The Privilege of Disappointment

I ran my fifth marathon yesterday in Fargo, North Dakota. I'm nursing my usual wounds today of aching calves, stiff quads, and shoulders that swear they carried the weight of the world for 26.2 miles. The course wasn't my favorite, lots of cement, lots of twists and turns in not-particularly-interesting Fargo suburbs (no offense, suburban Fargoans), and a finish line that did not make it clear in which direction I needed to walk to find chocolate milk. But the small town support was impressive and, at times, raucous, and that goes a long way to paint my memory of those miles in a positive light.

As hinted by this post's title, this run was not my best. I came in a couple minutes slower than my previous best time despite being 7-8 pounds lighter than that previous race day, and despite feeling better prepared than I"ve ever felt for a marathon. I can't pinpoint the key hurdles.  There was an ache in my foot that came out of nowhere (although it is the foot that routinely gives me trouble).  There was the tightness in my calves at the start. There was the slight difference in fueling the day before since I was in a different town with different options. There was the Zyrtec I had to pop for days beforehand to battle the pollen onslaught. But none of these should have been disastrous. They were all surmountable, all annoyances I have dealt with myriad times before.

It just wasn't my best day. It wasn't my best run. It's still a marathon, of course. It's still an accomplishment. But the more I run, the more miles I trek on trails or roads around town, the more keenly I feel the privilege of disappointment. I know my body well enough to know when a run is as near perfect as my body can muster. And I know when the smoothness of that perfection is lacking. I can feel the "off"-ness of my gait, the not-quite-loose churning of joints and stretching of muscle. I can be proud of the effort involved without being happy with the result.

I think that's a distinction that comes with maturity, maybe with age, certainly with experience. It was easy, with my first long runs six years ago, to equate the worth of a run with how closely it came to my ideal.  If my expectation was 10 miles at a 10:30 pace and instead I found it hard to push below 11:00, I'd end a run disgusted with the time wasted on a failure. Even if I could tell myself it was practice, it was training, beneath a feigned acceptance of that reality was a thick layer of disapproval. The high fives and congratulations from friends on races that ended short of my expectations felt like mockery, felt like a highlight of what I could not achieve.

My dear friend, Katrina, also ran the Fargo Marathon. She finished after the official clock ran out, finished when the cones were being taken down on the side streets and the volunteers were packing up. She ran several miles all alone, a feat in-and-of itself that astounds me. But one of the things I learned that was most inspiring was that Katrina had already worked through the possibility of being last, months prior, when she signed up.  She knew the length of the race would be a challenge unlike anything else she'd sought to accomplish and she knew that if she was afraid of being last, she'd never be brave enough to train. So, in a testament to her strength, she trained with the acceptance of that solitude, acceptance that she might cross the finish after the crowds dispersed. It doesn't just take guts to press onward when you're trailing the pack, it takes guts to stand at the starting line and know that your battle will be harder than most. You should read her story, here.

The disappointment I felt with my own time eased as I waited for Katrina's own victory. The frustration tied to a rough run felt like a medal, heavy but shiny. The body is an amazing machine. The mind is even more powerful, capable of asking more from a body even after that body has begged for rest. My own disappointment didn't disappear, I was still saddened by my failure to attain a goal. But praying for a friend while she pressed through pain rearranged that sadness, made it feel less like a burden and more like a privilege. It's a gift to tax our bodies like this, to push them beyond the limits we imagine and the limits life creates for us. And with that gift comes the privilege of disappointment when our efforts fall short of our goals.

On the ride home from Fargo, Katrina and I discussed future goals, races we might run, times we'd like to beat, opportunities for more aching calves and sunburned shoulders. To struggle, emerge victorious, limp, and then ask, "what's next?"...that's a privilege, too.