America

A little over a week ago I ran the New York City Marathon.  That's me in the blue shirt and strawberry blonde ponytail. The day was gorgeous, the experience perfect. In the week since I've had my share of exasperated conversations, texted with many bewildered loved ones, and bitten my tongue frequently. I know every election is difficult and polarizing.  I know that my beliefs differ from many people that I care for and admire. And I know that I care for and admire many people whose political views would offend my more conservative/liberal friends. The disdain and misinformation would go both ways, cut equally deep.

I count myself lucky.  Because the vast majority of folks feeling exhausted or scared or exasperated by this election did not have the opportunity to run or witness the NYC Marathon. It's probably a privileged and naive perspective, but I do not believe you can feel hopeless after witnessing or being a part of such a thing. Before the race I chatted with a dozen different folks, over half of which did not share my uber-Irish skin tone. As I waited at the start line, I got turned around and couldn't figure out where the water station was located. I asked the nearest volunteer and she replied, with a big smile and an accent that could have been Mexican (or any other accent that a non-Spanish speaking American would assume was a Mexican accent), "oh here, just take my water bottle, good luck" and she thrust it into my hand before jogging off to help another runner. As we waited for our wave to be called, I chatted on the grass with a young, black woman who was running NYC as her first marathon. I never caught her name. But I know that she is as emotionally attached to her Sauconys as I am to my Asics. I gave her one of my packs of gummy chews because I accidentally bought a lemon-lime flavor that she liked and I loathed. I hope she finished happy.

My name was written on my shirt and as I ran I heard my name yelled in multiple accents, some I could place and some I could not. Hearing shouts of encouragement from strangers is always helpful. But hearing my name shouted by folks who placed the emphasis in a quirky place or used a short "a" instead of a long struck me as infinitely more powerful. If Heaven is an actual, physical place, I believe it to be full of strangers who warmly welcome you in hundreds of accents.

I do not discount the distress many feel due to the election. I do not discount the distress that lead many to vote for someone I believe does not have their interests at heart. Fear is a mighty, often irrational thing and it has the ability to steer us both away from and towards violence, destruction, apathy. So I do not want my optimism to come across as ignorant or flippant. I only know that my experience two days before the election made me hopeful, and I have tried to remind myself of that feeling in the days that have followed.

Sometimes we are runners, and sometimes we are on the sidelines.  Sometimes we speak in a language that is immediately understood, and sometimes our perspective is accented, easily confused for threat or ignorance. Sometimes we experience danger, and sometimes we struggle to believe danger exists. I am as much at fault for my personal bubble and bias as those who voted differently from me. But I have heard my name spoken with joy and encouragement in accents far flung from my Southern and Midwestern roots and I am hopeful America will continue to be a place where we can fling encouragement as emphatically as insults. I have hope that the words we choose and the actions they underscore will strengthen our bonds more frequently than break them.  And I have hope that we are early in this race.  Early and pacing strong.

Number Six

This picture was taken in 2010, the year after I ran my first marathon. I'd always assumed that I'd only run one race that distance, but as soon as I crossed the finish line I knew I'd do my best to do it forever. Maybe not every year, maybe never any faster than that first one, but forever. 

When I started running I was fat. Not chubby. Obese. Nobody would have ever looked at me and thought, "that girl is destined for marathons!" Over the course of running my first 5K, first 10K, first half, I dropped enough weight (80+ pounds) to no longer categorize myself as fat, at least not objectively. And on some level running continued to be the method by which I sought to escape ever being fat again. Running has continued to have that role in my life and I can't say that I expect that reason to disappear, but my need for a run shifted while training for that first marathon. At some point running stopped being just a means to an end, the end being a body I could accept. At some point running became the single fastest way to make me happy. And that's when I stopped feeling like a poser, some guest in the running world. It wasn't a fad or a quirk while I slimmed down. It was a visceral, emotional need. In my mind, that made me a Runner. Capital R.
Friends who'd known (and loved) me in my fat days voiced surprise and encouragement for my new love of distance running. I always struggled to respond adequately because the running-to-lose-weight thing had lost its luster. Running carried me through every season of doubt, every heartbreak, every disappointment, every joy. It reminds me every day that anxiety is wasted energy, energy better channeled into two feet and the pulse of pavement.

I say all this because my companion in training for my upcoming sixth marathon is Stephanie, pictured beside me. She knew and loved me in law school, when running was the last thing on my mind, and she encouraged me throughout my steady accumulation of race t-shirts. This will be Stephanie's first marathon, and she's flying up from New Orleans to experience Grandma's Marathon in Duluth with me. And she gets that current of joy, that happy easing of the shoulders, when she runs now, too. To be a person who doesn't run and then, over the course of months, to become a Runner (capital R), is a transformation that leaves you a bit breathless. It's like the world opens up, lets you in on a secret, that the agonies of the day are lessened by the quickening of your heart.

All of my marathons have been special.  They've felt important, each in some unique way.  But number six will be especially sweet, because this time a friend who knew and loved me when I wasn't a Runner, will run beside me, having since become a Runner herself. It's a reminder to me that the best friends are the ones who see the stuff buried deep, love the You beneath the flesh and beneath the veneer of accomplishment. The ones who loved you before you dreamed of running a marathon are the absolute best people to have at the finish line.

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.

The Fifth

This week marked the beginning of training for my fifth marathon.  On Tuesday, shortly before a 4 mile run, I thought, for the fifth time, how exciting it is to embark on these attempts.  I'm always excited in the beginning, always energized by narrowing my focus, building my days around when/where I'm putting in miles. It provides a structure for all those heartbeats, and I appreciate that. As I kick things off, I thought this would be a good time to reflect on marathon #4, which I never really detailed for posterity.

Marathon #4 was the Twin Cities Marathon, for the third time.  I ran it in support of World Vision, the first time I've run for that organization and probably not the last.  I ran in my World Vision jersey, the route peppered with supporters of the cause who cheerfully clapped when I came into view.  I appreciated those added voices, especially in the later miles.

But the World Vision experience was not the defining characteristic of the race for me.

I was a bit weak going into the race.  I trained well but I'd screwed up my ankle (again) and that injury had led to some achy screams on occasion from my knee. Seemed manageable but on top of those pains I'd been down and out with a bad chest cold for a couple of the weeks leading up to the race, too.  So while I was healthy by race day, I was not 100%.  I don't think I've ever been 100% on marathon race day, honestly.  I'm always nursing some end-of-training injury, never so bad that I worry about needing to sit out the race, but bad enough to worry me as I line up at the start.

This was the first marathon where neither of my parents were there to cheer me on. And the reason for that, in part, specifically impacted my experience.  My dad was in North Carolina visiting my uncle, who'd recently begun chemo for an angry cancer to which people tend to attach poor expectations.  One of the more-bad-than-your-average-bad ones, understand. My uncle and dad kept track of me via the miracles of technology, even watching my eventual crossing of the finish line.  They've tracked me before, but this time I felt that presence more keenly, especially in the last miles.

It's cliche, I realize, to compare difficult life seasons to the running of marathons. Conserve your energy, prepare for that last kick across the line, pace yourself, enjoy the journey, take in the support, dig deep. All of that jazz. Not sure how the hell a person would "enjoy the journey" as it relates to cancer.  Not sure how you'd "pace yourself" either. Rather ridiculous comparison, in the grand scheme of things. So at no point did I mentally compare the pain of those last miles to something my loved one was experiencing.  But there was something about his fight that pressed into miles twenty-two to twenty-six.

By mile twenty-two I was on track to mirror my previous times.  No improvement, but reliably stable in my pacing.  And by mile twenty-two I really didn't care that I wasn't going to beat prior times, I was just content with knowing I'd finish, get my t-shirt and medal, eat my well-deserved burger and fries. But around that point I started picturing my uncle, flashes of him at various points in my life, and my desire to walk through water stops diminished.  More than that, I started running a bit faster. I won't say my legs stopped hurting, but the pain dulled, the exhaustion lost a bit of its power.

The images that popped into my head were of my uncle bending his head over crossword puzzles, of his hand as he handed the paper to me to battle through the bookish clues that an English major might be able to tackle, of his back as he closed the trunk after helping me haul collegiate crap into a college apartment, of his burned fingertips as he flipped steaks on a grill on our mountain, of the way all the men of our family walk and stand the same, easy and strong. And I won't say that the increase in my kick as I neared the finish line had much to do with a misplaced hope that such effort could somehow be added to whatever great cancerous scale decides whether someone wins or loses their battle.  I would have kicked harder, had that been the case.

But my feeling in those last few miles was that strength is sometimes communal. Without getting overly metaphysical, I do believe that there is a power, immeasurable and infinite, in shared effort.  Personal battles are just that, requiring the individual to face whatever has to be faced on their own terms and with only the comfort of God to guide them.  But when you know you are loved, know that your effort (whether it is understood or not) is recognized, that knowledge does provide some added momentum, an extra kick where the leg feels dead, a pick up in speed when the gut says, "quit."

So I credit my uncle with those last four miles.  I credit him for my personal record, shaving five minutes off my previous best time. And I credit him with showing me that there is often more in the tank than one would guess.  And the vast majority of what is left in the tank can be credited to a strength that is communal and mysterious. I pushed harder not because I thought doing so would change anything.  I pushed harder because I hoped, someday, when my uncle needed it, I might be able to return that favor, show him strength or joy in some quiet way that would make a rough day easier.

So as I start training for my fifth marathon, that reservoir of strength is well-fed, and I recognize that power is not fully my own.  It belongs to God, and to years of love from my family, and to whatever mysterious force pushes anyone to keep going in the face of challenge. Sometimes miles are small matters, and sometimes they feel impossible. But every one of my miles is lighter, knowing that certain people, very specific people, love me.

The Ritual

This poor, neglected blog.  I was so steadfast in my writings for so long, but I've lapsed of late.  I assume blogging is like anything, peaks and valleys, and my focus has been elsewhere.

As has been the case for a few of my last several summers, I'm filling a lot of my summertime with running.  I've signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon again and though I have yet to commit to a legit running schedule, I'm still putting in miles.  Still lining up at race starts.

Tomorrow I'm running the Afton Trail Race (15.5 miles) for the second time.  And as the pizza bakes in the oven, I'm contentedly reorganizing my ipod and putzing around with various other rituals as I tend to do the night before a race.  I love (and loathe) many aspects of running, but the element of ritual is one that I never expected to enjoy.  I don't think of myself as a person that thrives on ritual.  I prefer more spontaneous experiences, if I'm speaking generally, and don't like doing the same thing over and over.  But I suppose everyone is ritualistic in some regard.  I may prefer spontaneity but if I head to church too often without hearing some solid hymns, without mouthing the doxology, there's a part of me that feels empty.  And so it must be with running...

The night before a race I do the following, almost without fail:
1. Eat pizza (Pizza Luce is a favorite but tonight it's a frozen Amy's pizza with some sausage thrown on top).
2. Try on race outfits in response to borderline OCD checking of weather. Shorts? Running skirt? Tank? Tshirt?
3. Lay socks on top of shoes to avoid last minute sock mate searching.
4. Depending on race length, tuck 1-3 GU Orange flavored gels into water belt or pocket.
5. Google map route from home to race, obsess over when I should leave the house.
6. Make sure I have breakfast supplies, buy if necessary (bagel, preferably blueberry, peanut butter, banana, coffee)
7. Find both of my favorite hats: St. Louis Cardinals spring training hat, Tulane Law hat...I never know until race morning which one I'm going to want to wear
8. Charge Garmin.
9. Download a few new songs, load ipod.
10. Drink 2 glasses of water before bed.
11. Fill water bottle and put in fridge.
12. Put spare contacts in outfit pockets based on one experience where I lost BOTH contacts on a long run.

The morning of the race I do the following, almost without fail:
1. Wake up one hour before I need to leave the apartment.
2. Shower (I know! I shower before I get all sweaty, but it wakes me up)
3. Drink coffee, 1-2 cups.
4. Eat half a bagel with peanut butter and half a banana.
5. Throw other half of bagel or banana in purse for closer to race time.
6. Drink 1 glass of water (2 if it's especially warm/humid).
7. Put on outfit #1.
8. Reject outfit, put on outfit #2 because I worry about being too hot/cold.
9. Reject #2 and return to #1.
10. Choose between Tulane and Cardinals hat. 70% of the time, go with the Cardinals.
11. Drive to race with various doodahs (ipod, garmin, water bottle, hat, extra contacts, sunscreen), usually with some type of country or Southern rock on the radio. When in doubt, blast Johnny Cash CD.
12. Once I'm parked, attach race bib.
13. Find a curb for calf stretches.
14. Find a section of soft grass, sit, wait.

During a race:
1. Eat a GU every 6 miles.
2. Find at least one song on playlist that needs to be killed. Proceed to replay it 10-15 times so that I hate it for the rest of my life.
3. Play "Oklahoma" (yes, from the musical) at least 5 times, because that song never gets old.

The afternoon/evening after a race:
1. I procure a friend/loved one to accompany me to a restaurant that serves ketchup. We can eat hashbrowns, we can eat fries, I don't care.  But there needs to be a vehicle for ketchup consumption.

And now you know, without a lot of deviation, what my hours looks like before, during, and after a race, because I know you were dying of curiosity.  If you're game to cheer me on, cheerleaders get prime spots for helping me find ketchup.

Again

I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon.  This will be my third trek up Summit (while the race is 26.2 miles long, it's those last 6 in St. Paul that are burned into my psyche, as if all 26 happen on that last grinding hill) and as I paid my fee and picked my tshirt size, all the malaise of the last two months started to fall away. After last year's half-marathon-every-month (plus one road marathon and one trail marathon), I've struggled to find any joy in running.  And I didn't push it.  After December's half-marathon I just told myself running was no longer necessary.  I still went to the gym but rarely looked at, much less climbed on, the treadmill.

But I still signed up for races.  I signed up for the Get Lucky, a half-marathon in less than a month.  And I signed up for two trail 15 milers, one in April and one in May.  While my body was still rejecting any push to run, my brain had already decided that running would resume, whether my body liked it or not.  Some part of me, the part of me that has done 3 marathons, 1 trail marathon, 2 trail half-marathons, 3 trail 15 milers, and about 30 road half-marathons, knew that the running would come back.  I've been burned out before.  I've reached points before where the thought of running filled me with dread and I just couldn't love it anymore. But those are always relatively short seasons.  They always follow the completion of a goal (a marathon, a year of half-marathons).  And sometimes they coincide with other life events, work, relationships, particular stresses, whathaveyou.  It's as if my running self goes into hibernation, tucked into some corner preparing for a knee-pounding spring.

I signed up for the marathon last Friday and last weekend I started running.  Again. I slipped on the ice, bit a chunk out of my tongue, and spit blood back to my apartment.  I'll be treadmill-bound for another month, I imagine. But walking back to my apartment with blood pooling in my mouth, a bit banged up on the knees and elbows, I made my way with the bounce I've come to recognize.  Within a mile I'd managed to injure myself, but it was enough to remember what running feels like. Not the painful part, or the exhausting part, or the part that makes me hungry. Not the time-consuming part or the part that requires a lot of laundry trips. The part of running that makes everything else a little less daunting, a little less scary.  The part that reminds me that today is a gift and I will make my heart beat faster so as to enjoy it properly.  The part that holds discomfort like a specimen, turns it around, says, "that isn't so bad, you can push harder."  My body finally woke up, stretched, emerged from hibernation, and listened to the voice in my head that began planning said reemergence weeks ago. A little blood in the mouth, a little bruise on the elbow, the pavement has been christened, it's time to roll.

Oct 6th, here I come.

The Impossibles

I began this year with a botched attempt at a New Year's Day half-marathon. The weather was awful, the road slippery, and my stomach was doing its own celebratory countdown before, I assumed, it was going to implode upon itself and leave a small black hole where my body used to be.  Note to self: do NOT eat your weight in 'lil smokies the night before a half-marathon, even if they are wrapped in sugared bacon and laced with crack. 

It wasn't a great start.  I quit at the halfway mark, sticking to the 10K distance and comforting myself with the knowledge that 99% of humanity was still snug in bed whilst I was out kicking off the New Year with a solid sweat (and stomach cramps). 

I remedied January's disastrous start with a half-marathon a few weeks later, and thus began the only New Year's Resolution I ever kept: run at least one half-marathon (or longer distance) race every month of 2012. 

February belonged to the aptly-named Hypothermic Half, a small race with noisy, exuberant supporters and a scenic two loops around a couple Eden Prairie lakes.

March, April, and May were easily checked off the list with races I'd done in prior years (the Get Lucky, the Trail Mix, and the Minnetonka). June was a loftier month as I wrestled through Grandma's full marathon a mere 3 days after returning from Europe.  While I'd like to say that I used my two weeks in Europe to taper as every good marathoner should, I really just used those two weeks as an excuse to carbload with an unholy number of croissants. Needless to say, Grandma's was the slowest of my three marathons and my most painful. 

July was home to the Afton Trail Race, my sister's first of the 15 mile distance, and her company made the agony of those hills a bit more palatable (even if the young one did smoke me by a good 20 minutes). My trail races only served to reinforce my preference for that medium.  I will always favor the company of trees over storm drains. 

August brought the Urban Wildlands Half, a race that I seem unable to participate in without it raining. I'm clearly bad luck for the other runners so I'll likely avoid this trek in the future.

September saw another trail race, the Surly Half in Theodore Wirth, which this year I managed to complete without running face first into a tree (my first attempt at this race two years ago resulted in a scraped nose).  Warm lefse at the start and cold beer at the finish made this race one of my favorites of the year, and one I will surely repeat for years to come. 

October was a busy month running-wise.  I ran/hiked my first trail marathon in Duluth with a dear friend, getting lost along the way and thus bringing our total mileage north of 28 miles. I've never eaten a burger with such abandon before, and never had that particular muscle in my ass make itself known quite so vociferously. As I like to really exhaust myself, apparently, and I'm a sucker for a cute running jacket, I ran the Monster Dash half for the third (fourth?) time this year, too, at the tail end of that month. A pretty day, but that's the best I can say for that one.

November is the month of my birth and as Minnesota was unwilling to organize a half-marathon ANYWHERE within its borders in my honor, I organized my own. Several intrepid friends ran all or a portion of the race with me, several others came armed with gummi worms and mulled wine along the route, and others happily toasted my finish with beers and burgers downtown.  It was, by far, my slowest half-marathon of all time, but also one of my happiest.

And this past weekend, I finally sealed this resolution with 13.1 miles around City Park and Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans at the Ole Man River Half-Marathon.  I carb-loaded with my favorite pizza at Reginelli's, got a high five at the start from a giggly, snuggly two-year old, and ate back every burned calorie with gusto in my favorite former home. It was a worthy end to a long, exhausting ride, a ride that started with giving up halfway through my first race of the year.

In 2009 I ran my first half-marathon, the Stillwater Half, in May of that year. Days after completion of that race, I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon and ran that race for the first time, too. When I signed up for that first half-marathon three and a half years ago, I never would have dreamed that one day I'd be running this distance (and sometimes longer) on a monthly basis. I didn't know that was possible.  Had my disastrous January 1st race been my first attempt at a half-marathon, that experience would have surely chastened me, made me skittish to attempt another trek. But a few years of experience makes it easier to distinguish between Bad Day and Impossible. I'm not sure how many half-marathons I've completed, likely around 30. And I know that despite being tired, despite my calves being stiff, despite the exhaustion of 12 months of maintaining this level of training, I could run another 13 tomorrow if that was necessary (it's not). My definition of "impossible" shifted with that first half-marathon. It shifted again with my first marathon. Again with this year's 12 months of racing. 

So, impossible is relative. Relative to what I'm willing to sacrifice and how much effort I'm willing to expend. How many times I'm willing to start over. How many mistakes (lil smokies) I'm willing to forgive. 9 times out of 10, impossible is a choice not to test possibility. And I'm getting very good at assuming most of what I want to achieve is in the realm of possibility. Running gave me that in 2012. And now it's time to start pondering what running may give me in 2013. 

An overabundance of possibilities, to be sure.

Before You Were Born

This last month has not been my favorite.  I'd say, actually, that since the end of October I've been certifiably bummed out, low, exhausted. I'm not one to mope for extended periods of time, so I haven't been curled up in bed reading Anna Karenina or anything that dour.  But my generally incessant optimism has been a bit clouded of late, a bit less blind, a bit less sunny.

That this mood coincided with my birthday is, at first blush, unfortunate.  Nobody would want to greet the new year with a grey haze on the horizon. But I can recognize now, the day after my 32nd birthday, how much easier it is to overcome a season of disappointment when surrounded by every evidence of love.

In January I made a quasi-crazy decision to run at least a half-marathon every month of 2012. I signed up for races, most of the 13.1 mile variety but a few of greater distance, and found myself lacking in only one month, the month of my birth.  November/December are not prime half-marathon season up North. I took this as a divine sign that I needed to fly to  New Orleans in December for a half-marathon but that still left November race-less.

My dad gave me the idea of crafting my own race, and I sent out invites early in November detailing the proposed craziness.  13.1 miles (13.4, actually) around the lakes near my apartment, hopefully supported by a few friends here and there and culminating in beers and burgers at a bar downtown. When late October ended with the end of a relationship, appropriately enough right after my October half-marathon, I contemplated canceling the race.  I could run the distance on my own, no need for additional festivities, no need to highlight my depression with glaring requirements for jubilation. The support was really superfluous anyway, I ran longer on my own all the time.  I listed a lot of justifications internally for calling the whole thing off.

The reasons I felt I could not cancel came in the form of friendships. Text messages and the occasional tease about my silly race, questions about where the mulled wine station should be located, inquiries into my sanity, requests for where an intrepid bike rider might join the fray, what my preferred snack might be around mile 5. I didn't have the heart to be less than the bubbly woman most of my friends expect, and didn't want my 32nd birthday to be the one I remembered as "Canceled Due To Sadness."  So I faked enthusiasm for this race, and crossed my fingers that it would feel legitimate eventually.

A dear friend ran the length of the race with me and we chatted about work and church and general gossip, the way women do.  We were joined for 6-7 miles by two other dear friends, one on two wheels and the other my first and biggest cheerleader of this marathon nonsense. The run went quickly, not only because we chatted and laughed the whole way, but because I was greeted by friendly faces every few miles.

I don't think anyone ever outgrows the grin that accompanies clapping and cheering of one's name. My friends, Sharon and Amy, were the first pit stop, manned with gatorade and twizzlers and gummi bears and hugs.  Sharon cheered me on at my first half-marathon several years ago, and I was reminded of that when I heard her call my name. Still "Go Rachel", still running, still smiling, still one step in front of the other, still surrounded by friends, none of this has changed.

Other friends, along with my parents, peppered the rest of the route.  Mile 12 held the added bonus of girlfriends in brightly colored jackets and silly hats, offering a thermos of mulled wine to cushion that last mile. With each hug and high five and smile, I mirrored the same.  And my smiles were borne largely out of surprise. I just kept wondering why all of these folks showed up, why my friends ran and biked with me, why my mom brought those pretzels, why my dad would tell stories about me, why anyone would carve time out of their weekend to do something this ridiculous. The race was a purely self-serving endeavor. The goal was unimportant for everyone but me, and yet I was important enough to support on a Saturday morning. It seemed nuts. Are all of my friends nuts?

I have no expectation that broken hearts heal overnight, or that a string of happy moments adequately guard one's mind from venturing down darker paths on occasion.  But I think God takes care of people in ways fashioned purely for that individual.  I think He knows how to wrap us up and heal us in ways we don't even imagine as necessary.  When I crafted this race a couple months ago, I had no idea that I would need it.  It was a silly way to celebrate a birthday. But after that run, shoes removed, sitting on my couch and waiting for the sitting-on-the-couch-sadness to take over and make me feel small again, I instead was struck by how many people hugged me that day, who gave me flowers, who brought me cupcakes, who brought me a rosemary bush, who bought my lunch, who wished me a happy year, who signed a card.  And despite a month of feeling unimportant and easily discarded, I felt God hold me closely and whisper, "I made this day for you, before you were born."

Epiphany #2: Superior Hiking Trail "Race"

Epiphany #2 was a bit more personal. Another gift, and also a recognition of what the rest of my life is lacking.

I've never been one to love my body.  I would say that the vast majority of my life, from age 10 or so, has been spent putting up with (that's putting it kindly) the body God decided should be mine.  The bulk of this ill will was wrapped up in the same errors in perspective that other women struggle with in that I always wanted to be smaller. Always thinner.  I prayed for the willpower to starve myself properly, which must be such a saddening prayer for God to hear from one of his children. Much akin to a drinker praying to be a better alcoholic.

This relationship worsened throughout my teens and 20s and then started to improve, ever so slightly, in my late 20s.  I would say now I coexist with this flesh in a sort of emotional detente, doing my best not to hate the only body I'll inhabit.  Part of that is likely exhaustion, part of it is maturity, and part of it, honestly, is running.

While I struggle sometimes, and imagine I always will, with feeling below average on most aesthetic scales (except for dressing, I do dress quite well), I escape that battle completely when I run. The battle evaporates. It simply doesn't exist and never did. And, more than that, I love every inch of the body I routinely tear apart. I don't want to sound depressive, because in most areas of my life I'm quite content, enthusiastic even.  But this is an ancient struggle as far as my psyche goes, and I'm realistic in my acknowledgment that it's not one that's likely to go away. It has its benefits, as I think it keeps me humble and also empathetic.  I know how consuming self-doubt and self-judgment can be, and so I can encourage and offer advice from the perspective of one that walks a similar road. But escaping the struggle, eliminating the temptation to base my self-worth on whether or not I had bread with dinner, is a constant desire.

People ask me often why I do the distance runs.  Why 26 miles? Why 10? Why not stick to 5Ks? Because every minute of those runs is a minute I do not judge the skin I'm in. In fact, I praise it.  I thank God for it, instead of asking him why he had to give me such ridiculously large calves. And the more I run and the longer I run the better I get at recognizing that the legs I think of as too big and the hips I think of as too wide form a body capable of amazing things. A 5K only gives me 33 minutes (roughly) of that feeling.  Distance runs give me hours of freedom.

Unfortunately, and this is the epiphany, I lack the ability to remember that gratefulness after the exertion has passed.  If I loved my skin half as much as I love it at mile 17 of a trail race, I'd be dangerously close to Pride. Trail running, especially, reminds me of how intricately stitched together this body is, and how perfectly it is formed for the task of adventuring into woods and up mountains, for stumbling over tree roots (ankles are amazing contraptions), for falling and rolling and grasping tree branches to steady next steps.  It's a body made to experience the Earth beneath my feet, whatever square of Earth I happen to be trekking through at a given time. And the body that leaps over creeks is the same body that puts on a suit and redlines a contract, the same body that tries on jeans at the mall, the same body that refuses to wear t-strap shoes for fear that they make her legs look fat, the same body that walks to the gas station for eggs, that wanders around the Lake with a friend, that claps her hands in church, that stands in front of the mirror and wills her thighs to shrink.

If I loved myself, or remembered that I have the capacity to love myself, in those moments to the same degree and with the same fervor as when I'm willing my right knee to press on for another mile or two, I'd have conquered a large army of demons in my lifelong struggle with physical acceptance.  And every race makes me better equipped to do so.  I become a better runner, yes, with each mile.  And every mile gives me a chance to embrace the runner God built me to be, with no caveats about losing 10 lbs or tightening my core. And that embrace is well worth the muscle tightness after 29 miles.

Epiphany #1: Superior Hiking Trail "Race"

Yesterday I traveled 29 miles (on foot) along the Superior Hiking Trail.  When I signed up for the experience months ago (and coaxed my dear friend, Kristen, into coming along), I assumed the trail would be much like other trail races I've run in the past. I assumed we'd end up running 60-70% of the trail and walking the remaining assumed steep slopes or last few marathon miles. I'd also assumed the race would be 27 miles. Lots of incorrect assumptions.

Due to the flooding this summer in Duluth, the race was pared down to a measly 24.5 miles just prior to our start. We managed to tack on an extra 4 miles due to a couple of wrong turns that left us being dubbed "those girls" by race organizers ("those girls" who keep getting lost and calling/asking for directions).  While we ran a sizeable percentage of the first 10 miles, the last 18 or so were strictly hiking due to a steep and rocky terrain I clearly knew nothing about going into the race. The organizers, in fact, didn't even refer to it as a race.  It was an "experience," not a competition.  I can appreciate that, especially since we came in dead last.

But the challenging of assumptions is not the epiphany referenced in this post.  And as the heading would imply, there was more than one epiphany to detail.  The first one, both temporally and in terms of importance, started with my forgetting my cell phone at home. Along the trail it didn't bother me, at least not much, that I couldn't text family and friends with updates as we trekked along.  But the first few miles, burdened as I was by stunning views that I could not capture via phone camera, I was saddened and honestly frustrated by my inability to share the images in front of me.  But the further we ran, the deeper we trekked into the woods, the more brilliant the sunrise, the more I realized how much of my frustration was at my own fears, less so any desire to share beauty with those not with me. "How will I ever remember this?" was the thought that dogged my steps. I was consumed by a need to document these moments for posterity's sake, when I should have been basking in them for the gift that they were.

I have no pictures of this trail. Kristen captured a few on her phone that may or may not turn out.  But they're her pictures, not mine. She stopped to take shots at points that I wouldn't have.  And she didn't stop to take the photos that would have stopped me.  That's indicative of personal perspective, what strikes each of us, and the moments that struck me remain solely in my head.

The colors were perfect.  I worried on the drive up that the winds around Duluth would have stripped all the ash trees of their leaves, but by some miracle we ran through woods of the deepest reds and brightest yellows.  We started in the dark, headlamps illuminating a shimmer of frost.  We ran for 30 or 45 minutes before the sunshine was sufficient.  And a sunrise in the woods surrounding Lake Superior is a sunrise no camera could capture.

Eventually my frustration with losing the chance to properly document the experience faded and was replaced by what should have been there in the first place: gratitude. Every inch of the forest floor was peppered with color.  The trees are dense enough to create a blanket of reds and oranges, but sparse enough to allow enough light to shine through for bright green grass to grow.  So the fall colors exploded next to shimmery, frost-touched, just-mowed-the-lawn green shades. And while I'll never be able to share with anyone what that particular slice of Earth looked like, I'm not sure God's purpose in crafting such moments had anything to do with what I could post to Facebook.

So much of life is shared these days.  I don't mean shared in the sense of emotionally bonded and burdened, but shared in the surface sense.  Pictures are posted on Facebook, faces tagged. Messages flood Twitter with restaurants labeled, places checked in, hashtags properly affixed.  In many ways it's a gift, because it means those who live far apart can experience, even superficially, the moments that mean something to distant loved ones.  And there are connections made and friendships created by these technologies that perhaps would not have occurred without their aid. But as my frustration with my inability to "share" faded into quiet contemplation of the beauty in front of my eyes, I wondered how many moments I have failed to fully sink my teeth into because I was too consumed by the need to capture them.

Deprived of the means to document this run, I was able to experience it for what it was.  It was a chance to be away from Life for a bit, in the company of a dear friend, with nothing but fall colors, the chill of autumn, and a steady supply of trail mix to support me. It was the distant sound of a train (I love trains!) when we ventured close to civilization, and the crunch of ash leaves, and the scrubbing of dirt-encrusted skin in a well-deserved shower. It was a hodgepodge of moments I could dig into without care or worry as to whether I'd take the right picture, post the right status, or text the right people with the right missive about my adventure.  It was just me embedded in the moments God gave me. And I loved all of those moments.

And Epiphany #2 will be posted shortly. :)

The Attempt

A few days following my return from Geneva, I ran Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.  Ever since I ran the Twin Cities Marathon for the first time in 2009, I've wanted to try my hand at Grandma's as I'd heard it was a tougher course, but stunningly beautiful.

The course curves around Lake Superior between Two Harbors and Duluth, which makes for a pretty breathtaking first 15 miles.  After that, honestly, it's kind of a blur, but by then I was running through residential areas and eventually downtown Duluth, so the "breathtaking" element was probably substantially reduced.

This was not my greatest race, by a long shot.  Throughout my training I'd been pacing to beat my previous times (5:17 and 5:19 for 2009 and 2011, respectively).  I was shooting for anything below 5:15, hoping for something sub-5:10 (my goal is to eventually run a sub-5:00 marathon) and barely eeked out a sub-5:40 race. 5:36 hurts a bit, to be honest. I'm almost embarrassed.  Almost.

I was working with a couple of variables I hadn't dealt with before, sleeping in a dorm the night before, and, most glaringly, a 2 week trip to Geneva that landed me back in the States 4 days prior to the race.  That meant my training was not only thrown off but, more importantly at that point, my nutrition/hydration.  By the last two weeks before a race I've done all of the important training runs.  I'm not building mileage anymore, I'm tapering away from it to give my body time to rest after weeks of abuse.  But for me, those two weeks are crucial simply for getting my head/body in a state of (what feels like) tip top shape.  I sleep a lot more. I don't drink alcohol. I nurse a bottle of water all day. I load up on fruits and veggies and protein. And I keep my carbs at a low-ish level until a week before the race and then I start to ramp them up each day.  I'm deliberate about my diet, obsessive maybe.

That obsession, however, did not stand a chance when faced with evening business dinners and white martinis, rich sauces, chocolate croissants, and restaurants that charged more for water than for a glass of wine. It was definitely a gustatory playground that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I also knew I'd pay for that revelry.  And I did pay, from miles 17-26.2.

Geneva, however, was worth one bad race.  Grandma's was my third marathon and even before I started it I knew she wouldn't be my last.  I knew there were other races I had my eye on (New York, Marine Corps, Big Sur, Chicago, that-one-in-France-with-wine-at-every-mile). So a dismal showing this past weekend doesn't feel like failure, just a learning experience along the way. I enjoyed the first 15 miles, enjoyed spending time with my favorite cheerleader (my Marmee), and enjoyed the freedom of celebrating 26.2 miles with several beers, a burger, AND a corndog, at a concert later that day.

The more I run, the more I appreciate how it makes me feel.  I appreciate the effort, despite the frequent disappointments and frustrations with my slow little legs.  I appreciate the ache after a task attempted, even if that task didn't quite succeed as I had hoped.

There will be other races.

Dead Last

Yesterday I ran the Trail Mix 25K (15.5 miles), a race I ran the year before and loved (somewhat).  The weather last year was abysmal, incredibly muddy with a heavy snow the entire length of the race (3+ hours for me).  By the time I got back to my car last year, I had to blow on my hands for several minutes just to be able to safely grip the steering wheel.  I wondered, briefly, what frostbite might feel like.

This year the weather was infinitely better.  It was overcast and somewhat chilly to start but after an hour I'd removed my long sleeve tshirt and was comfortably running in a tank top and windbreaker.  No mud to speak of this time, so the towel I'd thrown in my car just in case I was a mud-caked mess went to no use.

This race felt a little different for another reason, too.  The day before the race I went to the race website to get directions, race start time, etc., and just happened to click on the link providing last year's finish times.  It was the first time I'd ever seen my name printed last. DEAD. LAST. It didn't bother me too much, honestly. I remembered how much fun I'd had and how intense a workout it had been, and it seemed silly to be frustrated at myself a year late.  Plus, I vaguely remembered that I'd signed up for the race a bit on a whim, without having trained up to 15 miles for any recent runs.  But still, I have enough pride to be mildly irked at the thought of coming in last, even if I knew there were those who 1) never showed due to the poor weather and 2) quit after the first lap. Last still doesn't feel awesome, no matter how many ways I manipulate the placement with niceties.

This year I knew a couple of other people running the race and having people to talk to for portions of the trek certainly helped.  But shortly after I began the second lap, my headphones completely died and I started to edge a little ahead of my running companions.

I don't run often without music, but every time I do so (usually due to technical malfunction) I'm amazed at how much better I run.  In ways, the movement is more relaxed as I'm not switching up my tempo due to a new upbeat song. But it can also prove more boring depending on how active an imagination I have at the time.  Luckily, yesterday I had enough mental fodder to keep myself occupied through 7+ more miles of hills and that belated wounded pride faded with each person I passed.

I know that it doesn't matter how fast I am or how many people I beat. I run because it makes me feel healthy and strong; it gives me mental and emotional balance on the days that lack both.  I've never been concerned about my times other than how they compare to my own average or goal speed.  Shaving 17 minutes off last year's time does feel good.  Beating 14 people (after beating nobody last year) feels pretty good, too.  But more than anything, I enjoy beating last year's Me.

On a Whim

Earlier this week I signed up for Grandma's Marathon.  The race is a famous sort, winding along Lake Superior in Duluth in mid-June (the 16th, to be exact), late enough for a warmish race but North enough (I hope) to avoid sweltering. There have been hot, hot races in the past but my fingers are crossed that this year will be a sunny, mild, humidity-free, high-of-65 kind of day. 

I've always been somewhat wary of June marathons because they require the bulk of training to occur in the fickle spring months, where you could luck out with a bunch of sunshine or be doomed to snow drifts and icy patches through the end of April.  Our weather this winter has been unseasonably warm and snow free, so I'm putting a lot of eggs in the continuingly-warm basket. 

But moreso than the weather, I haven't signed up for Grandma's in the past because when registration occurs, I tend to be in my winter exercise laziness.  Most winters I do make it to the gym often but my intensity wanes a great deal until I'm able to get my butt to a race starting line.  Thus, December-March tend to be fairly lazy months for me running-wise and that's simply not a good foundation for a June 26.2 miles.

This year, however, in part due to the snowlessness and in part due to my own quasi-obsession with gaining zero weight over the holidays (success!) and focusing on getting stronger with weights (scary...mildly successful), I've stayed very healthy and race-ready throughout the winter.  I felt strong enough even to sign up for two half-marathons, the Securian Frozen Half and the Eden Prairie Hypothermic Half, and those two races ended up being my fastest ever.  And signing up for them was purely on a whim! No real training beforehand.  My longest run before the Securian had been a 10K on New Year's Day.  I was simply strong enough to randomly run 13.1 miles, even if it was ill-planned.

More than any other hallmark of my health, I think the "on a whim" nature of those races is what makes me feel good and strong and proud and thankful.  Having been unhealthy for so long (years ago now, I realize), it still amazes me that I am capable of running 13.1 miles.  It amazes me that I signed up for my third full marathon. It amazes me that I poke around websites looking for other races in other places the way I used to poke around websites looking for diet fixes.  It amazes me how powerful and welcome a comfort the road has become.

I feel very lucky to inhabit this little body, with its strong (if slowish) legs, bounce-absorbing knees, and will-never-look-normal-again toenails. 

Today was Day #1 in my Grandma's training.  And I think Day #1 will always be my favorite.

Running Home

My New Year started quietly.  I was asleep when the clock struck midnight as I, somewhat idiotically, had signed up for a New Year's Day race.  Nobody should be running outside in January in Minnesota.  I put in my 6.2 miles, less than half of what I'd actually signed up for, and vowed to never again run in anything approaching 45 mph wind gusts again. Ice isn't cool, either.

That day was also Day #1 in my kinda nutty plan to run 1,000 miles in 2012.  I'm honestly not sure I can hack it.  I'm two weeks in and feeling fine, but keeping up an average of 3 miles a day when I don't really want to run everyday will be tricky.  It's a nice, round, solid goal though and likely a suitable companion to whatever marathon I decide to train for this year.

The weekend after the New Year, I flew to St. Louis, a former home where I've spent very little time in the last 7-8 years.  It's rather amazing to me that a place can be so important for so long and then all your ties can seemingly evaporate, parents move away, friends move away, and that city simply becomes a place on a map you used to call home. Used to. But now my brother and sister-in-law have settled there and it's cheaper to fly there than Kansas City, where my best friend lives, so all of the sudden St. Louis has resurfaced in my life.  Not just the home of my baseball team, but the home of people I love, worth a visit. Worth a plane ticket, worth the calories in a Ted Drewes frozen custard, worth the vacation days, worth all the standard units of measure by which I justify most decisions.

As I am committed to this kinda nutty 1,000 mile goal, I needed to run a couple times while in town.  I was staying at the home of my best friend's parents, the McDermotts, a home I graced as often as my own in high school.  I spent years in that back bedroom talking about boys, years in that basement watching movies and crushing on my best friend's older brother, years of summers during college spending every hour I wasn't waiting tables shopping and gossiping and daydreaming with my best friend.  Her home was always more of a home base for our friendship than mine. She is the baby of the family and we didn't have to worry about those bothersome younger siblings of mine when we were at her place.  Plus, she had a pool.

The first morning I ran in St. Louis, I took as familiar a trek as is possible.  I ran from her home to what used to be mine.  Round trip, it's a hilly four miles. I ran past our old high school, past the curve in the road where I got my one and only speeding ticket (mere weeks after getting my license), past the elementary school where I met the best friend who has remained my best friend.  I didn't spend any time in front of my old house.  What's there to do, really?  I ran to the end of the driveway, gave the house a good glance, then turned around and ran back. 

I thought for a moment what it would be like to be a child and capable of seeing snippets of the future.  If my 15 year old self, all chubbiness and zits and ugly glasses (but such a good student), could have looked out the window one January morning and seen a 31 year old version of herself (less chubby, less zits, contacts), would it have made her happy? Hopeful? I wonder now if I'd like to see some small inkling of my future self, in passing.  I think it would have been nice, at 15, to see a smiling, healthy, rosy-cheeked and running future Me.  Even if I knew nothing else, it would have been nice to see the happiness.  No sense telling Younger Me about the stress of student loans, the myriad heartaches coming her way, the anxiety of jobs and life in general. I think my younger self would have seen the simple, basic truth of that morning.  My best friend is still my best friend, the most important people in my life at 15 remain the most important people at 31, my life is good, my body is strong, and I'm happy.  It would have been inspiring knowledge for a girl at 15.

And it's good to know now, at 31.

Marathon Deux: Sharing Post-Its

Yesterday I ran my second marathon.  22 miles of feeling-pretty-good, followed by 4.2 miles of I-would-like-to-die-please.  I suppose that's typical.  As this was not my first marathon, I didn't have the worries of whether or not I could finish, but I did worry that I wouldn't make my time goal (which I didn't), and after realizing that desired finish was impossible (around mile 23), I worried that I'd love this race less than the first one.

But I suppose marathons, like every other race, tend to take on the qualities of joy/sorrow that the time period of training and completion has inspired.  I have the first-half-marathon memory, the fastest-half-marathon (coupled with the half-marathon-with-the-kid-sister) memory, the half-marathon-the-day-after-the-breakup memory, the half-marathon-in-a-downpour memory, the first-full-marathon memory.  And now, I have the marathon-with-Kristen memory.

Kristen is one of my dearest friends.  It's a friendship that has only developed in the last couple of years, but it has been a huge, happy blessing in my life.  One of those friendships that after it's made, you can't quite remember how you lived without it.  She's a better, faster runner than I am, but she'd never done a marathon, so I was happy to weasel her into signing up for this one.  We didn't run together often, but we talked about it all the time.  We supported each other through injuries (this was not a good year for ankles) and various mental and physical hurdles, and we celebrated the milestones that build a training program (survival of the 20-miler is a big one).

But, more importantly, she is someone I could share my post-its with.  In 2009, for my first marathon, I wrote two verses on post-its.  One post-it had Isaiah 40:31, one had Hebrews 12:1.  They were always the verses that meant the most to me while running, and carrying them along lifted me at the moments I needed lifting. After the race, I stuck the smeared, ugly surviving scraps on my fridge, where they rested until yesterday.  I gave Kristen my Isaiah 40:31, and I kept Hebrews for myself, promising myself that if a poor, flimsy post-it could survive a marathon, I could surely survive another one, too.

I have been blessed by many wonderful female friendships, each of them dear to me, and a handful more lasting and powerful than others.  I cannot say that my friendships with practicing Christians are the more important ones, because that is completely untrue.  My best friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, have loved and carried me in ways that are counted as blessings in my life, regardless of whether I thank God for that and they don't. But it is a special, intimate joy to be able to share God with someone who means so much to you, for it to be an uncomplicated, easy thing, to pass a piece of paper with a bible verse written on it to a friend and know that she values the words and what they are capable of as much as I do.  I don't have to say, "this is why this is important to me." I could articulate it if I wanted to, but to have the explanation be unnecessary is a remarkable thing. 

So the marathon-with-Kristen memory is deeper than that.  This is the marathon-I-shared-my-post-its memory, which is infinitely more special.

The Things You Do The Day Before a Marathon

(Hopefully, if you're lucky, you have a dear friend to enjoy the day with, preferably one who will join you on the 26.2 mile journey)

1. You walk to the grocery store to buy andouille sausage (for the post-race meal), bananas (for the pre-race peanut butter and banana sandwich), and an InTouch magazine because it's a mild addiction you don't have the patience to shake.

2. You arrange the gels in your fuel belt so that the weight is evenly distributed on both hips.

3. You walk to Common Roots with above-referenced friend and buy everything bagel sandwiches with egg, tomato, and cheese.  You eat these bagels by the lake, in the sunshine.

4. You walk to the running store to buy a couple more gels that you probably don't need because you've become somewhat worried about the lower sodium content in the variety you currently own.  It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow, do I need more salt?

5. You walk to the wine and cheese store for cheese samples (for today) and beer (for tomorrow).

6. You head to the packet pick-up/expo and purchase a cheesey t-shirt, a 26.2 bumper sticker, and a bottle of gatorade.  You eat the free yogurt sample.  You take the free potato chip sample, knowing you'll never eat it.

7. You sit on the floor of your apartment with above-referenced friend and decorate tank tops with nicknames, Bible verses, and recommended shouts ("Run, Rachel, Run"...no commas on the shirt, sorry).

8. You go to Pizza Luce. For a moment you think about ordering something new, but are quickly supported in your general superstition that "new" is bad the day before a race.  Ruby Rae it is.  Ruby Rae it will always be.

9. You try on your race day gear, complete with new arm warmers, and think, "well, at least I LOOK like I can do this."

10. You decide to wear earrings to the race. Earrings you stole from your sister's jewelry box which you have now decided are good luck because they belong to her. 

11. You lace your shoes with the race chip.  Hello, Marathon Race Chip! Welcome to my shoe!

12. You tuck a post-it note from your 2009 race, smeared with what used to read all of Hebrews 12:1, into the pocket of the tank you'll wear.  There's 2009 sweat on that piece of paper, if it can survive, so can you.

13. You make a cup of tea.

14. You blog.

15. You sleep.

Apologies

I'm days away (5) from running my second marathon.  I've trained all summer, logged an impressive number of miles, killed my poor left toenail, muscled through an ankle injury, and emerged ready and willing to slog through 26.2 miles on Sunday, October 2.  And yet, despite the training, and despite the fact that this is my SECOND marathon (lunacy), I still find myself apologizing for what I still feel must be grudging acceptance of myself as a Runner.

This coversation snippet has occured, verbatim, at least 20 times in the past month:

Person: You're running a marathon?
Me: Yup.
Person: Wow! That's amazing!
Me: Oh...I'm really slow... (bats away the "amazing" with a flick of the wrist and a quick change of subject)

Not once have I ever conceded that it is, in fact, kind of amazing.  Not once have I accepted that someone might be impressed by that endurance.  Instead, I apologize for my speed, I imply by tone and subtle shoulder shrugs that I am not actually a runner but the race people let me pretend. 

I'm not sure what it will take for me to think of myself as A Runner.  One marathon and too-many-half-marathons-to-remember-the-actual-number haven't done it. Long runs of 10-20 miles every Saturday for three months haven't done it.  The retiring of multiple pairs of running shoes and socks haven't done it.  But I have to believe that it's time, more than distance, more than races, that etch the Runner into your psyche. I was such a flagrant non-Runner (read: fat and unhealthy) for so long, I think it takes a while for the noun to stick.  I can run (verb) and acknowledge that I am running.  But to be a Runner, some finite, specific thing, may take a few more years.  Few more marathons, maybe.

What I aspire to:

Person: You're running a marathon?
Me: Yup
Person: Wow! That's amazing!
Me: I think so, too! (catches the "amazing" with a high five)

The Race You Quit

I attempted and quit my first triathlon this morning.  It's also the first race I've ever quit.  Every race I've ever registered for, I've finished.  Counting only half and full marathons, that's fourteen (fifteen?) races entered and completed.  But midway through the swim, at the furthest point from the shore, I panicked.  I can blame part of the panic on poor preparation, and part on a gimp ankle that has been throbbing for three days now, but neither reason makes me comfortable with crawling into a sheriff boat, walking across a beach, sitting on the sidelines, shivering with failure.

I couldn't stand sitting there so I walked my bike back to a friend's car, sat inside with my triathlon numbers cruelly etched on my skin (I've taken two showers, these numbers are stuck), quasi-permanent reminders of what I didn't do.

I texted the friends who I knew were praying/rooting for me and all texted back with condolences, hugs, words of cheer, reminders that the marathon was my "real" race and this one didn't matter.  But they all matter.  All races matter.

My kid sister, in her first few days as a college freshman far, far from home, texted the only words that made sense to me.  I quit, I texted.  "Sometimes you gotta do that," she replied, followed by realistic words like "next time" and "heal" and "practice more," followed by the best words, "if you want to call now I have 20 min before I go to church."

This race hurts the most now because of how much I miss that dear, wonderful girl. I have spent 18 years trying to be kind and loving to her, hoping that I am strong and wise enough to benefit her in some way.  But in truth, she has always been the kind one.  Inherently, gloriously kind.  She has been enormously good to me in the seasons of my life when I could not fathom being kind to myself and to have that wealth of support living, now, so many miles away just makes me sad. 

But her text was everything it should be.  And the phone call was all I needed in that moment, to hear my sister happy, encouraging, hugging me with that voice that says "we all have bad races." 

This was my bad one.  The one I quit.  And that failure will pester me long after the ink is finally scrubbed from my calves.  But I will try to hear my sister's words in this:

Next time.

Heal.

Practice more.

Go to church.

Tempted by the Fruit of Another

I'm a loyal girl.  While I like to think of myself as of the adventurous sort, I leave room within my penchant for experimentation for vehement(borderline obsessive?) commitment.  Case in point: my decades-long affiliation with the Asics running shoe.  Asics saw me through my first 5K, the loss of 80 lbs, my first 10K, my first half-marathon, and my first marathon.  It has been a noble, dependable shoe.

Unfortunately, it has also been butt ugly and boring. 

Therefore, after years of Asics attachment, my desire for a sexy, sassy, show-stopping shoe has finally defeated my guilt-laden loyalty to my former brand of choice.

The shoe above is called the Nike Lunarglide 3.  Huzzah! Doesn't that just SOUND fast?! And exciting?! And capable-of-getting-my-lazy-ass-out-bed-at-5am-on-a-Tuesday-even-though-I-don't-wanna inspiration?!  That's the plan, at least.  While I've stuck to my marathon training plan like clockwork thus far, my legs have been feeling heavy and I've decided that is because my shoes are both 1) old and 2) boooooring.  Thus, midnight black dynamos with hot pink soles and an electric blue tongue! That'll wake up these legs!  That'll inspire me to conquer 16 miles this coming Saturday!

Right?

Right! 

Getting Serious

Marathon Training 2011 begins for me this Sunday, Father's Day.  In all likelihood, I won't do any actual training til Tuesday, the 21st, due to other obligations on my first running days.  But it's good to pinpoint a start date, good to count the weeks pre-Marathon, good to remember how hard this was two years ago and how hard it will be to best my last race time by nearly one minute per mile.  Shaving a half hour off my race time, even if just a laudable goal, is daunting. Yikes!

But part of what will make it doable is a more whole body approach this time.  In 2009 I was just terrified by the prospect of running for 5+ hours.  It seemed like such an impossible goal, I trained like clockwork and kept religiously to my little training schedule for fear that one falter on day four of week nine might somersault into a Marathon Nightmare of Doom.  This time around, whether I can finish is no longer a question.  But in order to get better, I can't just do exactly what I did last time and hope for some magical different result.

First off, I need to lose 10 lbs.  More would be good.  Less would not be the end of the world. But less weight to carry just means my legs can carry the rest of me a little further, a little faster.  I'm not sticking to any magic diet plan, I know this isn't rocket science.  I'll be tracking what I eat, how I exercise, and making sure I'm eating at least 90 grams of protein a day, preferably more. 

Second, my upper body/core strength is laughable.  And doing 26.2 miles on strong legs alone just doesn't cut it.  So I started the 100 push up training program today.  It's a six week program to get you to the point of being able to do 100 push ups consecutively.  Right now I can do 8 (yes, 8, REAL push ups, I could do more on my knees).  I think that will be a great addition to my runs 3 days a week and pushups are great for arms, shoulders, chest, and core strength, which is good.  Through that process, or maybe when the 100 push ups challenge is complete, I'll add some more specific abdominal work.  But as I tend to enjoy ab-specific exercises about as much as I love jell-o (ie. not at all), I'm going to admit to delaying that torture slightly.

Third, cross training.  I signed up for my first sprint triathalon (.25 mile swim, 17 mile bike, 5K) which scares the snot out of me. One of my projects for the brief interlude between Old Job and New Job next week is to purchase a bike rack, pick up the high school wheels from the parents' house, and take that hot pink puppy for a spin.  I may need some new tires or other gadgetry, but I think she'll do just fine for the race.  I'll also order a "real" swimsuit since all of mine are aesthetically pleasing but not really suits meant for swimming (lounging with big sunglasses, yes).  Part of the trick, and another thing I'll do next week on one of my free mornings, will be to lay out the marathon training schedule and pencil in cross-training for swimming and biking.  This will be tough, but doable, and could be helped by the fact that the new job is gloriously across the street from the Greenway.  So once I'm settled, I could potentially ride to work on pretty days, which would be a great way to enjoy the sunshine and rack up some mileage.

Fourth, get a handle on weekend indulgences.  This is just a creature of summertime frivolity, and not one I'll worry about too seriously quite yet.  By the beginning of August or so in 2009 I'd developed a rule while training that I'd have alcohol one night a week and by September and for the month leading up to the race, I never drank.  That was perfectly comfortable and I plan on doing that again.  I do love sitting on patios in the evenings with friends having a glass or two of wine.  But that could easily happen two, three, sometimes four nights a week in the summer.  It's okay to indulge a bit now, enjoy this early summer sunshine, but after 4th of July I'll start seriously paring down such indulgences.  They won't help me lose the weight, and they're just not necessary for my enjoyment of good company.

Fifth, and most important, it's time to get the game face on.  I've been running off and on recently, some pauses for injuries (neck, stupid stupid stupid Red Rover injury), some pauses for being out of town, lazy, whathaveyou.  Marathon training is always a priority.  It has to be, because otherwise you find yourself mid-August having never run more than 11 miles.  I love that required structure in my day and I also love that post-run, post-accomplishment feeling that makes a long dinner with friends or a stroll around the lake feel that much more decadent.  But if I'm serious about the race, serious about doing better than last time, I need to not only commit to myself that it's a priority, but I need to communicate that to friends.  It's always hard to feel like a wet blanket, to say you can't meet for brunch on Saturday because you need to run 15 miles, but my friends and family are lovely folks and they'll support what keeps me happy and healthy.  I just need to be articulate in my priorities and firm in my resolve to stick to the program.  It'll all be worth it when I get lots of hugs at the finish line.

And, the underline beneath it all, and the Truth destined for permanence on my right foot after the race: Hebrews 12:1.