I remember watching Joan Benoit Samuelson on TV in the early 80s, winning the Boston Marathon and wanting to do that someday, even though the race was really long and trying to fathom how long 26.2 miles really is in a 9 year old head is hard to do. ;) Years later, I'd briefly been part of the high school cross- country team in the early 90s (I'm what Jack Daniels refers to as "highly motivated, but with little to no natural ability"), but I was dropped for lack of any leg speed. Thankfully, that particular private school also had lacrosse and the legendary modern dance teacher/performer Martha Gray. I still sucked at the latter (with Gray telling my father outright that I was definitely "not built for dancing") but it was apparent that I was at least willing to throw myself into it, so I was tolerated. When it came to lacrosse, it turned out that it was the one sport that I had any natural talent at. I didn't have to *just* run; I could charge into people, elbow the hell out of them, and snarl at them-- oh, and get that little white ball. For once in my pre- adult life, being built more like a draft horse than a petite graceful girl (like everyone else around me) was an advantage.
I was forced to switch high schools in junior year due to finances, and the new (public) school didn't have lacrosse. I didn't even attempt to join the track or cross- country teams; I knew better. I swam for the varsity team, and biked around town. I'd do the minimal amount of running in gym class that I had to, and that was it.
In college, there wasn't much for sports to choose from. The president of the college suddenly split with a few million of the school's money in my freshman year, so any and all student activity budgets were slashed. I had stamina enough to walk and sometimes run just about everywhere (I didn't have a car, and hauling a bike up or down 4+ flights of dorm stairs just to ride it seemed like an offer at attempted suicide at best), so that was the only form of exercise I had.
Onward to 1995, when I decided to start running again. Why? Basically, I did it for my mental health. My bike had been stolen, and I was too broke to join a gym. I barely had a clue as to what I was doing. I was armed with a beginning runner's guide from a fitness magazine and a pair of Asics that looked good and were on sale (duh). The Internet was unknown to me, and I lived in a part of Massachusetts that didn't have any running clubs. Like most athletic endeavours that I've attempted in my life, I really sucked at it. Just getting to 30 minutes of nonstop running seemed... miraculous.
So with all of that in mind, I'm not sure what I was expecting when I tried signing up for a 5 mile charity race a year later. I finished close to dead last, convinced that I was going to die from the heat (it was 98 degrees that day, and the race director, clearly a sadist, started the race in the afternoon). It was blatantly obvious (to me) that I had no business even trying to race. I almost threw my running shoes in the trash on the way home, but then I remembered that driving while barefoot is illegal in Massachusetts. The shoes stayed on me, but barely.
I picked up an issue of "Runner's World" later that week, and read an essay by John Bingham in "Runner's World" (his first), and I realized hey, maybe I don't have to be fast after all. That article is really the only reason why I didn't give up. Shortly after that, I moved closer to Boston, found other runners, got onto the Internet, and my running picked up from there. Thanks to some local "Deads" that I used to meet up with on Sundays, I got the nickname that I'm now writing this under (well, if there hadn't been cute Boston University guys standing around by the Charles River, and that dang tree root hadn't reached up and grabbed my foot, which caused me to do a near- perfect somersault... oh heck, the name suits me anyway).
Shortly after finishing my first 6 hour ultra (which happened about 7 months after finishing the Boston Marathon), I was severely injured by a patient at a psych hospital that I used to work at. I spent most of 1998 in pain and in bed, unable to move. I only barely escaped having to go under the knife. My personal life was a bloody mess, and it was all I could do to keep from falling into despair. The one thing that I wanted to do to take my mind off of it all was the very thing I could not do. Prior to that injury, I had actually managed 7 minute miles. I never got that fast again. (I'm lucky if I manage 9s right now.)
A year later, I spent a few days with Roy Benson and several other runners. It was a relief to hear from him that severe injuries like mine usually take about a year and a half to recover from, but that I'd be fine. Then we went out for a long run, and I was asked a very strange question. He asked how many 100 milers I'd run.
"Uh, none." I replied, baffled. "Why?"
"I've been watching you run, and you move just like they do. I think that's going to be your ideal distance."
Wait, my brain was saying. What? My body... me running... 100 miles? Ideal distance? Did he really say RUNNING and IDEAL DISTANCE in the same sentence about ME?!
Well yes, he had. There's one thing I've learned about training for long distance races and having significant others around, however: they get crabby about the training. (And good luck getting them to run with me.) Especially if it's for an ultra, and doubly so if you're as slow as me. When I say, "Okay, I'm going out for a run, I'll be back in 3 hours!" it's damn sure not when I'm in "peak mileage mode". They know that. Hence the crabbiness that inevitably sets in.
And hence why the 100 miler is still on my "to do" list.
Admittedly, getting into a car wreck last spring hasn't helped either:
So I'm starting over. Again. Though at least this time my personal life isn't a mess (on top of the other stuff), and I'm learning that my "heel striking running ways" is probably what held me back for so long as an adult distance runner. So I'm relearning how to run like a kid again too (although the Oklahoma grass is WAY meaner than any crabgrass I ever met in New England. Ever try running on sand burrs? I rest my case!) in huaraches (speaking of the traditional footwear of the Tarahumara, I guess I should point out that I found out about Barefoot Ted and his "minimalist footwear" only a few weeks before "Born To Run" even came out-- and I only found out about THAT from his blog, which I think is pretty funny. Certainly gave me more inspiration when I finally got a copy), and sometimes use a metronome to make sure I stay in range of the right cadence (that annoys the heck out of me-- the noise, not the cadence), and maybe, just maybe, I can go out for a 3 hour run someday and the mileage won't seem so laughable.
(Wow, if you managed to read the whole thing then you must have insomnia as bad as I do. :P)
Comments
I have "Swimming to Antarctica" on my Amazon Wish List right now. Might have to make that a birthday present. :)
Also- read Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox - will keep you motivated as well.
Cheers!