At about Mile 8.5 or so, a boy who appeared to be no older than 10 said, “You know why I like hills? Because they make you stronger.”
It wasn’t clear if anyone else could hear him say this. He ran up the hill as the sun reflected off his neon-yellow shirt, which matched that of the father figure running alongside him, the one with whom he’d apparently been speaking. And he spoke with a voice that did not so much as tremble or give any hint that it had endured more than eight miles of steady jogging.
The boy had long, bushy hair. The father figure wore a hat and had a well-groomed beard. They jogged off, their feet softly touching the ground in a swift rhythms. I watched them with slitted eyes as the ice wind of the New Hampshire coastline’s early October air bit at my face and arms and bare legs, which were now aflame from the inside, the IT Band rubbing rapidly against the outside of my knees, not unlike the too-tight strings of a bass guitar, which now reminds me, I should probably pick that old thing up, dust it off and pluck it more frequently. It’s been a while. Too long.
But enough of that for now – all that mattered in this moment was the stinging in my knees. That and taking a break at Mile 9 before pushing through from Mile 10 to the finish. This was my first attempt at the longest distance I’d ever run – 13.1 miles for many a seasoned distance runner or marathoner is, I can only imagine, a solid simple challenge; quick out and back, a good workout to prep for the even longer race to come. For me, it was eternity, but one I’d wanted to endure, and was happy to – at least until I realized at Mile 2 that the majority of the distance would be spent trying to justify the slow-down. Initially I didn’t care if my legs would fall off, I wanted to at least try to finish running the entire route – which spiralled off into the distance of the shoreline, the waves terrifying and large and screaming for all of us to get the hell out of there, that this was no place for anyone to just be frolicking along for personal records or personal achievements or personal whatevers. “This is October, you morons!” the waves screamed. “Beach season is over!”
Truth.
Meanwhile, as Mile 9 merged into Mile 10 I limped along like an injured squirrel looking for solace in a nearby tree. And I couldn’t find it. Others jogged slowly, some stopped then started again. This was a strange event, one of the oddest and most piercing lessons of my adult life – hell, of my entire life. To reiterate, my goal was to run the whole route without stopping, and I physically could not fulfill the wish, despite whatever fires I tried to light down in my core. Nay, the body won this round, and the body screamed for me to stop. I ended up walking the final four miles. What concerned me more, though, was the pain began at Mile 2, an indicator that I had screwed up somewhere leading up to all of this (which was no surprise, but more on that in a minute). It started as a little tug on the outside of the right knee, which had bothered me well into my training, a staggered effort that started strong but withered into the shape of a withering lightning bolt toward the end. I later determined from online research that my new symptoms of pain and tightness around the outer knees were consistent with those of IT Band Syndrome, apparently a rather common plight of runners who most likely suffer from this due to one of two things: poor (or, rather, incorrect) form or the ignorance to think they can push farther and faster than they are really ready to do. Lessons learned.
Still, I thought of that boy’s graceful attitude in the days following the race, as my body began to heal and mend and tighten again. The boy was clear-minded and jolly and I am now envious of his calm demeanor. Here was a 10-year-old (to be clear, I have no idea what age he actually is, and if he’s reading this, than I apologize if I’m way off here) who had a better grip on reality than I do in my 30s. What in the hell had thrown me so far from the path of truth.
And that, of course, is fear. I’m not going to belabor a discussion on fear – I’ve written about this in the past and while it will certainly weave itself into my writing from time to time, I do not plan to dwell on the aspect of fear here, except to say that it is the cause of nearly, if not all, my hindrances in life, and it’s not even the fear so much as my response to fear, which, of course, has been to sprint into the bedroom like Kevin McCallister, far from Old Man Marley, the South Bend Shovel Slayer, and hide under the bed.
But, hell. Even Kevin McCallister faced his fear and befriended that stranger, who wasn’t a goddamn shovel slayer at all, he was a nice old bearded man who lived down the street (and who, for some strange reason, seemed at a loss when an 8-year-old ran away from him screaming as he limped through the neighborhood streets with a trash can, shovel, untied rubber boots, a hand wound wrapped in a blood-soaked rag, and eyes that seemed to indicate his whiskey bottle had just run dry).
Anyway, so it was with the training – I let my fear of the pains of life toss me aside, push me under the bed covers, hide out, find comfort in stupid temporary mind-numbing activities like aimless Internet readings and TV watchings and what not. My diet suffered, my training suffered, my sleep suffered – and, so, I suffered. And the truth of it was no longer deniable: You can’t expect to run a half marathon (or any significant distance) on half-ass training and a broken diet. Since, I’ve partially resumed my smoothie routine and in so doing I am boggled at why I fell off it in the first place (I’ll get to food in later posts, but if you’re looking to begin a smoothie routine, start over at No Meat Athlete – and no, you do not have to be a vegetarian or a vegan to enjoy a good smoothie).
And so yes, while the race was a bit of a failure, I found solace in the pain of that day, and in the rawness of the ocean and the cold October wind and the piercing gold light of the sun (I have always felt the New Hampshire sun shines differently than it does in any other area I’ve visited in my life – as though it is perpetually dusk there, a golden dusk that makes you want to stop walking and simply marvel at existence for even a few seconds).
I also learned I could actually sustain quite a bit more physical pain than I originally thought; pain I hadn’t experienced since tossing my body around on the practice field in my high school football days (let’s be clear on this: I was far from a star athlete, and I never really aspired to be one, but I enjoyed the physical and mental challenge, and looking back at my own brother’s dedication to the sport I also realize I always stepped back in the face of fear where he embraced it and pushed on in spite of it). Oddly enough, there seems to be a tranquility in the soreness of movement, the bruises of the thereafter, for me at least, and the mind always seems to clear while the body heals, a post-storm clearing, if you will.
And then I limped over the finish line of 13.1, picked one of the medals dangling from the arm of a woman who worked for the event, thanked her, and, feeling I didn’t really earn it, shoved it into my pocket while I grabbed two bottles of water and collapsed onto a curb next to the boardwalk to look for my running partner that day, my sister-in-law, who, bless her, ran the entire thing without stopping.
