When you hit the wall and the sun is shining it's not too difficult to convince yourself to carry on and enjoy the day. But, when you hit the wall and it's 40 degrees, and it's windy and it's raining all you can thing to say to yourself is, "Why the fuck am I doing this?" But still, I run.
I love to run, but quite honestly, I am not a great runner. I'm just a little too tall and a little too heavy to be really lite and quick on my feet. I also get bored with training and quite often get distracted on my training runs, ending up inside the Art Museum instead of running around it, or enjoying a cappucino with someone I've met along the trail and with whom I found it more fun to sit and chat than run. But still, I run.
Running marathons is a test of will. Will my knees hold out? Will this pain in my side ever go away? Will I vomit if I try and suck down one more packet of Gu? Will my resolve hold out for 13 more miles, eight more miles, three more miles? But still, I run.
I've never quit a marathon I've atarted although the thought of quitting usually occurs to me a few times along the route, usually after I've hit the wall...or know it's coming and don't want to get there. The wall is an invisible, but very real place inside your body and your mind. You've been running for hours, burned up all the pasta you consumed in your carbo-load dinner the evening before, all the whole grains and protein you ingested for breakfast and depleted your glycogen stores to seriously low levels. Your brain is screaming, "Quit now before you die" while at the same time imploring, " You can do this. Only losers quit. Don't quit now". I listen to the voices battling in my head and I know I'm not quitting, and their bickering keeps me entertained for a few miles until I get bored with them too and struggle to get my focus back to the task at hand. Putting one foot in front of the other and repeating for as long as is necessary to move my body 26.2 miles. I'd like to say these runs are fun, but they're not. At times, fighting injury they can be quite grueling. But still, I run.
In one marathon I ran I finished the last eight miles running, or rather hippity-hopping like Walter Brennan having suffered a femural neck stress fracture around mile 18. What's worse is that at mile 20 I actually had to run PAST my house and continue on course. If that wasn't an act of sheer will I don't know what is. Add to that 38 degree temperatures and pouring rain and you can imagine that this was not a fun day in the city! Stoked by beer from my friends lining miles 18-21 I managed to run across the finish line with a smile on my face vowing that I would never torture myself again. But still, I run.
I have a problem "being still" so I think running in some form will always be a part of my life. Perhaps as I grow older it'll be my knees or hips that convince me to slow down, but until then, I run.
