Tag: running

The Marathon Where I Let Go And Had The Time Of My Life

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I ran the Marine Corps Marathon over the weekend. It was my fourteenth marathon completed. I am incredibly proud of this one. It represents an evolution in my hobby-level distance running career. This marathon was grounded, joyful, and while I wouldn’t say it was effortless, it was light. Airy, even. Don’t believe me? This is me somewhere around mile giganti-thousand:

I am extremely attentive to my running. For several years I’ve kept a daily running journal in which I track my time and pace. As I’ve rolled deeper into my forties I’ve started to pay more attention to things I used to ignore, namely what I’ll call The Big S’es: Strength Training, Stability Work, Stretching, and Sleep. There is no question, I’m a better runner now than when I started. Whereas injuries used to be a constant battle, I barely ever get them now. My body is in better shape.

But earlier this year, I started to slow down. A lot. Inexplicably.

It wasn’t like I lost energy. Rather, what felt like the same effort became a minute to a minute and a half slower per mile. Pretty insane, actually.

Through a routine health care appointment this summer that had nothing to do with running, I discovered that my iron levels have plummeted. My doctor put me on iron pills. I’ve also been working on an iron-heavier diet. Pretty quickly my usual pace came back. For most runs. But I’m not totally back to normal yet, and still figuring it out.

So I truly had no idea what would happen at the Marine Corps Marathon this year. In my natural state my body likes to do a marathon in about 4:10 (I’ve clocked this or something within a minute or two of it several times). Every now and then I bust out something faster. Sometimes I fall the hell apart and go much slower.

Surrendering any pretense of a time goal/prediction was freeing!

I’m especially proud of this marathon for two other reasons:

First, two years ago I ran the first 18 miles of the Marine Corps Marathon and dropped out. This is the only marathon I haven’t finished to date. That was devastating for me, which I wrote about here. I’m thrilled to have finished this time around, but also for every stride before I finished. I did not fall into the headspace of ‘doom,’ ‘sad,’ ‘revenge’ self-punishment whatever. This weekend’s success proved to me that trying again is a worthy pursuit.

Second, I have finally figured out fueling. Remember my Big S’es from before? Fueling should have been on the list. Maybe fueling is even more important than the physical stuff. This training cycle I realized that I needed to stop grinding it out, and just eat a hell of a lot more when I’m running. It worked. I never got tired. I never walked. Score one for a training run this summer that I decided to cut short and label a failure (which I had never done). That became the impetus for me to really experiment with fueling. Win!

I will never be a professional runner. I’m getting older and, with the input of funky blood, slower.

But I love this sport. I learn things from it every day. I am thinking so much about fueling and failure and patience. Consistent effort. Letting go of outcomes. How I can apply it to other areas of my life. And find more joy!

    Failure, The Great Teacher

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    I ran my first marathon in February 2019, and have run 13 total since. In all of these training cycles, I have never not finished a training run. (Though I did drop out of one marathon race because I was going slow and my daughter had somewhere to be, which I wrote about here. That made me freak the freak out.)

    But yesterday I did a new thing. I stopped my 20 mile training run at 17.66 miles.

    I have finished absurd runs under all manner of absurd circumstances. Driving rain, with motorists pulling over to see if I need a ride? I’ll keep going, thanks. Upchuck in my mouth because of dietary decisions that, in hindsight, were rather obviously not compatible with running (dinner as four slices of jalapeno pizza with jalapeno poppers on the side, and beer, the night before)? Finished the damn run.

    But yesterday I bonked. This is a phrase that means, “run out of energy.” I have certainly bonked before. What I have not done is stop a run because I bonked. Instead, I drag myself. It’s torture but I know how to finish when this happens.

    But yesterday I didn’t do that. I just stopped. It was about to become 80 degrees, and climb another five or six, and I didn’t want to mess with that. Not after 17.66 miles of sweating in the sun.

    There was a mental chaos, a psychiatric falling through gravity that resulted from this rather unprecedented decision. I always finish my runs. What happens if I don’t finish my run?

    Turns out? Nothing.

    Except that I feel like a better runner today than I did yesterday. I learned something profound:

    I need to fuel myself more. I’d already known this, but turns out what I was telling myself was “more” was not enough.

    Additionally, if it’s hot out, I’m better off switching to treadmill, or rescheduling. Period.

    This is a life lesson indeed, to invest in myself more than I think I need to, and to take external conditions at least as seriously as I take my goals.

    Yesterday’s training run taught me more than so many others where I have bonked and kept going. I know how to perform superhuman. What I didn’t know was if I could accept a failure and learn.

    Turns out I can.

    And feel great!

    I Actually Have No Idea How Fast I Am Going

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    I write about running a lot, because I run a lot. Perhaps too much. It is entirely possible that my running is detracting from my writing. It used to be the case that when I got up early, I would write. Now when I get up early, I run. Or I start working on my job so that I have time to run when it gets light outside. If I’m being honest, I have too many [waves hands] hobbies.

    But running gives me energy. That feeds my ability to write. And my ability to give my best thwack to fighting the hateful ideas behind gender-based oppression, which, tbh, is not an easy nutcracker to ballet.

    I work out many ideas on my feet.

    I am a middle-age recreational lady runner. For that demographic, I take it seriously. For years I’ve kept a daily journal noting time, distance, pace. I schedule my runs. I compete against myself like whoa. (The only person you’re ever really competing against is yourself, I’ve learned. All these lessons are for running and so much more.)

    One thing I’ve been focusing on is my speed. Training myself to run faster is fun. In this process, I have realized that I actually have no idea how fast I am going. Sometimes, I look at my device and realize I’m going like a minute per mile faster than I thought I was. Much more often, I think I’m going fast, and I’m like slo-mo runner in actuality.

    I think to the times in my life when I’ve crashed or burned out, and how this lack of self-awareness about self in relation to time and space chases me. Me chasing me without realizing I’m doing it. But also how there are times that I think I’m going fast when actually, it’s an illusion and I need to buck up to hit the mark.

    To know oneself in relationship to an actual measurement of velocity is somewhat akin to the experience of seeing yourself on video. This is how I look from outside the blinders of my body? Really?

    Sometimes I think I can understand others better than I can myself. And to be clear, I’m constantly confuzzled by others. Who is this me in the sneakers? How fast is she going? I dunno.

    Running With A Coaching App: Clippy In My Ears

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    I run four times a week. Sometimes I run in silence with a GPS watch. Other times I run on the treadmill, watching news or movies. Most often I run outdoors listening to music.

    I’m a bit of a codger. I oppose the Apple Watch. I don’t track myself on Strava. I do use the Nike running app. It’s generally a good app. It integrates well with Apple Music. It tells me I’m awesome after I finish a run.

    Or, more accurately, one of the Nike Plus running coaches tells me I’m awesome. They don’t say anything until I stop the run, stop the music. “Save some miles for me,” Mo Farah pleads. Coach Bennett tells me “the run is done.”

    The app seems to really, really want me to go on guided runs with the coaches rather than to listen to my own music. Guided runs are recordings where the coaches follow you the whole way, talking through your music. I’ve looked at these runs with trepidation for years. What? Why? During my alone time?

    In December Rivka Galchen published a great short story in The New Yorker, “Crown Heights North,” that clearly takes some inspiration from the Nike running app, though Nike is not named. It is May and I am still regularly thinking about this story.

    A man is dead and he starts running with the app. The dead man runs around New York City, thinking deep thoughts with the assistance of a coach.

    Last week, after four years of using the app while avoiding guided runs, I gave Coach Bennett a try. He seems like a nice man. I have no animus. But dang, he was invasive on my run! He gave me prompts to stew upon my life. Then he repeated those prompts. Then he kept coming back with more prompts. It was not coaching about running, mostly. It was about bringing up my self-esteem, letting me know I’m okay, you’re okay, and we can all be okay together. I appreciate that. It’s good and it’s right. But I prefer Barney and Sesame Street for that type of thing. When I’m running I like to rock out to Metallica.

    I found the effect of a running coach in my ears to be one of Clippy, that invasive ‘helper’ popping up on the screen on retro Microsoft products. “Hi!” (Smile.) “Try this!” (Bounce.) Clippy in my ears broke the sanctity of my run. Hacked my flow. Getting continuously told to be inspired made my run feel longer and harder, not shorter and easier.

    The Marathon I Didn’t Finish

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    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.

    A Weird Thing I Do: Run Marathons By Myself

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    It is said that Pheidippides was the first marathon runner. That he ran from a battlefield in the town of Marathon to Athens to announce a battle victory. That he then collapsed and died. That this all happened in the BC times. That now people like myself run marathons, 26.2 miles, because of this. That is all quite strange.

    I ran my first and second marathons in 2019. One was a big city race, the other a little city race. I loved them. A third, in 2020, was supposed to take place on my 40th birthday. It was a wonderful plan I had until COVID cancelled the race. Being the way things were in that time, I decided to stick with my training and run it myself. And a new tradition was born.

    It is now 2023. I have run a total of eight marathons. Four have been solo. The solo marathons have turned into something I do each year around my birthday, to mark the passage of time and celebrate my health and well-being. As the years advance, I am finding that my health is becoming the bigger birthday deal than presents or parties or Chuck E. Cheese. However much I do continue to love Skee-ball, cake, and a jumbo mechanized rat.

    Running a solo marathon is a completely different experience. At first they were harder than organized races, because there weren’t people or situations around to keep me pumped up. But then they became easier. There is something incredibly addictive about lacking excuses or external factors, and having to rely on one’s two feet.

    When I run I am free. The bullshit generally falls away: in my brain, on the screens. I am not doing the screens. I am just moving.

    It makes me proud that my daughter sees me doing this. That she is learning by example that hard work has a place, and after a period of time, it can become fun and relaxing. I’m going to keep doing this each year for as long as my body lets me.

    Things I’m Telling Myself Before Running A Marathon In Maybe A Blizzard

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    I’m running a marathon in 48 hours! Maybe in a blizzard because it’s in Northern Minnesota in October. I trained in the summer. I’m currently wearing sandals because it’s supposed to get up to 75 where I live. Here’s what I’m telling myself:

    • You trained for this.
    • You got this.
    • Maybe the weather will change.
    • Probably the weather won’t change.
    • This is your story for the ages.
    • You do not waste hard work.
    • You can handle anything that is put in front of you.
    • You trained for this.
    • You got this.
    • The faster the race, the sooner inside.

    Erin sweating and wearing running gear

     

    I Would Never Be Able To Run Marathons If I Still Had An Eating Disorder

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    I did not set out to develop an eating disorder. I wanted to get in shape. I started running. I started eating ‘healthy’ snacks. I started dieting. I lost control. I almost died.

    I would never be able to run marathons today if I was still playing around with that bullshit.

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    Me at the finish line of my first marathon

    Through multiple humiliating rounds in the hospital, I have learned in the hardest way possible that dieting is an addictive scam. Attempting to placate negative self-image through restrictive eating or unhealthy exercise patterns is an onramp to self-destruction without brakes.

    Thank God I figured out how to keep running, because it’s so great.

    My primary trick is this:

    I don’t diet.

    I don’t listen to negative body thoughts.

    I don’t punish myself for having a stomach that comes with regular queries about whether I’m pregnant.

    I eat with joy.

    I run for me.

    Learning To Run After A Marathon

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    I ran a marathon. To achieve this, I surrendered to process. I stopped accepting my own excuses and limiting mental frameworks. And, one day I became an athlete.

    Running is one of my love stories. Breath visible in the air, classical music on the radio, solitude in the found gorgeous.

    Training and the finish line transformed me. Surprisingly, the biggest challenge has been what came after the marathon: not running.

    I am learning the limitations of my body. After completing the race, my right knee announced itself as a hostage-taker. With time, it has transitioned to a toddler testing for power.

    In the last week I have begun to ease back in. My pace is considerably slower than my endurance allows, and each step brings unwelcome sensation. One month later I do not look like a marathon runner. I look like someone who is just learning to run.

    Who cares, I think. I have found a way back on the road. Accepting pain — observing my pain, accepting my pain, and embracing the deep and vulnerable plunge required to stop my instinctive resistance to my pain — is the deepest meditation I have experienced.

    Although finishing a marathon was pretty fucking cool.

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    An Obligatory, Trite, And Earnest Note About Marathon Training

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    I ran a 7:49 mile in the fourth grade. They thought I cheated and skipped a lap. I didn’t, but I too was surprised by my relative speed. I was one of those types who did the bent arm hang instead of pull ups. I thought I was not athletic and couldn’t achieve much physically, so generally, I didn’t. Until I did.

    Our expectations for ourselves can be far more limiting than our bodies and I have had to learn this lesson throughout my life.

    I am currently training for my first marathon. It is humbling, exciting, and occasionally painful. Mostly it is a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. In this process I have learned a lot. I must prepare. I must be willing to challenge what I think my body cannot handle. I must confront fears and jettison habits that have carried me through decades of 5Ks and dedicated running that was good, but not marathon-level.

    For example: Eating while I run will not make me throw up, nor does it obliterate the point of a workout — I have to do it to survive. Or, pushing through pain is not heroic or tough; if I don’t take breaks when my body tells me to, I won’t be able to run my race. I knew I had gone pro when my period started while I was on a busy street, and I just kept going.

    More than anything, marathon training has taught me that I can mostly do what I say I’m going to do if I focus and commit. It is also training me to better recognize the boundaries of what focus and commitment can achieve. I can’t and won’t become everything I’ve dreamed of, including some things I had thought more achievable than running a marathon. And yet, remarkably, I’m still going.