I ran the Houston marathon in January of 2004. I thought I'd share some of my experiences.
Growing up, I HATED running. I played basketball most of my life and my experience with running was pretty much linked to punishment. If we didn't complete our sprint conditioning in the right amount of time at the end of a two hour practice, we had to run some more. If we lost a game, we ran. If we missed a free throw in a game, we ran. If someone was late to practice, we ALL ran. In fact, no words were more menacing to hear than, "Put the balls away." When we didn't execute a play correctly or when someone forgot that leaning on a wall while watching the others work on the court is strictly forbidden, those words were even more terrifying. It meant we were running for as long as Coach wanted. It meant that we never knew if we were one Suicide away from finishing or fifty. (If you don't know what a Suicide is, don't ask.)
When I got to college, I continued to play basketball recreationally, but I was looking for something else. St. Mary's didn't have a recognized Cross Country team because there needed to be enough proven interest from the student body to hire a coach. I was part of the first few years of the St. Mary's Cross Country Club! In fact, I was the Secretary!
The morning of my first run with the other girls, it was still dark outside and we met in one of the school parking lots. Our club president had mapped out a three mile course around the campus. Everyone was so excited about running together and they were chatty and getting loose while waiting for the group to assemble. I just stood there quietly and stretched a little. For all my excitement about getting involved with the group, when the time came, I was not happy to be running at all. It was early. I was cold. I hadn't had much sleep. I was hungry. I just kept thinking..."This is the first time I can remember running VOLUNTARILY in my life." Usually when I run, I'm quivering a little inside as I hunch over my starting leg, behind the baseline, staring at the length of the court, waiting for the whistle to startle me into running for my life. What the hell was I doing out here in the dark, at six in the morning with these bouncy runner-types about to explode with joy with the thought of a good run?! The most I'd ever run was two miles. On distance conditioning days, two miles were all Coach had time to give us before herding us into the gym for more "practical" workout exercises. Now, I would be running farther than I'd ever run before...of my own volition? Without a whistle and stopwatch judging my worth? Wow.
The president said, "Let's start!" and we did. I stayed in the pack, not saying much, feeling out my body as I listened to night noises and watched the stars twinkle. I knew I'd be ok up to the end of the second mile because I'd done that distance before. I had no idea what to expect one step into the third mile.
What I found in the third mile was... a great release of pressure. There were no expectations for me there. I was already doing great because I was boldly going where no ME had ever gone before! It didn't matter if I collapsed and died on the spot. I would have died breaking my personal record! Amazing! Ok, that's a morbid thought, but hey, I was in the third mile. I was allowed to have whatever thoughts I wanted! It was pretty good! I spent the next month or so getting to know the world of the Third Mile. It was a friendly place that congratulated me whenever I visited, so I liked it.
At St. Mary's the most I ever ran was six miles. I did it once and I believed I never, ever had to do it again. It was pretty big deal. The running club did well and we eventually got a part-time coach to volunteer to help us prepare for college meets. I only ran in one, but it was fun! Cross Country eventually became a Varsity sport at St. Mary's and I feel pretty proud that I was part of the reason why. I am glad my early morning runs meant something because now girls get scholarships to run as a Lady Rattler at St. Mary's University. (I never would have made the ACTUAL team! Haha!)
After college, I worked with a guy, Edgar, who was into running and there were several of us that ran 5Ks together throughout the year. A 5K is just over three miles. It usually took me 30 minutes on the nose. I could have trained harder and lowered my time, but I still ran pretty hard for those 30 minutes, so I was fine with that. I had a large collection of t-shirts that you get after finishing the races. I like tangible things that say I DID THIS!
One day Edgar decided to organize a marathon training group from work. I had no interest in running a marathon, never have. It's not that I didn't think I could do it; I just never thought about marathons at all. He assured us it was for beginners and it would take several months to complete, we wouldn't even feel it! I was sure that was a lot of baloney, but I decided to start the program just so I could think about training for some longer races, like the 8K or a 10K. I was sure that would be plenty.
We started with three mile runs, as slowly as we could go. It was pretty easy. We learned how to stretch before and after, we ran some sprints on the track. It was varied and pretty fun. We picked up some non-work folks, friends and family and that made it even more fun! Shawn got in on it, as well as a high school buddy of mine that had moved to San Antonio.
The training progressed and I progressed with it. Edgar was right...I didn't really feel the training build in any kind of painful way. Soon, five miles felt like three miles, seven miles was like five miles...each week, we just tacked on a little bit more to what we had been doing. I had meant to bow out of the program after about 8 miles, but around 13 miles, I started to wonder if I should just finish the whole thing.
We had started on the campus of UT San Antonio, but as our distances increased, we branched off and started running up some hills near Fiesta, Texas amusement park and then added some running on the feeder roads of I-10. I couldn't believe how much ground we were covering...on foot! It was nuts!
During the training process, I only "flaked out" once. I was on a 15 mile run, but somewhere around Mile 7, I decided I didn't feel like running anymore. I wasn't tired. I wasn't injured. I was just--bored, I guess. I just didn't feel like running. I was on the I-10 feeder, heading in the direction of Bandera, near that Rudy's BBQ and Las Palapas Mexican restaurant. The freeway was empty, it was early on a Saturday morning. I told the group I wouldn't be finishing and they went on. For some reason, Shawn wasn't running with the big group that day, so she was at home. I called her and asked her to come pick me up. I'd be at a table for one at Las Palapas, feasting on breakfast tacos. They were yummy! I was back on track for the next practice. No biggie. It just wasn't happening for me that day.
Shawn didn't "flake out" at all. Hers was more of a "flip out". One day we were running together but without the big group because we had some kind of schedule conflict. Usually, we ran in the early mornings, but that day, we had to run around 10 or 11am. Everything seemed fine, we were chatting as we ran, although I was keeping up the majority of the conversation. Shawn didn't grow up as an athlete, so she has to work a little harder to remind herself to keep going, even when she's tired. She didn't develop that ability to ignore what you're doing to your body and just live in a different part of your brain, a different "head space", as I like to call it. So, we'd been running about five miles and I noticed that a little bird was flying kind of low, near us. Every so often, it would fly ahead and then perch on something, waiting for us to catch up, then it would fly ahead again. I kept checking to see if it was a coincidence, but it happened several times. I told Shawn about it, but she wasn't really interested. Something told me that was weird because she's usually very interested in nature stuff, but she didn't even look at the bird when I tried to show her. She wasn't talking as much either. I figured she was just going through a little rough patch or maybe she needed to make a shoe-tying pit stop soon. So I stopped chatting and just watched the bird by myself as we kept running.
We ran another couple of miles. The bird had long gone and I'd found something else to jabber about. Suddenly, Shawn disappeared from my peripheral vision. I turned back to look and she was just standing there, completely still. I asked her what was wrong and she LIT ME UP! I don't even remember what all she said, but there was something about What's wrong with ME? and You're crazy! and You're a F***ing Robot! and You just keep going and you never stop and you keep talking! and Why aren't you tired? and You haven't changed pace for miles! and ...stuff like that. Then she said she was done. She wasn't going to run any more. She was crying on the feeder road. I was dumbstruck on the feeder road. I looked around and we were still a few miles from our car, snugly parked at UTSA! She was done, fine, but how were we going to get back?! I pictured myself running the rest of the way while she sat crying on the curb waiting for me. Then, I saw a gas station. I whipped her around and unzipped her fanny pack. I grabbed her debit card and sprinted to the store to buy her some water and a snack. I tore open the door and ran to the back for the water. I looked up and down the aisles for a protein bar of some kind. I scribbled her name on the receipt as she walked in the store. I gave her the water and she apologized, her face tear-stained. We stood in the shade and figured out our next move. She was miserable, but she said she felt a little better and could make it the rest of the way. I was fully prepared for another meltdown, but she made it!
Later that day, we realized she'd been sunburned. The sky was overcast so we didn't think about sun. Also, we were used to running in the early morning hours and we completely forgot sunblock for our late-morning run. The poor thing was out there flirting with heat stroke and a sunburn and I'm commenting about this amazing little bird that was hanging out with us. No wonder she got mad!
For the record, we were running side by side out there, but I didn't burn. That wasn't received well either. But now we know...robots don't get sunburns.
Shawn got back out there and continued the training. I admire that. You can't give up, even when you have a setback like the now legendary Meltdown on I-10. However, she did the right thing by listening to her body and opted to run the Houston Half-Marathon because of the condition of her knees. I think thirteen miles is an incredible feat. It was her personal record.
I found myself signed up for the full marathon and in the back of my mind, I kept wondering why I was doing this. It wasn't a nagging dread of the upcoming run...it was just a casual wonder about it all. My parents hosted the group overnight and cooked a wonderful chicken and pasta dinner the night before. I looked forward to the next day, but I had no idea what to expect, so I wasn't nervous.
What I didn't know I had to look forward to was getting my period ON MARATHON DAY. What the hell, man? WHY????
Ok, men reading this, you may or may not know... the 3-7 days every month that a woman has to deal with the reward of NOT getting pregnant is actually a roller coaster ride of careful observations and decisions about:
1. How her body feels (to judge medicinal dosages)
2. What will be physically be required of her that day
3. What food to eat to avoid life-threatening cramps (I had to pull off the road one time)
4. What clothes will fit
5. And how big her purse has to be
These are practices learned and practiced since junior high. By your 20s and 30s, a woman has had enough accidents, near misses, and humiliation to plan for just about any scenario. Except the scenario where she's about to run her first MARATHON. This girl is about to run 26.2 miles, is hoping the elastic waistband in her "they were comfortable YESTERDAY" running shorts will expand about 6 inches for the serious bloating that's about to occur, and now has to figure out where to carry 8 hours worth of tampons when no one ELSE will be running with a giant handbag.
While God did not see fit to rearrange my menstrual cycle by, oh I don't know, ONE DAY....He did allow for this marathon to be in January, creating the need for me to wear a light running jacket, with pockets. They were going to be stuffed with my phone and granola bars, but now my phone would be sharing that valuable real estate with a box of tampons. Awesome.
Well, I ran the marathon. I didn't run very fast, probably around a 13 minute mile on average. I made 3 port-a-potty trips, convinced my stomach was about to explode, only to have nothing happen but 15 minutes come off the clock. I only walked to greet my parents cheering me on in two different spots on the course. They'd gone out for a pancake breakfast in between. Nice. Somewhere in the No Man's Land between Mile 20 and Mile 24, my stomach started growling. I was starving. Too bad I had a pocket full of feminine products instead of granola bars.
They say runners hit the "wall" when their blood has used all of it's sugar stores. That's why the carbo load the night before is so important. The pasta carbs break down into the extra sugar that the body is going to desperately need on race day. I can't really say I hit a "wall", although who knows what kind of havoc my period was wreaking on my body. I was definitely already in a different "robotic head space", as Shawn would attest. "I'm exhausted from running more than 20 miles and, oh yeah, I'm also losing blood. "
There was a little girl in the crowd ahead, cheering for people and handing them something from a styrofoam cup. I ran to her, hoping there was food. There was...sort of. All she had left in her cup were two little gummy bears. She gave them to me and I thanked her like they were turkey sandwiches.
Dear Mr. Yellow Bear and Mr. Red Bear,
Please give me enough sugar to finish this run.
Love,
Christina
Apparently I was in the head space where Bears receive mail. Whatever. I ate them and imagined them happily sacrificing themselves to dissolve into my bloodstream to give me a noticeable chemical boost. I made myself believe that and when that ran out, I began to hear a crowd cheering. That sound gave me hope that the finish line was near! How near, who knew? It was like I got thrown back into basketball practice...Run! Run your guts out, but for how long is anyone's guess. Just run and pray it'll all be over soon! I felt myself running faster, but I don't think I actually was. My muscles were giving me everything they had. I cheered them on in my mind...C'mon, y'all! You can do it! Give me just a little bit more. You've been so good to me all these years, Go a little longer, We're almost there. We're about to finish a freakin' MARATHON!
And then I crossed the finish line. Shawn met me and hugged me and walked me to the reception area where there was food and water and chairs. Heaven. I was so tired. I didn't get that "runner's high" either. I thought I would finish and feel like I could take on the world, but when I finished, I just felt...pride. Satisfaction. It was another affirmation that I may not finish in the front of the pack, but I always show up, try my hardest, and hope for the best. And good things usually come of that.
I slept the whole way home. I woke up to find my parents had made a banner with all our names on it and hung it across the garage. That made me feel so great! We all cheered!
I couldn't walk the next day. In fact, I couldn't run for a whole year after that. I hadn't had any injuries during training or the run itself, but my knees screamed every time I tried to trot more than a few feet. I eventually got back to normal, but I haven't run longer than thirty minutes at a time since then. I'm just not interested.
Many people are very emotional after they finish their first marathon. They've run to prove something to themselves, to someone significant, for charity, for a life change. I still don't know why I ran my marathon. I wasn't emotional about it. I just finished and was glad. I decided to simply keep the experience with me because I might need it someday. I'll want to remember that I'm capable of great things. I might be faced with something that will require feats of superhuman strength of mind and body. I might be called upon to help someone find their own robotic head spaces so that they can get through something tough. Who knows when talking to birds that are following you and writing short letters to gummy bears will get you through something really, really hard?
----
In 1928, women were finally allowed to compete in running events at the Olympics. But we weren't allowed to run longer than 800 meters (that's twice around the track). It was common knowledge that women simply aren't built for strenuous activity. Our bodies are built to have babies, not to run. In fact, scientists and health professionals were sure that running any more than 800 meters would possibly lead to "the uterus falling out".
Well, I ran 26.2 miles with my uterine lining "falling out", so maybe they were a teensy bit right.
Jerks.
