This morning, I watched the sunrise light the eastern horizon beneath pink cotton candy clouds as I ran alone along the shoulder of Alexander Lane that climbs up one side of Rattlesnake Mountain and down to Veteran’s Parkway. Around mile four or so, the road eventually meets the bike path where I spent my mornings rollerskating by the marshes last year. If I’m completely honest, I wasn’t sure I could complete the entire 6.5 mile loop this morning, running, but since it was 5 a.m. and I was up anyway, I thought: why not give it a try?
Last year, running that route felt like the air was a cheese grater against my lungs and like my legs had weights in them. Today, though, I felt good. Not fast, but good…like I had some life in me again. I don’t know why I’m wired the way I am: how I need to train and I need a goal and I need a race or some event out in the far-off distant future to pull me along so I don’t look at the giant pits of despair that seem to line the shoulders of the life I’ve chosen to lead.
Maybe this is why I am not a “serious writer” (even though I am a serious writer. A lot of people don’t think so, and I’ve decided to stop listening to them.) There is something about the need to have a daily practice, though: a regimen, a routine, a discipline that I lost last year and rediscovered through a virtual performance that I participated in dancing on my rollerskates.
And this year: now that the world is opening up again, there are races and I’ve chosen one: an ultramarathon in September in which I’ll run 50 kilometers through a forest, something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because all of those old demons: the ones who call me fat, old, “not a real woman” because I don’t have children and I’m not married. All the blah, blah, blah I just want to toss out the car window on my way to the race because no matter what happens, I’m going to toe the line for that one.
Measuring Time
Sometimes I wonder if this will ever get old for me: signing up for races, using an event as a way to frame the memories and experiences of a certain point in my life. Most people use their age (by decades, typically), or maybe the houses in which they lived. For example: Oh, I did that in my thirties. Or: I can’t believe I wore plaid that way, but when you’re living in a trailer in East Sparks, I guess you just do what everyone else does. For me, it’s been the races I’ve trained for and competed in that separate my life into manageable parts (except for the vast desert of my late teens and early twenties when I didn’t compete in anything. That’s an undefined time. College-time. Post-college time. Lost time, mostly, but I digress.)
Otherwise, though, it’s the “that’s when I was training for the Lake Tahoe Marathon” or it’s “that’s the year when I did the Triple Crown Stage Race and Ironman and the Silver State 508 and I really lost all sensation of everything else in the world outside of racing” that locate events, memories, music I listened to, the clothes I wore, whatever restrictive or not-so-restrictive diet I was on, the men I dated at the time. “Oh, that was the Boston guy.” And yeah, I don’t mean that he was from Boston: instead, that was where I was racing and where all the energy of my life was directed like a laser beam: the man equated with the time, the Boston Marathon in which I ran a 3:13, the finishing photo and the space blanket they wrapped me in and that I kept on my sweaty body on the way to the airport because I had to teach a French 101 class less than 24 hours after I crossed the line.
I’ve decided not to worry about whether or not this was a healthy way of organizing my memories and just to go with it. The year I ran my first marathon— many, many years ago— that scheme just seemed to fit. Oddly enough, this organizing principle offered not only structure but closure: an ended relationship could just simply end like a race does: you cross the line and it’s done. No lingering, no what-ifs. You have a time, a distance and, if you’re lucky, a goodie bag with some snacks for the lonely drive home.
Granted, I gave that up in 2018 when I just couldn’t do the NCNCA racing circuit anymore and I got a “grown-up” job at a college, and I put the lycra onesie in a drawer where it gathered dust. I wish there was a specific reason I could cite why I did this. Even after having a lot of time to think about it, including a pandemic in which I spent vast swaths of alone-time with just me and a bunch of chickens, I don’t have a clear answer. I guess I was really tired of the crap, which included the USAC point-system which theoretically moves athletes up in rank as they progress, only it wasn’t because hardly any women were showing up to races and so these events turned out to be eight hours of wasted time since I was driving in from Reno and most of the races were over four hours of drive-time away.
And the policing. The “don’t cross my wheel” and “let’s have so-and-so show you how to ride” line that some of those women fed me in these road races and I was like: Look ladies, I’ve ridden 200 miles at a time. You think I can pass you up? Really? Me? I’m really not that kind of athlete- I’m more of the ‘let me pull you along for hundreds of miles’ type.
Or when it was clear that these bike races had more to do with strategy than strength, I knew I had to find something else. It’s just not my style, not how I want to race or even can (if I’m honest) and so I was like this person expecting a costume party and I show up and I’m the only person dressed like a slutty bunny and everyone else is just in normal clothes. And not just once, but over and over again.
And so, as we would ride polite laps, each revolution of my feet around the crank, the realization would dawn on me: This is a race about hiding in the back and we can all roll along at 12 mph and think we’re cool in these colorful kits. And at some point, seconds from the finish, someone’s going to jump and we’re all going to jump and it will be this mad dash and I don’t know, my spirit just lost its glow at that moment because it’s about the journey, not just the end, right? Doesn’t it matter we rode XX miles and not just sprinted to the finish?
And I get it. I’m being a jerk. If this COVID-19 year has given me anything, it’s the space and time to use my voice. It’s a voice I’ve gotten used to and that I like. And so, I might as well say: I’m 39 years old and that’s too old to be “paying your dues.” Or doing something that started to feel ridiculous. So I just stopped racing. I’m not sure I picked the right solution, but back in 2018 it was the one that was right for me.
Returning to a Race
Yet, here I am again. Like I mentioned earlier, I just signed up for a race. An ultra-marathon because at least with running, when it’s that long, you can’t draft and it’s really not about anything but your relationship to time and distance. Even though there’s a lot I could say about body (my body), about trauma, about middle age and sadness, it really came down to something very simple: I just feel so lost without these time-markers in my life.
I am not sure I am physically able to run for 50 kilometers (a bit over 31 miles.) I ran 6.5 today and felt OK. But five times that distance??? Me??
Ugh, I don’t know.
Sometimes I wish I could just get rid of the doubt and despair. They are old and heavy like chains wrapped all around my body. Dark, and dragging me down. Sometimes I can hardly breathe when the doubt comes and if I’m totally honest half the time I think: I just can’t do this anymore.
I know I can. I always have. Life hasn’t been easy on me and the narrative of arriving at a starting line and doing your best has carried me through life. I’m never entirely sure I can do anything when I start out. But I know that I am capable of putting one foot in front of the other. I can write one word at a time. That, for now, has been enough.
And so- here I am, stepping into the world as a professional writer because I am. And returning to a metaphor that has supported that assumption for a lot of miles (and years.)
And- what would it be like for me to fail? Granted, if I showed up that day and all I did or could do was walk, I’d still finish the event, take the goodie bag, and head on my way home. The thing is: that might be the reality of what this will be like. I have an hour-long run before work on Friday, and I’m wondering: can I run for an entire hour? After all my injuries? After I fractured my pelvis on the skates last year? And beneath the weight of my doubt?
I’m willing to risk that- not knowing if I will completely suck or be able to do the event. Either way, it will be all me: all my body. No sponsors, no drafting. Just me, a pair of running shoes in the quiet forest and about eight hours of time to cover 50 kilometers to a finish line. I’ve got to believe I can.
I’ve got to believe in something.
This might as well be it.