Oh, what will this year bring?

Why I’m Running a Marathon

February 27, 2008 on 10:01 pm | In Running | No Comments

The simple answer to why I’m running a marathon is because I can.

I can, and no one is more surprised than I am.

I wasn’t an athlete growing up. I blame this on the lack of invention of the sports bra but I suppose I’d have to mention that, back then, girls weren’t allowed on Little League teams or to play football and although it was the time of Billie Jean King beating loudmouth Bobbie Riggs at tennis, sports were not as mainstream for girls as they are today. Some of my friends played field hockey but mostly we played support roles to boys’ sports. We kept stats for the track team, we held the finish line string in place, we jumped up and down when the boys won. We never went out for the team, but we did go out with the team.

In college, I ran from time to time when I was trying to lose weight. It hurt and there was a lot of floppage and when I would reach my goal weight, I’d stop. After graduation, I got my first professional job and spent 50-70 hours a week trying to prove myself and then would flop exhausted into bed. My weight skyrocketed with my unhappiness, the heaviest I’ve ever been, the most stressed. When I quit that job and became a technical writer, I started going to a high impact aerobics class. I lost weight, got into the best shape of my life, and got pregnant. The next few years were a blur as my body changed over and over: that pregnancy followed by months of nursing, an irregular schedule, then another pregnancy, and that difficult first year with a sick baby. I didn’t exercise at all, didn’t have the time, didn’t have the energy, all went to caring for the children and just trying to get through each day.

When the boys were school age, I grew tired of breathing hard just to go up a flight of stairs, tired of feeling tired, and was much too young to feel so damn old. Early one morning, I walked half a mile to the high school, then ran a quarter-mile lap on the track. My lungs burned, my legs shook, and my heart pounded in my chest. I walked a lap, then forced myself to run another lap, walked a final lap, then walked home. I was exhausted and wanted to fall into bed but the boys were getting up and it was time to start the day. I didn’t give up. I ran the next day and the next day and kept running each morning until I could run two laps in a row. And I kept going after that until I could run three laps, then four. I worked up to three miles and then I entered a local 5K. I came in second to last and I still consider it one of my proudest achievements.

I ran for another year, then switched to step aerobics for several years when that came into vogue. I returned to running, not for the joy of it but because it was the most efficient way for me to manage my weight. Running burned the most calories which meant I could still indulge in cookies without much impact. When Nick started to train before going to boot camp, I bought him a CD of Marine cadences and I ran to them far longer than he did. At age 43, I could run 4 miles in the 41 minutes it took for the drill instructor to call the cadences. I kept running during Nick’s first year in the Corps but something changed in his second year. My body changed and running started to hurt. My knees ached, my hips cramped, and my back complained loudly. I felt lightheaded and sluggish and I slowed down to walking. Because I felt bad, I started comforting myself with food and when Nick announced that he would be deploying to Iraq, I ate cookies without limits. The weeks before his departure closed in and I ate more cookies but no matter how many I ate, he still shipped out to Iraq.

In September 2006, I decided to change. I weighed in and started a food journal, tracking every bite, every calorie. I walked and I started to lift weights. After 10 days, I had not lost any weight and I visited with my doctor who recommended I increase my cardio to 30-40 minutes five times a week to jumpstart my metabolism. I knew that meant it would be best if I started running again but I was afraid — afraid I couldn’t do it, afraid it would hurt. Just as I had proven to myself that massive consumption of cookies couldn’t keep my son out of Iraq, I knew that running would burn calories better than anything else. What I didn’t know was that running would be different this time. I would start running and it wouldn’t hurt –it felt good, a physical challenge, a mental occupation in which I could relieve my worries (at least for 30-40 minutes a day) about Nick. I easily worked up to running three miles, far more easily than ever before. I then pushed to four, then five wasn’t so hard, and six was a challenge but really, not so different from four or five.

Because I wanted to make sure I’d have no trouble finishing, I was running 30 miles a week by the time I went to Washington to run the Marine 10K in October 2007. In talking with some of the marathoners, that’s how much they were running, some more, some less. Suddenly I realized that they weren’t doing anything different from what I was doing, they were just doing it for farther and longer.

I thought back to that first day when I walked to the high school track and struggled through a quarter mile. I had started that run at a low point in my life, when I felt trapped by my love for the boys in a difficult marriage and wanted to run away, not run in circles. I pledged that I would keep the family together until the boys were out of high school, I would give them that. I trudged through the days, making the best of the situation, marking each day like a mile. I knew how to disappear into my mind, to ignore pain, to keep going even when I wanted to stop, when I wanted to fall apart. I knew endurance, how to go on when there was no way to go on. I lasted for 20 years, one foot in front of the other, running a marathon of a marriage.

Running a marathon didn’t seem so different to me. I had made it through those years in the same way that I had coached myself into running 6 miles a day: start small and build one step at a time. I knew I had the mental toughness to get through a marathon. What surprised me was that my body could do it too. For the first time in my physical history, I was running for me, simply because I wanted to be a person who ran, not because I wanted to lose weight, look better, or feel better. I wanted to be a different person from who I had been. I wanted to wear a physique that matched my mind, both brain and body that was strong enough to get through anything. I had already come so far and now, I’m training to go further.

26.2 miles to be exact.