NJ Marathon and Hot Dogs

I ran the New Jersey Marathon last week and discovered the world's best hot dogs.

When I learned that a 3:45 marathon before May 10th was critical for the best chance of getting into the JFK 50 Mile ultra, I zeroed in on the May 6^th New Jersey Marathon at The Shore. An original Jersey guy at heart, I’ll jump at any excuse to get back to the old stompin’ grounds.

If you’re not from Jersey or haven’t spent a lot of time there, you might have a hard time understanding the lure of The Shore. Everywhere else in the world, people go to the beach. In Jersey, you go “down the shore.” That Jersey Shore show on MTV is a twisted caricature, but if you look past the buffoonery, you can see glimpses of the real thing.

We all have our regular towns down the shore. Kim’s family is from Belmar and Manasquan, so that’s where she went to hang out. My friend’s families had houses in Lavallette, so we went there and to the neighboring town of Seaside Heights for the nightlife. Long Beach Island (LBI) is a bit snootier, and my father rented us a house in Beach Haven a few times. I’d sneak out and hitchhike back up to Seaside though ‘cause that’s where the action was.

A different Bruce at The Stone Pony

As we got older and more into the club scene, we’d go to The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. That was such a wreck of a town back in the 80’s that after the bar closed, we’d gravitate back to Lavallette and crash at Rocque’s or Vinnie’s. If there was no one home and the doors were locked, we’d just sleep in the car in the driveway. Plenty of people too drunk to drive slept under that Asbury Park boardwalk.

All those fine visceral memories and perfect timing pointed at that NJ Marathon. The race started at Monmouth Park Racetrack, and coupling two of my favorite things, running and horse racing, added to the good vibe. I had ups and downs in my training. An ankle injury compressed the training schedule. Hydration issues and bad planning resulted in some poor long run performances.

As mid-April loomed, I talked with an expert I stumbled upon at a running shop in DC. She recommended using a rolling pin as a massage aid and introduced me to Hammer Gel and Perpetuem Solids for fueling the body. I bought a bunch of the stuff and liked the results.  

I had never run with tunes before this year, so I got rid of the earbuds in hopes of finding my body’s own rhythms as an easier route into The Zone and it worked. Everything seemed to be coming together and I did my last long run of 21 miles at a 9 minute pace. I finished strong with a decent kick. I felt ready.

I'll Have Another Wins The Derby

The Marathon Expo at Monmouth Park fell on Kentucky Derby day. We picked up my race packet and a few odds and ends at the expo. Then we wandered over to the simulcast area to meet some friends.  The Derby had a surprise finish, when Bodemeister, who led almost from the start was beat in the final furlong by 15:1 I’ll Have Another.

Seven of us went out for a steak dinner at Brennan’s in Neptune after the Derby. I’m not a fan of carbo-loading or overeating, so we both took half our steaks back to the hotel. Mine was a strip, Kim’s a ribeye. Kim lost her sunglass clips somewhere that evening and we looked and looked but never found them.

Race day weather was perfect. Temp in the 50’s and no sun. Some might call that gloomy; I call it cozy. There were only a few thousand runners, so the starting area was intimate. Kim got to hang right alongside the gate so I was able to keep my jacket on ‘til the last second.

The race organizers provided pacers. These people are invaluable for those of us trying to hit a time goal. Pacers are runners who are designated to run at a specific pace. They are equipped with GPS watches, so they always know their projected finishing time and can adjust their running speed accordingly. 

I scoped out the guy with the 3:45 shirt and decided he would become my new best friend. He had dark red hair and about a million freckles. By mile fifteen I had memorized all the freckles on the back of his neck -- even named a few.

For a while it was easy, but my own timing showed we were running an 8 minute pace rather than 8:35. I figured it was a part of the pacer’s race strategy to start out a little quicker in anticipation of slowing down in the later miles. No one I know actually runs negative splits in a marathon, though I’m sure it’s done.

The first ten miles we ran a weird loopy course through the towns of Oceanport, Monmouth Beach and into North Long Branch. I was in good shape. The course was pretty much dead flat and the only hill was a little bridge over an inlet.

I started looking for Kim and her mother as I hit mile eleven and found them cheering me on as I neared mile twelve. Before we got to thirteen, we were running parallel to the beach. The houses along this part of the shore are enormous. Palatial. Stunning.

The road was wide and smooth and as we approached mile fifteen, we saw the lead dog in this race coming back up the other side at his mile twenty-three. He was all alone, and I mean ALL alone. The number two was at least a minute and a half behind him.

Around mile sixteen, I saw Marine Captain Mosi Smith, the guy who hooked me up with the Semper Fi Fund. He was moving fast and heading back up towards the finish. His final time was 3:02. He’s only 29 years old, but a beast of a runner and a fine citizen.

This is about the time I started running into trouble. I had been playing like a shadow to my pacer. We had a group of about twenty runners all huddled together, but after the sixteen mile mark, I started to slip a little bit off the back of the pack. Not far, maybe ten or fifteen yards. I knew that I could sprint a few feet and catch back up, but I was beginning to tire.  

Something happened around mile seventeen. We passed the mile marker and turned right to head for the bridge over Deal Lake. I did not feel like I slowed, but suddenly I had lost contact with my group. They were about fifty yards ahead of me as they crossed the bridge and seemed to be flying. It was time for me to eat another energy gel, and as I fished it out of my pouch (still running along), they passed the eighteen mile marker, turned right onto the Asbury Park boardwalk and I lost them.

I became slightly dismayed here, but only slightly. I always hit my “wall” at about mile seventeen or eighteen, so I figured if I kept struggling along I would get through it. I wondered if running on the boardwalk would be easier than the road. It wasn’t. In fact, it sucked. The boards there were all lumpy and uneven.  One section of planks ran parallel to the beach, and the footing there was more consistent.

We ran right through this building

I pushed to pick up my pace, and must have been successful because I never saw my pacer again. There was a little loop at the turn around in Ocean Grove, and he must have been just enough ahead of me that we never passed each other. At mile twenty we actually ran through a building on the Asbury Park boardwalk. It was kind of cool and that picked up my spirits a bit.

We came off the boardwalk about a half mile later. This was mentally my lowest point. I was confronting the fact that I would not make 3:45 and felt my chances of getting into the JFK were screwed. As the boardwalk ramped back down to the street, I stumbled on an uneven plank and almost fell on my face. The quit devil started whispering in my ear.

Miles twenty-one through twenty-three were purgatory. My left sock had bunched up under my foot. I did not want to stop because at that level of fatigue, re-starting might be an insurmountable obstacle. I wiggled my foot around in my shoe as I ran in an effort to get the bunched up part out from under a bone. It worked and that small success was good.

My cardio was fine. It always is, but the hamstrings and calves were cranking down really tight. It was painful. The quit devil kept whispering to me in this place, but he never got any real influence because of my shirt. I was wearing my Team Semper-Fi Fund shirt and there was no way in hell I was going to disgrace that shirt by quitting.

As I passed the marker for mile twenty-three, I noticed the elapsed time on the clock was 3:32 and it dawned on me that I was still within striking distance of a sub-four hour finishing time. My last marathon time, NYC 2004, was 4:01 and I promised myself then that I would run another marathon someday because it was a shame to end on such a disappointing time. This was my chance for redemption.

With a new achievable goal, I relaxed and moved along a bit more comfortably but I did get passed by a guy running barefoot. They were some ugly feet that guy had. He had a pair of minimalist sandals tied to his waist.

Halfway through mile twenty-four we turned off the road and up onto the Long Branch boardwalk. That’s where one of the toenails on my right foot let go. It had been black for a few weeks. I felt it pop and there was this short burst of pain. I said to myself, “Damn, I was afraid that was going to happen.” It hurt for a minute, but no one ever died from losing a toenail, so you just ignore it and it goes away. The pain, that is. The nail stays in the sock.

I was very happy to see the flags that marked the finish, and happier yet to see the clock that said 3:58. I knew the official clock was two minutes faster than my actual time, and I was elated to see that the finishing time was easily under four hours. I had very little kick, though.

New Jersey National Guardsmen handed out bottles of water after we crossed the finsh, and a nice lady hung a medal around my neck. Kimberly was waiting for me along the fence on the left and my first words to her were, “I beat four hours, Honey. If I never run another one of these f-ing things, it will be ok.”

The grass along the Long Branch Boardwalk

Kim’s mother Lynn and her friend Bill were also there and we walked to a grassy area near a bandshell. As I stepped up onto the grass, both calf muscles cramped in unison and with such ferocity that I was involuntarily forced right up onto tip-toe.  Gasping weird guttural grunts, I bent to massage them but instead fell over sideways.

Lynn ran over and grabbed the right one while I worked the left. Then the golf ball sized muscles on the front of my hips joined the party. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or just yell. Thrashing around going, “Oh! Oh! Oh!,” I got myself back on my feet and commenced to walking in circles ‘til everything quieted back down. That’s when I saw the sign for the Hot Dogs. "Hot Dogs $5," it said.

When the cramping stopped I laid down in the grass. I miss laying in the grass. Here in Virginia, you can’t lay in the grass because there’s these really nasty little bugs called chiggers that creep under the waistband of your underwear and then burrow into your flesh where they hang out and drive you crazy with itching until you smother them with nail polish.

So I was laying in the grass and Kim asked if I wanted something to eat and I said I would like a hot dog but five bucks seemed like an awful lot for a hot dog. Kim said you just ran twenty-six miles if you want a five dollar hot dog you can have a five dollar hot dog. So I said ok.

She came back in a few of minutes with a gigantic hot dog. It stuck out a couple of inches from either end of the bun. It had sauerkraut, chopped onions and brown mustard on it. The skin popped as I bit it. Juice ran down my chin and the flavor was indescribable. Perfect. So good in fact that I had a second.

They’re called WindMill Hot Dogs and can only be found in a few locations at the Jersey Shore and one place in Westfield. There’s also a horse farm just west of Richmond, VA where about five pounds of them are currently stored. But those will be gone before too long.

You can buy them online for something ridiculous like $4 each for a package of twenty-four. We paid a fraction of that in the store in Ocean Grove. Oh well, I guess we need to go back down the shore to get another package of dogs. Can I get you some bagels while we’re at it?