If you've never run in an organized race before, I can tell you that you learn a helluvalot about yourself during those precisely measured miles - and the hundreds of miles of training leading up to the event. I've learned that I am the following: tenacious, disciplined, determined - and also irritable, complaining, bitchy, competitive and that in the "tortoise and the hare" scenario I'm definitely the slow-ass turtle. Let's examine, shall we?
Tenacious, disciplined, determined: there is something about distance running - and perhaps any sort of endurance event - that magnifies aspects of your personality. I think I can confidently assert that I have drive and stamina. Well, at least if I have a specific goal. Let me make this absolutely clear: I hate running. I always have. I joined the track team in 7th grade so that my BFF wouldn't have to go it alone. The 100 meter was my event, and if memory serves I never even came close to winning a race. The only thing I hated more than breaking a sweat at practice was actually running in front of people at the meets, showing the world that I look moronic, perhaps even slightly "challenged", when I run. Not good for this nerd's already precarious social standing in those cruelly awkward adolescent years. Needless to say the team (my BFF included) breathed a collective sigh of relief when I didn't go out of the team the following year.
But I digress.
It's not running that I like so much as achieving something that is both physically and mentally difficult, in my case that is running 13.1 miles. I like the challenge. I don't don my running shoes at 6am and head out into the dark and smoggy LA morning because I'm an eager, thrill-seeking masochist. It's because if I don't I'm gonna regret it on race day, when at mile 6, huffing and snarling and sweating in sheets, the race chews me up and spits me out and I lay in the filthy LA streets next to the dog poo and used hypodermic needles until someone decides to come by and scrape me up. So maybe it's the fear, or the latent Catholic guilt (I heard somewhere that God doesn't like quitters), that propels me out of bed at that dreary hour. Whatever it is, it works. And keeps me hurtling towards the finish line, arms and legs akimbo, come race day.
Irritable, complaining, bitchy,competitive: is it telling that I can come up with more negative words than positive to describe how I am when I run? It brings out the best - and the absolute worst - in me. Just ask my boyfriend. If he innocently decides to question whether or not I'll be heading out for a run that morning, he gets a three-minute expletive-peppered tirade about the minutiae of my schedule that usually ends with something like "and I don't see you out running today, old man!". I get pretty touchy. He's a saint.
And have I mentioned that running is perhaps the most boring exercise on the face of the planet? On those dreaded days when I have to put in serious miles, I find myself compiling a laundry list of things to think about while I'm out running, such as "what outfit am I going to wear to dinner on Saturday?". "What can I make for dinner this week?". "What are some most-excellent comebacks I can craft to win any argument?". "What will I be doing when I'm 40? Do you suppose I'll still be in deferment on my student loans?" and so on and so forth.
The funny thing about race day is that all of sudden this solitary endeavor becomes a huge social event. Instead of passing another runner here and there, you are surrounded by 15,000. And I have to tell you, some of those people don't have the same ideas about personal space as I do. Take, for example, the "speed walker" next to me whose arms, bent at right-angles, furiously pumped at his sides, as though he'd still be able to cross the finish line if he found his legs suddenly stopped working. Just try to pass this guy, you'll get clocked in the face. And pass him I tried, but the fucker kept pace with me the entire race. He could walk as fast as I could run! It did not do wonders for my self-esteem.
But I did manage to make it to the finish line with a time of 2:42:36. Not as good as I had hoped, but I finished and without much injury (unlike the woman who took a face-dive while crossing the finish line moments before me, I hope she decides to buy one of her commemorative finish-line photos).
I think I'll be doing yoga for the rest of year.
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| don't let the smile fool you, I'm out for blood. |
Go Happy!
Amy
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