Second Runner-Up, "Bitten To Death By Rats"

Woodlawn Loop 8mi

1/14/06 3:14pm

I have a confession to make. Despite my mapping obsession, when it comes to the finer details of training - the statistical “facts” that so many runners become obsessed with - I usually just give myself the benefit of the doubt. Distance, pace, and time may all be relative terms with me.
Most days I walk from my house to the corner and I don’t start my watch until I actually start running. Of course, when I map the route I always start at my front door. The difference is only about 1/20th of a mile, but it does skew the pace calculations in my favor.
I always round off my finish times to the nearest minute. Anything between one and forty-five seconds gets rounded down.
If I get stopped by traffic or pit-stops for water and bathrooms, I subtract those times from my finish time. I don’t actually measure how long these things take, I just estimate. Liberally. There’s a lot to be said for the power of positive thinking.
Today, after a protracted struggle with an arsenal of new gadgetry, I’m finally ready to take the Forerunner out for a test run. I decide to run against the “Virtual Partner” and I set the pace for a ten minute mile. The Virtual Partner feature allows you to run against an imaginary friend (or foe) over a set distance and pace. I’ve laid out an eight mile course, and I feel like eighty minutes should be a good healthy finish time for me.
Unfortunately, technology has no regard for my feelings. My virtual partner, That Little Bastard, just keeps right on running his ten-minute pace, attempting to pass me at each red light and stop sign. A few quick calculations show that I need to have about a 250 foot lead on TLB if I want to stop for a one minute walk break (a mile is about 5000 feet and I’m running a ten-minute pace, so I’m covering about 500 feet-per-minute. If I slow down to half that speed I’ll need to be 250 feet ahead of TLB for him to catch me in a minute’s time). This changes the usual dynamic a bit. Previously, the reward of a walk break was solely time-dependant, and it came around every five minutes with amazing regularity. Like clockwork. Now if I want to take a break I’ve got to work for it. It’s like I used to run for the county and now I’ve moved to the private sector.
I'm learning quickly about the things that ruin a good pace. The first time I stop to stretch my calves I watch in horror as TLB goes screaming by me and I’ve got to really dig in just to catch him.
I used to assume that Stopping came immediately after Walking in the hierarchy called: Actions Which Are Slower Than Running. It seems obvious now, but I hadn’t realized that the difference between ten minutes and fourteen minutes was miniscule in comparison to the difference between fourteen minutes and not moving at all. Skipping, Staggering, and Somersaulting all come well before Not Moving At All, the list is not alphabetical. In fact, all of these actions are infinitely faster than stopping. Now I find myself speeding up at the end of each walk break in an attempt to fend off my attacker for a few more precious seconds.
I make it inside the Woodlawn Cemetery for the first time, but I’m still being chased and it’s hard for me to concentrate on the graves of Tampa’s second-generation pioneers. Italian, Cuban, and Jewish names mark the headstones alongside the carnival workers of Showmen’s Rest, and the monuments to Union and Confederate soldiers. Woodlawn is newer and more carefully maintained than downtown’s Oaklawn Cemetery, and its history may not run as deep, but it is a good demonstration of the diverse population that was responsible for Tampa’s unique cultural heritage.
A few weekends ago we took a Sunday afternoon trip to Oaklawn Cemetery to pick our way through the low hanging branches of live oaks, looking for the headstones of some of Tampa’s earliest inhabitants. This is not a place to run but to stroll slowly, head down, trying to take it all in. Many of the graves here appear to have been vandalized over the years, and some of the headstones are so weathered that it would take a careful rubbing to decipher their inscriptions. Others speak so clearly they give you chills. The stones range from the slick polished marble of the McKay family, to the cast concrete markers bearing the names of Cuban and Italian immigrants.
Here is the Coller family plot; the first civilian settlers to the area, Levi Coller ran the sutler’s store that supplied the troops at Fort Brooke.
After some searching we find the famous grave of William and Nancy Ashley. William Ashley was Tampa’s first City Clerk and the namesake of present-day Ashley Drive. He is buried here next to his former slave Nancy, with whom he lived in common-law marriage. “Here lies Wm Ashley and Nancy Ashley. Master and Servant. Faithful to each other in that relation in life, in death they are not separated. Stranger consider and be wiser. In the Grave all human distinction of race or caste mingle together in one common dust."
Although I like the tone and the sentiment of the inscription, it’s the matter-of-fact descriptions that I like the best. How can you beat an epitaph like “Mr. Hubbard, a Cuban pirate, found dead in woods June 18, 1850.” According to Julius “Jeff” Gordon’s genealogical study of Oaklawn, Hubbard was killed by a group of Indians who were hung from tree limbs before they could be brought to trial. Hubbard was buried in a “pirate’s casket” for the sum of seven dollars.
I had always said that I wanted to be cremated. This was before I knew about pirate caskets. Even with the conversion to modern-day dollars it’s still a bargain at $163.88. “Found dead in woods” has a nice ring to it, but I think I’m going to go with “Torn apart by wolves.”