Running is my anchor habit. I organize my life around running. Each Sunday, I map out my runs for the upcoming week. I run marathons twice a year. Training for marathons gives me a structure to follow. A big goal to achieve. A bite-sized training plan for each day with an accomplishment to celebrate. Toughness. Grit. Perseverance.
While I have enjoyed running since I was a kid, I got serious about running five years ago. In 2019 I ran my first marathon. I loved it. Since then, I have run two marathons a year, with the exception of 2020. And I guess, as of now, this year.
Two extraordinary years. So tough and isolating, and yet, so instructive.
Last Sunday I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. I dropped out at 18.7 miles. At the time I thought this would be okay. I was feeling mounting fatigue and I was thirsty, as you do when running a marathon.
I was neither injured nor sick. I could have completed this race.
But I was running slow.
Slow happens.
It’s fine.
Except when it’s not.
My daughter had a Halloween party that day, and her entire grade was going to go trick-or-treating together. Due to the slower pace I was running, the complex logistics of getting out of one of the country’s largest marathon’s finisher village (think: ant farm without parking), and the sizable additional commute to the party, I realized that if I finished that race she was going to miss out on trick-or-treating with her friends. And I didn’t want to be that selfish asshole.
I thought dropping out was not going to bother me. I actually called my husband from the course and told him that at the next point where they would be to cheer me on, I was going to walk home with them rather than continue on to the finish line. “Don’t fight me on this,” I said. He didn’t and I dropped out. We walked home together. I showered. We got in the car. We stopped for sandwiches.
I was fine.
Until I wasn’t.
While I still believe I made the right decision, I had no idea how much dropping out of this race was going to bother me. I felt like I had been dumped on Valentine’s Day. In my favorite restaurant. By myself.
I cried intermittently for two days.
Charles Duhigg writes about habit and productivity. In The Power of Habit, he identifies the three core pieces of the neurological loops we create around habit. First, cue. Because my habit is so ingrained, it has come to the point where waking up in the morning is my cue to run. Then, habit. I run. Finally, reward. I complete my run and note my time, distance, and pace.
Each run is a reward, but completing a marathon is a collective reward of 18 or more weeks of training. I think, with more reflection, that part of the reason why I spazzed out so much was that I had my reward of final accomplishment in the form of a finish line taken away from me.
Running has been my constant teacher. It has taught me that what I say I can’t do is actually what I won’t do. That there is a difference. A huge difference. That seeing that difference is the beginning of agency, of power to change. Running has also taught me about respecting my body, fueling my body, and admiring my body for what it can do rather than the insignificant particulars of what it might look like. Given that I almost died of anorexia many years ago, this is a lesson that can never be over-repeated for me. I could go on and on about what I have learned over these years of running.
But I realize not finishing this marathon, while not the outcome I wanted, is teaching me far more than the successful runs. I am learning things about myself. That I actually can’t stand to let things be undone. That sometimes things are best left undone (and especially in the name of love). That a slice of humble pie offers more personal growth than a medal ever could.
In the past few days, I have learned how to accept the flowers I didn’t think I deserved. I have learned how to accept my emotions, to allow that I actually got pretty upset, and after that, and only after that, finding the perspective to right-size them. To celebrate that, for a moment by the river, a band was playing for me. That nothing takes that moment away.