Amid all the packing I couldn’t help but reflect on how far I’d come. Just one year ago I had been watching an episode of The Biggest Loser, overweight and out of shape. After witnessing the even more overweight and out-of-shape contestants run on the treadmill, I felt inspired enough to lace up a cheap, mostly new pair of running shoes that had been taking up space in my closet for years and hop on the treadmill myself.
Almost exactly 365 days later, I was about fifty pounds lighter and in the process of preparing to go run my first 10K race.
I had followed the Boston Athletic Association’s novice 10K training plan as best I could. Physically, I felt completely prepared to tackle the distance ahead of me.
But mentally? Oof.
Mentally, I was seriously starting to question all of my life choices up until this very moment.
What really flummoxed me was that around the same time as when I had registered for this 10K, I had also signed up for a half marathon and I was weirdly feeling totally confident about those 13.1 miles.
But a 10K? Jesus, what the hell was I thinking getting myself into this?
So a 10K is double the distance of a 5K and a half marathon is basically double the distance of a 10K. Yet when I really tried to mentally see myself putting the work in and crossing those finish lines, all 13.1 miles of half marathon seemed far more of a realistic goal than a 10K and 6.2 miles.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
I am a creature of habit. I have my routines, my levels of comfort. Stepping outside of those routines, coloring outside the proverbial lines and challenging myself to be uncomfortable is, well, you know, uncomfortable. But it’s a careful balancing act of reality and perception. For that reason alone, it would make more sense to believe that the challenge of running 13.1 miles would be far more daunting but because it was yet so out of reach, I had this somewhat romanticized view of what that would be like.
With a 10K, especially after nearly two months of training, it was a very, very real finish line I was closing in on and it left me terrified. I wasn’t afraid of failing, because I knew I could do this. I was afraid of the very opposite: I was afraid of succeeding. Because once I set a new goal, once I raise the bar on my level of comfort, and then once I meet and exceed that bar, I can never go back. A new level of comfort will have been established.
Metaphor time: a caterpillar knows nothing else. He exists in his own little world, slowly inching and munching along leaves and branches, completely oblivious to anything outside his own realm of experience. There are probably other caterpillar friends and maybe even a family of caterpillars and they all are more than happy with the way things are in the gardens and trees where they live.
He’s got a good life, that little caterpillar.
Then, one day, he wraps himself up into his tight little cocoon and a transformation begins to take shape. Things might be dark, maybe even a little scary, because the caterpillar’s body is changing. He doesn’t know what’s happening, he’s only sure that something deep inside him is working its way out. By the end of this transformation, he won’t be the same little old caterpillar anymore.
Sure enough, one day, the cocoon breaks open and suddenly the caterpillar discovers he’s flying. He doesn’t have to crawl along the ground from tree to tree, he can float above the flowers of the field, his beautiful wings flapping in the wind. Who knew such extreme beauty had existed inside of him this whole time? And now, what freedom he had! After experiencing such liberation, he couldn’t go back to his lowly life as a caterpillar again even if it was physically possible.
Which it isn’t. Once that level of metamorphosis takes place, there’s no way to return to the previous state, either mentally or emotionally.
In some ways, progressing through the hierarchy of race distances is kind of like life as the little caterpillar. Once the finish line of a new race is crossed and that distance has successfully been completed, a runner can’t just go back to the start line and pretend it never happened. A runner can’t un-run a race.
Not all runners want to increase their race distances. Some prefer the shorter 5K and have no desire to ever move up to a 10K or half, let alone a full marathon. But even then, once a runner tastes a certain speed, finishes within a certain time, achieves that PR, they can’t take it back. That previous November, I had run the Next Step Run for Shelter 5K, finishing in 41 minutes and 33 seconds with an average mile pace of 13:24. After finishing, I posted my time on social media and my cousin Matt, also a runner, commented that a 40-minute 5K would be next.
As I’m writing this, it’s been almost five years and the Next Step Run for Shelter 5K is still my 5K Personal Record. I’ve run many, many 5Ks since, some with finish times that are close, others with times much slower. Even now, knowing a 13-minute mile, specifically three of them in a row, is unrealistic, I still show up at every 5K ready to chase that PR. Because when I ran that day, I literally felt like I was flying. Having felt that way once, I want to be able to feel it again. Once that PR has been set, all a runner can do is keep trying to beat it at every subsequent race.
So, in that way, that was what I found so terrifying about running the ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10K. It wasn’t the distance itself, not really. I had trained, I had done my runs, and I knew that when I showed up at that start line, I’d be able to successfully cross that finish line at the end of the course.
It was what was on the other side of that finish line that scared me.
In the days leading up to the race I started to make a packing list, checking it twice. And three times. And four times. My shoes, as I said, were going in my carry-on because I had read horror stories about runners traveling for races who had packed their shoes in their luggage and gotten to their final destination only to discover that their suitcase did not. Everything that was packed in my suitcase, like my running clothes, could be easily and inexpensively replaced. But I was possessive about those running shoes, and the last thing I wanted to do was have to run my very first 10K in a new pair of shoes that hadn’t yet been broken in. They were also bright pink, a shade of neon pink straight out of the 1980s, and the rest of my outfit was black which meant those pink shoes were gonna stand out for miles and there was no way I was gonna lose that photo op.
The race was Saturday morning but because of my work schedule, I didn’t work Fridays, as well as the traditional weekend days. To take advantage of this and maximize my time with family, I was flying into Houston late Thursday night. My job itself was located close enough to the airport that I arranged my day to leave work a couple of hours early Thursday and drive straight to the airport.
Thanks to the time difference between Houston and Cleveland, I arrived in the early evening and was met at the airport by my Aunt Marianne and Uncle Don. They took me out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant in their neighborhood, then back to their house where I crawled, exhausted, into bed and fell asleep right away.
As I’ve said, most of my mom’s family lives in Houston. At the time of the 2013 ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10K, this meant my Aunt Marianne, Uncle Don, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Steve, and my Grandma. Because of the 1,300-plus miles between Cleveland and Houston, I don’t see them very often. I used to see them regularly when I was a kid, when my nuclear family would travel to Texas for Christmas—the end of December weather always being more preferable there than in Northeast Ohio—or when the Texas relatives would come to Ohio in the summer, mostly for the same seasonal reasons. But as my grandparents got older, travel for them became less convenient, and as my sister and I got older, our school and work schedules made it less convenient for us. So this particular late February weekend, along with the time for my first 10K, was also a bit of a family reunion!
Friday morning I woke up ready to run. The night before, over dinner, my Uncle Don suggested we go for a quick run in the morning. Just something short around their neighborhood. Partly to give our legs one final push before the race but also to get me used to running in a much different clim
ate.
Because of this, most of my training for this 10K had been indoors on the treadmill. Over the six weeks I had worked myself up to this distance, I wasn’t given many opportunities to take my long runs outside so I was grateful for a chance to put my legs to work somewhere other than the treadmill. Houston in late February is like spring to me. Ohio in late February is like something out of Dr. Zhivago. Driving around the city, seeing the homes covered in snow with single-digit temperatures outside, it was impossible to not be reminded of that infamous ice palace scene. (February also usually meant that stupid groundhog out in Pennsylvania would predict another six more weeks of winter, not exactly helping matters.)
Running outdoors in Houston near the end of February is much different than running outdoors in Cleveland near the end of February. Back home, I had to contend with snow and ice and bitter winds in my face. In Houston, I was wearing a sleeveless shirt.
This was also an opportunity to get used to running with another person, side by side. Running is a solo sport for me. Everyone has his or her or zir preferences, of course, but I like the freedom that running alone gives me. I get to decide pace and the route.
Mostly, though, running by myself means I don’t have to worry about my pace and its effect on another runner. Everyone has their own idea of what it means to be “slow,” and more than once I’ve heard a slow runner quantify it by saying “I’m slow. Like, really slow.” Hell, I’ve said that myself, and it almost always comes up with regards to running with another person, whether a race or just wanting to run in general.
That afternoon, after having lunch with my Grandma, my Uncle Don and I went to the local running store to pick up our packets.
This running store is located in a small shopping district surrounded by a bunch of other stores and earlier in the day my aunt had offered to take me shopping, just because. Well, really, it’s because my aunt and uncle don’t have kids, so my sister and I tend to benefit from this in unexpected ways.
I knew that when my Aunt Marianne made this offer she meant shopping for, say, a fun new dress to wear to dinner with the rest of my family the next night. But as we were walking around the store, I noticed a section off to the side that caught my interest.
I feel it necessary to update a previous statement I made earlier that the most important thing a runner can buy is a decent pair of shoes. While that’s still true, there needs to be an amendment aimed at the women out there: buy a good sports bra.
It has already been established that math was not exactly the high point of my educational career and I frankly remember next to nothing from any of my classes. One thing I do remember is improper fractions. These are fractions where the top number is bigger than the bottom number. Something like 5/2 is an improper fraction, with 2½ being the proper form.
While learning about these fractions in fifth grade, the teacher told my class that another way to think about improper fractions is to call them Dolly Parton fractions because they are bigger on top.
Fifth grade. True story. Hard to forget improper fractions after that.
That being said, Dolly inspires another lesson here—who doesn’t love Dolly, right? Steel Magnolias, Nine to Five, Hannah Montana, I mean the list goes on and on. My absolute favorite Dolly role ever is from the film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a film I first saw when I was about fifteen or sixteen, which is really kind of awkward and borderline inappropriate, now that I think about it.
Anyway, there is a scene where Dolly’s character Miss Mona is talking with Ed Earl (played by Burt Reynolds) about her former dream of being a ballerina dancer. Ed Earl, having a little bit of a crush on the madame of the Chicken Ranch, encourages Miss Mona to show off her dance moves. Miss Mona scoffs, saying, “Me jumpin’ up and down? I’d black both my eyes!”
Running without a proper sports bra? Kind of like that.
Look, I don’t want to get too graphic here but sometimes you just gotta strap that shit down, okay? I mean, unless you want to channel your inner lifeguard and look like someone who just stepped out of the opening credit sequence to Baywatch. In that case, be my guest. I’m not here to judge. You do you.
But for me, running around with boobs basically flying everywhere, unsupported, is uncomfortable as hell and it fucking hurts later, too. It’s bad enough worrying about how my legs feel after a run, who the hell has time to worry about if my boobs are sore or not from all that excess and unnecessary bouncing? Boobs are not circus acts, people. They are not meant to fly through the air with the greatest of ease.
Strap. That. Shit. Down.
So there I am, standing in the middle of a running store with an aunt offering to buy me a fancy new frock just for fun and I’m eyeballing the very practical sports bra section of the store.
I had officially created a monster.
Glancing over at my aunt, I could tell this really wasn’t at all what she had in mind so I allowed myself to be taken to Ann Taylor where I got a gorgeous dress that I looked absolutely divine in.
Sometimes you just have to pick your battles, amirite?
So here it was, the morning of my very first 10K and when they say everything is bigger in Texas, that includes races.
To be fair, I did pick a race centered on the annual rodeo and if you know anything about rodeos and/or the Lone Star State than you know that rodeos are a big fucking deal. So, naturally, the race associated with the 10K is an equally big fucking deal. Like, this was hard-core legit. On race day, 15,000 runners showed up to run either the 5K or the 10K. Those were the only distances being offered and 15,000 people showed up. That’s like an entire small town. I’ve run in equally populous races, but not for distances short of a half marathon. For so many people to register for events of this distance speaks to the significance of this event.
That early in the morning there was a slight chill in the air, so I was glad I had brought along a fleece jacket that I wore while we stood around waiting. Downtown Houston was packed full of people, both with runners camped out near the start line, and with sidewalks jammed full of spectators ready to cheer us on. Somewhere in the mad mix was my Aunt Marianne.
Uncle Don and I made our way through the throng of people, attempting to find where all the runners were lined up. This race didn’t have any official corrals for runners to utilize but they did have pacers standing among the other runners, signs with finish times and paces held high. We used those signs to figure out an appropriate place to stand and wait.
We lined up about 20 or so minutes before the start, but because there were so many people, there was a delay and it took us 10 minutes to get to the start line. By that time, the sun had come out and the Texas heat was starting to show. I knew there was no way I’d be able to run 6.2 miles wearing my fleece jacket.
Eventually it was our turn, as we finally made our way to the start line. As we crossed the blue mat that activated the blue chips on our shoes, I started my heart rate monitor. I wasn’t wearing it to actively monitor my heart rate, but more so I’d have a general idea of our pace. I had a goal in mind and with the lag in clock and chip times, I couldn’t use the clocks along the course to keep track but with the clock on the heart rate monitor I could.
Less than a quarter of a mile after we started, Uncle Don pointed out my Aunt Marianne standing on the sidelines. She was waving at us, clearly excited to spot us along the course. He and I quickly made our way to her spot on the sidewalk and passed off our jackets for safekeeping. We waved goodbye and carefully moved back into the flow of runners and set our sights on the finish line six miles away.
In our conversations leading up to race weekend, he and I discussed what our “running together” would look like. He’s much faster than I am, but was willing to significantly slow down his pace at this race so as to match mine, which I greatly appreciated. But we also talked music and I said that while I usually always run listening to my iPod, I was okay with keeping the earphones and iPod tucked away.
And, at the star
t of the race, I totally was okay with that. He and I kept a pace that pushed us physically but still allowed for brief conversations. I was even okay with it through the first mile. After that, though, with that first mile marker crossed, I was becoming too aware of what I was doing.
Running is one of those things that actually sort of kind of sucks when you’re in the middle of it. Not all the time: every once in a while I have a really great run, the kind where I’ll run more than I planned or need to just because I don’t want to stop. I always feel great after a run, but during … while running I am, more often than not, wondering why I took up running to begin with.
As long as I can get into that zone and close off the rest of the world and ignore what my body is doing, I’m capable of amazing feats. But if I’m too in the moment, too aware of what my body is doing, I tend to be well, too in the moment. Instead of focusing on the crowds and energy and other runners and internalizing all the awesome of race day, I instead focus on the negatives: Are my laces too tight? Too loose? My foot feels funny. Why does my foot feel funny? WHY DOES MY FOOT FEEL FUNNY?
Phantom pains. They are real. Especially on race day. Acknowledging and indulging them too much only seems to enable them to increase.
After only one mile, I could see my mind starting to work in that direction and with five miles still to go, I knew there was no way I could open up that part of my brain.
I turned to my uncle. “Would it be okay if I put my music on?”
He smiled and nodded, “Of course!”
I was so glad I had decided to bring my earphones and iPod, just in case. I pulled them out of my armband, popped the earbuds into my ears, and brought up my running play mix. I kept the music low enough that I could listen to the music, but still hear my uncle if he said something.
The race started downtown Houston, with the runners maneuvering around the large skyscrapers, and spectators cheering on the sidewalks. Around a mile and a half in, we passed a row of porta-potties set back off the road. My uncle said he was going to make a stop but that I should keep going and he’d meet up with him.
Running with a Police Escort Page 10