I ran my first half marathon last Sunday in Vancouver. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and cool, and over 3500 runners ran a very scenic course from the University of British Columbia, through Kitsilano, across the Burrard Bridge to Stanley Park. A band played raucously; runners, munching bananas and bagels, mingled with excited families and friends; and I felt oddly flat. As Peggy Lee might have said, "is that all there is to a race?"
I don't want to admit to feeling competitive; yet the next morning, looking at the race results online, I felt deflated when I saw I was slower than the average runner in my age group. I ran the race in a respectable 1 hour and 55 minutes - five minutes faster than my public goal of 2 hours, ten minutes slower than my private goal of 1:45.
A small dishonesty to be more ambitious than I might let on to others; yet part of a persona I've interiorized for a very long time. Nearly twenty years ago, I went to Balliol College at Oxford, an institution that instilled the ideal of 'effortless superiority', which fit well for someone who never did homework and passed exams with minimal study.
Yet there are no shortcuts in running. My body will carry me as far and as fast as it is able. Training, recovery, rest, and nutrition will make me stronger; yet no matter how much effort and time I put into it, I won't become a world beater. Time's arrow flies in one direction, and sometimes that is down hill.
Or should I make that uphill? Most of the Vancouver half marathon course was along a gentle downhill slope - too easy to over-stride or go for broke too early. For the first half of the race, I resisted the temptation to run fast, shuffling along on the grass verge whenever I could, shifting to a walk every ten minutes, watching other runners go by, then enjoying the childish pleasure of catching up to them and passing them again. I played 'tag' for four turns with one tall bearded heavy-set man who was pushing along as hard as he could. Somewhere around Spanish Banks, I complimented him on his form and then ran away, determined to complete the second half within fifty minutes.
Which I did - accelerating after making it through the long Art Nouveau rise of the grand old bridge and the opening curve of Beach Drive. One man lay stretched out flat on the sidewalk, his head cradled still by a couple of paramedics. Another casualty had an oxygen mask strapped to his face. All this from a two hour race? On the other side of the street, a woman came cruising down, obviously a fast runner who had just completed the race, enthusiastic, exhorting us to finish hard, complete the race in under two hours. I nodded and began to really pour it on along that final stretch.
And then the painful expectancy of a finish line, surely it should be around this corner, no, wait, what's that red banner, just a sponsor's logo, and yes, finally, legs flailing, running out of steam just a moment too soon, then recovering to run tall past the line and through, lining up for a perfunctory medal, a banana, an overheard conversation about the latest running watch, stretching while waiting for a bus back to the race hotel, relaxing over green tea and an almond chocolate croissant with a friend who was reading a newspaper story about our ongoing epidemic of mental illness.
I'm wondering now about a possible parallel between mental illness and running - maybe I'll save that for another post when I'm not feeling depleted!
I don't want to admit to feeling competitive; yet the next morning, looking at the race results online, I felt deflated when I saw I was slower than the average runner in my age group. I ran the race in a respectable 1 hour and 55 minutes - five minutes faster than my public goal of 2 hours, ten minutes slower than my private goal of 1:45.
A small dishonesty to be more ambitious than I might let on to others; yet part of a persona I've interiorized for a very long time. Nearly twenty years ago, I went to Balliol College at Oxford, an institution that instilled the ideal of 'effortless superiority', which fit well for someone who never did homework and passed exams with minimal study.
Yet there are no shortcuts in running. My body will carry me as far and as fast as it is able. Training, recovery, rest, and nutrition will make me stronger; yet no matter how much effort and time I put into it, I won't become a world beater. Time's arrow flies in one direction, and sometimes that is down hill.
Or should I make that uphill? Most of the Vancouver half marathon course was along a gentle downhill slope - too easy to over-stride or go for broke too early. For the first half of the race, I resisted the temptation to run fast, shuffling along on the grass verge whenever I could, shifting to a walk every ten minutes, watching other runners go by, then enjoying the childish pleasure of catching up to them and passing them again. I played 'tag' for four turns with one tall bearded heavy-set man who was pushing along as hard as he could. Somewhere around Spanish Banks, I complimented him on his form and then ran away, determined to complete the second half within fifty minutes.
Which I did - accelerating after making it through the long Art Nouveau rise of the grand old bridge and the opening curve of Beach Drive. One man lay stretched out flat on the sidewalk, his head cradled still by a couple of paramedics. Another casualty had an oxygen mask strapped to his face. All this from a two hour race? On the other side of the street, a woman came cruising down, obviously a fast runner who had just completed the race, enthusiastic, exhorting us to finish hard, complete the race in under two hours. I nodded and began to really pour it on along that final stretch.
And then the painful expectancy of a finish line, surely it should be around this corner, no, wait, what's that red banner, just a sponsor's logo, and yes, finally, legs flailing, running out of steam just a moment too soon, then recovering to run tall past the line and through, lining up for a perfunctory medal, a banana, an overheard conversation about the latest running watch, stretching while waiting for a bus back to the race hotel, relaxing over green tea and an almond chocolate croissant with a friend who was reading a newspaper story about our ongoing epidemic of mental illness.
I'm wondering now about a possible parallel between mental illness and running - maybe I'll save that for another post when I'm not feeling depleted!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment