Anyone who knows me knows how much I love numbers. To calm my nerves at races, I look at the numbers on people’s bibs and do mathematic equations with them; as a kid I used to balance my mom’s check book for fun (oh, please. You think I was cool as a kid and got nerdy later in life?). This morning, though, I only have one number in my head: 9:02.
I’m not thinking of 9:02 fondly. “9:02” is bouncing around in my head with the same disdain a woman has when the name of an ex-boyfriend pops into her head. The number 9:02 has been haunting me for over a year now.
14 months ago I ran a 4 mile race in Prospect Park on my birthday. I finished in 36 minutes, 10 seconds, achieving my “personal best” pace of 9:02. At the time, I was completely elated. Normally on my birthday, 902 would have represented the amount of calories I would have had just for dinner, but last year I turned it into the pace of the best race I had ever run. It wasn’t until several months later that I discovered how the corrals are cut at NY Road Runners. The corral I get placed in is for people with a pace of 9:01 to 10:00 miles. This makes me one of the fastest people in my corral at every race, and also puts about 1000 extra people in front of me that I have to weave through in the corral before mine that I am missing by two seconds. Two SECONDS.
I’ve spent months trying to break a 9 minute mile and earn the right to line up in the corral before mine. And I have missed repeatedly. The closest I came was a 4 mile race last September, where I pulled my hamstring about 12 seconds into the race and limped around Central Park achieving a 9:11 pace. Not good enough.
Today was another opportunity for my personal redemption. I had another 4 mile race in Central Park. To break my record, I had to run the race in under 36 minutes. Unfortunately, this morning I didn’t wake up to the sound of my alarm clock; instead, I awoke to the sound of rain crashing into the windows. It was pouring. When I got downstairs I looked at the thermometer that mocks me daily outside our kitchen window: 46 degrees. I immediately decided that 46 was another number I didn’t like.
Now, “Fat Girl’s” favorite number must be 902, because she popped into my head and said, “Come on, Ali. Don’t be insane. It’s raining so hard I think I just saw an ark float down the street. It’s freezing. Why don’t you bake a nice batch of cinnamon buns – and eat all of them?” I have to admit the thought appealed to me (to be fair to “Fat Girl”, I make some killer cinnamon buns). But then I thought of two separate conversations that Peter K and I had. One was about a year ago. Peter K – the world’s only Health Coach/Philosopher – was talking to me about destiny. What he explained to me is that destiny doesn’t really just happen to us. We choose it by making the decisions we do in life. The second conversation was more recent. A few weeks ago, Peter and I discussed that one similarity we have is that we’ve both achieved our successes by facing our challenges head on. We may beat them, and they may beat us, but we don’t walk away from them. Ever.
In my own head, I quickly told “Fat Girl” where she could put her cinnamon buns, then I grabbed my stuff and headed out the door. I had a personal record to break.
To describe the race, I’ll cut to the highlights. All except about 2 minutes of it were run in a torrential downpour; picture doing a 4 mile swim in running clothes. I spent my time weaving through those extra 1000 people that still got to line up in front of me. At mile 3 my watch read 27 minutes exactly. I was going to have to push through that last mile. At about mile 3 ½, I realized that “Fat Girl” must have removed those cinnamon buns from her ass and followed me to the race, because she was suddenly whispering in my ear: “Hey, Fatty. You know you don’t deserve to break your own record. You don’t even deserve to be here.” This thought slowed me a little, but then I asked myself two questions: “Am I choosing to break my own personal record, or to give up? Do I want to finish this challenge or am I choosing to quit?”
To answer my own questions, I took off. I sprinted as fast as I could, splashing through puddles and flying past other runners. I crossed the finish line, hit the stop button on my watch, looked down, and smiled: 35:59.
I did it. I changed my best pace from 9:02 to a breath under 9:00, which will push me up one corral in my next Road Runner race in two weeks. More importantly, I proved to myself that I do control my destiny and that I’m powerful enough to conquer my own challenges.
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