This Is Not the End (I Hope)

So, maybe it’s bled through into the writing: I’ve been pretty sad this year. (One comment on my entry “Why Am I Here (in Luxembourg)?” offers “a reward of $20 for anyone who can find a more blue blog of travel to Europe that doesn't involve jail time or a hospital visit.”) It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and if I started listed reasons for gratitude, I could fill up a “gratitude journal” in a single long entry. Then I might look at my list and wonder, with all that, how could things not be all right? But most of my questions lead back to the same answer. The problem is me. I haven’t figured out yet how to fix that.

I started the marathon season with a run in Myrtle Beach, and that evening I drove through a mountain pass into a sudden snowstorm, where I contemplated the likelihood of careening off the road. While I was thinking about my own death, death came for someone in my family.

At my next marathon, I enjoyed a thrilling race, buoyed up by the Wellesley Scream. I crossed the finish line, got my medal, boarded a train out of the city. I still can’t watch news footage of what happened at the finish line while I was on that train.

And then I retired from running for two and a half weeks to sit in St. Louis and ponder what it is all for (see “Interlude, or, Thoughts from Code Name: Prison”). I can still taste the relief I felt when I left the treatment center, bought a six pack of Diet Dr. Pepper, checked into a hotel, and ran 10 miles on the hotel treadmill. My world seemed restored to the simple and the clean.

Four weeks later I ran my third marathon of the year, in Luxembourg, and by then I was sad again, with my illusions of control smashed by a postmarathon club sandwich in the hotel bar.

What is it all for?

I stopped writing. I stopped taking pictures. I didn’t stop running.

In September I traveled to the Hamptons to run my second Hamptons Marathon. This time the T-shirt was much better than last year’s. Woohoo! And I got second place in my division, a result I found out after I’d returned home. Guess what? The marathon committee mailed me a little plaque to commemorate the second-place finish. I didn’t bother to check again how many women in my age group finished that marathon. I’ll just let the plaque speak for itself!

Earlier this month, my friend boosted my morale enough for me to complete the Richmond Marathon: she picked me up at 5 a.m. to drive me to Richmond, then cheered me on at mile 15. I skipped out of Richmond last year, when I woke up in the November night and couldn’t face the prospect of the lonely, dark drive to the marathon start. This year, although I ran the marathon alone, I didn’t get there that way.

In my office at work, I have three Post-It notes stuck to the wall next to my chair: “Boston,” one reads. “Hamptons,” says another. And finally, “Richmond.” Reasons to keep going.

Still, there’s the question—what is it all for?

When I started running, I loved it. It made me feel good, physically, mentally, spiritually. It gave me new confidence. It made me braver. It opened up the world. And then, for a long time, running was a guaranteed fixer, a medicine that never failed. Running was always transformative. It brought peace and rational thought, two things I couldn’t seem to hold onto without it.

But there’s this cycle: push, push, push, and it feels good. So push more, more, more, and it doesn’t feel good anymore. Push again, again, again, and maybe it will get better. Fight, fight, fight, and go nowhere. Smash. Chaos. Reset. Start over. Repeat.

It hurts.

I’ve been through this storyline before. So the other day I was remembering my thirteenth marathon, back in 2009. I felt awful. I felt heavy. I felt slow. I finished the race, but during my next run, I got a shooting pain in my ankle. I couldn’t run consistently for the next several months. I felt so defeated. That year, I faced some of the lowest moments of my life. And looking back, I wish I could reassure myself on that marathon day, “This is not the end. There may be some bad times ahead, but you are going to run strong again. You are going to run more marathons, you are going to travel, you are going to have fun again.”

This month, when I ordered new running shoes, I decided on orange ones. For zest.

I don’t know … I don’t have the surety of hindsight here and now. But what I can hope is, “This is not the end.”

The plan is for South Carolina in December.

Some smiles after Richmond, thanks to my super-Starr friend