I relay all of the details from the marathon while Jared and I wind through our neighborhood, eventually heading south into downtown
I didn’t mind so much. It was my first marathon, ever, and my goal was to finish. The day of the marathon, I still wasn’t sure how I got there, or whether or not I actually wanted to run the damn thing. I am one member of a team of seasoned marathoners who double as my closest friends in Tucson. Despite jokingly blaming them for peer pressuring me into running, I know that’s not the case. You don’t dedicate yourself to that much training from peer pressure. You’d order a restraining order, first, believe me.
The marathon was not easy. It’s similar to when people ask, ‘do tattoos hurt?’ Yes. They do. Are marathons hard? Yes. They are.
I combed the Internet before the race hoping to find a website that would assure me that the marathon would be a piece of cake and I'd breeze right through. I did not find that website, nor did I find a website that told me my first tattoo would feel like a down comforter. There is a reason these things don’t exist.
Miles 1 – 18 went smoothly. Well, as smoothly as running 18 miles can go. It got increasingly more difficult from that point, until I literally broke down at Mile 24. Tears rolling down my face (although Coach will tell you there was only one tear, there were many more behind the sunglasses), I was ready to walk right off the course. Screw it.
Instead, my teammates slathered topical pain reliever on my seemingly broken knee, calmed me down and assured me I could finish. They structured a run/walk for the last two miles, which comforted me until I made it to the finish line, where I promptly began crying again.
Looking back, I know much of my physical pain resulted from a gradually weakening spirit and an anxiety disorder. While it’s a cliché, running truly is a mental sport. Due to first-marathon jitters, too much research on the Internet (eventually I was convinced I was going to have a heart attack, although as a 27-year-old female, it was highly unlikely) and the knowledge of my own anxiety, I psyched myself out.
‘Well, that can’t be good,’ Jared said, attempting to avoid the puddle covering the sidewalk of the underpass. It hadn’t rained in days. I laugh. Running in the downtown area has its pros and cons.
I started running when I was in college as a weight-loss exercise. I worked myself up gradually, using a walk/run method I had read in Shape magazine. I had no intention of running events; in fact, I didn’t have any intention to run longer than 7-minute intervals. While perhaps unambitious, it got the job done (I dropped the weight) and I found a new activity to love. Those walk/runs took me through graduate school, and began serving as a stress-reliever rather than a weight maintenance exercise.
Then, I hurt my knee. It felt like a pinch every time I took a step upwards. I went to the sports medicine doctor at Campus Health who taught me some Runner’s Knee exercises and advised me that I “shouldn’t be running marathons any time soon.” I said, “of course not. Do I look like I’m crazy?”
About six months later, Coach Heather convinced me to try a running workshop that she had heard about through a Team in Training coach: ChiRunning. It’s supposed to be really good for knees in particular, she said.
Eventually, I agree to go. One morning in August, three of my teammates and I go up to
I recommend ChiRunning to everyone and anyone. It’s a wonderful, painless and meditative technique that at its best, connects your mind and body together for a more conscious, enjoyable, energetic run. And, if you’re in the
Jared and I stop and go along with the red lights in the city, which encourages our conversation to be punctuated with some breathiness.
"I'm actually kind of surprised they convinced you to run a marathon, honestly," he says.
"Me too," I respond. Me too.
"They are pretty persuasive," he says into the air as the light turns green and we start moving.
I gave running another try. It was only a matter of time until I had a 5K and a half marathon (not in that order) under my belt. Then came the logical next step, the marathon. It took me a few months to warm up to the idea, but eventually I committed. Plans were made, training programs drafted and we were on our way. August marked the beginning of our training; the race was in January.
I would say I hit Runner’s Apathy around November. Tired after my 8-5, I wanted nothing to do with running when I got home. I completed a lot of the weekday training by myself, although sometimes accompanied by a teammate or my girlfriend (who trained for the half). On the weekend long runs, I ran with my team, which was infinitely better. When I ran by myself, I mostly questioned why I was running by myself, which not a fun question to contemplate for 5 miles, 3 days a week. What followed was a supreme lack of motivation and inspiration. What was the point if I wasn’t training with the team the whole way through?
This is not to say that the rest of the team didn’t train by themselves, they did, at times. But for me, it’s incredibly difficult to run by myself past 3 miles. I do not consider myself an endurance runner, mostly because I don’t enjoy it if I’m not with my friends. I don’t itch for it when I’m sitting at work or if I haven’t run for a few days.
Whine. In the end, all this negativity prevailed. While I feel as though I did well up until Mile 18, it was that negativity that easily seeped into my consciousness while struggling. I know this is what is commonly referred to as “the wall,” a phenomenon experienced by most endurance runners. Not only are you possessed by desperation, but you feel as though your inner demons have been conjured up to taunt you. This can be battled by strong mental endurance and a forged connection between mind and body.
Or, a pair of really amazing friends who stand with you on the side of the road and let you cry.
I still don’t know how I have internalized this marathon. When people congratulate me and tell me how amazed they are at this accomplishment, I thank them, but I don’t feel it. Perhaps it has not sunken in yet. Perhaps I feel like an imposter because I associate marathon runners with hard-working, ultra will-powered, tough people who are hard core about their sport. And while I don’t particularly feel this way, I am happy to have had the experience of marathoning if not for anything else but my friends, who remained my friends after I bitched about running for 16 miles or up steep mountains, and encouraged me that I could, indeed, finish. I’m more convinced than ever that if you can get through a marathon with your friends, you can get through anything with them.
Jared and I cross the street on a red light, laughing about how we’re both originally New Yorkers who can’t tolerate red lights very well. We eventually round the corner onto the street we share and finish our run. It’s much lighter now and
What I know about marathoning is this: it was an extraordinarily difficult and wonderful experience. While I swore I’d never run another marathon during the highest peak of training misery, I will not preclude the marathon from my life forever. However, if I do run another, I need not to set goals related to pace or speed – at least not in the beginning. I need to work on the connection between mind and body.
This blog is not an exercise blog, but an exercise in connecting those two entities.
