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.

And Just as I Was Leaving, the Sun Came Out

Rain splattered the windows of the bus as it drove from the Stockholm airport into the city. I peered out at the dense gray sky. Somehow, whenever I had imagined my trip to Sweden, I had pictured Stockholm sunny.

Outside the bus at the Central Terminal, the cold penetrated my two jackets, making me hunch my shoulders and scurry for shelter—as much as it is possible to scurry with luggage. I guess I blame the cold for distracting me so that I missed the sign pointing from the bus terminal to the adjacent train station. Whatever the culprit, it seemed to take me as long to travel from the bus dropoff point to my hotel as it had taken to fly to Sweden.

By the time I reached my hotel room, I had no desire to go outside again into that inhospitable weather, especially to brave the crowded train system once more and find my way to the marathon packet pickup. But I didn’t want things piling up for the morning, when my anxiety would already be high. I went back out into the storm. The rain had lessened somewhat. Still, I walked as quickly as possible from the train station to the marathon expo. I kept telling myself it would be better tomorrow … anyway, there was no point in thinking otherwise.

The next morning dawned early, around 3 am. I kept my eyes on the window. No rain, at first. And then a few drops. And then a few more. By the time I left for the marathon, the rain fell steadily. I had received a white baseball cap labeled Oasics Stockholm Marathon with my marathon packet, and I decided to put it on. It afforded some relief, deflecting the drops out of my face. But in the first miles of the run, I felt the wind snatching at it. I should have tried to fasten it with my barrettes. Too late—near the 5-km mark, the wind got greedy and carried the cap off and away.

I held out hope that the rain would let up, only it didn’t, and the wind blew cold, and the sky framed the world in bleakness. I didn’t believe that the sun had ever shone on Stockholm. Around the halfway point, I glimpsed a row of port-a-potties and decided to stop (not a poetic detail, but real). The storm sounded even worse from inside the little box. The wind ripped at the roof and the rain pounded at it. I found that my hands had frozen into claws. I listened to the elements swirling inches away, and I knew: I could not go back out there. I was stuck. I was alone. I couldn’t go on, but I had to.

Because I was in a port-a-potty …

in a park …

in a foreign city …

on the coldest June day in 50 years …

with no money on me (lesson here?) …

and there was only one way out of my nightmare.

I burst out the door and hit the pavement running, and I did not stop until I reached the finish line inside the Olympic stadium from the 1912 Stockholm games. Even then, I permitted only brief delays. I exhaled heartfelt thanks to the volunteers who cut off my timing chip and handed me a yellow “Finisher” T-shirt (to stand in for the sun, my mother said) and a recovery packet containing fluids and snacks. I gushed even deeper thanks to the volunteer who retrieved my bag from the bag check. I pulled out my two jackets and my subway card and hurled myself toward the train station. On the subway, I stood shivering. Someone asked me about the marathon, about how I did. I couldn’t really answer.

“Too cold,” he said.

“Yes.” But I was finished—in the better sense.

Night of the marathon, still standing

The next morning, I was still alive. The air had less ice in it and fewer rain drops, but I rode the train to Gamla Stan, the Old Town, out of a sense of obligation. After consulting the map in my guidebook, I navigated toward one of the narrow streets that twisted up from the modern stretch outside the train station. At one point, I looked back to orient myself … and I gasped … and smiled. The view was beautiful.

I whipped out my camera. “This is cool!” I said.

Then I turned down one of the old streets. “This is so cool!” I said.

 

And it was still cold and damp all that day, although the sun peeped out, and the next day was just a little better, and the last day, the day I left, might even have turned out warm in the afternoon. I wasn’t there to know.

Even with my two jackets, I had not expected Stockholm to be quite so cool. And then again, even in my pretrip excitement, I had not expected Stockholm to be quite so cool.

Storming Stockholm

Last Saturday I finished the Stockholm Marathon under the toughest weather conditions I've ever faced in a run. I made it to the end mostly because I doubted whether my frozen, collapsed body would be carried into shelter if I dropped somewhere on the course. Coming back from Sweden on Tuesday, I waited in the passport control line at JFK airport and reflected on the experience. I told my mom I would be gratified just to have the difficult conditions acknowledged on the marathon website or in runner comments on Marathonguide.com. Today I checked my email and found this:

"June 2 was the coldest day in June in Stockholm for the last 50 years, so it was not a good day for running a marathon. Wind and rain made the situation even worse. All those things made the 2012 ASICS Stockholm Marathon the most demanding race in the 34 years history of the race.
We are most impressed that you and almost 15 000 other runners managed to finish the marathon, concerning these cruel conditions. You and other runners were well prepared for the race, and ran wisely.

"Kind regards
"Athletic clubs Hässelby SK and Spårvägens FK"

Foreboding weather at packet pickup was only a shadow of conditions to come

 


And now, I feel like I can do ANYTHING!

This Weekend

It's just about time to head to Stockholm, Sweden, for the next marathon.

Oh, by the Way ...

I'm not through posting about my most awesomely fabulous trip to South Dakota, but I'm leaving for Sweden in a few days: Stockholm Marathon coming up this Saturday!

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.

Did He Say "Sweden"?

“Recovering” from a marathon can be rough, and as many times as I’ve gone through it, it still takes me by surprise. I focus so much on reaching the finish line that my forward thinking doesn’t progress beyond that marker, at least not in a rational way. I may picture a postrace haze of gold, a celebratory atmosphere, a state of bliss in which all my problems will have slipped away.

The problems return though, after about 10 minutes of post-finish line afterglow. The day after a marathon, my postrace haze consists of a headache, a gnawing hunger, and a simmering irritability. During a long drive home from a marathon this summer, my mother, who had accompanied me on the road trip, pulled out some hard candy she’d purchased at an old-fashioned candy store the day before. My mother makes no apologies for the way she eats hard candy: she does not suck it, she bites. I’ve known her long enough to be familiar with this trait. I tried to focus on the road as I listened to the rustling of the candy wrappers. My muscles tensed at the first loud crunch. “I can take this,” I told myself. “It’s not a big deal. It will be over soon.” I tried to breathe evenly. More crunching followed. More crinkling of wrappers. Finally I burst out, “How long is it going to take to crunch that candy?” My mother confessed it was taking longer than she expected to bite through her stash in the otherwise silent car. We both ended up laughing about it. For the rest of the trip, I maintained a thin façade over the growly bear I felt I had become. I don’t think my mother ate any more of her candy.

I was in another one of those funks, puttering about my apartment with a scowl and feeling bleak about the future and the world in general, when a word from the TV that I had on for background noise penetrated the fog and caught my attention: Sweden. Sweden? Did someone say "Sweden"?

I turned toward the TV in earnest. A Rick Steves travel show was coming up, and he was heading to Sweden.

Earlier this year, I’d considered traveling to Stockholm for the June marathon there, but then I realized the event had sold out months before. So I put it on my radar for 2012. Still, at the point when Rick Steves offered me a preview of a Swedish tour, I hadn’t committed one way or the other; I hadn’t registered for the 2012 event, and the prospect floated at the back of my mind, seeming very far away.

Sweden. Suddenly the word had magic. Suddenly a 2012 trip emerged from the realm of the distant future and drew near enough to look alluring. For Sweden, I thought, it might be worth sticking around.

I sometimes think of a particular line from the movie “Steel Magnolias,” which I first saw when I was about junior high age and have watched several times since. The character played by Olympia Dukakis has lost her husband and is trying to cobble together a life without him. She’s a longtime football fan, and at one point she quips, “Well, I really do love football, but it’s hard to parlay that into a reason to live.”

Sometimes I understand just what she means. Sure, I really do love running and traveling, but it can be hard to parlay that into a reason to live.

And yet, somehow, that single reference to a travel show about Sweden was enough to pull me out of my funk.

Looking back, I realize that every trip I’ve taken has become part of me, part of my identity. Right before I went to Norway in 2008, the undertaking seemed like an awful lot of trouble. Now, I can’t imagine not having gone. I love the memory of walking back to the lodging around 1 am under an overcast but fully lit sky, sleeping on a bunk bed in a wooden cabin with the square window next to me never darkening. Traveling to Iceland got put off from 2009 to 2010, but on the trip that almost wasn’t, I fell in love with a new country that reminded me of my native state of Idaho, with its geysers and lava rocks and small, independent population. Dublin drew me back for a second visit, and now I’m wondering how soon I can manage to return.

Geyser in Iceland--or could it be Soda Springs, Idaho?

I’m registered now for the 2012 Stockholm Marathon; my entrance fee is paid, my place is assured. Anticipation comes in waves: at the moment, it all looks far away again. It’s hard to see past the holidays and the crushing darkness of winter. My next scheduled marathon, in Myrtle Beach in February, seems as unreal as daylight in the evening. But if I remember that bleak postrace afternoon when Rick Steves came on TV to talk about Sweden, I can call up that prick of hope, too. Yes, I think Sweden may be worth sticking around for.