My Journey to the Walt Disney World Marathon — Part Three: The Dog Days of Summer
A dispatch from the thick of it.
It’s been a while since I checked in with this blog/journal/article/whatever it is. I’ve been feeling some resistance to sitting down to do this and I have to really consider what that’s all about. I spent a few months, as the training mileage rose and the heat rose and the smoke rose (and then fell to earth where we don’t really want it, thankyouverymuch) plugging away at my training with a sense of stoic resolve. Find the time. Do the miles. Breathe when the air is clear and find alternatives when it is not.
Do. The. Miles.
14 was HARD; 16, a little bit easier; 18, brutal. The important thing for me was to keep myself open to learning from adversity. Notice I didn’t say THROUGH adversity. I don’t want to suggest that we should put up with exhaustion, struggle, maybe pain and then add a lesson plan on top of that. Not at all. What I mean is that I am trying to be open to the knowledge that exhaustion, struggle and pain themselves are giving me. Few of us spend this much concentrated time in that space of discomfort for very long and, when we do, it’s worth considering what those states — which are as much us as comfort and pleasure are — can inform us about ourselves.
A few obvious things come to mind: we can push further than we think we can, our minds can hop from the radio frequency that is discomfort to the one that is distraction remarkably easily, profound thoughtfulness about your body comes when your fuel levels versus your exertion are balanced on a knife edge.
These are just a few of the things that have occurred to me when I’m out on the trail for a few hours. I also am discovering the difference in my running when I’ve been diligent about my yoga and Pilates cross-training and when I haven’t. I am learning that boredom can be as much a challenge after a few hours as exhaustion. (And I’m a guy who meditates!) All sorts of things have come into focus as I move forward through this journey. If you’re on this path as well, I suspect some will be the same for you and others different.
I’ll keep this short today because I know we’re all busy with our training, but I am thoughtful, encouraged and optimistic and I hope you are too. I heard Bob on the Rise and Run Podcast suggest that it was useful to look backwards over your training journey rather than getting fixated on what you were about to have to do tomorrow and I couldn’t agree more. I have come so far. You have come so far. Also, if you’re where I am at and running your first marathon, I would also suggest this to you: when you’re coming in on the end of that grueling hours-long run and you feel like you’re a shambling wreck barely making it to the end, remind yourself that you just ran the furthest you have ever run IN YOUR LIFE! And that the same was probably true a few weeks before and a few weeks before that. We’re doing something we’ve never done before, and that’s amazing.
Keep at it friends.
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