The gauntlet one year later, a retrospective on running

It was one year ago today that I became a runner. At least, it was one year ago today that I got drunk and decided to start running. The actual exercise part didn’t start for a couple more weeks. Because of this anniversary, I’ve been reflecting on running and trying to determine whether I have moved beyond the hatred that plagued our relationship in my youth.

I’ve learned there’s much I admire about Running.

I’m a confident and competitive academic with a tortured history with athletics. I am the glasses-clad, graceless girl afraid of the volleyball who was always chosen last in gym class. Accordingly, running helped me find a new kind of self-love and confidence. As a sport, recreational running is inclusive, individual and incremental. It’s available to all ages and abilities, all sexes, sizes and shapes. One race cures the intimidated participant who witnesses a wave of different people mixing together with a common purpose.

While running is certainly competitive, the goal is individual achievement, not adversarial triumph. For the 99% of runners who have no expectation of winning, the race is against yourself, against the clock. It’s about setting realistic expectations and working hard, bit-by-bit, goal-by-goal, to achieve them. It’s about convincing yourself to carry on when you’re tired and about learning to treat your body well.

In the few races I have run, I have always felt embraced and encouraged by others. When you run even one race of any distance, you become a “runner.” The competitors are supportive: “Good work, runners,” they’ll call to you as you pass, happily sharing their label, graciously admitting you into the club. People on the sidelines cheer, “Stay strong, runners. Finish hard.”

Still, despite my better understanding of running, our relationship still feels more like tolerance, more like coexistence and less like fondness. I still approach training with a feeling of requirement. I still rarely achieve a high. I find it easy to justify a shortcut when my legs hurt or when I’m not feeling up to par.

And, two weeks ago, when I ran my first half-marathon, I learned that Running will not tolerate my disrespect.

After running the Ten Mile last fall, a half-marathon seemed reachable. Never a math whiz, I simply thought “If you can run ten miles, you can run 13.” Nevermind I was fresh off my holiday break, in which I’d traded running for eating for several weeks.

No, instead of the constant and considered way I trained for the my first ten mile, I approached preparation for the half in the same procrastinative way I used to approach my schoolwork. I tried cramming it all in on the cusp of the deadline. I jumped in at week 7 of the 12 week program and forced myself to do the long runs.

Running long distance requires patience, pacing, diligence and commitment. So while I managed (barely) to finish the half-marathon, I didn’t experience the joy running provided me on that first run. I failed to meet my time goal, but worse, I felt terrible - tired, sick and dehydrated. I pictured running looking at me silently like my favorite professor: You got by, but you didn’t fool me. You are capable of better.

Despite my showing at the half marathon, I hope to run the ten mile again this fall. While I still don’t always look forward to running, I always feel like a better person for having done it. We’re still a little tortured, but I’m not ready to give up on it just yet.

Posted in Ten Mile Madness | |

I finally got high.

I gave up a lot of things during the holidays and the doldrums of January.   I didn’t just quit blogging, I took an much less intended breather from exercise.  But, finally, last Saturday on my favorite holiday, Groundhog Day, when the temperature briefly jumped enough to take it outside, I met up with Running again. 

Last year at this time I wasn’t a runner. In fact, well into the spring of last year, I hated Running.  During the early parts of my training for last fall’s Twin Cities Ten Mile, I had to give myself strange assignments (like silently, and geekily, reciting the Periodic Table of Elements) to help pass the time when I was running, to keep me moving, to avoid thinking about how much I hated it. 

Throughout my training, I kept waiting to feel that “high” that runners always talk about.  I kept waiting to experience that “lost time” where I just wandered into my thoughts oblivious to my aching legs and burning lungs and forgot I was running.  Unfortunately, it never really happened. 

To be honest, even when I ran the Ten Miler, the first half went okay, but I spent miles 6-9 arguing with running.  The mantra Boy, running sure sucks would start to creep into my head, and I would push it away.  At about mile 7, when I couldn’t keep pace with my friend D. any more, Running and I got into an argument. 

“You’re right,” Running said, “this does suck, why don’t you just walk.”  And I said, “*&&^ you, Running. I gave birth to nine pound babies. I can do anything for twenty more minutes.”   

Despite the argument, I was elated to finish, and looking forward to keeping up my training.  But I sort of fell off the wagon, and I really hadn’t run, at least not for any length or with much consistency, since the race - until last Saturday, when I crawled back on. 

As it happens, by the time I got out running on Saturday, I really had myself all worked up about a number of personal issues, including, of course my purported crisis de blog about which I’ve been whining endlessly.  Somewhere around mile 2  it occurred to me that I have a nasty need for purpose and structure that sometimes holds me back.  It occurred to me that  I don’t really need to have A Great Bloggy Plan.  I don’t really need to know why I’m writing or for whom.  The thing about the format of the weblog is that I can just blog when I can about what I can … just because I like it, and that’s reason enough.    

The fact that this came as a complete shock to me should give you some insight into one of my faults (one those who know me observe frequently) - I can spend a whole lot of time analyzing, worrying and stressing my way to conclusions that seem quite obvious.

I was still mulling all that over Saturday during my run when I suddenly realized that I’d run more than a mile without paying any attention at all to Running.  I had made it to the end of my goal  without thinking about Running once.  Not only was I lost in my brain, oblivious to the physical strain, but I also had such endorphin-induced clarity of vision. 

As I walked to the car, smiling and contemplating all this, Running piped up enthusiastically, “So, Leo, does this mean we’re finally friends now?”

“Nope,” I replied, “We’re still not friends.  Now, Running, you’re totally my bitch.”

Posted in Biography of a Blog, Ten Mile Madness | |

My celebrity doppelganger

Katie Holmes ran the NYC marathon. I ran the Twin Cities ten mile. Katie Holmes trained for three months. I trained for three months. Katie’s husband and daughter met her at the end of the race… so did mine.

Of course, I ran less than half as far, didn’t look quite as adorable in my running attire, and spent the rest of the day week unable to move my legs. Whereas, Katie just showered up, threw on some black open-toed heels, and headed out to a movie premiere. But, otherwise, we’re basically the same person.

Posted in Ten Mile Madness | |

How running ten miles is like the bar exam.

It’s not much like the Bar Exam, actually. Except that the week before the bar exam, I quit studying. I figured that if I hadn’t learned what I needed to know in 3 years of law school, 6 weeks of Bar Review and a summer of sitting on my porch with the books open around me while I tanned, I probably wasn’t going to learn it in the three days before the actual test.

Likewise, Hal Higdon’s program had me pretty low key this week. I wish I had gotten around to ordering a “Support the Rabid” bracelet, and I should have bought new shoes. But, otherwise, I’ve done okay. I did the training - or about 80% of it. Nothing to do now but put my body where my drunken mouthful of lemon cake was three months ago.

I might have more to say, but I’m resting today. By late tomorrow morning, I’ll either be passed out somewhere on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, or an official, card-carrying “runner.”

edited 10/7/07 to add: I did it!! I’m so excited. A detailed report to follow, as soon as I regain movement in my lower extremities.

Posted in Ten Mile Madness | |