Chapter Thirty One:     Marathon

ART reports event of Saturday, November 29 --

The Seattle Rock'n'Roll Marathon comes around every November, thousands of runners take part in it, some professional, most amateurs. It's a classic marathon, 42.1 kilometers (26.2 miles) and the local record is currently 02:32:04.

When Adam was about 14 years old he considered taking part in it, just to show everyone what he could do. He knew he was physically superior to all us twerpy little human beans, but didn't want to make a fool of himself-- due to his own hubris, you know --so he made a practice run to get an inkling of how well he might do, just in case. Which revealed that he would win the race by such a large margin that it would be arrogant of him to be such a show-off. He'd be embarrassed to lose badly, but equally embarrassed to win by so much. Besides, he was trying to blend in with our society and this would be just one more glaring difference between himself and the rest of humanity. So he never did it, even though he was invited to compete many times.

To put things in perspective, the world record for a full marathon is still 02:02:57, won by Dennis Kipruto Kimetto from Kenya back in 2014. Of course, different courses offer varying challenges, such as hills and valleys, uneven terrain instead of smooth asphalt, affecting time elapsed. Adam did 26 miles overland through the Cascade Foothills in just over an hour and a half (01:37:00), and that was without having trained for it. That was simply his starting point; he had not pressed himself to run much faster than he normally did.

If it matters, a horse can do the distance in about an hour.

Once again this year he was invited to participate in the Seattle Marathon, and since he was now a professional media personality-- both entertainer and political spokesperson --it was more or less his duty to get as much positive publicity as possible so he accepted the invitation. Besides, there were several charities he was in favor of supporting.

Although Adam did try to explain that it wouldn't actually be fair of him to compete in a physical contest against standard humans, he was challenged by a group of championship runners who claimed that they might just beat Adam in a long-distance race. They argued that although a Bigfoot was obviously faster and more powerful than any other contestant at the start, he did weigh a whopping 535 pounds and might just run out of steam before the finish line. Adam knew better, that he could run all day long powered by haka-- he could easily do 100 miles, not just 26 -- but he agreed to play the game just to make the event a successful show for live and TV audiences.

Several of the serious runners sensed that Adam was ambivalent about actually winning the race, that he might just cruise along without actually challenging his "human" opponents. But for them the whole point of going up against a Bigfoot was for a human to try to beat his time. They asked him to promise to run his best race.

"All right, all right, I promise to try to win. But I must insist on one handicap: that I shall be the last contestant to leave the starting line." This was agreed to.

Adam had no wish to run a race all alone in the lead, and that's what would happen if he was among the front line starters. He would run away from the crowd and they would never catch up with him, which he knew would be a boring show and no fun at all. He expected to win, but it would be more entertaining for him to work his way up to the front through a crowd of 18,000 fellow contestants, visiting with and talking to the other runners he passed along the way. Maybe even running backwards for a while. That's right: he would show off, which he hadn't dared to do back when he was 14 years old.

Once it was announced that Adam would be competing, several more champion runners signed up for the chance to test themselves against a Bigfoot. Such as Olympics gold-winner Obo Hizzonor, another Kenyan champion, and Wassamb Smith, a native Australian aborigine who had been winning marathons all over the world. This brought in some big-money investors and we noticed that advertising for the event became more bombastic and dramatic, pandering to sensationalism. Some of it slightly offensive, such as the "race of the century: man against beast". When interviewed, Adam made a joke of it, as he had when he and Melly did a high school performance of Beauty and the Beast, saying it was all for charity.

All of us involved with Adam's life and works have been rather ambivalent about him getting into sponsoring charities, which for many celebrities is often nothing more than a tax write-off to make them seem noble. Charities can be problematic for anyone who seems to have lots of "extra money", there are so many of them and far too many of those are crooked scams designed to put that money into the wrong pockets. It was surprisingly difficult to find an honest charity, research revealing that even the Red Cross was doing money-making scams. One wishes to contribute to a worthy cause, but not be guilt-tripped and fooled and plundered by unworthy swindlers. Fortunately the Marathon's organizers had their own "Charity Partners", which had already done the research necessary to avoid the swindlers and optimize fundraising benefits.

In effect, Adam was already supporting one major charity: a large percentage of S&F's earnings is dedicated to financing the NNP, which is a non-profit organization. None of us were living an opulent lifestyle, the salaries we granted ourselves were reasonable for time invested, the band had operating expenses, as did Forest Hacienda. In fact, the band needed to go on tour soon because there was actually no extra money.

Of course it costs nothing to "sponsor" a charity, nor did Adam have anything against speaking up for a good cause, but he wanted it to be relevant, something he believed in. He never tried to justify a charity for all the starving Sasquatch children because there was no such problem: Nokhons, unlike Nokhsos, control their population to fit their environment. A charity for starving children in Africa was also illogical since there were plenty of starving children right here in America, and besides, one should do something about ANYONE starving, not just children. In the end we agreed that the most obviously visible problem in our part of the world was Homelessness. Tent cities were everywhere now. So he supported Seattle's NoHome Kitchens, but only after having visited them himself and seen that they did, in fact, feed people for free.

But all those arrangements had taken place months before, then Adam and friends went off on their bus tour of California and Mexico. The date had been set for November 29, so they promised to be back in Seattle by then. Arriving for Thanksgiving only two days before the marathon was cutting it a bit close, but it all fell neatly together anyway-- despite the efforts of that Mexican drug cartel-- and everyone was in place on time.

Including Masnia, who actually enjoyed being a public figure, and had now decided to run as well. Some of the advertisers were irritated that they hadn't been able to squeeze that lemon as well, considering how popular she had become, as if it would have made any difference: a record crowd was expected to view the marathon.

Magga was invited to join in, but she was absolutely uninterested in competing with thousands of tiny humans jumbled together in a city of dirty skesk, where she would have to worry about stepping on their tiny toes. Crowds made her uncomfortable anyway. So the only Nokhons going to run were Adam and Masnia. She too would start at the back of the line, together with Adam.

As for the rest of the band, neither Melly nor Lissandra felt a need to submit themselves to the torture of a full marathon, although they both ran a few miles each day-- probably about 5 miles, certainly not 26. Having been "a couple" with a Sasquatch all her life, Melly had always maintained an athletic body, but had realized early that she could never get into the kind of physical fitness that was simply genetic for Adam, who did not need to train or exercise at all. When he ran it was simply a form of transportation: the quickest and easiest way to get somewhere. Lissandra hated to run, never had until she started doing it with Melly. Perhaps because she was vain about her beautiful body, but more likely just to stay healthy. She did allow herself to complain about it, though. Sometimes Pokey and Maki joined in, but they too were happier with short runs. As for Elaine and myself-- well, are you crazy? We're not gonna do that!

The starting point was at the Seattle Civic Center, at the base of the Space Needle. There were far too many contestants to put everyone on the starting line at once, so participants were grouped by their previous running scores or rehearsal times. Professional runners were generally up in front, the slowest waiting for their turn to follow the crowd. Every runner had a chip that established time of start and arrival, and elapsed time would determine placing in the race. So the first person over the finish line was not necessarily the eventual winner, that would be determined later.

The starting pistol was fired at 7:15 am, there was a mighty collective cheer and a seemingly unending stream of people in shorts and plastic rain ponchos and running shoes surged forward into the street underneath the monorail tracks, heading towards downtown Seattle. The course would take them along the west shore of Lake Washington and back to the Civic Center.

Amateurs were generally not concerned about "winning" the marathon, the shortest elapsed times always ended up within a small elite of professional runners who tended to reach the finish line within minutes of each other. So most people competed with their own best times, against themselves, so that they still had something to win.

And it could be seen that most of them were smiling and excited, having a fun day. At least for the first half of the distance, before cramps and various physical troubles began to hurt. 26 miles is a long way to run. Most end up doing a slow jog, some just walk, others limp, a few give up. It's hard. Impossible if you haven't trained up to it over several weeks.

Part of the fun were the rock and roll bands that played at various points along the way and the refreshment offerings available every mile or so. Hundreds of volunteers were taking part in the event; the ambience was jolly and friendly, one of sharing a big local event with your neighbors. The sun even came out and the drizzling dried up, it became a nice day all around.

It took almost three-quarters of an hour for the massive crowd of runners to finally get to cross the starting line, so that the only contestants remaining were Adam and Masnia. The Press and TV industry had wasted none of that time, having two popular media personalities more or less trapped and at the mercy of ruthless journalists, nosey interviewers and greedy photographers. But finally it was time for the two Nokhons to go, and off they went to a great cheer from the street full of viewers.

They were both dressed in white jogging sets, neither shorts nor t-shirts, so as not to remind the audience that they were not exactly human. Both Adam and Masnia usually trimmed their body hair short, but it was still sometimes a shock for uninitiated people to see them exposed for the first time. So dressed, Masnia could almost pass for human, but Adam's size and superhuman physique were too extreme to fool anyone. But this was a public show and those two Nokhons were the center of interest at this moment. Side by side, they went into position for a fast start, like sprinters. As did all the other contestants, they had timing chips pinned to their shoulders, so they had to wait for the starter pistol to give the signal to go.

Elaine and I were there to support our squatches, along with the whole band, so we'd been interviewed too, but now we were allowed to root for our team like everybody else. So we saw then take off running, as we'd seen Adam do so often before, but even for us it was shocking to see how FAST they accelerated away and started overtaking the other runners as if standing still, then they were out of sight.

After that we had to follow them on our tablets and smart phones. The race was being freely broadcasted to several Seattle TV stations and web blogs, so we could “catch up” with them a mile down the road, still under a minute since they had started.

Of course, not even sasquatches can maintain that kind of effort much longer than to get out of sight from the starting line. A 200-yard dash, as it were. The fastest 100 yard dash any human had ever recorded had been at a speed of 27.8 mph. We had once clocked Adam at 35 mph, which he could maintain for almost a minute. The fastest human mile was still at 3:43, but Adam had once run it in about 2½ minutes, so he was definitely out of the human league. It was unknown how fast Masnia might be, but we had assumed that she would be slightly slower than Adam. And yet, there she was right beside him, nicely keeping pace.

They settled into a more relaxed running speed, no longer flat out, still together as a team for the moment. All other runners were just blurs on the screen, hundreds being passed by Adam and Masnia. There was an open corridor to one side of the crowd for the squatches to come barreling through. Cheers followed them everywhere, even from their competitors. Each and every guest band simply had to play some kind of version of Adam's well-known song "I Like To Run" (of course, what else?) as he went whizzing past their stages.

Masnia had been uncertain about the rules of this game-- she knew what a foot-race was, of course, Nokhons did that too --but Adam had to explain the part about elapsed time and computer chip ID instead of being the first person to physically cross the finish line, and the strategy of pacing yourself so as not to burn out at the beginning of the race. Masnia's a smart girl, she bobbed her head, understanding the concepts.

So they ran side by side for a while, both seemingly weightless on their feet, although Masnia moved like a slender greyhound compared to Adam's juggernaut mountain of muscle and bone. She was prancing like a squirrel while he was chugging along like a Grizzly Bear in warp drive, him all power, her all grace. One had to wonder who was actually fastest.

But Adam had promised to run his best race, and we all know how he is about keeping his promises, so he nodded see-ya-later to Masnia and put on another burst of speed, making his way up through the crowd alone. Or so he thought. When he couldn't maintain the effort longer he dropped back to a less strenuous velocity, then looked around to see where he was in the crowd of runners. As he did so, Masnia flashed past him and continued on ahead through the crowd.

Later Adam told us he'd thought: "Oh foolish girl, she's going to burn out too soon. I'll pass her again later on."

I probably don't need to tell you how that worked out, it made headlines and will be in the Guiness Book of Records next year, etc. Adam did manage to break the human record for a marathon race by half an hour. But still, Masnia beat him by three minutes: 26.2 miles in 01:28:11 (00:34:46 faster).

NOTES:
how fast can a human run?   100 m @ 27.8 mph/ 400 m @ 20.71 mph
fastest mile  03:43:13

horse mile full speed 3 minutes      25 miles @ 10 mph      26 mile marathon 1 hour