Follow Up
Confession: I’ve been slacking in my training lately.
Confession: Because of this lack of motive to go on and on like a run on sentence, this running out of steam, I’ve never run 10 kilometers before today.
Confession: I did it anyway.
8AM arrives as early as anything when you’re equating the sound of the alarm clock screeching to the sound of the starting gun. Once it wakes you up, there’s no going back. Once you’re off, you can’t turn around or stop.
I dressed in my racing best, poked my head into my older sister’s room to make sure she was awake and went downstairs for breakfast. Scientifically, I had it mapped: carbs, protein and energy. While I ate half of a sandwich and sipped a bitter half a cup of coffee, I could feel buzzing in my veins. It was the cocktail of dread, nervous excitement, and great expectations humming in my blood. I pinned my number to the front of my shirt and laced up my shoes.
Confession: I remember thinking… “You don’t have to do this.” My sister and I headed to starting area and once again got a look at the ragtag family we’d adopted ourselves into. Old, young, gangly, stocky. Numbered like prisoners or cattle, and restless. There was an energy in the air that made everyone shift and move without ever being static… Or maybe they were trying to keep warm.
It was a cold morning, with the sun swathed and hidden behind grey clouds. Huddled masses, we waited for the starting gun. It started to rain in cold splotches. The wind blew in bursts, and I felt my muscles freezing and shrinking. 9:30, the official start time passed. No gun. 9:45, still no gun. Our anticipation burned away into impatience and anger and chattering teeth. When the air horn blew, everyone cheered. It was an optimistic start for a long road ahead.
I can’t summarize the experience of the run itself. Imagine the pull of gravity, the forces of nature and your pounding heart fighting for your attention simultaneously. The course was loaded with hills, and soon I was silently talking to myself. I talked to myself like a crazy person. Earn the downhill. Don’t ever stop. My new, personal mantra: One day I will be nothing, so right now I must be everything.
Confession: Based on my 5K time, and giving myself a little leeway for exhaustion, I set my goal for an hour and thirty minutes. I wasn’t going to set a time goal at all, because they say the first time you run a new distance, the achievement is to finish.
Time slipped by but the kilometers came on slow, and near the end, every step felt like it might have been the one to give up on. Every second tearing by felt like it was taking me further out to sea. When I saw the marker for 9 kilometers, I high fived it and burst out laughing on my way by. I probably scared a couple of the volunteers, but it didn’t matter.
I was going home. I was going all the way. I was going, going, gone. For the final kilometer, I trotted along with a frosty, weary determination. Rounding a corner I saw the banner calling out to me and my legs of lead lifted one more time to finish it all off. What I started. Committed to. Sweat and suffered and puked for.
My sister, already finished, screamed and cheered with my mom and my best friend by her side, waiting for me. I launched straight into their arms and beat my goal time by 13 minutes, clocking in at 1:17!
In the wake of the rush of joy, I was laughing and fighting for breath, and a little moved by the power of the moment.
Confession: I’m already sure there’s going to be a next time. A next race. A follow up to this follow up.
Confession: If someone told me one day I’d run 10 kilometers in the freezing wind and rain, I would’ve told them to step off…. In so many words.
Confession: I’ll see you at the starting line.
