Monday, Apr. 28, 2003 - 12:41 a.m.

The 107th Boston Marathon

Part Four � Final Chapter

Monday � April 21st

4:39:54 p.m. Just crossed the finish line of the 107th Boston Marathon. Before I can bother to get my finishers medal I pull up some curb and sit my nauseous dehydrated tired old ass down in an attempt to achieve a moment of feeling something beneficial, pleasurable or at the very least agreeable. To my dismay a female runner bellied up to the sewer grate inches from my sore aching feet and freed her stomach of now useless Gatorade. "Nice," I say as I labor to get back up onto my legs of rubber exerting only enough energy to avoid spray and constrain sympathy wretch.

4:45 p.m. That�s it. I�ve had my sufficiency of marathon regalia and after returning my time chip and collecting my medal I make a beeline for the Fairmont Hotel situated .1 mile from where I stand but unfortunately 1.3 miles from where I�m allowed to exit the finishers coral.

4:52 p.m. Feeling like a finless salmon unable to propel or steer or balance my body while swimming upstream for the last time with the urgency of natures call to spawn before the change of weather I fight the crowd of runners and spectators coming towards me. Determined not to lose ground I announce, "I�m gonna be sick" every five feet, or so, in attempts of making my path more navigable.

5:10 p.m. Safely back in the comfort of my Fairmont Hotel room I quickly shed everything except my medal and get onto the bed. It doesn�t take me long to discover that moaning at the top of my lungs every minute or two is the phenomenon allowing me to feel a bit less nauseous. Something about sharing my pain and discomfort with anyone within earshot eased my misery.

5:15 p.m. From eating Gu, whilst running, I�m jacked-up on enough caffeine to satiate a Route 66 diner littered with 300+ lb. truckers needing to get the crop to the cannery by sun up. In between caterwauls I�ve added uncontrollable rocking to my list of histrionics.

5:30 p.m. Rocking back and forth, side to side, my body unable to process the unfamiliar caffeine drug racing through my blood stream pumping pumping pumping gallons of A+ from my heart to my brain, brain to heart, heart to brain. Rocking, moaning, rocking groaning, rocking rocking all the while promising myself this is the last time the last one the last.

6:01 p.m. Regrettably, I�ve rocked and bellyached and promised before. However completing a marathon, I imagine, is similar to childbirth in that it is excruciatingly painful but when it�s over the feelings are so overwhelmingly joyful one tends to forget the horrors of the event until again knee-deep, or knee-bent, in the process and the memories come flooding back with the subtlety of the 100 foot wave that wiped out that fishing boat from Gloucester.

Tuesday � April 22nd

7:15 p.m. Anxious to get back to Los Angeles, to my dogs, to my masseuse, and to my condo to see if M-man sat on my couch, watched my TV, slept in my bed, lathered with my soap. But right now I�m trapped in an airplane an aisle away from a man asking for ibuprofen for his fever.

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