"Why on earth would you want to run a marathon?"
This was the understandably exasperated question that Mike asked last year at our running group's post-Philly Marathon party. While I was taken aback by it, I have to admit it's a question I ask myself, even after signing up for this year's Philadelphia Marathon.What reasonable person--especially as she gets older--puts herself through the ordeal of 20-mile training runs, twice a day runs, and interval workouts?
Another good question, but the key word here is "reasonable." I never claimed to be reasonable, and I'm not about to adopt this quality at this point in my life. Reasonable people don't view a 5.25 mile swim as a fun thing to do on a Friday morning. Reasonable people don't decide to embark on a 24-hour team relay on the hottest day of the year.
Not that there isn't a place for reasonableness: I'd love to see more of it in the Presidential election campaign for instance. There's too much hatred going on there. But that's for another blog entry.
Today, the focus is on this crazy 20-mile training run I did yesterday. Or was it crazy?
Let's just say the start of it was somewhat unpromising.
I came to this run full of self-doubt. What was I thinking to have signed up for a marathon? To have set for myself the need for these elongated training runs. Five miles is a "health run." 20 miles? A 5k race is a nice lark. A 26.2 mile race--and I say this having done seven of them already, with a personal best of 3:54:47 in 1995--is really, despite its growing popularity... crazy for someone with my injury history and the pain I experienced in past marathons... and on long runs generally. So I wasn't feeling too optimistic that this 20-miler was going to be anything but painful.
And it was.
But not for the reasons I thought it would be. Thanks to a Chirunning workshop given by Craig Strimel, a friend I met through the "Back on My Feet" program, there is far less muscle soreness than I expected. There's some because one doesn't learn all of this at once. But less than I thought there would be.
But the the most significant pain? Put simply, I was mugged before I'd gone a mile and a half... by a rogue rock protruding in the dirt path alongside Kelly Drive.
The rock caught my foot and tripped me, causing ugly scrapes, but fortunately no broken bones, no muscle tears, no damage to the moving parts.
But much damage to my sense of well-being. Almost enough to make me bag the run, see the fall as some sort of confirmation that I was nuts to undertake it. Had it not been for the assistance of a woman nearby who'd also experienced a mugging by the same rock and was therefore empathetic to my plight--and a man who stepped out of the MS Walk that was taking place on the paved path, who offered both "mugging victims" some water to pour on our cuts--I would have succumbed to the urge to make a u-turn, have done with this run, abandon my marathon plans. The woman and I both decided we were still (despite our wounds) ambulatory enough to run, and went on our respective ways.
However, my mood had soured. This fall had ruined my enjoyment of the sunny, comfortable weather, and I was cursing myself and God and the rock and all the forces that came together to throw me to the ground. Yes I was grateful I wasn't hurt worse. But I can't say I was too grateful. How was I going to go 20 miles in this condition? Somehow. That's all.
I resolved simply to get through it, expecting no more than that. I'd come to run 20 and I was determined to go home having done so.
More than ever, I needed not to worry about pace, just focus on what I'd learned in the Chirunning workshop Saturday: "engage the core"; "relax your shoulders"; "relax your ankles"; "lean forward," etc. Also drank water every ten minutes... took three gels, a Coffee Nip, and even a granola bar. Probably some would recommend not quite as much intake as that, but it worked for me. (We're talking survival!)
Occasionally, I'd pause to stretch, using the stretches we were shown in the workshop.
Other refreshing pauses that began to restore my mental balance:
--Several minutes after I fell, I saw a friend and fellow age group competitor from other races: she too was out for a 20-miler, having also entered the Philly Marathon. It would be her first marathon. I warned her about the rock (no sense having another person get "mugged" by it), and we wished each other well. Something about another 50something woman out with the same intention--to train for a marathon--buoyed me up. I wasn't alone in this craziness. Even though we were heading opposite directions, I felt companionship, knowing we were both facing the same "what, are you nuts" voices in our heads and rising to our own challenges.
--Further along in my route (which I'd decided for the sake of exactness to include a run out and back to the six mile mark and another out and back to four miles, totaling 20 altogether), I was told by a woman on a bike that a hawk had landed on a tree branch just above me. When she noticed I was having a hard time seeing it, she u-turned and pointed it out to me. I thanked her and stopped for a few minutes simply to look. There it was, so blended in with the tree, one wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't moved slightly from time to time: this bird could give a lesson on successful camouflage. It seemed content simply to perch there on the branch, not paying me too much attention, just taking its ease. I thought of hawks--their ability to fly far and fast, to soar, to see for miles and home in on their prey. Very strong birds. I silently thanked the hawk for coming to this spot at this time, just when I needed to reach deeper inside myself, find some healing from the mental and physical hurt that I'd experienced. Once I had rested with this bird, I felt ready to continue.
What can a hawk teach me not only about camouflage but about enduring? That they knew how to make their bodies aerodynamic, to catch the wind and fly with it, to fly high but know when to rest. I think this bird shared its energy with me.
After that encounter, although I still had some tired, out of sorts moments, I found that I could focus, keep going, know that this run was possible. The cuts had dried and scabbed. I was still in motion. It would be slow, this run, but it would happen. And finally, it did.
And while the fall won't live in my memory as a high point in my run, it reminds me that there's a strength in me that can out-rock the rocks that trip me. That friends and hawks and other cool surprises await a person who dares to be unreasonable sometimes.
Later, on the "Pflash" bus (a tour bus that takes passengers to various Philadelphia landmarks for $2 a ride and that stops at the Art Museum... this bus has carried my tired body into Center City after many a long run), I met three women in their 60s, 70s, 80s--not sure, really--who were visiting Philadelphia on an Elder Hostel trip. They told me they'd taken many such trips and enjoyed them. I thought of Mom and her many Elder Hostel trips--and how much she enjoyed them--and shared this with the ladies. They were excited, animated, carrying maps and guidebooks, telling me how friendly people were. They were out in search of their own adventures--interested in life, as Mom IS. I think of Mom always in present tense. Maybe they too had experienced their share of rocks that tripped them, but they were still exploring their world.
"Why on earth would you want to ...[fill in blank: run a marathon, visit new cities, swim across a bay]?"
Why not?
posted by DPMcManus @ 4:38 AM
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