At Its Best

At its best, a marathon is a transcendent experience.

It almost always leaves me thinking, “Again, again!” Just like when I was a little kid coming off a favorite carnival ride. Only a marathon is even better.

I could list a number of reasons I find the marathon experience compelling, but I suspect they all have to do with being taken out of myself—removed from my normal routine and surroundings, freed temporarily from many of my chronic concerns, liberated to an extent by the extreme nature of the task at hand.

It is in this place away from myself that I come to myself, that I see things for a moment the way they really are.

At its best, a marathon is a spiritual experience. I am completely alone, because no one else can finish the race for me, and yet I am not alone. I feel connections that elude me under more routine circumstances. The world around me seems different. The very air is changed.

In a marathon, I am part of a whole group of runners. I have conversations with complete strangers about running shoes and the quantity of port-a-potties at the start line for Boston. In Kiawah, I watched a prerace yoga-style warm up. I didn’t join in, because I had to photograph it instead. It was beautiful.

I am a few days out from Kiawah, and I am thinking, “Again, again!”

Just To Finish

My sore leg and I both made it across the finish line at the Kiawah Island Marathon. I blamed my leg pain for making me go slower--but without the usual pressure to keep up the pace, I stayed relaxed and enjoyed the run. So maybe this sore leg isn't such a drag after all.

And when my leg no longer needs to be dragged around, I'm gonna feel like I'm flying!

Healing Power of Poetry?

My leg is large …

Well, EXTRA large—

The miles are many.

Chantal and I

Both face a journey.

With Diet Pepsi, Dr. Pepper,

Triple A (not “AA,” remember),

Some aspirin, chewing gum, ibuprofen,

Cell phone, camera … no iPod (stolen).

I’ll try, I’ll go, I’ll drive, I’ll run.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll even have some fun.

My pal Chantal has also been training for Kiawah

Oh, Kiawah

This week I’ve been fighting a sore leg and unusual fatigue. Imagine me fighting with my leg—it is not pretty. But once again, the body proves itself miraculous. Even after I abused my leg repeatedly by forcing it on through pain, it began to mend.

In the meantime, I found myself running at odd times, never knowing exactly how long or how far I could go. I recall mentioning earlier this year that Anderson Cooper was there for me during an off-schedule run. Hey, that guy was there for me again, talking to people who wash their clothes in the shower to save money. (It was his afternoon show this time, not his more Channel One adventurer-esque AC360 on CNN.) I wonder if the shower wash is worth it … but more importantly, I wonder why strawberry Powerade Zero is so hard to come by. It’s my favorite Powerade flavor.

Next weekend it’s on to Kiawah, the last best LAST marathon hope of 2012.

Coming Around

The first time I checked my mail after missing the Richmond Marathon, I found it: my official certificate of acceptance into the 2013 Boston Marathon. I stood on the sidewalk in front of my mailbox in the gloom of a late-autumn afternoon, and somehow, suddenly, the shadows around me softened. I thought of the orange post-it note stuck to the wall of my cubicle at work, with the word “Boston” written on it. I had put it up back in September. In the midst of an unusually hectic week, I had wanted to remind myself to look forward.

Now, filled with disappointment over Richmond, I saw another message in the timing of the letter’s arrival. Sometimes there are second chances. When I had to drop out of the 2009 Boston Marathon because of a stress fracture, I felt discouraged about my future prospects. And yet, here I held the opportunity to try for the Boston Marathon again. Disappointments are part of life—but they are not the whole story.

I forget that too easily; thus the need for my orange post-it, a more crucial reminder than the shopping lists I jot down and then leave folded up in my purse. It seems an endless chore to shove back my negativity and focus on the positive. Still, there are those moments of beauty that come unexpected and unbidden, when all that is required on my part is to notice and appreciate. The evening before Thanksgiving, I left the gym downtown after a workout and headed for the parking garage to retrieve my car. As I waited for the walk signal at an intersection, I caught sight of a Christmas decoration seemingly floating above the street. It was an arrangement of blue stars, glowing softly in the dusk, and it wasn’t really floating, and it wasn’t alone. One by one, other quiet blue twinklers caught my eye. Tired as I was, and anxious over details, I thought they were some of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

Thanksgiving morning, I was coming again from a run, driving down 14th Street in Washington, DC, in glorious sunshine. As I approached Freedom Plaza, I noticed people wearing exercise gear and number bibs, one person here and one there and then groups and then rivers of them. I stopped at a red light on the edge of the plaza and watched them flow across the street in front of me. The sunlight was so golden and beautiful and the number bibs so bright and the runners so energetic and happy that I wanted to leap out of my car and join them. Only where would I park? I wondered. So I drove on, smiling.

I was listening recently to some of the songs from my Susan Boyle CD, and I always like the following lines from “Who I Was Born To Be”: “Now I’m not a girl/I have known the taste of defeat/And I've finally grown to believe/It will all come around again.” With running, sometimes things hurt, and sometimes it’s exhilarating, and sometimes things don’t work out, and sometimes they do. It’s hard to remember during the sting of a defeat, but good times do come around again—and I don’t mean just in running, but in life.

I should put that on a post-it note.

My letter from the BAA, with the medal from my qualifying marathon in Brookings, SD

Running Out

The 2012 Richmond Marathon T-shirt is pretty cool—I think. It has long sleeves and a dark background, midnight blue or black. I’m not sure because I haven’t looked at it in daylight.

I have a few superstitions when it comes to marathons. One of my Very Important Rules is that I don’t own the T-shirt until I do the run. These days, T-shirts are almost always handed out ahead of time, at packed expos where runners steer through tangles of merchandise to pick up their race bibs and timing chips. But I don’t look at the shirt or handle it any more than necessary to stuff it into my “goody bag.”

Of course, I would never, ever wear the shirt before the run.

It’s too bad: I may never know exactly what the 2012 Richmond Marathon T-shirt looks like. It is lurking behind the chair in my living room, wadded up inside a bag prominently labeled Anthem, for the marathon sponsor. I’ll have to figure out what to do with it at some point, but I know for sure it can never belong to me, because I never did the run.

What happened? I kept asking myself on Sunday … why couldn’t I pull it together in the darkness of my bedroom on Saturday morning? How could I lie there and watch time moving forward, until it was finally, indisputably too late?

I made the prerace trip down to Richmond and back Thursday evening to pick up my race packet (and, thus, the T-shirt). For an event that offers no race-day packet pickup, it seemed like the best strategy—I didn’t want to drive down Friday and then again Saturday morning, and even the expense of gas for two trips didn’t justify booking a hotel room. I keep thinking of songs I heard on the radio on the way home Thursday night. I keep thinking.

If I could back up a few days, I could fix it all. I’d back up past Saturday morning, because my plans grew endangered before that. If I could redo Friday, maybe … Ugh, Friday, sitting in a meeting at work imagining crackers with cheese—no, wait, crackers with peanut butter. Crackers with cottage cheese? Peeling off the wrapper on a piece of Halloween candy made to resemble an eyeball. Part of my brain kept screaming, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” And another, matter-of-fact part remarked, “You have bigger problems than this piece of chocolate.”

So, yeah, Friday didn’t go so well. But if I were really backing things up, I should go further. What about Thursday, when every minute of running strained me—not physically, but mentally, because my mind felt so tired. Hang in there, hang in there, it insists half-heartedly. And I just don’t want to hang in there any more. What about all the days before that, or the nights really, awake and miserable. Hmm, maybe I don’t want to go back that far after all. I’m not sure I could figure out how to fix that.

It’s hard letting go of the plans I had, even now that I’m left with no choice. But I’m telling myself to move on, direct resources toward the next marathon, on Kiawah Island. It makes me tired to think of traveling there. So then I worry, are my iron pills not working, is my “Be Positive” failing (see The Agony and the Ecstasy)?

Or am I just tired of running and running and never reaching that elusive finish line labeled “ENOUGH”?

Wow, think of the T-shirt they’d give out for finishers of that race.

Not to be

Luxembourgish, Seriously?

Sometimes I get nostalgic for the places I have visited for marathons past. At work, I glance away from my computer screen and catch sight of the postcards on my bulletin board: Tromso, Norway; Reykjavik, Iceland; Dublin, with its rows of colorful townhouse doors. In Tromso, north of the Arctic Circle and near enough to polar bear country, I slept in a bunk bed in a wooden cabin surrounded by trees and low hills, and the window next to my bed never darkened. I forget the stress of the initial arrival in the city, the confusion of finding transport from downtown to the campground, the anxiety of waiting around for my first evening marathon and hoping the rain would stop (it did). In the end, it’s the romance that stands out: the beautiful vista as we ran along the coastline with the sun low over the water, the triumphant downhill dash from the crest of the bridge toward mile marker 13, the campground, the cabin with its rustic charm, running water, and big-screen TV. (That’s my kind of camping!)

Oh, can’t I go back? Could I recapture the magic? I went back to Dublin a year ago, as I was starting this blog, and celebrated my first international marathon with my first return to an international marathon city. I loved it. I wanted to go back this year. But I figured, how many times can you luck out with good weather on your Wild Wicklow bus tour through the countryside the day after the marathon? (I’ve had two good bus tours without rain. Surely in Ireland that’s a miracle.)

So I started searching for my next destination. It is getting harder now, because I don’t run on Sundays for religious reasons. Dublin is always a Monday run; so was the marathon in Utrecht, in the Netherlands. Tromso and Reykjavik are Saturday events. But Sunday marathons are popular, and even more popular in Europe, it seems, than in the United States. I think I could—and shall, eventually—pen a whole blog entry about why marathons should not take place on Sunday, leaving religion out of it. But I’ll save that for later.

Because in spite of the difficulty (and I am counting on the increasing popularity of marathon running to add new events to the Marathon Guide calendar every year), I found my next marathon destination. Next June, I am heading to Luxembourg.

Luxembourg? Well, it wasn’t on my radar. Here’s part of what’s exciting in searching for marathons that don’t take place on Sunday—you end up going places you hadn’t thought of visiting before. If someone asked me my top-priority European destinations, just as a tourist, I’d probably rattle off the standards that come to everyone’s mind. I’d love to go back to France, of course, and visit Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, maybe Italy, Greece when I am especially adventurous, and the United Kingdom more than once, with a good chunk of time in Scotland. So far, I haven’t run marathons in any of those countries. But I can’t imagine trading any of the destinations I have visited; every one has been life changing in its own way.

Luxembourg, then. I think my impressions of this small country stem mostly from a series of books I read as a teenager, all set in the past and involving numerous European destinations. For me the idea of Luxembourg attaches to a sense of romance and history; I envision café terraces overlooking idyllic scenery, men in World War II uniforms, women with bright lipstick and flowing dresses. But Luxembourg today, and in real life? Hmm.

I looked it up on Wikipedia. (I have a feeling my college French professor Monsieur H. would not approve.) I learned that Luxembourg is the last remaining grand duchy, it borders France, Belgium, and Germany, and the official languages are French, German, and … Luxembourgish. Seriously?

My Luxembourg run is scheduled for June 8, 2013. That gives me some time to plan—how long will I stay, what places will I visit? (Perhaps France, Belgium, and Germany?) Oh, I am getting excited already! And in the meantime, maybe I can practice my French and pick up a few words of, um, Luxembourgish.

I must have picked the right destination. The word Luxembourgish makes me smile.

Iceland: someday I want to be here again

On the Verrazano Bridge

It costs twenty-five dollars in tolls to cross onto Long Island and back by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

I may not have believed it if I hadn’t made the journey myself. The twelve dollars I paid on my way to Long Island was the highest toll I had ever encountered—of course, that was before I paid thirteen dollars to head back toward New Jersey.

I approached the bridge fresh off the New Jersey Turnpike, with my notebook open to handwritten directions I tried to skim in quick glances as I proceeded through the “no-stopping zone,” the portion of my trip that involved skirting New York City via a succession of different roads. I had crossed one bridge already and was squinting at my directions (“What was the name of that other bridge?”) when I saw the massive structure looming up ahead of me.

The Verrazano Bridge has more than one level, and so did the course of my thoughts.

Why, I wondered on some level, do I let trips swallow me up like this? Why do I let this loneliness set in? I could feel my identity blurring, the edges of my self-image dissolving like the Wicked Witch in a rainstorm. But the parts that fell out the holes or evaporated into mist were the best parts, and all the bad, the fears, doubts, the bad habits, remained and grew concentrated.

Why, I wondered. And I knew it was because I couldn’t see my reflection. Because I rely too much on external reinforcements. Because there were no familiar sights or faces to reaffirm to me, “Yes, Roo, you know who you are.”

I grew stern with myself. You have to be present here, now, I thought. Embrace this moment, hurtling over an unfamiliar road under a bank of angry-looking clouds.

On a level above this muddy brooding, I listened to an NPR broadcast. A “Science Friday” feature that day came from a university in Idaho, my home state.

On yet another level, I stewed about tolls. I had just paid a so-far record-setting amount to exit the New Jersey Turnpike. My cash reserves now struck me as inadequate. I gulped as I read the sign announcing the twelve-dollar price to cross the bridge. The “no-stopping zone” might have to be amended to the “look frantically for an ATM zone,” I worried. And then I remembered that I’d stashed some additional cash and forgotten about it, until now.

I began to drive up.

Up toward the crest of the bridge. All the levels of thought flowed into wordless awe. Something about grandiose bridges takes my breath away. I don’t know if it’s the contrast in size, as the structure towers above me while my car and I shrink into specks, or if it’s the beauty that I never expect to find in steel and concrete. I felt myself being swallowed up again, but not into emptiness this time. My stomach fluttered with the kind of butterflies I felt when my mom would drive fast over a certain hill in the countryside of southeastern Idaho. The thrill zinged out toward my fingers and down to my toes.

And then I noticed the signs: “Life is worth living.” One, and another and another. “Life is worth living.” Space. Next sign. “Life is worth living.”

To discourage suicides, I realized. Because this is a big bridge, and people would come here to jump.

“Life is worth living.” Under the prominent message, the signs offered a phone number. A hotline.

I felt solemn again, and happy because the bridge was so beautiful, and relieved because I had more cash than I’d thought, and still peeved because twelve dollars is simply outrageous.

Split into all these emotions, I was nevertheless present, there and then, when I came off the bridge and read “Welcome to Brooklyn.”

On the way home, I wondered if some of the would-be jumpers were just shocked at having paid out the two biggest tolls of their lives. The thought made me smile a few days later, when I was back from my trip and deep in my usual postmarathon slump. I was casting about for reasons why “life is worth living.”

There, I mused. A memory, a smile. A gift from the Verrazano Bridge. So I got something for my twenty-five dollars, after all.

Life is worth living

Brief Tour of the Hamptons on a Cloudy Day

For the race ...

Elementary school hosting packet pickup and race start and finish, East Hampton. Bathrooms inside had toilets for small people.



At the beach ...

Not open for snacks after the race? (Maybe the Beach Hut opens on days NOT requiring outerwear.)

 

Family at the beach with black SUV: a moment where all is right with the world.

In the neighborhoods ...

Required elements include greenery,

a few hedges,

flowers in red, pink, and/or purple,

dashes of blue or yellow siding,

liberal doses of House of the Seven Gables gray,

and throw in some history.

Around town ...

Painted M&M sculptures, a Body Tech club, and an American flag--why not?

This way for some Ayurvedic treatments.



The line of carts suggests you are going to want A LOT of fresh produce.

Presbyterian church, in yellow with blue trim.

Inviting shop entrance or portal to a witch's lair? Come in and find out.



Main Street, Amagansett

 

Winter rentals available ... ah, yes, to stay a little longer!

Weekend To-Do List

To Do

1. Run Hamptons Marathon (drive to Long Island, find packet pickup site to get race number and timing chip, locate shuttle pickup point for race morning, find dinner, find the hotel, check in, get some rest, wake up on time, drive back to shuttle pickup site, ride to race start, run marathon [take a moment, take a breath, take in the scenery, keep moving{DO NOT stop, DO NOT cry}], cross finish line, collect medal, ride shuttle back to parking lot, clean up, take ibuprofen, take pictures, start home, find lunch, stay awake, stay alert, pay the tolls, fill up the gas tank, stop at the grocery store, unload the car, unpack, do laundry, take a shower, eat dinner, take ibuprofen …)—done!

Parking by the "No Parking" sign at packet pickup

I'm in, I'm in, I'm in!

In what, you ask? In trouble? In deep? Ah, but no!

I'm in the 2013 Boston Marathon! I received the official notification from the Boston Athletic Association that my registration has been accepted. (Now I can watch for the hard-copy acceptance certificate the BAA will send by mail.)

I like the pattern of 13's: a stress fracture immediately after my 13th marathon took me out of the running of the 2009 Boston Marathon, the first I qualified and registered for. Now in 2013, I get another chance (to stay healthy through the race!).

WOOHOO!!

The True Story of My Breakup with Under Armour

Sometimes you end up with a few items in your closet you know you can count on. I still think about a really awesome pair of jeans endowed with the magical quality of always looking good. I know this trait was specific to the jeans because other items in my wardrobe didn’t work like that. I wish I could have owned those pants longer—I wish I had them now! Unfortunately, clothing is subject to its own mortality, unable to last forever. My capri running pants from Under Armour served me for an era as some of the most essential items I owned. I’ve been through four pairs of them: not that many, given the years, the washings, the miles run.

I bought my first two pairs, one black and one gray, at an outlet store in Park City after my first-ever (beloved) running pants became too flashy for polite company. The day I went shopping at Park City, I was, say, on the thin end of my weight spectrum; still, I remember worrying that I had chosen the wrong size, too small for ultimate comfort. I had no need to be concerned. Those two pairs proved loyal and forgiving, with their drawstring waists and flowing cut; they lasted through years of daily use, through weight changes up and weight changes back down, never seeming to change themselves. Until, eventually, they too displayed their inevitable mortality by developing holes in unfortunate places.

I wore them even after I had begun to worry about their flashiness because I couldn’t see my way into a new era of running attire. If I had to let those pants go, how could I find others to take their place? I didn’t know what Under Armour was selling that year, and anyway, I didn’t know how to find out where Under Armour was selling it. Returning to the store in Park City from my present home on the east coast seemed impractical—although potentially worth it, I couldn’t help musing! Happily, I discovered an Under Armour outlet I could visit without buying a plane ticket. And oh, so happily, I found another two pairs of capri running pants almost exactly the same as my original set. Ah, life (where life is running) could go on.

My second two pairs of Under Armour running pants seemed to seal my identity as an Under Armour athlete. I would have done endorsements for a 10%-off coupon. (OK, I would have done them for free.) When the time came to transition to yet another set of clothing, I approached the prospect with much more optimism than before. I knew exactly where to go—it was only a matter of driving to the store and plunking down my money.

Not so fast. I skipped enthusiastically into the Under Armour outlet this spring and began searching through the tightly packed racks. At first, the inventory seemed dense; I didn’t worry when my initial pass through the women’s section didn’t turn up the items I sought. I made my way back through, looking more carefully, pulling what seemed like every dark-colored capri bottom off the rack to examine it in case it should turn out to be what I was after. Hmm. Nothing.

           

“Can I help you find something?” an employee asked at one point. I usually fend off all sales associates as a rule, but my quest drove me. I described the items I was looking for. “And they have to have a drawstring,” I emphasized. I wished every pair of pants I ever wore had a drawstring. Anyway, for months now, it had been the drawstring alone holding up my running pants, the original elasticity in the waist having surrendered to too many washings. I knew how essential a drawstring could be.

The employee’s response dismayed me. What I wanted no longer existed in the Under Armour universe. Well, he didn’t admit that exactly, not right away. He steered me toward some capris I had already considered and then disregarded. Wrong fabric. Wrong cut. Wrong something. And then he told me the trends were against me. Activewear is all about compression now. And shorts. (Sigh, that part is nothing new—but I’m no longer dressing for high school PE!) Compression, he said again. That’s what people want now.

But what about me? What about what I want? He couldn’t have known the darkly brooding mood I had plunged into by the time I fled to the sidewalk outside the store. I thought of my college French professor’s joke to me when he handed back the first grammar quiz I’d failed to ace: “Where do we look for truth now?” Where, indeed? Suddenly, the future of running appeared very dark.

I began strolling aimlessly down the sidewalk between the outlets, toward the other end of the mall. I’d passed a few other sporting goods stores, glancing at them disdainfully, on my way to Under Armour. Now my mind clutched at them as possible solutions to my problem. Come on, I chided myself, Under Armour is not the only brand of activewear in the universe. Never mind that I’ve worn Under Armour for five years and twenty-some-odd marathons. There’s other stuff out there! (I didn’t really believe my pep talk, but I couldn’t think of any better options than checking out the other sporting goods stores in the area.)

So I tried to keep an open mind as I browsed through the outlets of some big-name brands. After the initial shock of disappointment, I even considered that compression might not be too horrible. I couldn’t imagine tight pants feeling good after miles of sweaty running, and of course I’d look hideous in them—but if other people embraced them, and other people looked all right in them (they did, I knew from observation), maybe they could be worth a try. Here, in my opening up to new possibilities, I smashed into another barrier: price. I remembered what I paid for my last set of running pants, and I was prepared to pay about that much again. I was not prepared to pay twice as much for an item that could only substitute for what I really wanted. I rushed from store to store, hoping for something better, for, OK, a miracle, a hidden gem of drawstring comfort, or at least some compression pants that might squeeze my legs but not my budget. I was nearing the other end of the outlet mall and the end of my shopping options when I ventured into the Champion store.

I had owned some Champion shoes once, and I liked them. Still, I didn’t think of Champion gear as serious sportswear; it was more like play clothes. I did remember the shoes having an important quality going for them, and that was a good price.

The inventory in the Champion outlet didn’t immediately lift my spirits. At least now I knew what kind of market I was shopping in, where the “trends” had abandoned people like me who shrunk from presenting the lower body in detailed outline—heck, who shrunk from even acknowledging that the lower body had a detailed outline. I cast myself as a brave realist when I selected a few possibilities from the rack and went to face my reflection in the dressing room. Here the wished-for miracle asserted itself. The different styles of running wear—one a pair of knee-length shorts, the type of thing I’d shunned since before junior high, the other a capri-length pant that was touted as something like loose compression, if such a thing is possible—they looked … not horrible on me. And they felt … not horrible. Like I might be able to run in them. For a long time.

I think I gulped and sighed a few times on my way to the register and again when I handed over my plastic payment. The true test would come with my next long run, Monday morning. It was late Saturday afternoon. I let the idea of the new clothes settle into my mind. Monday, I chose the knee-length shorts. I ran 13 miles. I felt the air against my legs. A few inches seemed to let in a lot more breeze. And I liked that.

After my run, I walked over to the grocery store without changing, and I caught my reflection in the glass front doors. I cringed, but only a little. I wasn’t used to seeing my legs poking out like that. But they looked … not horrible. And they basked in the caress of air against my skin.

I tried out the tight-to-me capri pants on a shorter run because I harbored more skepticism about their performance under pressure, that is, sweat. Amazingly, they felt as comfortable as my old Under Armour gear. I ended up wearing them in the freezing cold of the Stockholm Marathon, and they carried me through. Yeah, they’ve won me over. I don’t even cringe anymore at my reflection in the shorts; I’m used to it, resigned. The capri pants have proven themselves in heat and cold. What more could I ask for?

It’s a new era now. Under Armour pants? Who needs them! (Insert wistful sigh, for the sake of all the memories.) I love my new running gear: I’m a Champion girl for now. That is, uh, at least until my next foray into sportswear shopping. Which I can only hope won’t be necessary for a long, long time.

Now, if they ever seriously change my Mizuno shoes … !!

Clothing: Classic (with Coverage, without Compression)

Under Armour gear, R.I.P.

A Sweet, Searing Pain

Countdown time for the Hamptons Marathon: it is now less than two weeks away. To get in the mood, I’ve been watching the “Barefoot Contessa,” Ina Garten, on the Food Network, as she visits farms, markets, and beaches around East Hampton (that’s where I’m headed!). She searches for fresh cheese or produce, or in the beach episode, she joins Elmo on a play date for a cooking-with-children theme, and she wears a windbreaker while she unpacks frozen fruit smoothies she whipped up for the Muppet. Fortunately, Muppets never get cold. All that fur, you know.

So it’s the Hamptons, but I can’t really see anything. I’m not going to remember that shop where Ina’s husband, Jeffrey, stopped to pick up wine and bread, or the name of the farm where they make cheese. And anyway, perhaps there’s not much in common between a cooking show and a marathon, in spite of the location. And then again, perhaps there’s a reason they are playing on the same channel in my mind.

It’s not just Ina—there’s also Giada, dicing up green apples and goat cheese and tossing around cinnamon and dried cranberries, and Paula and Ree and plenty of others with their skillets and food processors and zucchini and cumin. It’s words (“crostini,” “tartelette,” “pancetta”—never mind that I wouldn’t eat the meat … or touch it); it’s colors (green, red, purple, orange, green, did I mention lush, lush green?); it’s impressions (beauty, life, sun, friends, art, playing and then resting, feeling happy-tired). It’s memories. One of my grandmas used to serve me apple slices topped with cheddar cheese as a snack. I haven’t had that combination since I was a child. But suddenly I could taste it, and I knew for a moment it was the only food in the world I wanted. I could see her kitchen again, and the family room that opened right off it, where I’d sit in the rocker with the footstool and watch TV.

It’s a sweet, searing pain: a fleeting image, a moment of beauty you can’t capture or hold onto. You can’t close your fist around it and press it against your heart for later.

Last year, when the pumpkins came out for Halloween and the fall harvest spilled into grocery stores and roadside markets and the high school fundraiser down the street, I whirled into my usual tizzy of excitement, wanting … wanting … I don’t know, to rush out and purchase school supplies (ah, how I loved the fresh clean notebooks in the old days). Acting purely on my whims, I could have bought up a carload of pumpkins and various fall-themed decorations, not to mention jars of preserves with fetching labels, so quaint and so, frankly, un-useful to me. My practical side reigned. “Buy a pumpkin?” I scoffed at myself. “For what?”

“Well,” I might have answered myself, staring at the ground and poking a toe at the pavement, “I could carve a jack-o-lantern.”

 “Hah!” Guffaw.

“Well …”

“Come on.”

“Well, I could.” Only I wouldn’t. And I knew it. I sighed, but I left the parking lot at the pumpkin patch with my wallet unopened. Ultimately, I felt relieved at the ability of my common sense to adhere to the budget, but I was filled too with something like … like a sweet, searing pain.

Finally I realized I couldn’t “have” all the beauties and wonders of fall around me, but I could photograph them. That helped. I didn’t buy up produce that wasted away while I contemplated what to do with it. Still, maybe because I was paying more attention to the world around me, I kept seeing beautiful things that pricked at me even as I enjoyed them. They were ephemeral. I couldn’t bottle them up or take them home. I wanted to fill myself up with them, but I knew their moment would pass and leave me empty again.

Passing moments: that’s all a marathon is. I remember the glimmer of water during the Richmond Marathon. Running through a cheering crowd in Dublin and seeing the one spectator pointing out the mile marker in the midst of the chaos. Catching my breath—from exertion and awe—as I crested a hill and burst into a field lit with the rising sun outside Charlottesville. Passing a boy wearing a giant red claw at a water station in the Haunted Hustle Marathon in Wisconsin. Hearing the rhythm of my feet on the slats of a wooden bridge in a forest … somewhere. Huddling inside a port-a-potty while the wind howled outside, summoning me back to the course in Stockholm, Sweden.

You run for a long time in a marathon, but it’s just a series of moments. Some of them are brutal. Some of them make me shudder to relive them. Some are amazing. All seem to be elevated by the sense of an epic undertaking. To succeed in that undertaking brings a thrill that can’t be strung onto a ribbon or emblazoned on a T-shirt. You can’t touch it or hold it. Time passes, carrying your moment away. Leaving perhaps a sweet, searing pain.

Here it is autumn again, and the pumpkins are appearing. The light is shifting, taking on its golden tinge that strikes me as poignant, because winter is coming. I look forward to the joys of sweaters and candles, chilly mornings, maybe even a jack-o-lantern this year. Beautiful moments to store up in my memory against the darker season that follows.

Because all those moments we remember aren’t really gone—they’ve become part of us. When I think about past marathons and past trips, the moments that stay with me always seem inevitable, as if I can’t imagine not having been to Norway or Dublin, I can’t imagine the Stockholm Marathon of 2012 working out any other way (than bitterly cold and grueling and triumphant).

Sometimes I wish I could freeze time, or I wish I could string all my good memories onto ribbons and hang them with my marathon medals; I wish in looking at pictures I could recreate rather than merely remember, and knowing that I can’t—that I can never again sit in my grandma’s family room eating apple slices with cheese while she dances around in the kitchen, that I am never again going to stand on a stool at my other grandma’s kitchen sink to help her wash dishes while her bread dough rises—it lends sweetness, I think, as well as pain.

If I could have the past with me, could I look to the future? Last year’s autumn is gone, and this one is just arriving. Moments have floated away, and new ones have yet to be lived. I am craving that marathon feeling. It’s time to do more than remember what it’s like to cross the finish line. It is time to go out and cross one again.

Whatever happens on September 29th, I expect I’ll find myself watching the “Barefoot Contessa” again in the future, and it may occur to me that once upon a time I had never been to the Hamptons. What?! I had never been to the Hamptons? (Just as I had never been to Iceland or the Netherlands, way back when.) How odd. How almost unimaginable. I may not recognize any of the places Ina goes, and if I want to experience her food, I don’t think I will find it among the postrace refreshments. But I do think her art gives me other moments to look forward to … and future moments, perhaps, of sweet, searing pain.

Some charmers to admire, if not to possess:

Looking Forward

I am excited to add a new marathon to my calendar, the Kiawah Island Marathon in South Carolina on December 8.

Not so far away, I have the Hamptons Marathon coming at the end of September, and it is the season to look ahead to next year. I hope to register for the 2013 Boston Marathon, and more than that, I hope to run it! I registered for the 2009 Boston Marathon but had to miss it because of a stress fracture. This time I don't want a certificate from the Boston Athletic Association informing me that I did not finish the race!

But for now, it looks as though I will be taking a brief time out. Sometimes circumstances invite a period of reassessment. I generally prefer to assess things on the treadmill or on the pavement. When that doesn't fix everything, I've got a problem. It's time to allow in some outside perspective.

Several years ago, in a similar situation, I found the phrase "I'll Keep Running" in a magazine ad, and I cut it out and pasted it onto the notebook I was using daily. It was more a dream than a certainty, but it came true: I had many races in my future, along beautiful courses in interesting locations, moments of feeling like I was flying, finish times I hadn't believed were possible for me. So I will look forward again and dream of races to come—some already scheduled and some not yet thought of. I can't always see what's ahead on the course. I'll take a few more steps and watch as the view opens up.

Is It OK To Be a Klutz?

Have you heard? It’s time for the Olympics! I told myself I would not get involved this year. If I watch, I’ll get interested in people. I’ll get invested emotionally in events that permit very few winners. Inevitably, I’ll see heartbreak. I don’t need that right now.

And yet, I found myself staring at cyclists pedaling up a winding road in the rain. I can’t seem to look away. If I’m around a TV when coverage of the men’s or women’s marathon is on, it will be hopeless. I’ll be hooked for sure.

I look at the athletes, and I wonder about them, about their lives. What brought them to this moment. What their expectations are. What their routines are like. Gazing at a close-up shot of a female swimmer who had medaled before, I marveled that she looked like … well, an ordinary person.

There was a shot of her parents, and they looked like ordinary people, too.

So I keep wondering. Were there any klutzes among those athletes who paraded into the stadium in London on Friday night? Unfortunately, I don’t think there are accurate records about how many klutzes have won Olympic medals. I suspect some have, but I can’t know for sure. What I do know is that a different kind of medal, a marathon finisher’s medal, has been draped around the neck of a klutz. Yeah, me. And it’s not televised or played up in the media or widely noticed in any way, but that’s my Olympic moment. It’s something that as a teenager suffering through my mandatory PE classes, I never hoped to experience.

I guess I’m thinking about this now not only because of the Olympics, but also because of recent news coverage of the proposed ban on large sodas in New York City, another episode in the seemingly endless saga of America’s “obesity epidemic.” Pardon the pun here: coverage of this issue disturbs me on a gut level. Discussions of weight always seem to favor, either overtly or indirectly, approaches that alarm me. I dislike the heavy-handedness of the soda ban, apart from any arguments about its effects, but last week when I watched an interview with some public figure opposing the ban, I recoiled from his message, too. The place to make a difference, he argued, isn’t in the “mom and pop” shops selling drinks, but in the schools. Mandatory gym classes for all grades! If only the New York budget would allow.

Thank goodness for the limits of the budget in this case, I think at his image on the screen. I don’t even know why he scares me so much. I don’t live in New York. He’s not my gym teacher. He’s not going to toss me a pair of short shorts and throw me into a violent game of dodge ball.

He isn’t … right? Bad memories die hard. I was running on a treadmill as I watched him; I was feeling good, a welcome blessing after a few difficult weeks in mid-June and early July. I’m a pretty active person these days; I do things I never used to think I could. I go into sporting goods stores with no self-consciousness or timidity. Still, the thought of gym class makes me want to curl up in a ball in the corner. (I seem to be full of puns today.)

It’s not that I spent the first 25 or so years of life being sedentary. I have glowing memories of playing with my cousins on my grandparents’ sprawling property in rural Idaho. I loved riding my bike around a private loop, lost in daydreams. I loved going for walks in the field out back. Once a few of us kids used a baseball cap to scoop up dirt from the field and then twirled around with the cap held at arm’s length. It made an impressive dark cloud, from which we could emerge as superheroes. Wonder Woman I think, for me and my girl cousin.

Only, in spite of those fun early activities, I had a huge problem. I was a klutz, and even worse maybe, I knew I was a klutz. I couldn’t manage anything involving a ball. It didn’t take many ball games on the playground or in elementary school gym periods to realize I was the worst player I was ever likely to encounter. I developed a deep conviction of this, that I was hopelessly flawed, that for some reason I was doomed to look and feel stupid trying unsuccessfully to do what seemed easy and even fun for everyone else. Once the conviction took hold, it got reinforced easily. In high school, I was the only student in my PE class to receive a grade of C for the golf unit. Yeah, I am hopeless at golf. Just like dodge ball. And basketball. And softball. And volleyball. And on and on. One particular talent I did seem to have—well, I don’t know if you could call it a talent or more of a magnetism. Balls of all kinds seemed drawn to my head. If I’d been braver, I could have used this gift in soccer.

Looking back at the whole of my gym class experience, I have to admit that it wasn’t THAT BAD. I mean, everyone in all my gym classes always knew, as I did, that I was the worst player and nothing but complete klutziness could be expected of me. Still, I can’t remember anyone actually being unkind. For the most part, I went to school with good kids, and they didn’t make it a huge issue. The only person who was truly cruel to me then was me. I thought horrible things about myself, and I let them hold me back from getting involved in activities, from taking part and having fun. And now, as a “grown up,” a “runner,” a “marathoner,” I still fear the phrase “mandatory gym class.”

Again, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect there are others out there like me. I was lucky to finally discover running in a way that opened it up to me … from running two minutes and then walking a bit, to the huge accomplishment of running two miles consecutively, to participating in my first 5K. All I wanted going into the 5K was not to finish last. I came in solidly in the middle of the pack. But you know what? Whoever came in at the tail end, if they had a good time getting out and being active, they have nothing to regret.

I’m grateful now to have an active lifestyle, and I support good health and fitness. But I also know that gym class for me was a deterrent from an active future, not a boost toward that goal. I know when I get upset at the media and the topic of combating obesity (which sounds like maybe we should just beat our jiggles with a stick), I’m interpreting what I hear through my own experiences and perceptions. I may be coating all the messages with guilt and encouragement of self-hatred that isn’t really intended. Still, I wish some of the messages could come across a little differently, offering hope to other klutzes that fitness can be achieved even with limited hand-eye coordination. If there could be a little more positivity, a little more “you can do it” and a little less “why in the h*** would you drink that when you know it’s bad for you and eventually you will cost taxpayers money by making bad choices like ordering a Pepsi.”

Yes, a little encouragement instead of discouragement could go a long way in promoting healthy activity, I believe. Because I may still be hopeless at all kinds of ball games, but even a klutz like me can experience the joy of movement and the sweet victory of doing more than I thought I could do. When I watch the drama of an Olympic competition, when I witness the moments of gratification and disappointment that come with a medal ceremony, I do it knowing this important truth: sometimes they give out medals to klutzes, too. I don't have to cower in the corner or hang back on the sidelines--I can put on my looonnnggg shorts, lace up my shoes, and run.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

OK, you know I didn’t come up with the phrase “the agony and the ecstasy,” but ever since I first heard the title of Irvine Stone’s biographical novel of Michelangelo—let’s see, I must have been in middle school then, and I can still smell that intriguing aroma of old paper that permeated the first floor of the Preston city library—the words have resonated with me.

I am no artist. I am engaged in no masterpiece. But even ordinary mortals like me can know what it is to have a passion that drives you, a pursuit both painful and exquisite. As it says in the Book of Mormon, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). As Bono sings in a classic U2 song, “I can’t live with or without you.” Joy and pain are mixed up together. Rewards require sacrifice. Great rewards require great sacrifice.

I’d never run a whole mile when I first heard of Irving Stone. I had different pursuits then, before the miles took me over. Now running is a solace, a friend, a hard taskmaster that shapes my world above and beyond the role of a regular daily workout. Last month, in Sweden in June, I experienced the ecstasy: such an incredible high, coming off that terrible run in the worst conditions I’ve faced, and knowing that I finished in spite of all my doubts and fears. I felt, as I wrote at the time, that I could do anything.

And I’d been back from Sweden only a week when suddenly I couldn’t manage my normal routine. I have these “bad spells” now and then, periods of physical and mental rebellion—it’s hard to figure out sometimes where the physical aspect ends and the mental one begins. I knew my willpower was tired. But my body wasn’t working right, either, and that became more apparent as the days went on, as they turned into weeks when I fought hard to complete a fraction of my usual mileage. I avoided looking at my photos from Sweden. I felt swallowed up in a new reality. The smiling woman in Sweden became an image of myself I feared I could never live up to again.

She looks stronger than I am

Eventually, lab results offered some objective explanations for my sluggishness. I spent a night in the hospital with red “Be positive” flowing into my veins. I left the next morning with orders to take iron supplements and a dozen (or so it seemed!) other vitamins. I am not usually good at sticking to a vitamin regimen, but I went right to the store—well, OK, after going for a run—and I bought iron supplements at the prescribed dose, which turns out to be an impressive 361% of the recommended daily value for the general population. The supplements had better be potent, though, because I am pinning a lot of hopes on them.

Gradually, more gradually than I would like, I seem to be returning to “normal.” I just finished a week of running back at my usual level. It’s frustrating, as I surface out of this trough, to wonder what the next few weeks hold. I wanted to run three more marathons before the end of the year. So far, I am registered for only one more, the Hamptons Marathon at the end of September. I can only hope I’ll be feeling good at that point. But there is always uncertainty, and I have missed out on planned marathons before. There are stress fractures and freak snowstorms on the beach (see White Holiday Mixup). I think all I can do in the moments of agony is remind myself that there are two more words in the Irving Stone title. I intend to keep running for a long, long time, and the moments of ecstasy will come around again.

What It Is All For ...

My reward for surviving the Stockholm Marathon was a gift of beauty. Take a look at the pictures below, from our cruise through the archipelago toward Finland, and none of my harrowing marathon stories could convince you it wasn’t worth it.

On the cruise

Our boat, the Cinderella II

At Sandhamn, the last stop before Finland

Ready for some tennis?

I want to go to summer camp here (as long as I have lots of warm clothes with me).

The islands in the archipelago provide good settings for summer homes.

I bought lunch at this little grocery store.