "is considered a master among Texas music afficionadoes, rock artists (he gave harp lessons to a young John Lennon), blues experts, and critics alike."  We left the theater in high spirits and with ringing ears, and tried to get as much sleep as possible, never an easy thing for me to do the night before a race.

We awoke at 5:30 a.m. and began preparations for the race.  That big freighter was still out on the horizon in the pre-dawn, its navigation lights like a constellation come to rest on the surface.

Race headquarters was an easy 10-minute drive from the condo and we arrived in plenty of time.  This was a well-organized event in all of its details, starting on time, good traffic control, finish times posted promptly, plenty of refreshments available - everything just perfect.  The lobby of the Bask Hotel was filled with runners taking selfies and preparing themselves.  I enjoy so much the joking and camaraderie that goes on in a place like this as we barely contain our excitement to begin.

My race started at 9:00 a.m., Martha's at 9:30 a.m., so I had plenty of time to worry about her falling and incurring re-injury; how happy I was to cross the finish line (one-and-a-half hours after her finish) and find her unscathed, unbandaged, and the proud winner of a first place trophy in her age group and a finish time of 32:03!

My race went well, too, although I settled for a fourth place; I had planned to run a 2:30 and I finished in 2:31:37, and my last miles were strong.  Those bridges were definitely a challenge, but I had determined not to let them daunt me at all, and they did not; I absolutely refused to stop on them.  There are so many sights and sounds in a long race like this!  A pair of women in front of me stopped at Mile 4 on the summit of the bridge to take a selfie.  I passed a man carrying a large American flag the entire way (he finished right behind me) in memory of his police officer mother, killed on duty four years ago.  A guy was wearing a kilt and I said, "Och, Mon, y'er looking good!"  Nearly every runner I passed (and there were many, because we ran to the 8-mile mark on Fort Macon Road, well past our condo building, and turned) had something positive to say.  "Looking good!  Good job!"  We  were all in the same battle, after all, comrades-in-arms against our own fatigue.  The first-place guys came flying by, and then the first-place woman, not an ounce of fat on her, blond ponytail whipping back and forth smoothly.  My attempt to come in under 2:30 made me pick up the pace in the last two miles, which proved a success even though I missed my mark by a minute or two.

So it was a good day!  For both of us, this race was a kind of redemption, a reclamation of fitness, a rediscovery of freedom from injury.  A new start.

"But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty.
We go forward in this generation triumphantly.
All I ever had is songs of freedom.
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had:

Redemption songs, redemption songs."

- Bob Marley, Redemption Song