On marathons
How I'm buckling in for a long stretch of hard work. Learning to run long distances is helping me think about how to survive our current situation.
It’s Friday morning as I write this, the first Friday of the first week of our new administration. I woke up early, as I have lately, and today “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” was nagging at me. I’m sick of the phrase already, maybe you are too? To figure out if its among the ideas I should critically ignore, I started a note that turned into this post.
I am neither a gifted natural athlete nor a professional runner. ‘Giving it my all’ sounds heroic, but makes no actual sense in my life. I don’t know anything about winning marathons, but I’ve survived two so far. Here are the ideas that help me keep running:
I am where I am. Yep. I could have trained better/more/differently. I could have gotten better shoes, a different hat, a fancier watch. I didn’t. Regrets are a waste of energy, and I don’t have any to spare. I accept my limitations. I accept this situation.
I must run my own race. Yep. There are people all around me who are faster/fitter/stronger than me. If I try to keep pace with them, I will suffer and collapse. If I get caught up in my adrenaline at the starting line, I’ll go out too fast, burn through my reserves and collapse. Competition can fuel me but my ego will kill me. I have to maintain discipline.
And I have to adapt. Yep. There are also people around me who are less conditioned or less prepared. If I try to weave through knots of folks running slower than my pace, I’m not just risking that I’ll catch an elbow or twist my ankle - I’m endangering everybody who might be tripped or tangled in the collision. I’m part of something bigger than myself, surrounded by others running with me. We’re all doing this together, at the mercy of factors far beyond our control. No plan survives first contact.
It’s not going to be pretty. Yep. There’s a photographer pointing a big lens at me and my beet red face. Good fucking grief, I cannot worry about how I look while I run. I am an imperfect person doing imperfect work. I do it anyway.
My favorite running pants say “I hate running” on them.
There’s plenty more - I was enamored with the idea of writing a section of this called Salt, Water, Sugar, Carbs. I do adore a metaphor.
But honestly, I have work to do, and so do you. I know that the people who really want to talk about running are other runners. If that’s you, you might want to join our Slack.