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Road Runner
Most of our barriers in life are mental. We create them, feed them, keep them growing and prospering in our heads. I’ve run four marathons, though those who were watching the race will tell you I was jogging. And sometimes walking.
But I didn’t get to the end of my fourth marathon by standing up one day and saying “I will run a marathon tomorrow.” I thought I could barely run a mile when I was in junior high. I had been being excused to go down to the high school track and “train” for the high school team, which meant of course I went and played on the high jump pit. It didn’t prepare me to run, but it was fun while it lasted.
Unfortunately, I was signed up to run the mile. I had never run a mile, but there’s no way I’m going to admit this to the coach. So, like an idiot, I line up with everyone else and completely embarrass myself. The guy who was supposed to finish behind me was smarter than me; he quit. So when I ran across the finish line and someone shouted, “Hey, the race is over”; he was right. I collapsed on the side of the track and found out I was hyperventilating. It’s interesting to float 3 feet off the ground. I never ran another step until ten years later.
I was twenty-five and some friends from California were in town. They were taking a week-long “Fitness for Life” class and invited me to run in a 5K race with them on Saturday. My mind put up the obstruction about the junior high race, but I was now mature enough to tell myself, “I am not my past.”
I agreed to run with them, but needed to do some work in the five days before the race. I found out a 5K is 3.1 miles. I got in my car and measured how far I had to run away from my house to equal 3.1 miles by the time I returned. I also measured where the first half-mile was.
That night, I ran a mile.
I was surprised, since I had told myself for ten years I couldn’t run a mile. I don’t remember how long it took or how slowly I ran. I only remember I ran a mile.
I decided this must be a fluke, and rested for a day. Then I ran another mile, walked a mile, and ran another mile. Now I had run two miles in one day, and walked another. I even felt like I could do more, but I didn’t want to push it. I wanted to save something for Saturday.
I showed up for the race unsure if I could really run 3.1 miles without stopping. I decided to go very slowly, and hope for the best. With four miles of training under my belt, I started my first race. It was a beautiful summer day with a crispness to the early morning air. I tried to focus on the road, ignore what my mind was telling me – that I was being an idiot – and simply plodded along.
People passed me by, but I didn’t care. I passed a couple of people. I made it the first mile, then the second mile. For the first time in my life, I had run two miles in a row. There was no stopping me now.
I never stopped jogging. I even had a little energy left at the end of the race to sprint ahead of the sixty year old lady in front of me and beat her. But I couldn’t keep up with the ten year old that passed us both at the finish line.
It didn’t matter. I had done something I was positive I couldn’t do, and it began a chapter in my life I am still exploring. Every time I hear that nagging voice tell me, “You can’t”, I think back to that modest beginning race, and how after about ten years and many, many shorter races, I ran a marathon. Then another. And another. I ran my slowest marathon ever just two months ago.
We are all in our own private races, and most of the challenges we face are against ourselves, though we may tell ourselves we are competing against someone else. Think of it this way. When I ran my first marathon, I was in my thirties. Guess what age bracket most of the winners of marathons are in? That’s right. In the last Olympic marathon a 38 year old woman set a new world’s record.
So I will never take first place in a marathon. Does that stop me? Only if I tell myself I can’t. But the secret is, I know I can.
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