Marathon Lessons
January 3rd, 2009
For the past four months, I have been training to run in the PF Changs Rock and Roll Marathon in Arizona. I signed up through Team in Training. If you aren’t familiar with this group, you need to be!! They provide the training, coaching, and support to help people like me walk or run half-marathons, marathons, participate in triathlons, and century bike rides. In exchange, we, the participants, raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
I chose to do this after one of my friends ran a 1/2 marathon last year through TNT. My mother had recently died after a very short battle with leukemia, so the organization had meaning to me. My mother was also always in excellent shape. Even though she was 77 when she died, until the very end, she did not look older than 65, max. I can remember waking up in the morning as a little glrl, walking down the hall and seeing my mother in the extra bedroom, exercising to a show on the old black-and-white television. Later, she joined an aerobics class at our church and did that faithfully, three days per week, unless she was really ill or out of town. Nothing got between her and her exercise! Which is why she could brag that except for when she was pregnant, she never weighed a pound over 119. Now, there’s a weight I don’t think I’ve seen since about 8th grade.
So last fall I attended a Team in Training meeting, and I have been training since then! I was skeptical that I would be ready. Sometimes I still am! But I have gone from being able to run 20 minutes without stopping to running for over 2 hours straight! My race is now a mere three weeks away, and today during my 10-mile run, I was thinking through the lessons I have learned as a result of this experience.
- I don’t like asking people for things! Seriously, I think the hardest thing for me to do has been asking people for money. I am responsible for raising $3800 for LLS. It is a cause I believe in. It is a cause that is near to the hearts of many of my contacts, because they loved my mother. And yet, even though the money is not for me, I hate asking for it. I feel guilty. I hate to impose. This has really stretched me. Every time the money aspect of my race comes up, I force myself to take a deep breath, remember that a person declining to give is not a personal rejection, and just give my little speech.
- It is okay to be the weakest link. As a child and teenager, I participated in two sports - basketball and swimming. Here’s the thing. I grew early. I was a very tall 7th grader–the tallest on my basketball team, in fact. I was horrible, but the one thing I could do was stand under a basket and rebound and shoot, over and over, until eventually a shot fell in. Or the spectators all fell asleep. But nobody could out-rebound the tallest person on the team, who also had the ability to jump like a kangaroo, I might add. Hence my bball nickname of, well, Kangaroo. And so I learned to be good at basketball through lots of practice and opportunities to shoot over and over. To the point that I was typically the high scorer and rebounder in the games. I loved basketball! In addition to early height, I was also blessed with very broad shoulders, so that as a swimmer, I could just pull myself through the water really fast! I was the fastest person in my age-group on my team, and with the occasional exception of Candy on a rival team, I was the fastest in our division. I was so good, in fact, that I decided to swim for the AAU team, the Atlanta Swim Association. My mother drove me across Atlanta nightly for an entire year so I could swim. And guess what. Up against the entire city…well, I’ll just tell you that I was put in lane 6. Out of 6 lanes. And no, that was not the fastest lane. Not only that, I never even got close to lane 5. So do you know what I did? I quit. And years later, I would realize that I refused to lose. If I was good at something, I would do it. If I was bad, I would quit. Which may explain why I never make my bed. And it definitely explains to me my poor grades in college. If I couldn’t be one of the best, I just wouldn’t give much effort at all. Hence the Cs. Lots of them. Fast forward to now. My basketball coach would so laugh at me, because although I could score, I was always the slowest person on the team. That, according to him, was one of the reasons I was good as a center. I never got that logic, but anyway….I am the slowest runner training with Team in Training in my city. It is humbling and humiliating at times. My teammates occasionally need to wait up for me, or circle back to be sure I don’t get lost on the unfamiliar route on our long runs. I am learning how to be in a situation where I am giving my best effort yet am far from being the best, and to be okay with it.
- Food really is fuel. I have learned this lesson in the past month. It’s something that I think we all really know deep down. But I cannot put iced Christmas cookies, cheesy, rich casseroles, homemade eggnog with a kick, and on and on into my body day after day and have good runs. First of all, my weight will go up, making it that much harder to carry my body along. But second of all, I will end up dehydrated, having reflux, suffering from low-energy, and just generally feeling crappy right at a time when I’m supposed to be increasing my mileage!
- Walk breaks are not for wimps. This is a very new lesson for me. As in, the last few weeks. I have pushed and pushed to increase my mileage, and I have done it! I went from running a little and walking a lot to running for two hours, non-stop! And then I hit a wall. My cardio was better than ever - I was not winded and felt like I could keep going forever. My muscles were not cramping up. But it was like I had NO energy to propel my body. Suddenly and for no apparent reason, even my short 3-4 mile runs were hard. I was having to walk. A lot. A friend suggested that I read some of Jeff Galloway’s stuff. He is a former Olympic runner who now earns his living helping other runners. His philosophy is that muscles need a break. Not only do they need rest days to prepare for long runs, but they also need rest DURING runs. He advises walk breaks even during a race. I was skeptical, but I decided that I could either take walk breaks because I HAD to, or I could plan them into my runs. And BAM! I’m back to running well. For me. As long as I take planned walk breaks throughout my runs, I can run for a long time! And that is very encouraging two weeks out from my race, when I was really starting to think I would be walking that 1/2 marathon! I still feel a little self-conscious when another running is passing me and suddenly I just start walking. I want to lean over and say, “I’m not wimping out, I’m doing this on purpose.” But I refrain and hold my head up knowing that I am out there for 10 miles, and my legs are continuing to feel strong and fresh because I am giving my running muscles frequent rests along the way.
- If I can do this, anybody can. Seriously. That is my last lesson, and it is more for you than for me. If I can go from a mom who is a couch potato almost every single day with occasional bursts of exercise energy spattered throughout the last 15 years of my life, to running a 1/2 marathon, then you can, too. It’s a new year, so make yourself a resolution, set a goal, enlist help (like TNT), and do something you never thought you could! Because believe me, you CAN!



