Somehow I managed to convince myself that I actually wanted to run a marathon, even though I declared only in February that I had no desire to ever do something that crazy. My friends wanted to do it to honor a wonderful woman who passed away in April, though we all pointed out she never ran; she walked. I trained with my sister and friends fairly regularly after the annual Father’s Day road race in Branford. I ran a PW that race – personal worst. It’s not a term most runners use, but my dear old dad kicked my butt and quite a few other people did as well. I’d like to say it was a humbling experience and I learned my lesson and blah blah blah, but in reality, I knew exactly why I didn’t run fast or even well, and I was and still am okay with that. Instead of getting eight hours of sleep a night, training for three hours a day, and not drinking alcohol, in the years since I graduate from college, I’ve taken to staying up late to watch trash TV or read last month’s copy of the New Yorker (some people are a week behind; I’m lucky to stay a month behind), not training at all, and going to Happy Hour with friends on a fairly regular basis. I lived the athlete’s life in college, and while I wouldn’t trade it for anything, I decided that when I graduated, I’d live a more balanced life. Turns out the scales tipped in favor of general frequent debauchery and my usual fast time at the road race didn’t happen this year. A friend told me it was no fun to make fun of me for my poor performance since I didn’t even seemed bothered by it, and I said I was sorry I wasn’t sorry.
Fast forward about a month. My sister sent me a message saying that everyone was doing the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC in October and was I in or was I out. Bloody Hell. Everyone was doing it? Then I guess I better do it. Thank God they weren’t giving up chocolate or something really crazy. She signed me up for it, and I didn’t talk to her for the rest of the day. Getting back into shape wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. My stride came back more and more with each run, and I was starting to enjoy running again. It was hard not to enjoy the runs because of the company I was in, but the pain I was also in often left me unable to laugh at whatever my sister or my friends said.
In early August, we ran the Guilford 10-miler at a swimming 10minute pace, but I felt great during the race. I hadn’t felt that good on a run since college, though make no mistake that in college I was running much, much faster. I felt so good during the race that I was actually excited about the half-marathon I’d be running a week later. Four of us ran together and helped each other along. We told jokes and picked out which house we wanted to own when we got to the part of the race that shows Guilford’s fine real estate. We didn’t realize that the owner of the house was sitting on the front porch when one of us said, “That one. I definitely want that one.” I’m pretty sure she was pointing at it, too.
Around mile six we encountered two guys who looked to be struggling a bit. I, of course, judged them because they were wearing basketball shorts and bandanas and didn’t look like runners. Again, no lesson or humility was taken away from that Father’s Day road race. They started walking, at which point I turned to my sister and said, “Watch. As soon as we [four girls] pass them, they’ll start running again.” Sure enough, once they heard our incessant chatter approaching from behind, one goes to the other, “You ready, Bro?” (Awe – a bromance!) As we passed them, I shouted to my sister, “Count it!”
This happened a minimum of three more times. The guys would run faster to get ahead of us, get winded, we would catch up, and they would pick it up again. It’s amazing how red in the face some guys are just to make sure the girls don’t beat them.
A week later I ran the New York City Half Marathon. I ran this one by myself since there was a mix-up trying to find the other girls, but nevertheless there I was in the corral with a thousand other runners who had pink bib numbers like mine. In other corrals, thousands of other runners were stretching and getting ready and debating one last bathroom trip, but only 1,000 of us were lucky enough to land in the pink group. Runners had to be in the corrals by 6:35am, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when I saw lots of other people in running gear and wearing bib numbers on the subway in Astoria at 5:30 that morning. I’m not a morning person, and I’ll admit that I was a little bit jealous of the two girls I saw walking home from their night out as I was walking to the subway station. Ahh…those were the days.
Promptly at 7am, the gun went off. At least I think it did. I was so far back from the start line that I didn’t hear the gun or even see the starters. It took a full four minutes and 50 seconds for me to reach the startline, and since my watch battery died the day before the race, that meant that at each mile I had to do some mental math. Running and thinking? Ugh. Anyway, I was flying it for the first seven miles. I felt great. It was the best I felt in a long time, and I was running faster than my planned 10 minute pace. After seven miles, we left Central Park and made our way down town on Broadway. There was a sing-along in Time Square, complete with cheerleaders, which at that point I thought was kind of stupid for people who were red in the face from oxygen deprivation. Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was playing, and I knew something was up when I didn’t feel like singing as well. I made it to mile nine, and I didn’t feel as good, but my pace was still good. I survived Mile 10, but at Mile 11 I was filled with rage. I’m talking full-on anger with the fact that I was running this stupid race that I was training for a stupid marathon and why did it have to start so freaking early? And can everyone please remember that the first guy to run a marathon died? And that’s why we call it a marathon? Runner’s high and endorphins were gone, and I was in no mood to be running down the Westside highway alongside thousands of other runners who all seemed to be delighted with themselves.
I’m not sure if that’s the real story of the marathon, but it’s close. I couldn’t figure out why we voluntarily, and sometimes happily, signed up to run such a far distance. I made it to the end of 13.1 miles, tired and ragged. It was the fastest I had ever run the distance (I never ran it competitively in college – 10k was my longest race), and they gave me a medal, so I should have been happy. It took about a week before I was actually happy with my performance and I was able to look back and remember how fantastic it was to run around my favorite place in the whole word (and get a medal for it!). Then again, it took about a week before I wasn’t stiff anymore. Training resumed the next weekend, and I had finally convinced myself that I would be able to do the whole marathon, and dare I say, actually have fun doing it!
No sooner had I convinced myself of this than I was running seven miles away from my apartment, and I completely busted my knee. Tears, pain, embarrassment…the whole nine yards. The doctor confirmed my self-diagnosis of an atrociously tight iliotibial band, but he also confirmed my suspicion that I’d be out of the marathon. Alas…
All that means, though, is that I’ll still make the trip to Washington, DC to watch my friends and family run, but I’ll probably be doing it with a beer in hand… I’ll let you know how it goes.
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