So, I ran another half marathon in August. And I’m seriously starting to think that I have to stop being too damn optimistic about these things. Really, if I’ve discovered anything in my rather short life of distance running it’s that running a half marathon (and beyond that I’m sure, though I’ve never done it) is much like going on a camping trip. Once you start you’ve committed yourself to venturing out into the great beyond, with only the supplies you need, and not quite sure what to expect before it’s over.
For comparison sake, allow me to brief you first on the characteristics of the prerace routine for my best half marathon thus far. I did the training, though not as much as I should have. I ate OK, though not as well as I should have. I had a series of terrible (TERRIBLE) long training runs. I’m sure my running companions were starting to wonder if I was indeed putting any effort towards the training at all. Then, the cherry on top: Two nights before the race I threw my back out doing laundry. Yes, I do laundry, and if my family is lucky I even cook for them once in awhile. It was so painful I could hardly sleep that night. Over the course of the next 36 hours I went to the chiropractor, used icy hot, and popped enough Ibuprofen to make my kidneys go belly up on the shoulder of I-94 somewhere between St. Cloud and Fargo. I woke up the morning of the race, after having a terrible night’s sleep due to said bad back, thinking “This is ridiculous. I can’t do this. I’m going to get out there and get stuck in the middle of the route when my back gives out.” Yet not wanting to bow out for as far as I’d come, I went, and I started, and I expected to fail, and I finished with a PR in just under 2:05, a whole nine minutes faster than my previous race. I was amazed. And I was pumped to try that again.
Though I was signed up for another half marathon two weeks later, I set my sights on a half marathon in early August, two and a half months out. The course was fairly flat and I was becoming less of a newbie at this. If I could do what I had done with a bad back, just think of what I could do if I trained like I should and didn’t do any laundry until the race was over. I was sure I could reach that sub- 2hr time that had been eluding me up to this point. So I set out to do just that. I ran, I cross trained, I strength trained, I did speedwork, I had good long training runs, and I drank water like it was Captain Morgan on a Friday after a rough week at work. Though I did do laundry (I figured that might be a problem), I went into the day of the race with no doubt I had a sub- 2:00 finish time in me.
Shakespeare once wrote, “the course of true love never did run smooth.” Though it referred to the A Midsummer’s Night Dream love quagmire Lysander found himself in, you can really apply it to any type of course you’re trying to navigate in life. And in this case, my course was this race. I’m really not certain exactly what caused the complete unraveling of my performance and sanity. Maybe it was the humidity, or the lack of consistent water stops, or maybe it just wasn’t my day. Or maybe I was so prepared to do well, that I forgot to prepare for all possible outcomes. The pinnacle of despair was when the “lady in the dress” jogged past me around Mile 10. I first saw her around Mile 3, when I passed her on the trail, thinking, seriously woman, cute dress, but there is no way you are beating me to the finish line. You see, besides all the training runners do, we also have our little mantras and motivations that help us to the finish line, and sometimes mine include picking certain runners out of the crowd as targets. Maybe they’re wearing something that catches my eye, or maybe it’s that blonde from 5th floor freshman year who was less than friendly (Reindeer Run 1997), but I get it in my mind “they are not beating me today.” And on this day, it was dress lady. Usually this strategy works wonders for me, but not on this day. I was beyond help far before Mile 10. Even before Mile 9, when a couple people yelled out “you’re almost there!” I wish I had a camera with me to capture the moment, really, because then I could have played it back when those words would have ACTUALLY been useful to me at Mile 12 ½. And when I finally crossed the finish line, my son shouted out those words that summed up my feelings perfectly. “What took you so long, Mom??”
Now, not long ago I pulled my daughter out into the hallway between swimming events at one of her more lackadaisical meets to give her the “there’s no crying in swimming” speech. Even though the very essence of my speech made her burst into tears, the point was that her lack of confidence was causing a complete breakdown in her performance (though I don’t think it came out that eloquently). Had my daughter had any inkling what I was thinking during this race, she may have pulled me off the race course and given me “the speech” in return. And I probably would have cried too. Not out of pride because she was using my advice in the appropriate manner, but because it was hot and I was tired and whining like a 5 year old. So, clearly I was struggling with practicing what I preach but I still couldn’t help but think that maybe I need to approach these endeavors with a little more conservatism; similar to my expectation of help with household chores. If I go in with lower expectations for the outcome, I’ll be better prepared for the challenges along the way. Because clearly going into a race with the mindset of Mohammed Ali before a boxing match was not working for me.
So, I will continue along this journey of distance running I have started, hoping to find a happy medium of race preparation somewhere between overconfidence and utter despair. And regardless of how I am feeling I will smile at my daughter each time I pass her on the route, and she will know none the wiser. Until she reads this post some day and gets really pissed about that time I went all Bobby Knight on her at the swim meet.
But really, I’m sure I’ve had worse parenting moments than that. Hopefully she remembers one of those instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment