Love Letter to Myself Before Race Day

Tiffany Tai
Aug 26, 2017 · 3 min read
[A shipping boat sits at dock. It is dark blue on the bottom and white on top. A low row of puffy clouds sit on the horizon. The water is purple blue, approaching black, with streaks of a lighter grey green.] Photo by Tiffany Tai

I am grateful to the Cape Cod air, this weekend before my first major running race. How different is this air from the sea? As my skin moves through it, water laps at it in foam. When I step outside, my body knows to breathe through my nose, and I can smell the salt, floating like fairies, unseen and unbelievable.

We have been between eclipses all week and just at the start of an intense three-week mercury retrograde, and the astrologers have urged us to rest, be patient, precaution against errors, know we will be revisiting the past and setting out again on our journeys of healing. It is the perfect astrology for taper week, a time for resting the legs, sleeping deliciously, eating nutritiously, maintaining the heart and lungs, preparing your materials for race day.

How many runners consider their training alongside astrology? Perhaps just as many stories that must begin first and foremost with the stars and the universe. Perhaps just as many stories of women of color that must begin, eventually, with their mothers.

Tomorrow, I run the longest distance I have ever run in my life. It’s a moment that has me with one foot in the past and one foot in the present, as running always does. Some things have carried me through the years. When I cross my feet and bend down to touch my toes, I practice a stretch I have been doing since I was a young girl. My muscles smile in the memory. Even in my short life thus far, I have my own ancient ways.

Others have had to be unlearned: now we know that such static stretches are best done after a run, and after a run only, rather than after a warm-up. It is simply too luxurious for the muscles, a cat purring in a sun spot. And I’ve been unlearning what I am capable of. It’s like staring into a mirror that is back over my shoulder, at a high school girl in glasses with her nose in books alongside a few awkward friends, nonwhite.

In those days, my athletic ability fell squarely in the range of mediocrity, a difficult reality that I swallowed gracefully enough for an A student. If the cutoff for the ideal timed mile was ten minutes, I generally ran an eleven-minute mile. One morning at a tender age, we were doing push-ups in gym class, where two kids would do push-ups while a third kept count. My push-up partner was a boy, and I was keeping up! “She’s going to beat you!” our classmate said, and I understood that he said it not in admiration of me but to spite and cajole my competitor. I understood that cool girls don’t excel at push-ups, and I immediately stopped.

Of course, so many things are different since then. I still don’t run a ten-minute mile, but I can confidently run for four miles without stopping, several more if I allow myself walk breaks. After this race, my sights are set on getting faster — I want that sub-30 5K within the year. And I once again want to become strong. I love to grasp my arms and feel myself flexing underneath my skin.

What else? I am no longer a Christian; at most, I believe in the universe. I am no longer a shy girl with a secret crush; I am affectionately in the open with my big heart. I’ve become an activist, but perhaps we all saw that coming. I no longer live life like it’s a glass of ice cubes glittering on a high shelf; I dive into the cold waves of the ocean.

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