I’m not who I was.

On Sunday, my body went farther, faster, stronger and longer than it ever has before.  I finished my third half marathon almost 20 minutes faster than the others.  I ran the whole race.  And at about a 10-minute mile (the fastest I have gone over such a distance.  Ever.  Period.).  I have never hurt so good.

Post-race euphoria.

Life is so funny—for Halloween 3 years ago, I thought I had come up with the most brilliant costume ever.  My parents had just moved to Southern California (I was not at all happy about this at the time) and I had gone down to see their new house and do a load of laundry.  I was lamenting having no costume for the Halloween party I was going to that night, when my mom offered me her marathon shirt from her marathon in Alaska.  Throw on a pair of workout pants and your tennis shoes, she said, and go as a marathon runner!  Brilliant, I thought.  What a great costume.  I will NEVER in my life run a marathon.

3 years ago, with my friend Wednesday
who was Red Riding Hood.

Oh, life, how funny you really are.  I am writing this blog from my parents’ house, where I am currently living, absolutely thrilled that they are so close to LA (where I am looking for a job…) and not back in Iowa.  (They also happen to live in a very hilly part of the world, making Sunday’s race on a mostly flat course fast and furious.)  And in 2 weeks, I begin marathon training for my first marathon in March.  I really am not who I was.

Being unemployed is not for the faint of heart.  I have been back in the States for almost 3 months now, and not so much as a nibble.  And it’s certainly not for lack of trying.  But these last 3 months have most certainly not been without some amazing opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

I have had the time necessary to dedicate to training.  Running every day takes time, planning, and commitment.  I have never been so committed to anything physical like this before in my life.  Even after completely losing 2 toenails, ripping brand new pants while beautifully skinning my knee after falling on a run (turns out I bounce and make a few “Grape Lady Falls” noises…), and enduring just plain old muscle fatigue and soreness, I held my nose to that grindstone.

As Paul writes in Romans, suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (5:3-4).  If you run, you know there is suffering.  Not all runs are amazing.  I don’t always hit my stride.  Sometimes, every step hurts.  My favorite spectator sign on Sunday read, “Running is a mental sport.  You are all insane.”  Running is mental.  Sometimes I can’t get out of my brain enough to just go.  It does take perseverance to finish the run, to finish the race, to give it my all.  The last 2 miles of the race were brutal.  My toes hurt more than anything; I have a smattering of little water blisters all along the edges of toes to show for the pain.  But that really didn’t seem to matter when I crossed the finish line completely overwhelmed with emotion at my finishing time.  My dedication paid off in ways I couldn’t have begun to imagine when I started training.  (And if you haven’t experienced runner’s high for yourself, I am telling you, you are missing out!!!)

I am no longer the girl in the marathon shirt pretending to be a runner.  I am a runner.  Obsessed?  Maybe.  Insane?  Definitely. :)

Why I run.

Post-Race.  Tired and sore… but still smiling! :)

Today, I ran my first race of 2012.  I have hardly run at all since the New Years and let me tell you, I feel like I have been broadsided by a bus.  I feel like I did after my very first race…  (Depressing!)  Everything hurts.  Normal movements make me aware of muscles I didn’t even know existed (and tomorrow it’s going to be worse…).  But the crazy thing– I love it.  This feeling does not make me want to quit running, but push harder, train harder, work harder.  Because I can.  I know I am capable of more, more speed more distance more discipline.  And I want it.

So why do I run?

Honestly, I run for the high.  There is nothing quite like runners’ high, and you can’t get it any other way.  So I work my body into submission for the release, for the endorphin explosion that I know awaits me at the finish line (or the end of a great run!).

I run to sweat.  It’s like a free, natural trophy of hard work.

I run to work out my issues.  There is nothing better than being frustrated and pounding out the frustration on the pavement.  So rewarding.  So freeing.

Today as I was running and my hip flexors were screaming at me to stop, I remembered something Molly had told me as we were climbing mad stairs in the metro (she refused to take the escalators while she was here.  And some of those metros are waaaay underground…).  She said, when climbing stairs, don’t look up, just look at the next step and next thing you know, you’ll be at the top.  She was right.  I didn’t need to know how many were left, just that I had gotten up the next one and the next one and the next one.  At kilometer 7, as I looked ahead at the sea of people in front of me, the people passing me, and started counting the minutes to the end I let my gaze fall to the ground in front of me.  I said to myself, ‘Meg, you don’t have to do anything else except put your foot right there in front of you.  And there and there and there.’  And sure enough, by worrying just about the next step, I found myself picking up the pace a little, not hurting as much.  (I know it was hardly a marathon I was running– that was my amazing friend Sara who did it in 4:16!!!!, but it was far enough that with no preparation, I was hurtin’!)

And this is so where I am in life right now.  As of tomorrow, I have 100 days left in Madrid, and it is a mini finish line of sorts.  And right now, all I can do is put one foot in front of the other right now and finish strong.  I plan to take complete advantage of these days and do something different everyday (more on that later), but the next steps beyond these 100 days, beyond July 31st, are completely unknown to me.  All I know right now is that I will be back in LA.  Doing what, you ask?  Well, darned if I know.

But what I realized today while running and hurting and wishing I had just slept in is that I don’t NEED to know what the next step is beyond the one I am taking.  Much like looking ahead in the race is daunting and defeating, I just need to focus on where my feet are now.  If I knew where I was headed, I might tuck my tail between my legs and head in the other direction.  If I knew, I would miss out on all that life has to offer me here, now.  I can worry about life in LA when there is a life in LA to worry about.  Right now, the only life I have is in Madrid.

It was a very enlightening run to say the very least.  I didn’t set any personal records or feel particularly awesome about my performance, but I went out and did the best I could.  That best was 1:10:22.  Not my best time ever, but I did my best.  Which is all we can ever really do, right?

With the marathoner extraordinaire!!!