The 18 Miler
This past Sunday I glanced down at my body and my legs as I was in the process of finishing my second loop through Central Park. Both my shirt and my shorts were drenched and plastered the corresponding parts of my body. I had glanced down because I could feel the sweat burning as it passed over my chafed nipples. Seems odd to write about my nipples in such a public forum but every runner has been there. I had put on my balm before the run but apparently trying out a relatively new shirt was not a good idea for this day. My body was drenched, and my injured right leg was feeling the strain of three laps of Central Park on a day that felt like it was 90 degrees, with the corresponding New York humidity.
This past weekend was the 18-mile marathon tune-up in Central Park, the fourth time I have done this “race.” This is an annual staple in the New York Road Runners calendar for anyone running the marathon. I say “race” because three loops in Central Park during marathon training is much more a test of mental endurance than a measure of finishing times or performance. This day is not a definitive measure of how anyone will do in the marathon, but it can inspire or deflate someone training for the marathon. You can’t draw everything from a successful long run, and you can’t let a bad long run defeat you. Take everything into moderation and let the failure inspire you.
For example, this past Sunday was a slow day for me. I knew going into the day that I would be slow. It isn’t an excuse because saying it out loud doesn’t somehow change what the goal is. The tightness in my right leg that limits my range of motion is frustrating because it sometimes lingers and sometimes fades away. It also slows me down because my body makes me hesitate on taking my usual full stride. On this day I made it through 14 of the 18 miles at a steady pace without incident and then it tightened on me, rippling through my leg down to my knee. It was something I could deal with, but it forced me to slow down. Slowing down during a race feels totally different from when I am out running by myself. Typically during a race, I will pick a couple of people who will serve as my involuntary pacing companions. These are strangers, familiar to me only because I can recognize their stride and the color of their clothes. Sometimes we spend the entire race together and sometimes we lose each other for pockets of time, only to find each other later on. It sort of like an unspoken dance that helps me during the longer races.
On this day I had to settle for being by myself. I had to let some of my early choices leave me behind. I needed to tune out the specific and just focus on having people around me. On this day, the key was not focusing on passing people or being surpassed by others. I let these crowds both push and carry me at the same time. By the time I finished the third loop I had been slowing down at each water station for the last four miles. This would be the slowest 18 miles I had done in a long time, but I crossed the finished line, displeased with my pace but satisfied that I was still moving. I was soaked to the bone. A combination of sweat and the water I had doused myself with. The small victory that I knew I had another 8.2 miles left in me that day. I never stroke myself too much during a training run but I’ll never tear myself down too much either. Four years ago the 18 miles was a threshold for dealing with the fear of whether 26.2 was too great an effort. This past Sunday it measured how much I needed to do over the next 49 days. I have a lot to do, but I am not scared, I am excited.
I think every runner understands that training (and running overall) is a process by which the hope is we emerge a better a product. The one thing that does become apparent during these training sessions is that I can find inspiration and motivation in the fact that despite how repetitive this may seem, the motivation and inspiration come from the surprises and the unpredictability. I think those who fantasize about improving oneself is as easy as closing your eyes, jumping into a warm pool with no waves and emerging this newly cleansed human being. The difference is for those of us who actually undertake real change is we realize that it can be more like leaping faith off a mountain where we tumble down some jagged edges that help break the shell of what we were before the jump. When we finally land, we may be a little bruised and sore, but we are better for it. But that is me the sadist…I mean a runner.
