This week has been like a Clint Eastwood movie for me, in that I’ve experienced the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m going to share most of it, but before I do I want to talk about something very important to me right now – duct tape.
No, this blog is not an homage to MacGyver, though the 15 year old girl in me still has a huge crush on him. I’ve seen some old marathon pictures, and noticed that most people write their names on their shirt so that spectators can cheer for them personally. For the marathon I plan to wear one of my favorite workout shirts, so though I would love to put my name on it, I don’t want to have it on there permanently. The other day in a store near my office, I saw a roll of yellow duct tape. I thought I could buy the tape, and put a stripe of it onto my shirt and write my name on it in black so people watching the marathon from Mars would still be able to cheer me on by name.
I put my hand on the tape and then pulled it away like it had burned me. I couldn’t buy it yet. In the last week, a lot has fallen apart. Taking two weeks off from running to take care of my injured foot took a huge effect on my running. Last weekend I did a 15 mile long run and almost couldn’t finish. My fitness level is way behind where it was and where I need it to be. Because my fitness is off, so is my training plan. I simply don’t know what to do anymore. I’d ask my coach, but this week I’ve lost also lost that, and will be training for the last month before the marathon (and the rest of my life) on my own. So, I left the store without the yellow duct tape.
Yesterday my town had a 5K fun run. I had a 20 mile run to do this morning, so normally I wouldn’t have done it. But, my 6 ½ year old daughter, Olivia, really wanted to do it, and the last thing I wanted to do was to let her down. The run had about 150 or so people in it, and within the first ¼ mile we’d fallen all the way to the back. I looked over at Olivia, and she looked panicky. I said to her, “Don’t worry if everyone’s ahead. This is your race, not theirs.” For 3.1 miles, I did everything I could think of to help her through that run. I tried to make her laugh, I distracted her by commenting on people’s Halloween decorations, I told her what an amazing thing she was doing. Police officers had blocked off intersections with their cruisers, and every time we passed one the officer got out of his car to give Olivia a high-5. Olivia’s body was hunched over, her breathing was heavy, she looked like she wanted to cry. But not one time did she ask if we could stop. As a parent, I didn’t want to watch my kid struggle so hard. A few times I wanted to offer to let her stop, to quit. But I realized she wasn’t asking to quit, so I wasn’t offering. I didn’t want to teach her to quit when things got challenging.
The last ½ mile of the course had a pretty big hill. The look on Olivia’s face was nothing short of terror, so I took her hand and told her we were going to climb it together. We did. As we crested the hill, we saw my running partner, Karen, and her daughter, Samantha. Samantha is in the same grade as Liv and runs like the wind, so she and Karen finished well before us. But Samantha and Karen treated Olivia like she was winning, jumping up and down, screaming and cheering for my girl. Olivia’s entire face lit up, and that kid took off at a sprint. She flew down the hill and across the finish line, to the cheers of most of the people who had finished the race before her. People went up to her and told her how impressed they were with her. I told her what an amazing thing she had accomplished. After the race, Olivia and I walked home together, and I experienced my favorite moment of the day, watching that child walk with the air of confidence she had just worked so hard for.
This morning I had my 20 mile training run. I admit, I was terrified. I had already decided that if I couldn’t get through this run that I was going to pull out of the marathon. There was just too much going on, I was still too injured. I talked to my husband, citing a million reasons why I couldn’t go on my run: I couldn’t succeed so why bother trying, my foot hurt, my neck hurt, Venus might be in retrograde. My husband replied to every excuse with, “OK, honey. Have a great run.” Sensing that he wasn’t going to give me the permission I was looking for to quit, I left for my run.
I set my run up as 4 loops of a 5 mile course. It all started well enough. The first 5 miles went by uneventfully but slowly. Because of my injuries, my regular 9:30 to 10:00 pace has dropped to about an 11:30 mile. My second loop was just as slow and uneventful, and I thought all was fine even if this whole thing was taking longer than I had expected. But then mile 11 happened.
For some reason, mile 11 is my arch nemesis. It’s always at that point that my runs unravel. Today was no exception. Although it was sunny out and fairly warm, the wind started whipping, and unfortunately was blowing right into my face. My foot started talking, and shortly after, my neck and shoulder joined the conversation. Because I was doing these 5 mile loops, I was only 1 mile from home. I wanted to quit, to just walk back home and drop out of the marathon. But, then I thought about Olivia. That kid ran over 3 miles without complaining. She did something outrageously difficult and never asked to quit. I realized I could learn something from my 6 ½ year old daughter, and kept running.
I finished loop #3, and as I stopped to drink some water, it dawned on me that I had an ENTIRE 5 mile loop left. But, I thought about Liv again. I refused to walk back into my house and tell her I failed after she had worked so hard to succeed just one day ago. So, off I went.
That last loop was tough. I more shuffled than ran. My legs ached, my knees hurt. I was starving and enjoyed God’s sense of humor when I hit mile 18 and “Cheeseburger in Paradis
e” shuffled onto my iPod. But in the end, I did it. I ran for so long, that when I started I’d pass people outside and say “Good morning”; by the end I was saying, “Good afternoon.” But, I did it. I took all my recent challenges and used them to empower myself. When I go to work tomorrow, I’m going to be a few minutes late; I have to go to the store and buy a roll of yellow duct tape.
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