on the iPod: "more than a feeling" -- boston
The New York City Marathon is two months out and things are looking great in terms of training. The mileage goes up each week, and, while neither of us have any sort of written plan this time, we will probably do two 20 milers in late September before tapering toward the end of October. It's not that we're flying blind with no weekly plan whatsoever -- Mrs. Murie gets these weekly emails from an avid runner named Toby Tanser that includes suggested mileage for people that are training to run NY. He also does quite a bit of relief work around health care and education initiatives in Africa. It's pretty cool stuff, so we've been doing whatever Toby says. More on that to come. Stay tuned.
After being officially back in the classroom for two weeks, I was worn out by Thursday and suggested a late start for the long run. Mrs. Murie, bless her heart, never needs a reason to sleep in a little bit longer, so she didn't bat an eye when I offered up an 8:00 a.m. start. Last year when we were training for Chicago in August and September, we were going out at as early as 5:30 in an effort to avoid the heat. But this end-of-summer hasn't been as punishing on the mercury, and my circadian rhythm has been so thankful for the extra hours of slumber.
For the third time this summer we added the new Meadow Valley trail in the middle of the run. It's two miles long, so an out-and-back on it is a good way to get four miles in the middle of town. It traverses through the University agriculture fields with a really nice underground tunnel at Garland Street. There isn't abundant shade, but there are tons of rabbits and lizards which are fun to see. The other non-abundance is bathroom facilities, which became a bit of a scary reality for me on Saturday as I found myself with about a half mile left when nature called. I'll spare the details for another time, but suffice it to say we picked up the pace considerably and made it to plumbed salvation in the nick of time. I'm not even kidding.
So we're at the point in running together that, after a few miles, we don't really run together because of pacing. The bottom line is that Mrs. Murie is faster than I am. Maybe it's because she's on marathon #12 and I'm on #4, or because she's genetically predisposed for speed, or because she weighs a good 50 pounds less that I. It doesn't matter one way or the other because we both share the same passion for the sport, and training together makes us better friends and better runners. On Saturday, we went the final six miles solo, and for the final three miles she wasn't even in my sight. As the sun broke from cloud cover and blanketed the morning in rays of warmth, my thoughts were on running with a purpose and a drive to push myself. I've been trying to push myself toward the end of runs for a few weeks now and am hoping that it will pay off in spades for New York City. I finished the final mile relatively fast and, as usual, Mrs. Murie was waiting for me at the trailhead, shoes unlaced, leisurely stretching and looking like she could go another 16 with ease. And she probably could have.
Our post-run coffee break was short, as I needed to get on the road and head to the southeast corner of the state. Growing up in Pine Bluff was dichotomous for me. I lived in a fun neighborhood with a loving family and friends, went to a great Methodist church, and generally plugged along like any other kid in the 1980's. I remember riding my bike daily, spending the night at my grandmother's house, lots of cooking out, taking vacations in the summer, and liking school. But I also remember always being a little bit misplaced, particularly during junior high and high school. In the back of my mind I realized every single day that I was different than everybody else and that my sort of different wasn't really a part of Pine Bluff. So growing up was a give and take of sorts in terms of my emotions. The good news is that I figured everything out some years later and turned out just fine. Growing up in Pine Bluff made me stronger and I wouldn't change it for all the marathons in the world. It's a part of me and always will be.
Traveling the 175 miles across the great state of Arkansas, legs feeling the soreness of big mileage that hurts so good, heading to a town that I have no tangible connection to anymore, my 20 year high school reunion was waiting. I didn't have any preconceived notions on what to expect, but I knew that I wanted to go, that I needed to go. I've long moved on from the reconciliation stage, having left all of the old feelings behind, a lot of them processed and abandoned on long solo runs. This was going to be about seeing old classmates and remembering the years when we were the Pine Bluff High School Zebras. Nearly all of them I hadn't seen since graduation, but there was an instant connection that circumvented time and space. We laughed and talked, catching up on lives and families, careers and passions, setbacks and accomplishments. Our class president, Perry Payne, who now works on public health policy in Washington DC, spoke so eloquently about the second half of our lives and how we will all take the experiences we've had thus far with us as we move forward. It was moving.
Sitting at a banquet table for ten, with nine old friends who collectively have lives that are truly remarkable, I thought back to when I was 18 and graduating from high school. It dawned on me that I had lots of ideas about my future back then, some of them big and some of them no so much, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be a runner. And today I can't imagine my life without it.
I hope that Perry Payne's words ring true. I hope that I do take forth my life experiences with me wherever I go and whatever I find. Of course, my hope is that I do it laced up in running shoes, but if the second half turns out to be as good as the first, then i'm going to just be fine.
Run.
Postscript. Last week's blog post was monumental in that it was my 100th writing. Today's is monumental as well, because the 14th friend that reads today will be the 20,000th hit on Life Laced Up. That's a minuscule number when compared to all of the writing available, but it makes me happy. A humble and heartfelt thanks to each and every person that takes time to read my thoughts. It means a lot.
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