#52 Boston - A Masterpiece of Organization - June 2 2007

This week, for your reading pleasure - a report from the Bolder Boulder (http://www.bolderboulder.com/) on Memorial Day 2007 – a high altitude -5300 foot- 10 K race. 50,000 people are running, jogging and walking through the streets of Boulder. This race is so perfectly organized, not a single bottleneck, not one. A masterpiece of organization, truly.

Signing up in downtown Boulder’s jam-packed Pearl Street Mall, wall to wall people, enjoying themselves, ready to face the challenge. Race t-shirts, front says Live to Run, back says Run to Live.

Not sleeping much the night before – possible reason – not pre-race jitters but two pieces of home-made rhubarb-strawberry pie with ice cream late at night - this does not help. Tossing and turning all night, not sleeping well at all. Nightmares of flying to San Francisco and missing the race altogether.

Rise and shine at 5:30, nervous and light headed, Rob (Susan’s husband) and I heading toward downtown Boulder. Parking the car, then we have to walk two miles to the starting line, joining the groups of dazed lemmings wandering through the streets of Boulder with one goal in mind. I am amazed by the level of logistical wonderment, runners and walkers are strictly organized in sections, starting with A, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE and moving all the way up to Z. 50,000 runners, walkers, joggers, all ready to go. A group of octogenarians mans hosts the water stops at the start, some of them sitting on chairs with a warm blanket wrapped around them as if ready for a Kaffeeklatsch, only the cake is missing.

The most impressive organizational detail are the FedEx trucks, start and finish are miles away from each other (6.2 to be exact) –your personal belongings are dropped off with one of the staffers at the truck stops and FedEx, doing what they do best, drive them to the University of Colorado stadium where the sweaty and exhausted runners can retrieve them. Just brilliant.

The first wave, A, starts at 7 AM. Then the organizational magic happens, so simple, so effective. Between every section are two staffers holding a rope across. It is the division between A and AA, between AA and AB, and so on. Once A takes off, the “ropers” move up with section AA to the starting line, and once they take off, AB moves up. All sections move up little by little, every section gets a specific time when they take off, and they all do take off on time. Every section gets their own start signal and a pep talk from the organizers – it is wonderful, the air is buzzing with excitement and at exactly 7:13:50 we are off through the streets of Boulder.

Running at high altitude is hard, not because I only had four hours of sleep, but the slightest hill sucks the air right out of you. I try to pace myself, but looking at my splits, I ran actually 1 minute faster the first mile than the other five. Mile 3 is worst, I am almost at marathon pace, this section did include an incline, not even close to other hills I have run up, but again, the altitude does it.

Boulder loves this race – everyone is out in their front yard, PA systems blast music, every other corner has a band playing, Elvis was there (that is where he goes when le leaves the building), families have buffet tables set up, except for the college students, who hold out beer for the thirsty runners (it is 7:30 AM!! Even too early for me). Garden hoses, so welcome (it is 70 degrees even at that early time), many many water stops, I use all of them. Miles 4 through six feel easier.

After 8K, the banners come more frequently, 8.1, 8.3, 8.7, 9.1 – very cool. We are hot, tired and we know that there is one short but painful hill ahead of us leading us into Folsom Stadium. You can see the stadium about 1 mile out, and you keep on running.

Finally the climb up the hill to the stadium, and after a second short incline, there it is - the triumphant entry into the stadium; tens of thousands of people welcome you. There is nothing like it, this is as close as you come to feeling like an Olympian, it is not just you and the finish line. What a wonderful feeling.

The masterpiece of organization continues – tags are being taken, you wander with the lemmings to the next stops, food, water, snack bags from Celestial Seasonings, the Colorado tea company, beer, American flags and finally you turn in your timing chips. You move to the stadium, become a cheerer-oner for all the other crazy folks running in this race, including the folks in costumes, the superheroes, the bunny suits. I am told that in previous years a favorite was the lawn chair brigade – a group of guys running with lawn chairs, and every so often they gave a little presentation on what can be done with lawn chairs. The crowds loved it. 2007 Kudos must go to the guy who walked the whole 6.2 miles “wheelbarrow” style on his hands.

The “Expo” awaits immediately outside the stadium (purchase of “Sea Level is for Sissies” t-shirt), but it is too packed to move, and we decide to hoof it out of there.

11 AM the professional women start their race in teams, Team Colorado, Team USA, Team Kenya, Ethiopia, Japan, Rumania – by that time Rob and I are at home watching the race on television from the comfort of home. We are fried; I am sleeping with my eyes open. Even a beer does not do the trick; I am beyond tired, headachy. Edna Kiragat from Kenya, a very soft-spoken woman with some tough legs with an impressive performance of 33 Minutes left all the other women in the dust, even though the Ethiopians place first in the team competition. The men are dominated by Moroccan Rioudane Harroufi who finishes it all out in less than 30 minutes. Impressively, the citizens’ race winners are so close to the professionals, 31 and 34 minutes respectively.

Greetings from Chicago, where I arrived Thursday on a very rainy day; but this was nothing new, as I had just returned from Colorado Tuesday night, actually make that Wednesday morning, waiting out a most impressive weather display. Tuesday morning prior to my leave, it was the loveliest weather in Boulder, and after dropping off Cara at school, Susan and I went for a killer breakfast at Lucille’s Cajun Café (http://www.luciles.com/flash/), a most exquisite breakfast place – located in what looks like a residential home with an enclosed front porch where I can just see myself on a nice and balmy day. It has scrumptious breakfasts, biscuits the size of car tires, and beignets to die for.

After a lovely walk in East Boulder (sun still shining at this point), Susan dropped me off for a couple of courtesy visits to two biotech companies I work with, and little by little the skies darkened. By the time lunch was done, we had to almost swim to the car, the water came down by the bucket-full. The ride in the SuperShuttle to Denver International Airport was most impressive – a sudden hailstorm the likes had of which I have never seen before. The landscape had turned white; it was as if it had snowed an inch or two; there was a loud crunching noise as the van drove across the sea of hail. Our driver –a transportation genius - got us to the airport 15 minutes early despite the deluge outside.

DIA with its tent structure has some amazing acoustics, and the raging thunderstorm provided quite a scary-sounding background as we made our way through security. We knew at that point that our plane would be late, and every time we looked on the information screen our departure time moved further and further away from the originally scheduled 3:35 PM. We switched gates several times (28, 47, no 43, no 47), but finally made it onto the plane. Meanwhile, back on the tarmac, the lightning started again, so we simply sat there for a while. During that “while” the pilots exceeded their maximum allowed work time, and had to leave the plane. 15 Minutes later the same thing happened to the crew, which meant WE had to leave the plane – somehow the FAA did not think they could not leave us there on our own. At that point Row 19 and 20 decided to go drinking (not that I had anything to do with that….), but thankfully United Airlines hustled and got us a new and very cheerful crew and pilot 40 minutes later. That sure made us very happy, and a plane full of bleary-eyed travelers arrived content but very late ( 1:30 AM) in Boston.

So I had one day to unpack, do laundry and re-pack and now I am in Chicago for the Annual Meeting for the American Society for Clinical Oncology – 30,000 of my closest friends. The weather did brighten today, and I was able to get in a jog alongside LSD (Lakeshore Drive) pre-conference this morning. I just arrived back at the hotel from a business dinner at my favorite restaurant in the world – Nacional 27 on West Huron – if you are ever in Chicago promise you will go there. Their cocktails are not too shabby either – my choice, a concoction of spicy ginger beer, limes and rum named something like “it was a dark and stormy night”, definitely was worth having two of, but now I must hit the hay. 6 AM will come swiftly and too soon, as usual.

Love,

Pet:)