Hard to Know How to Feel

The day after the Boston Marathon bombings, it’s hard to make much sense of how I feel. I went for a run in MonkeyVille and ran angry on the uphills and sad on the downhills. I felt like everything would be okay afterward and then got a little stressed again on the ride home. Then I forgot about it for a while as I was working, and then felt guilty for forgetting. Just now, I felt a little more guilty for seeing “I” so many times when writing about something tragic that didn’t even involve me.

Still, of course, I (along with so many runners) feel like it does involve me. Yesterday, the running forums were full of righteous anger. “How can they do this to running!?” “Those assholes won’t take running from us!” Yes, this seems a tad unseemly in light of the horrific real injuries to real human beings…Even so, for those who honestly love running, I think the fact that the sick lunatics chose to target a spectacular celebration of running feels almost, well, personal.

Like I said, it’s hard to know how to feel.

For me, running is something of a longtime companion. It’s been an ongoing relationship for 35 years with the torrid ups and downs typical of any love affair. Just 8 weeks ago, I had a serious falling out with Running. How dare it abandon me and make me look like an ass after all my devotion? Dramatic and self-absorbed? Yes, but there it is. Naturally, after a little time passed, I got over myself, admitted that “it’s not you, it’s all my fault,” and moved forward with the relationship.

Running has been something I’ve turned to when dealing with everything from heartbreak to celebration to menopause. It’s a real friend. The connection is intimate and unique, yet those who feel the same way I do totally understand without having to explain or ask for explanations. That mutual understanding is the basis for some of my other favorite friendships.

On the other hand, I’ve known runners who claim to not really like running very much, yet they want to qualify for Boston so they can say they’ve done it and check it off a Bucket List or whatever. I’ve always felt oddly belligerent toward people like that while, at the same time, berating myself with a hearty, “Why should you care? Mind your own fucking business!” But it rubs me the wrong way much like it would if someone said, “Well, I don’t actually love Marge, but she’s loaded, so I’m going ahead with the wedding.”

Anyway, all that to say that it doesn’t seem strange to feel that what happened yesterday was, in part, an unprovoked attack on a close friend. Maybe it feels a little strange. Or selfish. Hard to say. Admittedly, my first inclination to the “How can they do this to running!!” comments was to roll my eyes. But I do understand it. Really.

At the core of our love of running is that same ephemeral euphoria and release you feel when you’re in love or when you were a kid dashing around outside at twilight or when it’s finally spring. In a real sense, it’s the antidote to sorrow, violence, terror.

So, I think it makes some sense to feel the way I do.

Birmingham: Beauty and the Beast

Let’s start with the beautiful things.

Race morning dawned nearly cloudless, chilly, and void of the hideous wind that had pratically blown us over the afternoon before as we walked to the expo/packet pickup. Somehow, Cheryl and I had both slept pretty well. In fact, Cheryl dropped off nearly instantaneously, and I wanted to stand up with my hands on my hips and bellow, “You’re running your first freaking marathon in the morning!! How can you already be asleep, damn it!! Wake up and toss and turn for 8 hours like a normal person!!”

Anyway, we all arrived on time. Posed for some attractive pictures in the parking garage and beside the port-a-potties. Then we were off. Jeff was pacing Cheryl, and KOB was pacing Amy, and I just sort of hung behind, trying to keep Jeff and Cheryl in sight for at least the first half. They both looked pretty relaxed and focused, and I definitely didn’t want Cheryl knowing I was varying between 10 and 30 yards behind her. Every now and then, Jeff would look around and once even turned around and ran right past me to get some water. I’m sure he saw me, but he never said a word to Cheryl so that she wouldn’t break her focus. How awesome is that?

And then around mile 14, Jeff and Cheryl faded from my view. Not long after that The Beast part of this post begins, but let’s not go there just yet.

Let’s just point out that both my bitches ran their hearts out in Birmingham, and I’m hella proud of them. Amy has her race report over in her blog, and though it wasn’t exactly the race she’d hoped for, it was a massive nearly-20-minute PR (DAMN!) and her first sub-4. She ran through some horrific circumstances that I’m nearly certain would force some of the toughest marathoners to drop out. PRs and a lot of LOOK HOW STRONG YOU WERE! sunshine thrown at you are no consolation, I know, when you don’t get the time you want. Even so, FFS bitch. Look how strong you were.

And Cheryl? Um yeah. She qualified for Boston by nearly 8 minutes. IN HER FIRST MARATHON. Four days later, I think it’s only beginning to really sink in for her. After she finished on Sunday, she kept looking at me with a wide-eyed and baffled expression and kept mumbling, “I can’t believe it.” Sure, she was wobbling a tad and doing the Tin Man walk afterwards, but when I asked her how the final miles were, she thought for a second and said, “They weren’t easy, but they were not as hard as I thought they’d be.”

Who says that after their first marathon? Sheesh.

So, that was truly a thing of beauty. Focus, commitment, hard work, follow-through, BOOM. 3:47. Boston 2014. Congratulations, Cheryl. You crazy beautiful running monster. And one more thanks to Jeff, pacer and friend extraordinare!

As for my race, nary a speck of beauty.

I never felt great from the start, but I’ve had marathons like that before. I couldn’t really find a rhythm, but I’ve had marathons like that before, too. What I’ve never had in a marathon before was a complete and utter breakdown starting at mile 18 and dragging on in mounting stages of horror for eight fucking miles.

It began with stiffness in both (BOTH) my calves that quickly turned into cramps. I had just been mildly bragging to Cheryl not only a week earlier about how I had never gotten cramps in a race and aren’t I so great and whatever. Yeah, kharma can bite me, and apparently it did. Totally rattled and freaked, I slowed to a ridiculous crawl until the cramps calmed down. But as soon as I started running, I’d feel pain/tightness again, and then I began panicking because I couldn’t tell in my massive haze of self-absorption if it was my achilles or just cramping. Was I injuring myself? Was I being ridiculous?

Well, then began the desperation calculations of how much I could slow down and still get in under 4 hours. Around mile 23, everything really fell apart. Physical, mental, emotional, the works. I no longer knew if I was crawl jogging along more because of my calves/achilles or more because I’d hit the wall. Either way, I was a sorry, sorry sight. At mile 24, I looked up at the beautiful blue sky and thought, “Well, hell. It’s a nice day for a walk.”

Then I discreetly boo-hooed a little (Don’t judge me!) and, for the first time in 35 years of racing, I walked in order to finish a race. I was one of those people. I kind of hated myself. I entirely hated marathons.

I managed a limpy drag crawl joke of a jog for the last half mile so that I didn’t have to subject myself to the utter humiliation of walking across the finish line. I really don’t remember much more than veering over to the fence to keep from toppling. 4:15 something. A personal worst. The marathon had reduced me to a crying, wasted, puddle of hollow nothing.

After 23 marathons, I know all about respecting the distance. I have respected it and learned from it and cursed it and shaken my fist at it. But I have never been completely humbled by it like I was on Sunday. It may be the worst, emotionally, I have ever felt at the end of a race. Ever.

But Birmingham, really, was not about me. So my mood did a stupendous 180 when Cheryl told me her time. It was Celebration Central, and we’re still celebrating. Bitches get stuff done.

Moments after I finished, I had told Cheryl that I would nevah evah evah evah evah* run another fucking marathon again. But now, with the mental breathing room of a few days, I don’t know, you know? Mostly I’m incredibly angry at the marathon right now, and if it thinks it’s going to humiliate me and then make me quit, well….

Anyway, this blog is on hiatus for a while. See you all in the spring.

* Copyright, A bunch of New England Dudes at the Monkey, 2012.

M is for…

Well, duh.

Tune in next week for a race report that doesn’t rhyme! We’re headed to Alabama…

*swoon*

A is for….

It’s Almost time!
And bitches get stuff done
You two trained your asses off
Now go down there and run

The hay is in the barn
The gas is in the beans
The proof is in the pudding
(And no one knows what that means)

A is for Anxiety
Oh for the love of crack, relax
The weather’s perf, your outfit’s fab
Your fitness is totes maxed

Of course, a bit of freaking
Makes the race effort enhanced
So go ahead! Crank up those nerves!
(Just don’t pee your pants!)

But mostly, A’s for Awesome
And as your PR roads unwind
You bitches will know you’re exactly that:
Awesome. Strong. Sublime.

And, yes, I realize the acronym
For that last line above is ASS
It was totally unintentional!
Now make me proud. RUN BITCHES! FAST!

H is for….

Happy birthday to me, bitches!

(Today’s poetic selection time slot has been replaced by several moments set aside for me to eat cookies and reflect on 52 years. And that’s an assload of reflection. Thx and sorry for the inconvenience.)

G is for….

G is for the ghosts of Marys past!
Twenty-two of them (someone give me a flask…)
From San Diego to the Big Apple
Someone should fry my brains for scrapple
‘Cause here comes number twenty-three, alas

In ’86 I ran a three-twenty-whatevs
I had chicken legs and hardly any breasts
I was a truly lovely sight
Sounds attractive, right?
At least I wasn’t PFDOS*

Flash forward twenty-seven years or more
(Yes, in fact, my first marathon was run when I was four!)
It’s still an appealing mystery
In spite of all my history
With a distance that I suck at and mildly abhor

Twenty-six point two memories from coasts to coasts
Miles, medals, whines, one billion bourbon toasts
Though the race is a tad daunting
And the memories can be haunting
Past marathon spirits are mostly friendly ghosts.

*Pretty fucking digustingly out of shape. (Copyright, 2011, MikeyMike.)

N is for…

…NOTHING!

I’m bitterly sorry to have to say
I have nothing at all to write today
I cannot take virtual pen to paper
Back off bitches, I’m deep in taper

Accuse me not of slothful lazing
This is uber important navel gazing!
I must sit for hours and quietly freak
About seconds, carbs, toenails, and sleep

Your run was fab today, you just said
I envision a frying pan upside your head
You ran for an hour! It was total bliss!
Oh dear, is that your face on my fist?

I have nothing at all, then, to say about
Phantom pains and spontaneous gout
Colon clutches and cramps in my rear
Will certainly not be mentioned here

And most of all, there’ll be no public mourning
Of how leaden my legs were in my small trot this morning
What’s that you say? I need a hug?
Reach out one arm, bitch, and pull back a nub

Yes, I’m endlessly sorry to have to repeat
That there’s nothing to see here, nothing to read
Tune in tomorrow for greener blog grass
As for today, please just kiss my ass.