Pre-Philly: Peaks and Valleys of the 2019 Fall Training Season

As I was thinking about what I wanted to write in this season recap, I started wondering why I wanted to write it at all. What drives us to share pieces of ourselves on a blog, or Instagram, or wherever? What drives me to share this specific piece of myself before every race? After all, it's not like my story is unique: sure the road felt long, but it feels long every time. Heck, everyone's road to the marathon feels long. And sure, there were bumps along the way, but everyone has bumps (or hills, or mountains). I guess that's exactly why I like writing these: because I like stories, and I like relating my story to other people's stories and finding the humanity in it all.

Also, it's super-important for me to write this all out pre-race, because after the race, it's far too easy to slot things in where they may or may not belong. The whole story gets framed by the outcome: "Oh, she didn't make her goal, but look at all the obstacles she faced," or, "Wow, look at all of those challenges she overcame to accomplish that, how impressive." But we're supposed to focus on the process, right? So regardless of what the finish line holds, here is a look at my process of getting to the start line, and the peaks and valleys I encountered along the way.

Peak: Training Group
My whole life, I've wanted to be part of a team. I love working together, side-by-side, with others for a common goal, and I also love competition. Prior to this year, I knew of other women who were pursuing the same goal as me, but we were all doing it separately, in our own time, in our own way. Some of us did come together to form an official team, which I love, but that still didn't solve the issue of day-to-day togetherness. For every workout, I was texting everyone I knew, looking for people whose schedules might align with mine. And honestly? That level of uncertainty (especially when my whole job is already filled with constant uncertainty) got exhausting. Luckily for me, my coach could tell, or maybe he had wanted to form a training group all along, and this was his chance. Either way, it worked out for both of us. By some miracle, I found perhaps the only two other women in all of NYC who were going for the same goal and didn't already have a coach. Together with another friend who was already being coached by J___ (my coach), we joined forces and formed our own little training unit.

Staten Island: Not my best

Incidentally, four turned out to be the perfect number. Every Wednesday and Saturday, rain or shine, two, three, and sometimes all four of us got together and ran an identical workout. Of course, it never looked identical; inevitably one of us would be having a good day or a bad day, and we would wind up strung out, not so much running "together" as running after one another. But having that steady group of women to reliably meet for the hardest workouts of our lives . . . it made a difference. It was something I knew I needed, I got it, and I couldn't be more grateful.

Valley: The Comparison Trap
Of course, if you train alongside your peers and you all have same goal, there is no avoiding comparison. Why can't I keep up with her? or When am I going to be the one having a good day? were thoughts that circled round and round my mind in those first weeks (months?) of training. I wasn't keeping up. I got dropped over and over on those initial runs, and it was killing me. After all, this whole thing had been my idea! And here I was, not leading the pack, but pulling up the distant rear. Frustration was the least of it. I not only questioned my fitness, but I questioned my potential, whether I was "cut out" for this, and if I'd ever find running "fun" again.

Peak: Therapy
Around the beginning of summertime training, I finally bit the bullet and started seeing a therapist. Part of me is a little embarrassed to admit this, because it feels like a luxury, an upper-class indulgence. I wasn't sick. I wasn't depressed, or hearing voices, or about to commit an act of violence. And it was not cheap. But I was rapidly losing enjoyment in this activity that I had loved for so long, and that loss of enjoyment felt out of my control. I wanted to enjoy running. I remembered what it felt like to enjoy running. And yet, by the time I got to the starting line of the New Jersey Marathon this past spring, I was decidedly not having fun. It's a hobby, I told myself, so if it's not fun, what's the point?

Wilder Lab run

I could have quit. That would have been the easiest thing to do. But I didn't want to quit, because I still didn't understand what had gone wrong. I knew that I was the only one putting any pressure on myself, and that the trick was to "enjoy the process" and "forget what other people think" and "not take it so seriously." I just couldn't do any of those things. And so, upon the recommendation of a friend, I found someone who I hoped could help.

I've learned a lot from this therapist (although I no doubt still have a long way to go), but one of the most freeing things she said to me during our first few conversations was, "What's so bad about comparison? You're a competitor. That's part of competing." I think we're often told that "good" women are supposed to selflessly and enthusiastically cheer for one another 100% of the time, and that when we size ourselves up against one other, that makes us "bad" or "unhealthy". But I've learned that I'm not wishing anyone ill, I'm merely demanding more of myself. And it's a sport, for goodness' sake! It's okay to want to win. Winning cannot be the only thing, of course, and "winning" in practice is basically meaningless, but the permission those words gave me was such a relief. Go ahead. Compete.

Valley: More Therapy
So they say "it takes a village". . . . Not only did I commit to seeing a mental health therapist through this training cycle, but I also committed to doing whatever I possibly could for this foot of mine. (If you're not up to speed, I have a neuroma [i.e., an inflamed nerve] in my left foot. It reared its ugly head prior to the New Jersey Marathon and hasn't gone away.) I diligently went back to my physical therapist every other week and practiced a whole host of what continue to feel like futile foot/ankle/calf stretches.* I also resigned myself to seeing an acupuncturist on the alternating weeks, so she could put a heating lamp over my foot and proceed to stick needles into it. (If anyone ever tells you acupuncture isn't painful, they definitely have not had any foot treatments.)

Did any of this stuff work? I guess so, because the pain has been more manageable this time around. But, as I've learned in therapy, a fair amount of the pain is in my head, too.** So I guess you could say "everything" is helping? Whether an MRI would show it or not.

Peak: Wilder Lab
In early September, with training and multiple therapies fully underway, I took a break to go to a retreat. I had registered (and paid) for this retreat many many months ago, and now, with the prospect of missing training looming in real time, I second-, third-, and fourth-guessed if this was a good idea. I had already been to a Wilder Retreat—could this one possibly live up? And wasn't sticking to training more important than indulging in a "vacation"?

I shouldn't have worried. The Wilder Lab turned out to be even more magical than the Wilder Retreat. Within the span of 72 hours, I felt so close to the ten other women on retreat—all of whom had started out as perfect strangers—that they could have been my best friends. And yes, we ran (it's a running + writing retreat), but the running was more "movement as medicine" or "movement for exploration,"*** neither of which I've done, at least intentionally, in what felt like a long time.

Valley: Sister in ICU

Me & my sister

Unfortunately, when I returned to life on the east coast, I didn't get to bask in the afterglow from the retreat for long. A day or two after I returned, I got a call that my sister was in the hospital. Again. Around this time one year prior, she'd had a heart attack and now, this year, something weird was happening with her red blood cell count. Fortunately, my parents were in town this time and could take the brunt of it as her health rapidly declined. She wound up in the ICU, where she stayed, fighting for life, for over a month.

It's hard to describe what this feels like if you haven't been through it yourself. My little sister might die, and there was quite literally nothing I could do. Should I be there? Did I even want to be there? She was unconscious, so she certainly wouldn't care either way. Yet my parents were there, and I felt I needed to at least support them. So on the weekend when we were supposed to have held my sister's bridal shower, I flew home to Pittsburgh and drove with my mom to Cleveland, where my dad was literally camped out at my sister's bedside.

Suffice to say, being there did not make me feel better. It's hard to say if it made me feel worse. What I definitely did feel was guilty, though, because at the end of the weekend, I was scheduled to run a 10k. And despite everything that was going on, I still intended to race it.

Peak: The Great Race 10k
I had initially signed up for the Great Race 10k because my training partners were all racing a 10-miler back in New York that weekend, so when I knew I'd be in Pittsburgh for the bridal shower, I decided to capitalize on the opportunity to race something, even if it wasn't a full ten miles. Now, though, my emotions were all over the board, so while I was still going to run this race, I reframed the whole thing as "practice." It was an experiment of sorts: Could I get into race mode amidst all the turmoil?

At the Great Race 10k

It could have been any of a hundred tiny things, from the warmup drills to the heart breaths I was trying to practice, but something worked. I had a great race. It was one of those races where by halfway, I was starting to pass women without any extra effort. Even the hill at mile five couldn't stop me. I was hurting and not caring, and when I came within sight of the finish line and a man tried to pass me, I kicked into that extra gear where it literally feels like flying, and blew him away. This feeling—this is why I run. It's rare and special and absolutely intoxicating. It's what I had been searching for this whole time. And while I haven't felt it on a single day since then, I am comforted to know it might be there, waiting for me, just around the corner.

The Rest of the Story
I don't want to end on a "valley" but it would be misleading to end this recap with the highest of highs. Because my very next race, the Staten Island Half Marathon, was a huge disappointment. I had ambitions to PR, or at least come within spitting distance of my best time, but halfway through the race, an inexplicable feeling of sadness came over me. I crossed the finish line and cried. I wasn't crying over my race time, although I was definitely not pleased with that. I was crying because I had asked my body to do something, but then this feeling, something I could not see or name, took over. I'm still working on how to prevent that from happening again.

Meanwhile, as of this post, my sister is finally out of the hospital and recovering at home. She still has a very long road ahead of her, but she has a loving fiance, a supportive family, and a stubbornness I could never dream of matching. So I have to trust her to take care of her.

And now it's about time for this race: this adventure. It's uncharted territory. Lots of exciting "first times" coming up: first time using "elite" water bottles, first time trying to race with a group, first time going into a marathon with the full acknowledgement that I very well might "blow up" before the finish line. The prospect of pain is scary, but the prospect of finding out what I can do is exhilarating. All I can say now is, "We'll see." Whatever happens, I'll be as surprised as anyone else.

*Big thanks to Nike's Project Moonshot, without which I would have spent considerably more money on these physical therapy appointments.
**I swear, psychology is like voodoo. I came into the office one week, literally crying about my foot. It hurt so terribly, and I had been spending all this money and doing all these things to help it . . . the whole running endeavor just felt futile.
"It's because [XXX] is making you hyper-aware of your body," the therapist told me. "And you're anticipating the pain. So look right at it: Yeah, your foot is going to hurt. But the doctors told you it isn't going to cause permanent damage, right? So okay, it's going to hurt, and it's not going to stop, and that's the choice you're making. Own it." She was right. A week later, the pain went back to its normal level. Just like that.
**And man did we explore. Two women and I got so lost on one of the runs, we started negotiating what we would do if the sun started setting (because it was already pretty chilly, and none of us had food or water). Ultimately, we had to hitchhike to a town a full hour from camp, we were that lost, but we made it out alive!