on the iPod: "cups" -- anna kendrick
Marathons attract all sorts of people, but it's fairly safe to assume that the majority of them are "Type A" personalities. Show up at any distance race and try to swing a dead cat by the tail without hitting a competitive, ambitious, task-driven, runner: it won't happen. These people are drawn to running like a nun is drawn to a good bingo game. Runners live and breath to train harder, get quicker, beat their friends, and finish just a little bit faster than the last time. Diets are heavy on protein and light on anything that tastes good. The training plan is the gospel truth, and any single deviation from it will surely equal a horrible race and, possibly, the start of the zombie apocalypse.
And then there's me. I'm typically in the middle of the pack, happy to be lumbering along, and more than willing to stop and say hi. At the end of most races I usually look at my time as I cross the finish line and then promptly forget it on my way to the beer tent. Training plans are simply a suggestion for how to finish a race without dying, and distances are always negotiable. And diet? I do a good job of adding a healthy shake to my mornings (spinach, banana, whey protein, blueberries), but i've never been afraid to have steak fajitas for dinner.
So when Mrs. Murie and I checked our calendars and realized an upcoming weekend in Dallas didn't mesh with what was supposed to be an 18 miler, it took all of about thirty seconds for us to flip-flop that run with a planned 12 miler we were supposed to do yesterday. No big deal, right? We both commented that our chances of winning the New York City Marathon have severely dwindled anyway, now that a handful of Kenyans have entered the field of 48,000 runners. And then when Mrs. Murie came down with a headcold, it took all of about another thirty seconds for us to drop the 18 miles down to 14. Half the time we don't even know what in the heck we're supposed to be running in the first place, we just know that every Saturday morning we need to lace up and get after it. And if the truth were to be told, that's just fine with me.
Earlier in the week, amidst the piles of junk mail addressed to "occupant", I received three envelopes that really made me happy, one of which was the nicest note from Mrs. Murie saying how much she enjoyed our long runs together. The other two were a check from Honda for exactly $1.84 and another note from a great friend who is going through a really exciting time in life. As soon as we began running, I told Mrs. Murie how much I appreciated the correspondence and she sheepishly admitted that she wrote it at the beginning of the summer, lost it, then found it last week shoved in the bottom of her backpack and mailed it anyway. Bless her heart. We all mean well in life, don't we?
Luckily, the weather felt a full ten degrees cooler than last weekend, but I could tell that she was not 100%, so we started out at a slightly lower pace than what we normally run. I put up no objection, of course, as i've never been interested in a fast time at the expense of enjoyment of the sport. The trails were crowded with other morning people out doing what they do, and we seemed to run into friends at every mile marker -- Loyd and Carole Swope, Mark Vetter, Bret Ellington, and Bruce Wilkins. With a little less than two months to go in training, my legs and feet felt great, with only a tinge of soreness, but nothing that can't be worked out with a trip to see my sports massage therapist, Patty Pain. I'll be making an appointment sooner than later, complete with a towel to bite down on as her thumbs dig deep into overworked muscle fibers.
Even with a headcold, Mrs. Murie smoked me in the final miles, pulling away slowly and, eventually, out of my sight line all together. She was waiting patiently for me at the end, and we enjoyed water and coffee before heading off for the next weekend activity: the Hager's annual garage sale for her and college football watching for me. I'm so excited that football has started again and could spend all day on the couch watching games and eating salty food. Midway through a particularly lackluster showing by my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks, an old college friend posted the following picture that made me smile.
While I'll never be a "Type A" personality, I'm trying my best to do stick with the training plan for the New York City Marathon, which includes two days a week of cross training. This can be biking, weight lifting, yoga, swimming, or anything else that is cardiovascular, I suppose. I'm not a fan of weights because I feel like a goob around all the meat heads. I'd rather rub broken glass in my eyeballs than contort my body on a mat, so yoga is out. Biking hurts my butt, so that leaves swimming. I can't say that I've lasted in the lap lane as long as I have on the lounge chair next to the pool, but I've given it the old college try and I think I might be seeing some results. Not enough, however, to change my cognition about why I love to run. And just for the record, I refuse to buy speedo swim trunks. Nobody wants to see that, trust me on this one. This afternoon the pool was virtually empty, save for a few other lap swimmers, and I almost enjoyed being out there.
I understand distance running as my getaway. It's become an escape from my own head and the propensity that I have for thinking too much. It gives me time to unwind and reflect on the week. And quite frankly, it's my idea of a really good time. Friends will sometimes suggest hanging out: meeting for a beer, coming over for poker night, going to a festival, or whatever else falls into the category of social outings, and I'll politely decline when I'm not up to it, but sometimes my very next thought is to respond back with "how about a run instead." But I never hit send on the text, thinking better of suggesting what's passionate to me as also fun for my friends. To do so would be presumptuous on my part. It's not that I don't want to see or spend time with my friends, but rather I think my brand of fun often involves lacing up a good pair of Asics and a trail at my feet. I've grown to love running that much and I can't think of anything that i'd rather do.
Run.
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