[Navelintel]

For me, 1997 commenced inauspiciously when I suddenly found out that the supervisor I had for the past six years had been dismissed of her duties and rightly so. I always believed management was as much an art as it is a science. And in the case of my ex-supervisor, her skill set was so limited, especially when it came to dealing with people, it began to impact our ability to carrying out our agency’s mission. My next supervisor wasn’t much better which always lead me to believe in the adage that people do seem to rise to the level of their own incompetence!

I then needed something positive to focus my energy, to save my sanity while others in my office feuded, sniped and bucked one another for favorable positions elsewhere in the organization. It was absolute chaos! Part of my mental therapy was to sometimes escape after work to play my first ‘nautically’ themed simulation games, Broderbund’s ‘Wolfpack’ and ‘The Ancient Art of War at Sea’ as a diversion on my Tandy TX which ran on MS DOS, with slots for a 3.5 diskette and 5.25 floppy, 19.6 MB of available storage on the HD, and a ‘dot matrix’ printer with no internet. But I needed something much more physical and substantial. What I really needed a ‘major-league’ stress reliever. And qualifying for the Boston Marathon met all the requisites.

The year before in 1996, the Boston Marathon had just celebrated its 100th anniversary with one of the largest field of competitors ever assembled (36,748 starters;35,868 official finishers), which stood as the record in the history of the sport until 2004 (New York City: 37,257 starters; 36,544 finishers). And ever since I first learned of the Boston Marathon from my earliest days as a schoolboy running cross country and track, I always dreamed of participating in the running world’s version of ’Wimbledon’! The only catch was it is an invitational race and you need to qualify along with some of the best runners in the world (unless you have a sponsor and are running for a charity) for a spot on the starting line in Hopkinton, Massachusetts on Patriot’s Day, which is usually the third Monday in April that commemorates the ride of Paul Revere and William Dawes in 1775. The Boston Marathon was inspired by the revival of the 1896 Olympic event in Greece that was the fabled route from the plains of Marathon to Athens run by Philippides, who told of the Greeks victory over the Persians in 490 B.C. before he collapsed!

On January 12, 1997, I turned 43 and had already run eight marathons (four of which were the New York City Marathon) that included a PR of 3 hours, 6 minutes that I ran in San Diego in 1983, when I was much younger but not as wise as I had trained alone. Boston was always on my radar. This time, I came upon a training group of very talented and gifted athletes. And later that spring, we broke up into smaller training units based on our individual goals. At that time, I needed to run at least a 3 hour and 20-minute marathon to qualify for my age group and gender. So, through the rain, the heat, and humidity of the next few months, we trained and competed like a well-oiled machine, race after race in distances ranging from an 8K to a 10 miler, to a half marathon then finally our individual qualifying races, a full marathon (26 miles, 385 yards for those of you who may not be sport enthusiasts or runners). And I chose the New York City Marathon, not because it was an easy course (it's one of the toughest marathons to run to qualify for Boston due to the five bridges that separate the five boroughs and subsequent hills in Central Park) I chose it because of familiarity; I knew the course like the back of my hand. I wanted to finally conquer the beast on my own terms. Call it unfinished business.

On November 2, 1997, the morning of the race began with a light drizzle then it rained the entire day. Also, there was no ‘chip' timing back then (a 'chip' is a device tied to your shoelaces that triggers an electronic sensor at specific checkpoints along the race course, especially at the start and finish so that everyone has an accurate record of their overall time) which meant I needed to get as close to the starting line as possible before the beginning of the race so I wouldn’t lose valuable time getting stuck behind 30,000 other runners in front of me, preventing a ‘clean’ and precise start. However, I found I always had to ‘pee’ right before most of my races due to nerves so this time when I lined up, I got as close to the starting line as I could, to clearly see the mayor who would start the event. And after all the many hours of effort and miles of training, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. So, I wore a plastic garbage bag holding a large plastic cup underneath, discreetly peeing in the cup as needed then I discarded the plastic garbage bag and carefully placed the cup off to the side when I began my journey. And it worked alike a charm. I was only 20 seconds behind the starting line when the starting cannon went off!

After crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a span of over 2.5 miles and a height of 693 feet (the tops of the towers were not visible that day due to the low overcast and photographers usually positioned there at the start of the marathon were banned from using the perch that day), at 6.2 miles into race, deep within the borough of Brooklyn, I hit my stride as I was right on pace and it never changed for the next 20 miles!

By mile 17, later in the race, I was in Harlem heading north on 1st Avenue toward the Bronx with the rain beginning to come down ‘sideways’, when I came upon a black man who was cheering us on. He kept on chanting, ‘Let’s give it up for these dudes, cause they’re all meat, no potatoes.’ At this point, I had been nursing a blister on my left foot since my socks were thoroughly soaked which felt like it was the size of Buick! After hearing the cheer repeatedly, I laughed so damn hard I never gave the rain or my foot a second throughout the rest of the race.

As I rounded the corner, coming out of the south end of Central Park onto Central Park South, heading west with a little under a mile to go, it began to thunder as I passed a Japanese percussionist bashing away on a huge ceremonial Taiko drum. I then began to wonder when the ‘fat lady’ would sing as it seemed like more of a ‘Wagnerian Opera’ than a sporting event!

When I hit the finish line near ‘Tavern on the Green’ in Central Park, it was mission complete, I had qualified for Boston by running 3 hours, 18 minutes, 10 seconds! I believe this to this day, the strategy of using the 'plastic garbage bag' ploy was so invaluable, it probably enabled me to conserve the energy needed throughout the race that produced my successful outcome. And it was wise advice due to the fact I had been working with three experienced coaches who were all accomplished athletes themselves, who acted as my attentive mentors. However, the sweetest moment after qualifying for Boston came when I attended my 25th high school reunion later that month, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I bumped into an old classmate who ran with me on the cross country and track team always beating me in our races (and it seemed that he hadn’t laced up a pair of running shoes since we graduated), I couldn’t help myself from letting him know I would be running the Boston Marathon in the spring!

Incidentally, when Patriots Day, April 20th, 1998 finally rolled around, I made it to Boston to compete in the 102nd Boston Marathon, finishing in 3 hours, 13 minutes, 45 seconds. I was 2,306 out of 10,289 men (the top 22 percent) and 2664 out of 20,344 overall (the top 13 percent). Personally, qualifying for the Boston Marathon was an effort never soon to be replicated but an accomplishment I will nonetheless, always treasure!

William Faulkner once wrote, 'Man, will not merely endure, he will prevail . . . he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.'

And so, in observance of both anniversaries (Subsim’s and mine), I offer the following toast to all the captains who are members of this ‘distinguished’ body:

May the wind be always at your back, and the sea gentle on your craft, with the sun ever shining upon you, wherever your voyage may take you in the next 20 years, and beyond!


Best wishes again,

Rich M.
(a.k.a., ‘Navelintel’)