I keep thinking I'll get back to regular blogging and maybe I will... after all, the Fall is when the race season starts heating up and I actually have something new to say and to post. For now, marathon training is just week after week of racking up miles ... enjoying some runs, dreading others, cursing the weather one run, blessing it another. After 5 years of blogging (this one and one previous blog) it's hard to come up with anything new and interesting to say. So I say nothing. (A feat for me, for sure...)
In this past month I've finished training for the Nike Women's Marathon. I'll go this weekend and run my 6th marathon. I am surprisingly at ease with this. I am actually more freaked out about the fact that I have to get into a little tin can and go all the way across the United States and be rivers and mountains and prairies from my babies than I am about the fact that I have 26.2 miles of hills and bridges ahead of me. I was thinking today how weird it is that I am a-okay with the fact that I have 26.2 miles on tap for the weekend, but when the 18 and 20-milers are looming, I am a complete mess from about Tuesday on? I was sitting at a red light thinking this through and *bam*, the answer. I knew the answer, but I never really boiled it down to the fact: I *love* to run a marathon, I *hate* to train for one. Well, duh! That's what blog post after blog post, and running discussion after running discussion has been distilled to. For some reason I never could bring myself to admit I love to run the MARATHON - I couldn't "unlink" the training from the event. That's why when I say this will be my last one, my buddies laugh and say, "Yeah. Okay. We'll see!" ...on the other side of this marathon, I will be figuring out the next one. I know it, they know it, but try telling me that mid-cycle. Mid-cycle I curse any stupidity that led me to plunk down $100+ to torture myself for 4 and a half hours, plus those hours leading up to that day where I semi-voluntarily get up in the middle of the night to go run through the sticky humidity to nowhere with a headlamp lighting my way and alligators cheering me along. Who in their right mind would EVER sign up for such nonsense???
Another benefit to marathoning, for me, is that it does bring me back to the Zen state of running. I admit I'll never make it to Boston, unless as the joke goes, my time and my age converge somewhere in my 50s or 60s. I admit that I don't want to really work that hard for 3 hours and 45 minutes. I can pretend like I do, and I admire the hell out of those who do, but I, Kathryn, do not, will not and cannot prepare myself mentally, physically or emotionally for that kind of effort at this point in my life. Now that I have made that admission, to myself and out loud, I can relax and enjoy the ride... though I do very much covet that jacket.... :)
In the meantime, I will work hard on what I AM willing to work hard on - my beloved half-marathon distance and times, knocking some time off my 5k, but most of all running because I want to, not because I am pulled by some sort of expectation of myself I know I can never meet - more importantly, am not willing to put in the effort to meet. In this more Zen-like state, I ran a 5k last weekend. I kissed C at the start and told him not to worry for me if the time read 28:xx or 29:xx or whatever, because I wasn't there to race too hard (he looked at me dubiously - he knows me better than that!). To our surprise, I came in smiling under 25. After working SO hard to break that number... there it was. It wasn't effortless, but it wasn't a whiney vomit-at-the-finish effort either, like it was in July. It just was.
The marathon is a running retreat, akin to a spiritual retreat. It is proof that it is worth it. It reinforces that even at its most raw and most vulnerable, it is truly what you love. You could live without it, but you don't want to, even at that point where you don't want to run another step. And although I do solemnly vow I will never run another Fall marathon ever again (I will not, not as long as I reside in FL which I assume will be for the rest of my days!), I have to admit that having a marathon at the beginning of the race season means that everything else is just a downhill slide. The endurance is there, you just have to tweak the speed and effort a bit.
Not much running to do this week, just taper, pack and fret about the flight. Next post will be a recap of THE RACE!!! :)
3 comments:
LOVED this post! I am just entering into this marathon madness and there have been many moments where I doubted my ability and moments where running was so hard that I wondered why anyone would ever run a marathon once, let alone choose to do it again. I have to say that my first 18 miler definitely opened me up to the marathon mentality and your post gave me more hope that I will come to love these races. It is nice to know that it's ok to go through all of the early mornings, sore muscles, aching feet and general exhaustion not because of a distant (and for me, completely unattainable) goal of Boston but just because of the 26.2 journey itself. Good luck this weekend and I look forward to reading the race report!
Good luck on your race this weekend. Hope you all have great times.
Can't wait to read the recap, Kathryn! I know you guys are going to have a great time and do well - I'll be thinking of you!
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