Yesterday
was Sunday. In Seattle, it was near 50
degrees and rainy with gusts of wind. Typical fall Seattle weather. Normal people, on a day like that, would try
to sleep in a bit. Then maybe do some
errands, perhaps tidy up a bit. Maybe it
was even a good laundry day. Some might
take a day like that to catch up on some Hulu or watch a little Netflix. Others might even read a book with a hot cup
of tea.
What did I
do? I woke up at 5 am in order to run
the Amica Insurance Seattle Half Marathon with a few thousand other crazy
runners. I met my friends at 6 am to
drive down to the start line at Seattle Center.
Then I met a few more friends at the start line at 7 am. By 7:30, I was taking off from the starting
line, ready to conquer the 13.1 miles ahead of me with one goal: break the 2
hour finish time that haunted me during my last half in June when I finished in
2 hours and 1 minute.
One
minute. It may not seem like a lot, but
when you are in the midst of 13.1 hilly miles with the wind and rain, that one
minute means running each mile 4.5 seconds faster than the last time I ran. It means NOT walking that last grudging
hill. It means NOT slowing down when the
legs start aching. It means standing up
tall, pushing forward, and remembering why I’m doing this.
Wait...why am I doing this? That question pesters me every time I
race. I hit the hard miles, want to slow
down, want to stop. Suddenly my mind
becomes a battlefield. The body is
tired, but the body will do its job. I
know that. I’ve pushed it beyond what I
thought were its limits before, and it has not broken down on me. It’s the mind that is unreliable. In the middle of a tough race, I feel like I
have two people in my head. There’s Voice
#1 who wants to stop, walk, give up, sit on the side of the road and say I’m done. It’s the voice that asks “Why on Earth am I doing this??" It’s the voice that wants to send evil vibes
to the spectator holding up the sign that says “No one is making you do this.” The voice that wants to sucker punch the
bystander at mile 10 or 20 who tells you excitedly “you’re almost there!” As well intentioned as you may be, I am NOT
almost there.
And then
there’s Voice #2. The voice who says you
can do this. You WILL
do this. You will hate yourself if you
don’t do this. Pain is temporary. You will make it through. 5 seconds faster a mile? No problem.
That looming hill up ahead? You
will conquer it. Yes, it will hurt. But then the pain will stop and you will be
stronger. This is the voice that believes
in all the motivational posters people hold up on the side of the road: “Pain
is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit,” “Just one foot in front of
the other,” “If you walk, you’ll still be hurting.” It’s also the voice that laughs at the funny
stuff like the poster that proudly declares “WORST PARADE EVER” or the group of
people on the side of the road handing out water cups full of beer. It’s the voice that enjoys the race, enjoys
the day, enjoys life.
Yesterday,
the argument between these two voices started pretty early. I hit the big hill at mile 7 and already Voice
#1 was poking me in the back of the head.
But I’d run that hill in training 2 times before and I could run it
now. So I did. After running somewhere around an 8:40 pace
for the first 8 miles, mile 9 slowed me.
At mile 10, I wanted to stop. I
asked myself what possessed me to do this again? In my head, I cycled through all the races I
have planned for the next 7 months and Voice #1 told me I was insane. And I walked.
Immediately Voice #2 crept back in.
As usual, she won the argument this time and I started running
again. I ran through mile 11 and mile 12
and finally saw the mile 13 marker. On
the last big hill—just a block long and less than a tenth of a mile from the
finish line, Voice #1 convinced me I had given it all. I started walking again. Then as I was about halfway up the hill, the
pacer holding up a big “2 hour” sign passed me and suddenly I had way more to
give. I started running. I ran past the pacer, finished the hill, ran
up around the corner, into the stadium at Seattle Center, and crossed the
finished line at what had to be somewhere between a 7:45 and 8:15 pace. I raised my hands, celebrated my finish, and
looked down at my watch. 1 hour and 59
minutes (official time I found out later—1:59:33. Less than half a minute was the difference
between me and my goal).
I did it. I beat 2 hours. And nothing can beat that feeling. And it’s not even about the 2 hours. It’s about doing it. Whatever it
is. There’s nothing like giving your
all, pushing your body and your mind to its limits and achieving the goal. I’ve found nothing else on earth that can
give me a rush like that. And the funny
thing is, as soon as I was done, before a volunteer even had the chance to take
off my timing chip 10 feet from the finish line, the only thing I could think
was I could have done better. Next
time I will do better. I think this
thought at the end of every race. At the
end of my first full marathon in June 2010, as I hobbled across the parking lot
at Qwest Field, high on the amazing feeling of having just run a marathon, I
was already thinking about how I could do better. How I could have pushed my body further. How I could have pushed Voice #1 further back
in my head.
Running is an addiction. The more you run and the better you do, the
more you want to run and the better you want to do. But running isn’t about being the fastest or
running the farthest. Running is about
winning in your own mind. It’s about
learning to ignore the voice puts you down.
It’s about finding out how strong your soul is. At mile 20 of a marathon or mile 10 of a half
(or for that matter, mile 1 of a daily run), will your soul be strong enough to
fight down that voice that tells you to stop?
That tells you that you are weak, you cannot do it? Will your soul be strong enough to push
yourself harder and farther than you ever have before? And when you run, and you realize that your
soul is strong enough…it’s a feeling
that just can’t be described in words.
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| Crazy, happy runners at the end of yesterday's race. |
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