I?was?in no danger of being in top physical condition earlier this winter. My husband and I visited family in California a week before Christmas making ourselves greatly at home within my mother’s well-stocked kitchen. When we got back to Ny, visitors and parties kept me munching and toasting and far away from the gym for the rest of 2015.
My running shoes and that i returned together in January. If my goal have been to gradually reverse the effect of all of those holiday cheese trays, those first short workouts would have been a lovely start. Alas, I was because of run a half-marathon-in February. I hadn’t even considered a formal training schedule, and hadn’t attempted an extended run since Thanksgiving. Then, per week prior to the race, I came down with one of those vile, phlegmy colds which makes you feel just like a swamp on legs.
I tried to find a way to wriggle out of my commitment, but winter event organizers aren’t fools. They do not offer refunds for runners who finalise to curl up with a warm faux fur blanket and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels rather than moving out on long, cold jogs. “You could just consume the registration fee and remain home,” my sister suggested. “No judgment.” The proposition was tempting; I had yet to see Book 4 of Ferrante’s quartet. My cough remained nasty. Above all, it had been clear that if I attempted the run, I had been likely to clock my worst time ever. Why bother?
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I decided to approach the half marathon one mind trick at any given time. I picked up my bib and souvenir shirt, hoping they’d guilt me into participating. I quickly put into the psychological layer cake having a Facebook post about the run, to ensure that my buddies, former coworkers, and new pals from all of those holiday parties knew about this. Finally, I made myself a bare-bones promise: I’ll show up at the starting line and I’ll get to the damn finish. The commitment was the win, right?
But part of me felt like that’s precisely what losers say. Fitness is supposed to be about self-improvement: We’re told that we have to challenge ourselves to see results, we have to push past comfort to grow stronger (endurance athletes talk about “hitting the wall,” and getting past it, like a key part of the training), that competition causes us to be better.
Back when I ran my very first half marathon a year ago, the volunteer who looped a medal throughout my neck in the finish line?muttered these inspirational words:?”Everybody gets one.”?Hey, thanks, man!?I felt just like a kindergartener in an end-of-the-soccer-season pizza party with trophies for those: “Most Punctual,” “Best Scrunchie,” and so on. I’d hoped never to believe that way again, however it looked like I had been headed there anyway.
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On the morning of my race, I missed public transit to the subway, find the wrong train towards the course, and also got a little lost on my way towards the starting line (here’s for you, lingering head cold!). I asked a volunteer in a fluorescent vest if I was headed within the right direction. “No, they started two blocks behind you,” he said. “About ten minutes ago.” When I reached what appeared as if the timing mat, it appeared to happen to be disconnected. Oh, boy. My run was going to be considered a serious dance-like-no-one-is-watching act of private growth.
Over the path of the next two hours, I caught up with a few pairs of runners who had clearly been taking frequent and leisurely Gatorade breaks. I passed others who were lined up outside porta-potties. I passed race-walkers and regular walkers. You can say I maintained a steady jog, depending on how loosely you define ‘steady’ and ‘jog.’ I fought the sporadic pang of desiring the giant, identity-concealing cat-eye sunglasses I’d made a last-minute decision to depart at home.
I focused instead on the birdsong spilling in the trees along the course-Central Park is a glorious place to be at no more the winter-and let it drown the siren call of race-walking. The sensor in the finish line was still being working, and another volunteer in the PA system called my name when i hit the mat. “LAUREN OH-STER!” Relief mingled with a feeling of down-and-dirty pride. I suspected I’d just run my slowest race, but I was sure I’d set a personal record for Phlegm Carried Over the Finish Line. I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose having a flourish.
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A man and his daughter joined me on the platform as I waited for a train to take me back downtown to my apartment. He looked down in the bib still pinned to my vest: “There would be a race today?” “Yeah,” I replied, “a half-marathon.” “You just ran a half-marathon? You don’t even look winded!” He nudged his little girl. “She just ran thirteen miles!” Her eyes widened, and I did my best to appear like an off-duty superhero.
If winning (or perhaps dramatic, Hollywood-movie-training-montage-style improvement) would be the only things that matter, running can be a terribly disappointing hobby. I subscribed to my first race within my mid-thirties, which happens to be when elite runners’ race times begin to creep up for good, because of decreases in muscle mass, flexibility, and oxygen uptake as they age. I’m an incredibly amateur recreational runner, of course, but it’s sobering to think it does not matter how hard I train, Father Time is going to be jogging inside my side.
A workout buddy of mine developed medial stress syndrome after training too hard, and she or he found them so disturbing that they quit running for good. Another friend, my marathon-loving college roommate, is originating to going after having a baby to her son last summer. Her first race is a humble neighborhood 5K, chosen because it was the last one she ran before having her baby-and because she will run it with him in a jog stroller.
Yet bowing my visit accept my latest participant’s medal-everyone gets one, you know-was?still?immensely satisfying. On the superficial level, I really like shiny things: I’m getting excited about accumulating so many that I can put them on all at once and appear like Mr. T. I Instagrammed?this one using the caption “The Little Fail Snail That Could.”
The small Fail Snail That may. #centralparkhalf2016 #everyonehatestweetsaboutrunning
But that medal is?also a reminder that everyone who shows up at a starting line has confronted causes of staying home-we all have them-and chose to haul them in the future. Not every one of us run because we’re fast; some people run because we’re stubborn. And yeah. The commitment is the win.
