On the Road

It tests your endurance to the limit. It requires focus on the present but confidence in an ultimate goal. You can’t allow yourself to be crushed by the thought of miles yet untraveled. It’s … the long drive to a marathon city!

My drive to Ellerbe, North Carolina, took around 5 hours. I cycled through moods and phases. Fortunately, when I reached the desperate-for-something-approximating-conversation phase, I found a radio station broadcasting the Rush Limbaugh show. Only Rush wasn’t in. Some guy with an accent I couldn’t pin down (do I need to get out more?) was filling in. I listened with curiosity. Yes, probably the wrong kind of curiosity, the sort that might tempt you in the checkout at the grocery store to reach out and toss the magazine with the salacious celebrity headline into your cart. What station was playing the Rush show, I wondered. Would there be any commercials? (Yes, there were.)

I feel like you do things on the road that you wouldn’t do in normal life. It comes of leaving your comfort zone, I suppose; it warps your perception of reality. This is why I have more trouble restraining my spending when I’m abroad. No matter how many calculations I do in my head, handing over unfamiliar-looking money called kroner or euros doesn’t have the same impact as forking over a wad of American dollars. So, uh, I’m paying what amounts to $5 for soda? Well … I still have more of these euro things left in my wallet. For now.

I mention the radio host’s accent because it’s significant that he wasn’t American. I stopped scanning radio stations and listened to the show, and instead of ending up unpleasantly bloated with celebrity gossip, I heard an interesting and amusing theory. It may be, suggests the guy filling in for Rush, that European society would have been better off embracing the gas-guzzling SUV or minivan. European birth rates are low, so low that there aren’t enough young Europeans to support the older Europeans. And why is that? Small cars, of course. How can you have more than one or two kids when you have to drive the family around in a roller skate? You can’t have more kids because they won’t fit!

To me, this didn’t seem to be an issue on the bike superhighways of the Netherlands, where families rode together on separate bicycles like schools of fish or a line of geese trailing after their mother. But I still thought the guy might have a point. (Maybe it was the influence of my longtime pickup truck fantasy as I drove along in my lovely but non-pickup Hyundai Accent.)

Sometime before my talk radio phase, I stopped for lunch and fuel, lured off the freeway by a Subway logo. Of course, there’s no room on a freeway sign to specify whether a particular Subway carries spinach. Or the yogurt parfaits that have shown up on the Subway menu but seem never to be available. The Subway I chose had no spinach. And no yogurt parfait. But it was next door to an old friend, a Food Lion grocery store.

On the road, you encounter store and restaurant chains you’ve never heard of before ...

... and some that you haven’t seen for a while. I discovered Food Lion during my first visit to Williamsburg, Virginia. My cousin and I opted out of paying for a rental car, and we were touring on foot. In July. Since we both grew up in a semiarid region of the West, we faced the humidity of a Virginia summer with wide-eyed naïveté. By the time we stumbled across the Food Lion, it was like making it to Mecca. I bought a big container of Sunny Delight and took one of the most satisfying drinks I’ve ever had in my life.

Later, when my mom came with me to help me move to Williamsburg for graduate school, we walked to that Food Lion whose location I knew. We walked and walked and walked because I knew we would reach it eventually. What I didn’t know yet was that there was another Food Lion a couple of blocks from my apartment, in the other direction.

With all this reflecting on past adventures, with the help of Rush’s guest host and a bunch of songs on the radio and a lot of squirming in my seat, I finally reached my destination of Ellerbe. I drove into the town and got out of the car to stretch my legs. One of the first things I saw was a sign that struck me as funny. Although maybe it’s more sad, or maybe just practical. I took a picture of it. There were people around when I took it, and I sort of hoped they wouldn’t notice me or wouldn’t care what I was doing, which they probably didn’t. I just thought it might have been a little rude of me as a visitor to Ellerbe to take a picture of a sign that made me snicker.

The whole town seemed so Podunk, I felt myself taking on the role of big-city tourist looking down my nose at the apparent lack of sophistication around me. The town had one stoplight, but I had to wonder why. I mean, why have one at all? It certainly didn’t seem necessary. And I was there during Friday rush hour.

As I mentioned in a an earlier post, I grew up in a one-stoplight town, but now I’m all cool because I work in Washington, DC, you know? Whatever … that doesn’t change the fact that I barely knew what turning lanes were before I went to college.

I wandered into the Food King grocery store and bought a package of plastic spoons. Then as I explored, a sign advertising another grocery store beckoned me down a cross street. The thing is I didn’t believe there was a grocery store down there. And there wasn’t. The sign was old. I decided Ellerbe felt a little sad.

Later, after I scoped out the marathon headquarters and started off to another city to check into my hotel, I drove through some residential neighborhoods. I noticed pretty houses with neat trim. I noticed cascades of blossoms in beautiful colors. I wondered, why was I taking pictures of Food King when I could have been photographing this? But it was getting late and dark …

I bought dinner at a Piggly Wiggly in Laurinburg and asked the grocery store cashier for directions to my hotel. This was after I awkwardly handed her my purchases because there wasn’t a conveyor belt at the checkout. How can you get through the checkout without a conveyor belt? (At the store my mom and I shopped at when I was growing up, there were no conveyor belts.)

If I hadn’t asked for directions, I might have seen a lot more of Laurinburg than I wanted to, since I was disoriented and my Mapquest directions warned me that my final destination hadn’t been pinpointed. With help from a couple of Piggly Wiggly store clerks, I navigated more blossom-laden streets and found the Jameson Inn. Across from a Wal-Mart: the ultimate sign of civilization?

The next day, I ran one of the most beautiful marathon courses I’ve ever experienced.

Driving north after the marathon, I seemed to find beauty all over. I swallowed hard as the Richmond skyline came into view--it struck me as it never had before. I was pretty punchy by then. The sun had set and the city was lit up. After a long drive, a long marathon, and several more hours of driving, I was back in Virginia. It had been a good trip, but I was coming home.

With a medal, a T-shirt, and a piece of pottery for coming in third. Ah, sweet. Mission accomplished.

A Tale of Two Marathons

Last night as I browsed online to prepare for my trip to Sweden, I happened to read that more than 21,000 runners are registered for the 2012 Stockholm Marathon. Twenty-one thousand: about five times the population of my hometown when I was growing up.

Last week, I completed a marathon with about 80 other participants. While I could usually see a runner or two in the distance ahead of me, I trekked through much of the course in solitude.

The Ellerbe race was a “gut check” marathon, one of the runners told me last Saturday morning. Because most of the time you’re on your own—well, it’s you and the livestock.

No doubt the Stockholm Marathon promises a contrast. This year it will host more participants than ever before. But picture a city street flooded with runners, and the image could come from almost anywhere. They’re popping up all over now, these Big Marathons with their thousands of entrants. I’ve come to expect the chaos of convention center expos; on my way to pick up my race packet, I navigate nonchalantly through tangles of vendors seeking to profit from the running vogue.

And speaking of expectations, how about a nicely stocked goody bag, pace teams, the latest in chip technology, a crew of professional photographers … and throw in some chocolate milk at the finish line if you can manage. In return, I will submit to being placed in a “corral” as I wait around for the start of the race. I will divert a few brain cells from the effort of endurance to the skill of maneuvering around other runners without making the marathon a contact sport. This is the world of the Big Marathons. Maybe sometime soon it will get profiled on a reality TV series, slotted after “Toddlers in Tiaras” or “Dance Moms.”

Last week, the day before my 27th marathon (I think), I pulled into the circular driveway in front of the Ellerbe Springs Inn, ca. 1857, and walked up the steps to the porch, where a small group of people lounged on rocking chairs and porch railings. I could hear snippets of their friendly talk as I approached. “You get to that last one and wonder, why did they do this to me?” one man joked, and I knew he was referring to a hill on the course. Another man stood behind a folding table at the far end of the group. “Are you registered?” he asked me.

Ellerbe Springs Inn, sans runners on porch

I said yes, and he handed me a fluorescent green T-shirt. Then he informed me that the timing team would hand out race numbers in the morning. I felt a lack of closure, maybe, some odd desire to draw out this “packet pickup” ritual that didn’t involve a packet at all, so I took the opportunity to ask for directions to the town where I planned to spend the night. The genial group on the porch offered counsel. And then there was nothing more to do but get back in my car and drive away.

The next morning I returned to the inn to receive my race number and a plastic bag full of coupons and flyers for other races. I kept looking for a timing chip. No chip. “Am I supposed to have a chip?” I asked someone in the lobby.

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “There’s never been one before.”

Huh. No chip. Weird.

I pinned on my race number and checked the time: 50 minutes to go before the start. I began to curl into myself, into my anxiety. The morning outside looked bleak. More runners arrived with family members and friends in tow, and people began to speak to me. I got drawn into conversation in spite of my initial reluctance, and before I knew it I was trading stories and plans and then looking back at the clock and realizing it was time to go outside.

Such a small race presents some ironies: you spend many miles alone, but you cannot be anonymous. You don’t run by someone in silence. All the volunteers at every aid station watch you approach and hold out paper cups to you because you are the only runner around at the moment. And the scenery on this course was beautiful, with colors at once muted and intense: purple blossoms, green fields, burgundy trees, the blue silhouettes of hills blurring together as they met the gray sky. I dropped out of time. It was the ultimate runner’s high.

See, a burgundy tree

I considered how this race had challenged my Big Marathon expectations. I’ve done small runs before; I remember thinking I preferred them. But it’s been a while. I’m used to the super-expo-size events now, like the National Marathon in DC, where last year I crossed the starting line more than five minutes after the front of the pack let loose—that’s where you need a chip!

It’s two different marathon cultures, I decided. I felt the Ellerbe crowd fit into a tough class of runners, the kind who run because they can, the type to go chasing into thunderstorms in search of adventure. They don’t need cheering spectators to know they can get the job done. I admire that independence. It also scares me. I knew I was the wimp in the bunch. But when the rain hit me out on the course, I thought back to another small race I’d run in the rain, and I knew I could do it. I knew because I’d done it before.

The two cultures seemed very distinct to me when I first arrived at the Ellerbe Springs Inn, and when I drove into the town of Ellerbe and found one stoplight, which seemed completely unnecessary, and when the timing volunteer didn’t give me a chip and the race organizer warned the runners about a dog around mile 20. But in the end, I got a pretty cool medal that even a Big Marathon would be proud to hand out. I won a piece of pottery (a teal plate) for coming in third among women overall. I visited again with a few of the runners before I got in my car to head home.

Downtown Ellerbe

And looking back, I can see where the two cultures converge. Because the conversation on the porch of the inn when I walked up to get my T-shirt told me I was in the right place. The talk in the lobby the morning of the race pulled me out of myself because I was part of it. I’ve encountered this truth before as I’ve traveled for marathons in other countries: some things are different, but many things are the same. There is a language of running, and it goes beyond speaking. That’s why, whether running through the fields around Ellerbe, North Carolina, or flowing with the crowd through the city of Stockholm, I’m part of something larger than myself. In the end, the race is mine to run, the struggle is my own. And yet, as a runner I am not alone.

Why not start a race across from a restaurant called Pork Belly?

And anyway, before I finished school and got a job in the nation’s capital, I grew up in a one-stoplight town.

Sometimes a Rainstorm Works Like Rose-Colored Glasses

All the weather forecasts promised scattered thundershowers. Was it too much to hope they’d scatter around the marathon course and not on top of it? A brief downpour pounded my windshield as I drove to the marathon start, but the steady drops gave way to a drizzle, and then to a mist. When I ventured outside after picking up my race number in the Ellerbe Springs Inn, the precipitation had stopped, and only the cloud cover remained.

But I heard the thunder a few miles into the run: a far off rumble at first. Stay far away, I wished silently. The thunder answered me, closer this time. Pass on by, I thought at it. It answered me again, closer still. And then the rain broke through.

Scattered showers, I reminded myself. Don’t be a wimp, I told myself. This will pass. You can get wet.

The rain pelted my forehead and ran down my face. My contact lens shifted. I shut my eye like I do in the shower when I turn my face into the stream of water. I shut it tight to hold in the lens. I stopped worrying about being a wimp; I stopped noticing the way my socks sloshed in my shoes. Because the truth is, I have good vision only through one eye, and I forgot to bring an extra lens for that eye, and oh, as I was leaving my apartment complex I thought about going back in for the eyeglasses I’d meant to stick in my bag, just to be safe. Only I didn’t go back for them.

Well, you are going to have to settle down here in North Carolina, I thought. Because if anything happens with this contact lens, there’s no way to get home.

I ran on in the rain with one eye shut. I passed mile 11. And I knew I was approaching the BIG HILL I had heard the other runners talking about, the one called “Hannibal” because, in the words of a marathon alumna and aid station volunteer, it will eat you up. The world appeared blurry and far away. I could make out the road immediately ahead of me and not much else.

I surprised myself by feeling amused. Here I am running in the rain, half blind, I thought. And I’m always worried about so many things, like this big scary hill that I can’t really see, but I never worried about my contact falling out in the rain in the middle of the marathon.

Now, my theory is that rainstorm was nature’s version of rose-colored glasses. I didn’t see much of the big scary hill, but soon the rain tapered off and the hill was behind me, and I was running in a cool breeze with my contact still in place. The thunder stopped rumbling at me, and my lens stayed in and didn’t make any more trouble and I was able to see to drive home.

In fact, it turned into a pretty great day. Thanks to the rain?

It's Ellerbe

So here’s the deal: I will drive approximately 6 hours to a small town near the southern border of North Carolina, west of I-95. After picking up my race packet, I will check into a hotel in a nearby city, because the marathon town has only one inn and it is full. I will try to stay focused and centered and maybe even detach myself from prerace anxiety enough to stroll around and take pictures ... maybe. Saturday morning I will drive the 12 miles back to town and join a small crowd of runners at the start of the challenge. The Challenge--hills, solitude, weather that threatens to turn too warm. And then? And then ...

I'm in!

Can you believe it, I had to register by mail! But it's official--I'm in. Heading to North Carolina for a run on March 24!