Running with a Police Escort

by Jill Grunenwald

  Temporarily alone, I plowed ahead and marveled at the city scape around me.

  Because he’s a fast runner, my uncle was able to quickly catch up with me again and we kept on running.

  The course turned and veered onto the Allen Parkway, a highway that runs through downtown Houston. Like most highways, there is a median in the middle of the road. The course ran west along the Allen Parkway for a couple of miles before turning around and heading back towards downtown Houston.

  As we ran along the Allen Parkway, my uncle caught my attention and gestured toward the other side of the median: there, running alone, was the eventual 10K winner, Sammy Kiplagat. He ran fierce and fast, his form flawless, and not a drop of body fat on his muscular frame.

  Sammy is one of the “Kenyans,” an elite group of professional runners that all come from the Republic of Kenya. Runners from Kenya are known throughout the sport as some of the best, especially in endurance races like half and full marathons. But, as evidenced by Sammy Kiplagat at the 2013 ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10K, they excel at shorter distances as well.

  In the 30 minutes and 37 seconds it took Sammy to run those six miles, my uncle and I were just finishing up the first two. When it comes to out-and-back races—ones where the start and finish are generally in the same spot and the runners run for half the distance then turn around and head back towards the start area of the race—this is a familiar moment for me. I’ll often see the elite and front of the pack already heading home only shortly after I start to gain some ground and get into my groove. But I don’t run many races that attract runners of Sammy’s caliber, so this was a first.

  As we passed the Mile Two mark, I glanced down at my heart rate monitor to see how much time had passed. The heart rate monitor didn’t give me a breakdown of my pace, but with some simple mental math gymnastics (even runners bad at math can do race splits in their head) I could figure out an average and ballpark how I was doing.

  Noticing my movement, Uncle Don looked at me. “Is this pace okay?”

  “Yup!” I said, grinning. “We’re good!”

  We had a plan going into this race. My uncle knew the Allen Parkway well enough to know that this was a very flat course. But there were some small dips along the way and my uncle suggested we walk the dips when they started to go back uphill. He also suggested we walk through the water stations. Considering my experience at the Running with a Mission 5K last summer and nearly choking on the water while trying to run and drink at the same time, I appreciated the suggestion.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about walking during a road race, though. Walking almost felt like cheating in a way. Walking felt like it made me less of a runner.

  But then I looked at my Uncle Don. This is a man who runs more frequently than I do and most decidedly runs faster than I do. He wasn’t still trying to figure out what it means to be a runner, or find his identity within the world of racing. If he thought it was perfectly acceptable to walk during a race, then it was probably a good idea to listen to him and take him up on the idea. So, that’s what we did: we ran, keeping a steady pace around a 14-minute mile, with brief walking breaks when we met a hill and also came to a water station. Which, y’know, is smart. Because the last thing I wanted was a repeat performance of my water drinking routine from my first 5K.

  Physically, I felt strong and confident and I knew that my body would be able to keep up for the whole distance.

  The mentally challenging part came around 3.2 miles. I was now in uncharted territory.

  Miles are miles, sure. I certainly won’t argue against that. But something about being in a race amplifies the importance of each mile marker you pass. Cleveland is a major metropolitan city, yes, but races tend to follow the same streets, streets that I live on and drive on, and, most importantly, run on.

  I’ve gone running in a park or on a block that has been the location of a previous race and somehow the miles I ran in those races seemed to mean more than the miles I was running for fun. The commitment and level of dedication that comes with training for a race, eyes constantly kept on the prize, makes me feel the weight of those race miles, even if I’ve run that exact same route at a completely different time.

  Mile 3.2 was now my longest racing distance yet, and I felt the importance of what it meant to run that distance and outstrip my previous comfort zone.

  I was also halfway, which is always a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand you think I’m already halfway. On the other hand you often think, Fuck, I’m only halfway.

  But even if I was in the latter frame of mind, what was I going to do? Quit? Leave my uncle to run the rest of the race by himself while I went and joined my aunt on the sidelines? Fuck no. So I fought through the mental block, telling myself I could do this. I will do this. I am doing this.

  Then, there it was: the Mile Four mark. Oh, how I had been looking forward to seeing that sign.

  Reaching the Mile Four mark meant that I had officially pushed myself out of my comfort zone into a new zone. There was no turning back now; I had crossed the threshold from someone who only ran 5Ks to someone who was about to rock her first 10K. From here, the only thing that stood between me and that finish line was two miles. Two measly, easy-peasy miles. (Okay, 2.2 miles, but for the sake of simplicity I’ll round down.)

  When running new and unfamiliar distances, it’s sometimes mentally helpful to break that big distance into smaller chunks. Hell, this is helpful even with old and familiar distances. Instead of focusing on the entirety of 3.1, or 6.2, or 13.1, or 26.2 or any and all distances above, below, and beyond, break it down into more manageable chunks. Even now I am sometimes overwhelmed by races distances, even ones I have completed multiple times, so I don’t look ahead to the whole length of road standing between me and the finish line because it can be daunting.

  At that first 10K, those 6.2 miles were overwhelming and daunting but instead of focusing on that, I set smaller goals. The first mini goal was getting to that initial 5K. That was a distance I was comfortable and familiar with. Then I pushed myself to get to Mile Four. After that, I just kept repeating to myself, There’s only two miles left. That’s it, just two little old miles left. I was like Dory over here: just keep running, just keep running. Two miles became one and a half, which became one, and before I knew it, that finish line was within sight.

  Uncle Don and I stayed steady as we ran the last few yards of the Allen Parkway, wanting to finish strong. As soon as we crossed the finish line, we turned towards each other and embraced. My official time was 1:26, well within my 90-minute goal.

  We exited the course and went to the small finisher’s village that ran on a parallel road. Right at the exit of the race we were able to get some post-race nourishment, including bananas and chocolate milk. The rest of the road was full of tents represented by local organizations and some smaller national brands, handing out free swag and samples.

  Soon, my Aunt Marianne found us and gave us both hugs and snapped a quick picture. She was still holding my black fleece jacket. As soon as I saw it I realized I was freezing—it’s a natural reaction the body goes through after a hard workout, when the heart rates comes down. The finisher’s village was under a long shade of trees, which only increased the cold sensations as my body started to recover from running over six miles. My aunt gave me back my jacket and I immediately put it on, wrapping myself tight in an effort to warm up.

  As I put it on, I noticed the red pallor of my skin.

  The day had started out chilly and overcast, but after an hour and a half of running outside in the mid-morning Texas heat, I was not only drenched in sweat but had developed quite a lovely sunburn as well. In all my packing and preparation, it had not occurred to me that sunblock might be a good idea. After all, it was February and I had come from Northeast Ohio. Needing sunblock this time of year was nowhere in my thought process.

  Oops.

  If nothing else, at least I wasn’t all pasty winter white anymore.

 
After visiting all of the booths in the finisher’s village, the three of us started the long walk back to the car. I hardly noticed the distance, too amped up from having just completed my first 10K. Not only finished it, but hit my time goal with room to spare!

  I spent the rest of the day with this kind of haze around me. I wanted to tell everyone I met about what I had accomplished that morning. The sense of pride was fierce with this one, let me tell you.

  In the weeks and months leading up to the Rodeo Run 10K, I found myself almost paralyzed with fear, wondering and worrying about what I would find on the other side of that finish line. Because once I crossed it, I’d have made that transition from just a 5K runner to a runner who ran 10Ks and would soon be training for a half marathon and all sorts of other races beyond. Really, it was that whole concept of the beyond that freaked me out the most because once I crossed that blue mat laid out in the middle of a road in Houston, anything was possible. Once I crossed that line, there was no going back.

  As I crawled into the back of my aunt and uncle’s SUV and buckled my seatbelt, my eyes rested on the bright blue plastic timing strip still looped around my bright pink shoes. The same pink shoes that had just carried me across that finish line—both the actual finish line and the one in my head. Looking at that blue strip and knowing what it represented, I couldn’t help but smile.

  Turns out, I wouldn’t have wanted to go back even if I could.

  7

  Eat, Sleep, Run, Repeat

  The ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10K hadn’t just been my first 10K, it had also been my first race of 2013. A few weeks later, in mid-March, I followed it up with the St. Malachi 5-Mile Run.

  A Cleveland racing tradition as old as I am, St. Malachi itself is a well-regarded Catholic church with a long history within the community. So well known, in fact, that it used to appear on the labels of Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Conway’s Irish Ale, a seasonal beer that comes out in early spring. The race held in the church’s honor is always held right around St. Patrick’s Day, with a sea of green runners arriving to race the streets of Cleveland.

  March weather in Northeast Ohio is incredibly unpredictable. Spring in general can be unpredictable, but March is a month of split personalities. With February, it’s pretty much a given that there will be snow and most likely lots of it. Even when that groundhog over in our neighbor Pennsylvania predicts an early spring, there’s still at least one more snowfall to deal with before that happens. By the time April rolls around, Clevelanders may still require a light jacket when they leave the house but there are still moments where things like flip-flops and Capri pants are reasonable without being underdressed.

  For the 2013 St. Malachi race, the weather was far more akin to February than it was April. Snow, sleet, slush … if it was a cold and nasty form of precipitation that starts with the letter “s” that race had it. By the time I hit the water table at the halfway point, the water had been sitting in frigid temps for so long, the little waxy paper cups had ice crystals all around them.

  Surprisingly, despite the weather, I ran slightly faster than I did at the ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10K. It’s like my body knew the sooner I got to the finish line, the sooner I could get into a hot shower.

  Two months later, I ran my second 10K, at home in Cleveland as part of the city’s marathon weekend.

  It was July by then, and with the change of seasons came a change in my running strategy. After spending the past six months running almost nearly one race a month, I was now cutting back on the number of races I ran. I had a much bigger finish line to chase.

  It’s 4:45 a.m. and there is a very loud, very annoying sound coming from the general direction of my nightstand. If I were a cartoon character, this is the part of the story where I would draw a huge hammer from beneath the covers and smash that alarm clock into a million thousand little pieces. There’d be springs and coils everywhere, the second hand making sad little half-tick attempts to continue its solitary job of marking time before it finally dies down, drooping over the broken face like a leftover from a botched Dali painting.

  But I’m not a cartoon, I’m a runner and that shrill noise is my alarm clock. Keeping my eyes closed, I reach my hand out from under the warm space of my bed and into the cold space of my bedroom, groping across my nightstand in an attempt to find my alarm clock so I can shut the damn thing off.

  Throwing the covers off, I will myself to sit up, eyes blurry, mind groggy. I stumble out of bed and start rooting around in the dark for my shoes, refusing to turn on the lights because my vision still needs to adjust and it’s way too fucking early in the morning to try and shake myself awake. Dressing properly is already taken care of because I went to bed in my workout clothes. When it’s this early and the gym is in my future, it’s important to set myself up for success for actually getting to said gym and sometimes that means going to bed wearing a tech shirt.

  Usually I am rather proud of the impressive rack I have been blessed with, but before coffee, often the logistics required to put on a sports bra capable of supporting it is a mental and physical challenge on par with a Mensa exam.

  This is the fifth morning in as many days that I have woken up ridiculously early to workout before work. I wake up ridiculously early, then go work a long day, then come home and go to bed ridiculously early because—yay—tomorrow I get to yet again wake up ridiculously early and do it all over again.

  It wasn’t like this was my first go-around with early mornings and long days. Back in high school, my marching band had an opportunity to appear on live television as part of the Friday morning show for a local network. This meant being in place outside the studio by 5:30 a.m. For that to happen we had to leave our school by 4:30 a.m. and because we had a couple hundred people to organize onto buses, we were told to be at the school by 4 a.m. Our band director joked that the only four o’clock he thought existed was the one in the afternoon.

  Oh, he was so clever that one.

  After putting on a good show for the Northeast Ohio viewing area, we piled back onto our buses and went back to school, making it just in time for second period. Because, you know, we were students after all and our education was the priority. Then, because this was a Friday, we still had a football game to look forward to that night after school.

  It kind of feels like that, only instead of it just being a one-time special event situation, it happens every day for several weeks or months in a row. Morning after morning, day after day, week after week. Worse, while we were told we had to attend the morning show, this exercise/torture routine that I had going was completely voluntarily.

  Mondays: running. Tuesdays: spinning. Wednesdays: running. Thursdays: yoga. Fridays: running. Saturdays: running. Sundays: rest.

  Welcome to training mode.

  Ten months earlier I did something so out of character I still hadn’t quite wrapped my head around it: I had registered for a half marathon. A half marathon that was now a mere two and a half months away. That’s it, that’s all that stood between me and 13.1 miles.

  As a librarian by trade, I have a master’s degree in Library and Information Science. I took multiple classes towards earning this degree that were spent focusing on the organization of information. Organization is my jam, man. This meant that when it came to selecting a training plan, I wasn’t just going to follow that training plan. I was going to follow that training plan like nobody had ever followed a training plan ever before.

  If I had learned anything from my training experience for the ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10K, it’s that I like having a plan. I like to have structure, a guide to follow to constantly challenge myself. I like knowing that Mondays are for runs and Tuesdays are for spinning. Each day has a job, a mental focus. Something to concentrate my energy on, something to look forward to.

  When it comes to plans, my brain works better if I can see the big plan. The long game. I printed out calendars for the next few months with each day’s activity written in. These calendars go
t hung in my apartment in a spot that I would see every single day.

  I loved being able to walk over and see what was on the agenda for the next day or the upcoming week. I loved being able to watch the progression of the long runs, slowly increasing with each new week.

  But I especially loved being able to cross a day off after that particular activity had been completed. There was nothing more satisfying than taking a pen and drawing a diagonal line across the designated square on my calendar.

  I had selected a well-rounded training program that included four days of running, two cross-training days, and a rest day.

  Rest days are incredibly important to any training program as it gives the body an opportunity to rest (duh) and recover from all the hard work. But, as I quickly found out and as other runners can attest to, rest days are, oddly, one of the hardest days to get through.

  Every morning, I was waking up early to lace up my shoes and run, or hop onto a stationary bike and spin, or contort my body into one of a dozen yoga poses. After all of that, instead of feeling restful on rest days I felt almost restless. I felt twitchy and fidgety, which surprised me tremendously. Normally I am a person who loves being lazy. Give me a comfy couch and a Netflix subscription and I’m good. After a morning run I fully indulged in lazy afternoons, but just resting for the sake of resting pushed me out of what was apparently my new comfort zone.

  My body had gotten used to working out on an almost daily basis. More than that, it apparently liked working out that frequently, so when a rest day rolled around, it wanted to run more or spin more or find an even more difficult yoga pose. Having to chill and not exercise was challenging, even when I knew it was what my body needed.

  My training runs were going well enough, although I was falling into the same trap I did last year: freaking out because the heat was slowing me down. When I had 6-, 7-, 8-mile runs on the agenda, I had to plan my days very carefully.