Life as Told in 13.1 Miles

Race starts are peculiar events to witness. Hundreds of people, in various states of dress and preparedness, are wandering, stretching, chatting, and waiting. Everyone has a story about the journey to the start line, and everyone will have a unique narrative about his or her experience en route to the finish. On Saturday night, this was mine.

The Start: I briefly wonder why I am about to run 13.1 miles 2 days before I start official marathon training but then my husband reminds me that I’m going to be running a marathon so I might as well get a long run in for the weekend. True. I vow to take it easy, no need to push for a personal record, no need to chase down the pack in front of me, it is enough that I am just getting it done. My music is plugged in, I’m rocking the 80s tonight, let’s go.

Mile 1 – The Scramble: People are jockeying for position. The fast runners are weaving around the slow runners and run/walkers, and everyone is trying to get around the group of best friends running four abreast blocking the entire path (side note: ladies, I love you, but let things sort out before you start running arm-in-arm). Everyone is trying to figure out where they belong, and then either fighting their way to get there or fighting to at least maintain their position. It is an absolute scramble, but eventually everyone finds his or her happy place.

Mile 4 – Settling in for the Long Haul: My pace the first three miles was a series of big, wide swings from impossibly fast to uncomfortably slow depending on the traffic around me. Finally, by the start of mile 4, I settle into a comfortable training run pace. This is where I will be, happily listening to Madonna and U2, as I plod along with My People – the group of about 10 other runners, strangers to me up to this point, who share this pace. Provided we all hang in there, we will keep each other company for the remaining 9.1 miles. This will be my pack for the duration.

Mile 6 – Almost Halfway: It is time to take stock (and have a snack). I am feeling good, feeling steady, and I am actually a little ahead of where I thought I would be. Hmmm. Interesting.

Mile 7 – Euphoria: The runner’s high set in full force – life is awesome, I am awesome, this race is awesome! (It is entirely possible that this is the caffeinated Gu at Mile 6 talking, but, whatever – this rocks!) I now am running on the heels of the 1:55 pacer. If I can stay on him, it will put me at the finish 4 minutes faster than my PR. To hell with just getting a training run in, let’s DO this.

Mile 10 – Reality: I am feeling my muscles now, and they are a little tight. Pacer Boy with his 1:55 sign is just out of my sight, but I still have some wiggle room. If I can hang in there with a steady run, I will have my PR (barely).

Mile 11 – Ouch: Left calf, what are you doing to me? No joke, this hurts. I pause for a minute to stretch it out, and shake my head in disbelief. This is a new one for me, and I do not like the challenge it presents.

Mile 12 – Dead Stop: Before, the term “stopped dead in her tracks” really did not hold much meaning. But just after 12 miles, two invisible vise grips clamp down on each of my calves and bring my run to a screeching halt. I did not plan for this. I did not sign up for this. I really do not know how I am going to coax these legs into getting me to the finish.

Mile 12.5 – A Little Help: As I round the corner (slowly) for the last stretch, my son is waiting for me and starts clapping when he sees me. As I pass him, he joins me on the course and falls into step by my side, and then quickly realizes that he would not be pacing me to finish at a sprint, but rather will be coaching me just to get me to the finish line. In an absolute role reversal, my son will talk me through the remainder of this race.

The Finish: I made it. It was not always pretty, I did not get my PR, but I accomplished what I set out to do. It feels good, and the reward is great.

I walked away from the race knowing that I accepted the challenge and overcome the obstacles with a confidence that comes with the knowledge that I had the support and encouragement of my family behind me every step of the way. Without that last bit, family, the race really would have meant nothing at all.

WelcomE!

The obligatory "about me" ...

I am a California attorney, wife and mother to two teenagers. Thanks to some fierce prodding by my brother and unwavering support from my family, I started to write again (hence, the blog), and to run again (training for the New York City Marathon). After all, if you are going to get in the game, you might as well go all-in. You can find out more about my story here.

November 1, 2019

This Is Fifty

When I first started this writing space and was trying on different names for what ultimately became Midlife Run, I struggled. Solidly in my forties, the idea of attaching the word “midlife” to anything seemed like an unwelcome, uncomfortable stretch reserved for the after-fifty set. But I settled into the name, comforted by the knowledge that I was on the “early side” of midlife. Not so any more. Last month we dropped our youngest at college thus marking the beginning of the “empty nester years” and today, as I start to write this, I turn fifty. I am solidly, undeniably, in midlife.

August 19, 2019

It's Almost Here: The Empty Nest!

In my memory, I cannot think of a more seismic shift in our marriage than when we had children. The first sign that our world was about to be rocked actually happened when our first bun was still in the oven and we were standing outside of a Denver bar. It wasn’t late, we were with good friends, and good times were being had by all, especially by those (not me) enjoying a night of craft beer and pool. By that point in my pregnancy, my body was changing and bulging, I had given up caffeine, alcohol, and hot baths and traded them for binge-eating apples. My pregnancy and impending motherhood were feeling tangibly real in a way that it wasn’t (yet) for my husband. And that night, with festivities just warming up, I was standing by the car asking my husband not to go in and to come home with me instead because I was exhausted and sick with pregnancy. If you ask him now, he doesn’t remember that night. I do. In his eyes and in his body-language was a man coming to terms with our new and changing reality. As we looked at each other we silently acknowledged that our lives would never be the same. What we want, what we do, how we see the world, and how we prioritize our lives no longer involved just the two of us. There was going to be a third member of our family, and eventually a fourth, and nothing, ever, not even a night out with friends, would be quite so simple any more.

May 20, 2019

Lucky Me (Guest Post by Andrew J. Pridgen)

My excuses for why I’m not going to perform well in a race while I toe the starting line roll up like opening credits in a movie. Written by: Lack of preparation, Directed by: Insecurity, Executive produced by: My shoes don’t feel right, Casting by: I can barely breathe and my ankle already hurts. Starring: Me.

April 3, 2019

Walk Slowly with Me

Our family is not one to stand still. We fall easily into the pace of rushed crowds on New York City streets, and we barrel ahead in pursuit of goals. We move forward, and then we move forward again. Even our family walks seem to be driven, marching along familiar neighborhood paths, distracted by conversation, and, for the past twelve years, led by our trusty furry companion, Lucy, whose entry into our family was the very thing that initiated this nightly routine.

January 13, 2019

New Year's Resolution: Do One Thing

I have a shrink-wrapped cork board leaning against the wall to the right of my desk, clearly within view. It’s been standing sentinel in the same spot for months, waiting for me to deal with it and daring me to get on with it already. Its purpose is to be a vision board of sort, a place for me organize my goals, to lay them out in a way that my left-leaning brain can process and check them off, mixed together with other bits designed to spark my still developing right-brain to creativity. I look at that cork board regularly with the same dread that someone with writer’s block stares at a blinking curser on a blank screen.

December 9, 2018

NYC Marathon: Challenge, Growth, and Celebration

When you tell someone – especially a non-runner someone – that you are going to run a marathon, you’re generally met with some version of a respectful “that’s great … good for you.” Contrast, when you tell someone that you are going to run the NYC Marathon, there’s a special, heightened aura that surrounds what surely, inevitably, will be nothing short of an epic race.

November 3, 2018

Life’s a Journey ... The Road to NYC Marathon 2018

Mostly, though, there has been an extraordinarily emotional undercurrent to this training cycle because it is impossible for me to look forward to this marathon without looking back to my 2015 NYC Marathon, and examining with wonder how one stacked series of events can make your whole life pivot until you find yourself on a trajectory you never could have imagined.

September 15, 2018

Creating Space, Building Strength

In my ordinary life, there is room for writing, for running, for meaningful conversations, and for balance. My life right now is not ordinary. It is frenetic, and it is all but consumed by a single work endeavor. It leaves me starving for sleep and time with family, it led me to write a middle of the night SOS to my coach about my NYC marathon training, and it is accompanied by a level of stress and adrenaline that can keep me going now, but in the long run is unsustainable. Gratefully, I am not alone in this experience, and I have my ultimate support crew (husband and family) behind me.

June 27, 2018

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Because There Will Be Plenty of Big Stuff: Reflections on 25 Years of Marriage

Certain milestones simply make me pause. Today is a big one – our 25th wedding anniversary. By any measure, that is a legitimately long time to spend marching through life next to the same person. It has me looking back in wonder about how we got to this point, looking forward trying to guess what is ahead, and reflecting broadly about what I know now about the two of us together and the life-long project of building a marriage. Unsurprisingly, I have a few thoughts.

March 29, 2018

That Family Place

When my Dad was young, the annual family pilgrimage took them to Lake Tahoe during the summer, where his family would stay in a small cabin on the north shore, the boys would catch crawdads between the boulders jutting out from the Lake, and skip smooth, flat rocks over the water’s surface. I know these things because when my parents took my brother and me to the same lake shore, and years later after the next generation joined us, my parents would tell the stories. The connection to Lake Tahoe is now four generations deep, and with every new year and new family member or friend who joins us, the memories deepen and years of family stories from this special place transform into epic lore.