I crossed the finish line in fine form. Slow, of course, but with head held high and both knees churning. A race volunteer handed me my finisher’s medal and finisher’s T-shirt. I grabbed a blueberry bagel and water and a PowerAde and a banana and a bowl of hot chicken-and-noodle soup and hobbled over to an open space where I could sit on the ground and lean against the chain-link barricade that made up the finish chute area and enjoy my victory. I finally knew the answer to my question: I would be back. I wanted more of this.
Cyndi and I were in Austin last Sunday to run the AT&T Austin Marathon and Half-Marathon. Cyndi ran the marathon, and I ran the half.
My training for this race was marginal, at best. I’d been walking more than running, and not much of that, because my knee was still sore. But I think my reasons were actually more mental and emotional than physical. My biggest problem was too much body mass and too little running. It had been hard to motivate myself to hit the roads every day; I wanted my love of running back. I wasn’t ready to put this phase of my life behind me.
I knew this race would either make me hungry for more, or tell me it was time to move on to something else. Would I step in or step out? Would I say “I’ll never do that again,” or say, “When is the next race?”
About four miles into the half-marathon I ran past a man who was standing in the street with a cardboard cup holder in his hands containing four big Starbuck’s lattes. He was trying to give them away to the runners: “Come on, they’re full of sugar, they’ll give you energy.” He couldn’t understand why no one was taking a free latte. I wasn’t surprised – I couldn’t imagine drinking coffee during a race.
After mile ten I felt a sharp stinging pain on the outside of my lower left ankle and it worried me. This was an unanticipated pain. Finally I stopped to massage my ankle and found a big grass burr stuck inside my shoe – the source of the pain. So much for all my years of experience; I should have checked for stickers.
What I was most proud of last Sunday was that when my knee felt stiff I just kept going anyway. When I remembered to, I even picked up the pace. And doing that – pressing forward, picking up the pace – actually made my knee feel better, of all things. It was as if I’d crossed through some sort of barrier into a new reality.
I realize I shouldn’t mystify this too much because my success may have been due to the four Advil I took before leaving the hotel, but I don’t think that was all of it. I was running more than walking – at least a 4:1 ratio.
I was reminded me of an email conversation I had with Fred after my January 3rd Journal Entry, titled “Hope.” We were tossing around phrases to replace the one I had been using – aging gracefully – to describe this part of our lives. We thought about “aging aggressively,” or “aging militantly.” Fred even suggested “aging fortissimo” but that sounded too loud to maintain. We thought of “aging intentionally” and “aging boldly.” We never converged on a solution.
In the Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote: “We beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us.” (II Corinthians 6:1 MSG) I thought it was ironic that marathon running (and even half-marathon running) might actually fit into the “squandering” category since running long distances risked permanent injury. However, it also fits into the “aging intentionally-militantly-fortissimo” category since it feeds the heart and turns weaklings into lion-hearted warriors. Fred, who will run his 40th marathon this weekend in Ft. Worth, is no squanderer.
So I expected that I would run the Austin Half-Marathon very slowly – after all, the last time I ran for 13 miles or more was at the Nashville Marathon in April 2003. Sunday, I finished in 3:03:35. It wasn’t a great result for someone who’s been running for 30 years. In fact, it’s twice as long plus 15:00 as (my daughter) Katie’s half-marathon time, and it’s only 49:00 slower than my personal best full-marathon time. But since three hours was actually my goal for the day, I was happy.
In the movie, Return of the King, Aragorn asked Gandalf, “What does your heart tell you?” That was my question of the day. And Sunday morning as I leaned against the chain-link finish chute, eating my bagel, I knew the answer – I’ll be back.
