feel good. run hard.
Well, I survived my first 13.1, and didn’t once have to be rolled into a ditch on the side of a Georgia road. My time was just off world record pace (well, if I had been able to use the time for the marathon instead of the half, that is!) Still, I’m here this morning mostly attached, and thinking about literature, my lesson on Susan Straight’s story, “Mines,” and how long distance running doesn’t really have time for heralding.
I was watching a documentary the other night about the 1984 Olympics. Joan Benoit Samuelson was interviewed (she won the first woman’s Olympic marathon). It was thought, before this time, that women shouldn’t run more than 1500 meters (just over a mile) because it would be too damaging to their bodies and prevent them for having children. Anyway, after she won, instead of rushing through the celebrity athlete circuit, picking up endorsement deals, penning her memoir (which I imagine a publisher would have demand be called “what a fast lady!”), she just went back to Maine, started a family, and kept running. In the interview, she said that she doesn’t really think about training as a thing to be achieved. That when she goes out in the morning, if she feels good, then she runs hard. And that’s that. She runs and lives in Maine because it’s where people know what hard work is, and it helps her keep her life and her running life in perspective.
Obviously I had a lot to think about over 13.1 miles, but mostly I’m realizing that distance running is a lot more relevant outside of the heralding. I feel more peaceful. I feel more appreciative of slowness. In his book, “To the Edge: A Man, Death Valley, and the Mystery of Endurance,” by Kirk Johnson, which is about his running the Badwater Ultramarathon, he writes somewhere that his kids are always complaining about how slow he drives. He says something like after you’ve run 100 miles in a day, you start to appreciate moving at a slower pace. Anyway, I don’t mean to wax Zen here, but of all the sports I’ve participated in over my lifetime, this is the most rewarding and for mostly non-athletic reasons.
In five weeks I’m running the half marathon in Tybee Island.
photo courtesy of L. Lowe.
Two years ago I tore my back muscle (right under my left shoulder blade). It has been a real thorn ever since. Every time I try to kick things back into gear, I re-tear the fibers and have to stop any long distance impact running. This year will probably be no different, except for the fact that I’m determined to (slowly) go through/with the pain. The whole Pema Chrodon going to pieces without falling apart meditation philosophy. Of course the reality is that unless I stop running for several months, there is no way to fully heal the muscle tear. But I want to see how far I can take this.
I think I have a pretty reasonable training schedule this year, and so far I’ve really been enjoying it. Hopefully I will be able to write more about it here. Especially with teaching so many classes next semester, I think the running will really be essential. Plus the temperatures in Georgia are really ideal for training–unlike Ohio where the snow and sleet can be oppressive, and it’s almost impossible to run for more than 10 miles on a treadmill.
In five days I will be back in the classroom. Instead of meticulously planning my running schedule, I should be thinking more clearly about my class schedule. But the best laid winter plans are always a fool’s errand for me. When I’m at home I feel sentimental and a little melancholy thinking of leaving. It’s funny to me that I spent my whole young adulthood furiously struggling to get out of north east Ohio, and as soon as I was away for long enough to vision it or revision it, I have been trying almost equally as hard to get back in. So it goes.
Interesting fact of the month:
The average woman has her first dream when she is still in her mother’s womb. I wonder what we dream about in there. … … …
quick, to the stolen exercise equipment mobile
This morning, I went to workout at the apartment complex gym, just the same as almost every other morning. Me and another girl (I don’t know her name) are the only ones who are currently using the gym because the lock on the door has broken and the ass. man (assistant manager—she really writes that under her name in official apartment communications) won’t fix it for some reason. So, like any other reasonable gym-goer, we’ve been climbing through the window.
It didn’t occur to me until today how suspicious that might look. Not being a seasoned criminal, I never thought anyone would suspect anything at all. But today, just as I was getting started, the ass. man dashed in with her key and looked startled. Apparently someone saw “someone” trying to break into the gym and steal “stuff”. I just shrugged my shoulders.
Really?—whoever you are that called that in–Really? Do you really think I was going to carry out the 3,000 pound treadmill or elliptical strapped to my back, toss it into my Jetta, and zoom off into the criminal sunrise? And anyway, the treadmill wasn’t working today. It wouldn’t go above 3.5 mph, so I wouldn’t want it anyway. After an hour that’s a calorie-burned equivalent of like 6 corn flakes.
In other exciting news, I’m on my second day of finals for my learning support students. Where did this semester go? I’ve been so busy figuring it all out that it just swept by, I guess. This weekend, in addition to Thanksgiving shopping—for my first Thanksgiving alone—I’m going to be writing my Lit. final exam. I’m going with ids this year.
The weather got warmer again yesterday. Mid 70s actually. But today it seems to have cooled off. It rained a bit last night (on account of S. Purdue’s praying) and so now there is a lovely breeze coming into the apartment. I’ll try to post a picture of the fall colors here soon. The trees have finally fully turned and are really brilliant on my way up north every day.
