Don’t Fear the Distance (Only the Spitting)

If I ever see an issue of the magazine “Runner’s World” in a waiting room, my eyes zero in and my hands want to follow. I could pick it up and read every story and never even notice my name being called for my appointment. But I don’t. I specifically restrain myself from reading “Runner’s World.” It’s too dangerous.

So it was kind of stupid of me to allow myself to watch almost all of the documentary film “Spirit of the Marathon” the other night. I should know better. Sure, it’s compelling, runners talking about running—amateur runners and elite runners, too, and all of them sounding eerily alike. Predictably, I ended up hearing something I should not have heard: a number. A weekly mileage. Now I have to remind myself, hold on, that was from one of the elite runners. I am not an elite runner! Repeat, I am not an elite runner! But one of the amateur runners talked about always wanting to achieve a new PR (that’s “personal record,” not “public relations”). I know the feeling. Maybe running just attracts obsessiveness and then amplifies it. All I know is I avoid reading “Runner’s World” because no matter how many miles per week I’m running at the time, it just never seems like enough.

It all becomes so serious. I get tunnel vision. There’s running, and there’s running, and there’s … not much else. And it’s ironic, because one of the things I love about running is the expansiveness, the freedom, the sense that I can suspend some of the usual rules of life in order to accomplish a meaningful goal. In regular life, I wouldn’t want someone spitting out bright red Powerade in my direction. In a marathon, hey, who cares? (Well, it’s not so good if it’s windy. But otherwise, at least the stuff is a pretty color!)

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to complete four marathons in a little over two months. I called it my “Marathon Blitz.” And I found that with each race, my anxiety decreased. The hurdle didn’t seem quite so high. I didn’t have to remind myself as often that although a marathon is long, it is also finite. Running in the spring chill of an April morning in Charlottesville, Virginia, I thought, “This is fun. This is the biggest party ever!” I guess it was appropriate that later in that same race I met a runner dressed up as Elvis who kept me company for the last six miles or so, in between singing a few bars for the cheering spectators along the route.

It’s so easy to build up expectations. I run and I push: faster, faster! OK, I feel awful, and maybe I’d feel better if I could just slow down … only I can’t, I can’t, because yesterday I went this fast.

In Dublin I won’t be wearing a watch. I won’t have a treadmill where I can enter my desired miles (or kilometers) per hour. If I end up with a good time, great. But the good time I really want, the good time that’s my most sincere goal, is the kind that means having fun.

There are going to be 14,000 runners, so—let Dublin be the biggest party ever!!