I spent the first 3.5 decades of my life as a card carrying, banner waving member of Team Don’t Run. Even in school, I did everything I could to avoid running around a track. So deep was my devotion that I signed up for band partly because that meant I wouldn’t have to take PE. Extolling the virtues of never running worked great for me until I got to the wrong side of 35-the side where, even though your brain still says you’re young, your body disagrees. While I realized that I was definitely going to have to up the ante physically, I also found myself strangely in the same place mentally. Having spent my adulthood challenging my status quo, I found that it was harder to find myself in the uncomfortable place that squeezed me out of my comfort zone. Both my brain and my body needed a radical shakeup.
And that is how I found myself on the starting line of a half-marathon. I needed a challenge, and this was the hair-brained path I chose. I had trained and I felt ready, at least physically. Mentally, I wasn't so sure. I had spent months convincing myself that my body would do whatever my brain told it to. That said, I had really expected my brain to be less wishy-washy. On the starting line, I fell back on another mantra that had carried me through many a time-fake it till you make it. When all the faking was said and done, the physical carnage (hello jello legs for days) was short lived, but the experience had a lasting impact. As I had suspected all along-it’s not about the miles, it’s about the lessons you learn on those miles.
~Celebrating the lessons big and small~
Lessons I Learned Running 13.1 Miles
Standing at the starting line with the flickering buzz of nervous energy surrounding me, I start to fidget with my phone. I had painstakingly created a playlist of inspirational songs that had both the driving beat and the kick-butt attitude that I knew would propel me through the long miles. With just a few seconds until the horn, I pulled up my Rhapsody playlist and plugged in my earbuds. At the other end was a deafening silence. Rhapsody, a service I love that had never failed before, was experiencing a malfunction. All my music, the very lifeline that I expected to carry me through the mental grind, was unavailable.
I kicked myself for not downloading those songs to my phone to ensure that I had them when I needed them. If only, I thought, as I ran in stony silence. Lesson One: If something is important to you, make sure you don’t depend on anyone or anything else to deliver it.
~This is the happy face of someone running the FIRST half of 13.1 miles~
The first three miles pass effortlessly as the clot of runners picks a pace, assembling into spaced out groups and thin lines. In my pre-race research, I had learned that walking was not only advised, it was encouraged. Even professional runners had recommended talking a walking break at a pace of 1 minute of walking for every ten minutes of running. At that point in the race, I had been running for over 30 minutes and I wasn’t feeling fatigued at all. In fact, I felt like I could probably pick up the pace, but I began to worry about how I would feel a few miles down the road. I considered preemptively taking a walk break in the middle of my strongest point to potentially conserve energy for later, but I decided to stick with the runner’s high I was experiencing at that moment and let it carry me further down the road before I worried. Lesson Two: Never let fear of the future rob of the power of the present.
Mile 5: I am feeling strong. I have conquered the first crazy uphill stretch and I know that I am just a few minutes away from the half-way point in the race. As if by some marathon miracle, music instantly begins pulsing into my earbuds. Rhapsody is back online. I am elated, practically running on air that I will have that distraction for the harder half of the race. I pushed my earbuds in extra tight, and head out with the blissful determination to tune out every distraction and disappear into my own world of running. And run, I did, hitting a stride just as I realized that I was surrounded by people finishing a race. In my excitement to tune out, I had missed the turn for the half marathon course, and continued to the finish with the 10K runners. As I made a sobering U-turn, I noticed that a megaphone toting lady was standing on a bench directing traffic. If only I hadn’t been so tuned into my music and had listened, at least a bit, to the voices around me. Lesson Three: Never be so focused on yourself that you can’t listen to the ideas of those around you.
Right around the time I was tucking my tail and running away from my miscue on the trail, a race director grabbed me by the shoulder to find out why I was off course. I explained my mistake to his smug chagrin.
“You’ll never make a decent time, now,” he told me with authority, and he proceeded to try to convince me that I should take my 10K time and stop for the day.
While I certainly appreciated his desire to kick me while I was down, I explained that his goal and mine might not be the same.
“The time isn’t important. I want to finish the half marathon as planned,” I insisted. While he proceeded to head back up the trail to get back on track, he removed my number from the race, still convinced that the goal over all should be the fastest possible finish time. He was wrong, of course. Lesson Four: Sometimes the goals of others don’t match your goals. Run your own race.
So, there I was, with an extra half mile tacked onto an already long race, and another half-mile to backtrack. Defeat would have been an easy surrender, at that point. Instead, I dug in, determined that I could still finish within my personal best despite the setback. The next two miles were stronger than any of the miles before them, as I treated each person ahead of me as a moving target to overtake. One by one, slowly and steadily, I passed. Lesson Five: Setbacks can either be an excuse to give up or a reason to try harder. The choice is yours.
Because this was my first long race, reading about strategy was the best I could do to prepare mentally. I had no idea how my body would actually perform under the strain. One of the best practices I read over and over was to replenish my energy at a rate of 100 calories per hour. I dutifully ate my gels at the end of the first hour, but my stomach lurched with each swallow. By the second hour, I was certain that I couldn’t choke down another gel, and I abandoned my well-researched plan. When I hit the proverbial wall at Mile 10, I slowed to a painful crawl as my body violently rebelled against the lack of fresh energy. I half-heartedly managed to force down a few more gels, but that caloric energy would come too late. Lesson Six: If you wait until you are completely depleted (physically, emotionally, spiritually) you will be playing a cruel catchup game that you may not win.
~The long, lonely road~
I hit that wall at Mile Ten and began to question everything-my motivation, my sanity, whether anyone would notice if I cut across the grass. Mile 10, I have heard is where the real mental battle begins. What I should have done was choke down a few more gels, but what I did was start to feel sorry for myself. Oh yes, I had chosen this, but I was certain in that mile that I was a very bad decision maker. As I mental flagellated myself, I slogged through the mile. Mile 10 was the mile of self-pity. Making the corner, I began to pass others who were further behind on the trail. Several of them passed as faceless blurs in my trail of tragedy, but a painfully stooped figure forced me out of my self-centered whining and into mindfulness. A lovely lady, whose bald head and emblazoned shirt said “Cancer Survivor” was making her way down the trail with an obvious limp. I was convicted. Lesson Seven: No matter your struggle, there is always, always someone who is hurting more than you.
Seeing another runner with a far greater struggle and at least as much heart shook me out of my existential pity party. Although I was determined to think stronger thoughts, my body still hurt. The spirit was more willing, but the flesh was still weak. I let my brain take over and propel my exhausted body. It was at this point that two tutu-clad cheerleaders had been strategically placed. The wisdom of the millions of runners who had tackled this challenge before told them that a strategically placed infusion of energy would be needed at Mile 11. As each runner passed, they offered a high-five and a reminder that we had come this far and we could finish. Somehow they said it in a way that made me not want to make them out to be a liar. Lesson Eight: If someone looks you in the eye and tells you that you can do it, have the courage to believe them.
With only two miles left to go, the finish line felt just as far away as it ever had. At this point in the course, runners were spread far enough that you could easily run in total solitude. That’s where I was: alone and digging deep when my phone battery drained down to zero and powered off in a black screen of death. An ironic metaphor for how I was feeling mentally and physically at that point. With no music or indication of how far I had to go, I was left utterly alone with my own thoughts. I began to repeat mantras in my head about strength and determination. I replayed the lyrics to songs that gave me encouragement. In those moments, I feared I would dig deep and find weakness, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could rely on my thoughts alone to keep me going. Lesson Nine: Make sure you have something strong stored inside yourself to propel you through life’s hardest moments.
~Squinting in pain, or in hopes of melting away the miles~
I reached Mile 12ish. At this point, the trail was unmarked and I had no idea how far I had to go. Utter discouragement threatened to join my complete exhaustion, and although I tried to refocus my thoughts, my brain rebelled. I turned to Psalms 23, a scripture that I knew so completely that I could recite it meditatively as if I were born with the words in my brain. I needed something automatic to run through my brain and keep my feet moving. While I am a very spiritual person, I don’t meditate on Scripture regularly, so the fact that Bible verses popped in my head right then surprised me a little. It also occurred to me that my sub-conscious might have believed that I was actually going to die and I would need to give my own eulogy, but the power of those words reminded me that choices that have become habits are powerful. Lesson Ten: When you are at your weakest, you will turn to what feels most natural. Make sure you have built habits that uphold your values.
Last mile. I know it is the last mile because I can see the finish line and faintly hear the music. Seriously, at this point, I was just spent. No gas in the tank, no gas station for miles. Dead on the side of the road. It was in the last few hundred feet that life lessons began to fall on me like bombs. Isn’t it just like any challenge to really start to pay off in the moment when it feels like it wasn’t worth it at all.
~Rounding the final corner~
In this final stretch I pass a woman who sitting on the trail. We lock eyes and instantly share a kinship of pushing our bodies to the limit. As she waits for me to approach, she calls out to me to sit with her for just a minute and we will finish together. I am at the point where all I would have to do is let me body loose and a collapse would follow. Sitting down would be the sweetest repose. However, sitting or stopping of any kind was one thing I had vowed I would not do. Lesson Eleven: Stick to the decisions you made in your moments of strength when your feelings betray you in moments of weakness.
I explain that I can’t stop and confess that if I sit, I might not get back up. Instead, I stretch out my hand to this sweaty stranger and suggest that we finish together. Lesson Twelve: Don’t let others bring you down when you can bring them up. We start off running the last 2/10 of a mile and soon she has slowed to a walk. Without any shame, and with no shame expected she asks if we can just walk the rest of the way. Although, my body is tempted, so tempted, I decline. I explain that I know that my kids are waiting at the finish line and that I cannot let them see me finish the race at a walk. Running is the only option. Lesson Thirteen: Having people who depend on you is the greatest motivator to be a better person.
~Finished. FINISHED!~
With that, I finished. My first half-marathon, 13.1 miles was complete. I finished with 30 seconds to spare on my personal goal despite the extra mile I ran because I wasn’t paying attention, and all four of my boys were there with smiles on their faces and (very gentle) hugs when I received my completer’s medal.
In that minute, I vowed I would never do it again. Three days later, I signed up for my next race.