Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

Here I sit bundled up in my standard Upstate New York issued Uggs and Northface, seat heater on, avoiding the 44 degree weather outside, as I wait out my son’s football practice. It’s already dark out and it’s not even 6:30. The full on realization of what the next few months will bring in terms of snow, blow and the inevitable relentless aggravation of my Raynaud’s Syndrome, causing my hands to be numb until spring. As the depressing weight of that thought sinks in, my random playlist once again proves to be the great equalizer.  It was the sudden sound of calypso that brought me out of the anticipation of the winter funk. Jimmy Buffett’s,”Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”  This song takes me back to summers in college spent around a keg with good friends and much more carefree times.

I took off for a weekend last month just to try to and recall the whole year, 

All of the faces and all the places 

Wondering where they all disappeared 

This year. What a whirlwind. Three Spartan Races, a Sprint, a Super and a Beast, completing my trifecta for the second year on a row. Cape Cod Ragnar and Adirondack Ragnar for hundreds of team running miles. Several 5 and 10k’s with various motivational clients of mine, where I got to see people do things they never thought they could, which was truly an honor. Then there was that other thing. The big thing.  The half marathon. The thing that kept me up nights long before I did it. People kept saying,”yeah but you did a 20 mile Spartan Beast on the side of a mountain in West Virginia, so this is no big deal.” Oh but it was. At a half I didn’t have my 6 ft 6 business and race partner to pull me along if I ran out of gas, like when he helps me over the 8 foot wall at mile 12. My original race partner and biggest cheerleader, my son, was not at this race.  This was on me. I was the only one in charge of finishing.  I was in charge of if I ran or walked and nobody else. My first huge battle of me versus me.  It honestly felt a bit like operating without a net.

Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same   

I arrived at the start line long before my other teammates, who I came to know as simply my 13.1 sharky half sisters, as my ride was dropping another of our group off at the full marathon start line.  Little by little my sisters would arrive in our fancy matching shirts and we would set out to change our own latitudes.  When the gun went off, I would see our team truly bound us in name only and it was time for me to set out to race.  There would be two members of our team who took off into the sea of humanity ahead of me, and three were behind.  I found myself on the long downhill course, despite the crowd of other runners, suddenly very much alone.   I watched my watch and decided I was ok at a 10:50 pace, not overly anxious, and I seemed to breathe ok.  At one point I would emerge from the bike trail and ultimately come across a set of railroad tracks and see a bearded man holding a cardboard sign reading,"GO SHARKS".  Huh.  Sharks.  Like my team.  The Sharks.  That's cool.  I would later come to find out he was a family member of a teammate and was actually rooting for us, not some other sharks like I assumed.  There was the cool overcast day, with a fine mist so I was not overly hot, and I seemed to be slowly passing mile marker after mile marker.  So far so good. 

With all of my running and all of my cunning 

if I couldn't laugh I would just go insane

Around mile 8, though, I think I started to falter a bit.  My legs were sore, but I had yet to walk.  I found my brain entertaining the notion of stopping.  Eight miles was good, right?  Besides, I had just seen another runner jump into an SUV at an intersection.  I began to wonder if I could summon an Uber.  It wouldn't be so bad really, perhaps they could drop me at the park entrance and I could appear to finish like a normal person.  In those moments when the doubt crept in, I suddenly felt the presence of someone next to me.  I looked to my right and found a red matching tank top to mine.  It was Jill.  My trusted training partner who more often than not, can be found on the treadmill next to mine.  She's known to rap as she runs, and cheer me on for every little gain.  She ran one of my very first 5k's with me as my leftover anxiety from a childhood of gym class bullying dared to get the best of me.  She listened to my ridiculous rantings in the third mile that day and got me through that by reminding me in that moment it was not my body saying to slow down, it was my brain. I was so excited to see her  and to tell her I was eight miles in.  I had not walked.  I had maintained a 10:50 pace and I felt confident and good.  The right person in the right moment.  She would jog along and document this exchange on film, a far cry from our first race, as we did the eight mile selfie, and then would take off ahead of me. 

 Later, she would go on to have her own epic finish.  They announced her name as she crossed the line, as they did she let out an excited,"woot!" As she did, she would lose her sunglasses, the ones bearing my logo, and all six feet of her would trip into a baracade. stumble a bit and ultimately bend over to pick up her glasses so that the finish line pic is directly of her ass. A story that is still being routinely retold, with a lot of social media reshares.  

Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder

So I can't look back for too long

There's just too much to see waiting in front of me

And I know that I just can't go wrong

In the end, I would emerge in the park in Albany still plugging along to the finish, leaving a lot of my insecurities of trusting myself to take on big things independently behind me on the 13.1 miles my body had just covered.  I would rejoin the three that finished ahead of me and cheer on the two that finished behind us and in usual team fashion, our token celebrator Lydia would bust out the prosecco.  We would laugh about the soreness we felt or the butt print of sweat we left on the seats we sat in right after the race.  

If we couldn't laugh we just would go insane,

If we weren't all crazy we would go insane

Since the race, our race team would go on to plan for more crazy stuff like two races back to back next weekend, or the Dopey Challenge, a 5k, a 10k, a half and a full marathon in four days in January.  Somehow we find through the crazy of the physical challenge, a laughter that is unmatched and an unsurpassed sanity.  So, thank you to my half sisters who showed up to help me take on me.  Times may be a bit less carefree than my early Buffett listening days, but many of the faces that appeared around the keg in those days have not disappeared and are still fixtures in my life.  For that I am truly grateful.  Learning that changing latitudes figuratively and physically truly does bring with it a new attitude and that is the best is yet to come.