I just began training for my second marathon. The only thing more startling than the words "training" and "marathon" in that sentence is the sequential "second." Two and a half years ago I barely ran, and I certainly didn't do so willingly. Earlier this year on my 50th birthday I ran 26.2 miles in 90-degree weather and now I want to do it again sans the scorching conditions, which I think I'll be able to improve on by running in November, in Philadelphia.
There are lots of people who run marathons and ultramarathons and there are lots of people who can run faster than I can. There are lots of people who can't, and there are those that I manage to pass on the course. That's the beauty of it: there is only one fastest person and one slowest person alive in the world at any given time.
The fastest person alive has been officially identified as Usain Bolt. The slowest person alive is unlikely to be known by name. But between the happily named Mr. Bolt and and the unknown slowest man/or woman in the world is a six billion plus number line on which the rest of the human race sits as a series of constantly shifting points. I know I'm not near Usain Bolt's end of this axis but I know that somewhere in the world there are at least a million people I could probably beat in a long-distance race.
And now that I've started to run long and short distances alike I find, like the dancer in The Red Shoes that I can't stop the motion. My personal Lermontov is a genius of motivation named Carlos Sanchez. Carlos is not a running coach. He is a personal trainer who runs a Maplewood Boot Camps in the public parks of Maplewood and South Orange, NJ. After a lifetime of searching in vain for a physical activity that would keep me coming back for reasons other than membership fee remorse, I responded to a flyer that came to the house and checked out his website. After a few emails with Carlos, re-assuring myself that this was not the kind of coach that was going to use humiliation as a motivator--since I am perfectly able to self-inflict that--I showed up, tentatively, one cold November morning in Memorial Park, trying to balance the dual sensations of the predawn ice particles glistening in the air with the prewash cling of cheap sweatpants made from some man-made fabric in Thailand and newly purchased at Costco for the occasion.
Nervously I glanced through bleary 6AM-eyes at my fellow "campers", a mix of men and women of varying ages, hoping they would not conspire to expose my lack of conditioning in the games to come.
But this is meant to be a discourse on why I run and not a digression on why I boot camp. For the record let it be noted that on that first day I got sick to my stomach and almost threw up. Let it be further noted that six months later found me not only an inveterate 6am exercise junkie but like any addict I was looking for the next level of high. (n.b. I think drug references spice up the narrative but the only chemical enhancers I approve of, outside of those naturally found in beer, are those the body produces sweating around a track on a winter morning in 40 degree weather.)
The first big rush I got from boot camp was confidence. Once I got stronger and saw that I belonged there my fear and loathing of exercise, reinforced by years of being the last one on the fence when choosing up for teams, went away. We began, and still usually begin, with a warm-up routine that includes a run around the park, a distance of a third of a mile. Once I could do that without wheezing I noticed that I was often one of the faster people in the group, at least in terms of completing the circuit.
Pete S. was the fastest--so I would pace myself against him and occasionally come in ahead of him, with a little sprint at the end. To be fair, I don't think Pete was actually trying to race me. But being able to pass him occasionally convinced me I was not an impostor in camp. One of the ladies in the group asked if I was a runner. "Not outside of camp" I explained, unconsciously straightening my posture. "Well, you're built like a runner," she said. I don't know if the result would have been the same if one of the other guys--say Pete--had said those words. But the thought that anyone--let alone a woman--would conclude that I was any kind of an athlete was reason enough for me to start running on the off-camp days, and on weekends, and whenever I was traveling for business.
I gradually worked up my morning runs from one, to two, to three miles. In September of that year friends of my late wife asked me if I would join a team they were forming to run a 5K in support of ovarian cancer research. My joy at being able to finish my first 5K lead me to sign up for three more races of that distance later in the fall.
As autumn gave way to winter my times improved and my morning runs lengthened to five miles. I stopped at five because of the time commitment and the dictation of the New Jersey Transit commuter schedule. But I had to run at least every other day and I started packing my running shoes, t-shirt and shorts every time I took a business trip. In one memorable 12-month period I ran along the Thames, the Rhine, and the Vavra rivers, making circuits across the bridges of London, Budapest, and Prague. The longest distance I ever run in an organized race was a "Turkey Trot" of five miles in Massachusetts, Thanksgiving 2009.
And it was on that Thanksgiving, having just read that "if you can run 20 or more miles a week you are ready to train for a marathon", I decided to do just that. When I heard there was going to be a marathon in my home state of New Jersey on my 50th birthday I decided that was as clear a sign as any for me to go for it. (I tend to save big life-transforming events for those decade-capping plateaus: I married the first time at 20, moved to New York at 30, learned to rollerblade at 40, and ran a marathon at 50. Two successful completions and two crack-ups. God knows what 60 will bring.)
The ins and outs of my training through sleet and hale and dark of night are for another time. But I did it, I became a marathoner--albeit in a very unimpressive 5 hours and 22 minutes--and I am ready to do it again.
So, back to the question at the top of this post: just what is it that makes me run? To start with, no one makes me do it. I have to do it. I've become the shark who without being in motion, will die.
My new running habit has also overlapped a particularly stressful period in my life: laying off friends and colleagues at my workplace as business withered in 2009; my own job being made "redundant" (n.b. I worked for a British company) in a reorganization of this year (hence this blog), and my sons decisively entering their next larval stage as teenagers and piercing the veil of competency with which I'd managed to cloak myself with while they were toddlers. I may lead my life with its share of quiet desperation but after five miles in the morning, I can face whatever follows with a song. Probably a song I heard on my iPod.
I like the comraderie of running: certainly the mutual support one gets at an organized race and at the running club I just joined. But also the sense of community one feels when running on the open road, solo. If I meet a runner coming in the opposite direction we almost always acknowledge each other, though we may be laying eyes on each other for the first time.
I've noticed that men use the half wave: a raising of one arm to just about shoulder level, as if preparing to high-five, accompanied by an approving almost imperceptible nod. Women, on the other hand, usually just smile, politely. At my age, any activity that gets me a smile from a woman, more than likely one with great legs, is its own reward. I confess I pick up my pace a bit when that happens. You don't get smiled at standing still.
Paradoxically, despite those moments of community, the title of the Alan Sillitoe short story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner says it all. On my long runs, training for the marathon, I usually did run alone and despite my iPod (I admit I run with my iPod though purists protest) I found my thoughts overwhelming the sound in the earphones and I begin to think in tangents I'd never expected to veer in. Sometimes my stream of consciousness would touch base with a phrase or a word heard from the earbuds. Sometimes they'd drown out the artificial noise, entirely.
I know the Sillitoe story ends with the conclusion that running, at least the competitive run, is essentially meaningless. And his borstal boy protagonist is driven to running to escape his bleak life. His quiet desperation is a real prison but I think all runners share with young Colin the exhilaration of distraction.
Finally, the best part of running is when I cross the finish line or the spot I've set to terminate my run and I walk briskly, stretch and cool down noticing that my shirt is dripping but knowing that I am done. Running is like writing in that respect. I enjoy having run. Over 26.2 miles there was never a time that I wasn't visualizing having the effort behind me. For me the challenge is usually not finishing the run--it's starting it. The start of any run for me is the hardest mental part; somewhere before the half-way point is the hardest physical part; and the finish is the payoff.
One thing I no longer expect is to avoid is the pain. I thought it if I ran long enough, and at longer and longer distances, I would no longer feel the pain in my feet or the fatigue in my thighs. Wrong! It hurts when I run long distances. All hail ibuprofen. The trick, per T.E. Lawrence as written by the happily named Robert Bolt, is "not to mind that it hurts."
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