I recently bragged about the fact that I haven’t had a bad
cold, flu, or any other type of respiratory distress since I became a distance
runner. While this was true—there were many winters I would shake my head
pityingly as non-running friends seemed to come down with one viral infection
after another—it was also an incredibly foolish thing to announce. You know
that ironic bus, the one that always seems to hit people right after something
good happens to them in hypothetical situations? Well, it got me this weekend,
and got me good.
I went down to Memphis with a bunch of running buddies to
run a 50k trail race called Swamp Stomper. What could possibly be bad about
that? Memphis—barbecue, Beale Street, Peabody ducks and Gus’s chicken—plus 50k
in the woods plus cabins in those woods shared with a score of fun-loving
beer-drinking ultra runners seems like the formula for fun. Only problem is I
woke up Saturday morning feeling like there was a softball-sized wad of phlegm
lodged behind my sternum.
The race was Sunday morning. I had a few options. I could
run the 50k anyway, just pace myself a whole lot slower than the already-slow
pace I’d planned. I could downgrade to the 25k race, which started an hour later and which a great
many of my running buddies had opted to do, mainly so they
could party harder on Beale Saturday night and not have to worry about getting
up to run 31 miles at 7:30am the next morning. I could opt out of
the race entirely, but that was not something I considered—at least not
Saturday morning.
By Sunday morning, I considered it. The softball felt like a
bowling ball. I had one of those really gross coughs that, had I heard someone
else nearby issue such sounds, I would shoot them a look of loathing and
disgust—how dare they be out in public spreading their tubercular nastiness?
There was no question of running the 50k; 7:30am came and went without regrets.
But I did not want to have come the whole way down there without running at all.
I bucked up and went out for the 25k.
Twenty-five kilometers is around 15-16 miles. This is not a
tremendous distance for me to run; I’ve run ten marathons and three ultras, and while the
terrain for this race was definitely not flat—many ups and downs, much roots
and rocks—it wasn’t a whole lot tougher than any other trail I’ve done. None
of that matters: this was the slowest I have ever run any distance, any course,
any time, in my life. My pace was so slow that a brisk walker could have easily
kept up with me and a competitive walker could have beat me by a good hour.
Wow, was I slow.
Slow? Whatever. Slow was not the problem while I was
running. Finishing was the problem while I was running. I didn’t want to. I
kept thinking, OK, I’ll get to the next aid station and I’ll tell them I just
can’t go on. It hurts to breathe. Every time I cough it’s like I’m coughing up
thumb tacks. There’s no shame in a DNF, I kept telling myself, and what exactly
are you trying to prove? Who the hell cares whether you finish this race or
not? The people who really care about you, the people whose views you admire
and respect the most, the people whose opinions are most meaningful to you will
not think less of you.
Does this sound familiar? If you’re a runner, I imagine
you’ve likely had this moment too: the
trying-to-talk-yourself-into-doing-something-you-really-want-to-do-but-you-aren’t-going-to-do-after-all.
I realize it makes no sense. That's probably why I kept going.
I used to be good at math a long time ago, but not anymore,
and at no time are my math skills worse than while I’m running a long, painful
race. The course was an out-and-back, but with a twist: on the “out” part,
runners had to do an extra 3-mile loop, which they would not do on the “back”
part. As I finished the 3-mile loop and trudged onward to the turnaround point,
I kept trying to figure out how much further I had to go until the next aid station—the
aid station in which I would declare my DNF-ness—and kept failing. There were
no mile markers, and I had not turned on my Garmin; normally this would be how
I like it, but in this case I was going bonkers. Where was that damnable aid
station? Why the hell was this taking so long? For the love of all that is
holy, why won’t they let me DNF?
I had forgotten, you see, that we didn’t do the 3-mile loop
on the return. I was assuming that the turnaround point was the halfway point.
When I finally realized my mistake, I felt two things: 1) relief, because this
meant I was farther along than I’d thought, and 2) weary resignation. The
turnaround point was beyond half way. With less than half of the race to go, I
could not DNF. No, that isn’t a rule; that’s just the way my mind went. When I
got to the aid station, I filled my handheld with Gatorade and water, choked down some
pretzels and ginger ale, and began the long trudge back.
And I did make it back, among the last of the 25k finishers.
And that’s about the best thing I can say.
Hey, it happens. I’m not going to mope about it. At the same
time, I’m not entirely willing to sweep all mopey sentiments aside and slap a
happy face sticker on the whole ordeal. A bad race, by definition, does not
feel good. In retrospect we can talk about lessons learned, we can say that at
least we tried, but if we force ourselves to be happy about learning lessons and at least
trying, I daresay many of us will come up short. And that’s OK with me.
Happiness is only one of the many things a person can feel. Running has made me
exquisitely happy at times, but it has also made me feel frustrated, anxious,
resentful, and downright glum. And yet I keep coming back for more.
People have accused me of enjoying my misery, of refusing to
be happy. The next time someone says that to me I’m going to smile and happily
punch them in the neck. I enjoy being depressed as much as I enjoyed having
deep-vein thrombosis last year. They are comparable, after all, both being
illnesses—as is respiratory distress. I sure as hell didn’t enjoy hacking up
phlegm-coated thumb tacks, but only a fool thinks every race, every experience,
every moment of life is going to be enjoyable. I think that’s a good thing.
It’d be awfully boring otherwise.
I’m off to the drug store in a bit, on a quest to fill my
medicine cabinet back up with cough suppressants and decongestants. To make
room for them, I’ll move out the things I no longer need: the leftover
Coumadin, the unused Lovanox, and the remaining Paxil. The last is an
antidepressant. I’m off those. Life won’t always be enjoyable—sometimes,
running in the swamp with a bowling ball in my lungs, it will downright suck.
But I’ve made it to the turnaround point, so I guess I’ll keep going.
No comments:
Post a Comment