I seem to have taken on this huge thing, at least in my mind. The Mohawk Hudson Half Marathon in October. A double digit distance run. I have never run for that distance just to run. As anyone who knows me will tell you, as I lost the weight I became an obstacle racer, with running just occupying the space between obstacles. Nonetheless, here I am, committed. For this, I decided what I needed was structure. I began Jeff Galloway's Half Marathon training app, and to be honest, I have been faithfully completing each run/walk for the last 5 weeks. To be fair, these were short distances until now. Nothing I had not done before. That is until Sunday. The first long run. The 6.5 mile run. Add in warm up and cool down and I was anticipating over 7. Seven miles. God, that was a huge number. Why did I do this to myself? Well, I kinda owed some endurance running sharks I know a bit of a payback. I took them to Spartan Races on the dare that I would do one of these things. I had spent most of Saturday with the five stages of cardio preparation: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Lets just say I am not certain I passed that third one.
With these anxiety producing thoughts plaguing me all day, imagine the irony when I got home from work on Saturday night to find my kids watching "Forrest Gump". Not only that, it was the scenes of him running across the country. I watched his beard grow longer as his voice over talked about him running "for no particular reason", yet he criss crossed the country gathering a following of people all dying to know what purpose he had found in such a feat. He would ultimately decide he was running to put the past behind him, like losing the great love of his life and the loss of his mother.
As much as I love summer, this summer has proven to be a bit of a challenge as I recently passed the one year anniversary of my mother's sudden death. Grief is a funny thing. It tends to sneak in when you are not prepared and stop you in your tracks for a time. I find this to be a bit worse right now, so I decided maybe Forrest was on to something. I could spend my run trying to work through some of the grief and move forward.
I got out of my car at Lock 7 headed to the Mohawk Hudson Bike Trail, bright and early at 7:15 am as I still had a ten hour shift to work when I was done. I was grateful the heat wave of last week had ended and I had a cool, sunny 60 degree morning to take off in. As I got moving, I found my mind wandering off to some of the things my own mama always said. My mom always was a fan of the old time show,"Burns and Allen." This was a show that ran in the 50's starring George Burns and his wife Grace Allen and was essentially a sit com based on their life. Little did these two know, many decades later, reality TV would hit the scene and become bigger than they could have imagined in those early days. Nonetheless, they always appeared before the camera and ended their show sign off with George saying,"Say goodnight Gracie". This was something my mom said to me from a very young age. What began as a response to my refusal to go to bed as a young child, in my defense I still have insomnia at age 48, ultimately became a term of endearment. To be honest she still called me Grace at times until the day she died. In fact, it is part of the reason my youngest daughter is named Grace.
As my feet rhythmically hit the pavement I thought of other things. Like when I would call her at work to complain of an ache or a pain, and she would say,"unless something is on fire, or someone is missing a limb, you are fine." Any kid of a parent in health care probably has heard this a thousand times. I mean really, just ask my kids. My mind suddenly flooded through dozens of other things she said, some producing chuckling right there in mile 3.
Ultimately, I would be reminded of something she said continuously when I was a teenager. In typical teen fashion I had all of the injustices of the world identified. I absolutely knew when life wasn't being fair to me and I was exceptionally good at complaining about it. I would triumphantly plead my case. I would present the evidence that I clearly was not at fault and was completely being treated unfairly. She would sit and listen to it all and respond simply with "Amy, there are no victims, only volunteers." I would argue that I could not possibly have signed up for whatever particular injustice I felt I was being dealt. She would simply shut it down, by repeating the phrase over and over and ultimately there would not be further discussion. God that pissed me off at that age.
During my run, however, I had my own Forrest Gump moment. I have spent the better part of adulthood offering rationale for being obese and unhealthy. Not enough time. My metabolism is slow. I have PCOS, I can't run. I'm not really an athlete. Diets don't work, not for me. The gym made me self conscious. I'm too busy with the kids. See? I was a victim of circumstance. Suddenly, my overthinking brain grasped what it was she tried to teach me more than 30 years ago. By giving in to those things that we perceive we have no control over, we volunteer to be victims of our own undoing. Maybe the better answer is to step back, stop throwing our hands up in defeat, and take control over what we can and volunteer to be who we were made to be.
I went on to finish the run and the cool down. I just about hit that 7 mile mark. A new first for me. In those moments, drenched in sweat, sitting on my favorite lakeside picnic table cooling off, a little bit shocked at my completion of this, I began to think Forrest may have been on to something with the notion of running to put the past behind him. After this run, I get the feeling that some of my past failures have let loose of me and gone off to die somewhere along the Mohawk Hudson. I am beginning to think just maybe this distance running thing may be less about paying back some sharks and more about uncovering the me I am really supposed to be. Once again, that leads me to believe the best is yet to come.
