Today’s accompanying tune: “Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls
The moon hid behind dense clouds to my west as I drove through the early morning. Its glow mustered just enough power to indicate its position, but failed to reach the ground beneath my tires. It wasn’t the sky of fall, the wisps of high clouds making for a dramatic evening around a bonfire ripe for ghost stories. No, it was the sky of late spring in the Pacific Northwest, dense, impenetrable, the masses of moisture so thick as to appear solid in the sky above. The irony was enough to land quietly in my slowly waking mind: I’d just written about missing the moon, about needing to feel her in my life. Now, here she was, though nearly obscured beyond recognition. A whisper of a reminder, a slow breath of presence as I made my way south along the highway. Maybe, it would be enough.
The night before, I piled a heaping serving of pasta on my plate and imagined what it would feel like to run 50 miles. It was a goal I’d set for myself earlier in the year, and the race I’d wanted hadn’t come to pass. Instead, I battled nausea and high humidity in high early spring temperatures for 32 miles, timing out at an aid station 18 miles short of my goal. I walked away from that race unsure of whether my body could hold up over such a distance, and whether my mind was strong enough to keep pushing even when my body hurt. Though I’d tried to remain positive and use the race as an experience to learn and adjust for future projects, doubt seeped in, dampening everything it touched. I questioned whether I enjoyed running, whether I was wasting time exploring a sport I’d never be successful in, whether I’d again convinced myself I wanted something more than I truly did. My mind was funny like that, able to convince itself of false truths, ones that went against its own instincts and beliefs, a manipulator of its own unhappiness. Its incubation of doubt infiltrated other aspects of my life without invitation, forcing me to wallow in its thoroughness in everything from writing to friendships to pet ownership. At its beckoning, I dove deeper into its depths without realizing how far down I’d gone.
Would running 50 miles drag me back to the surface with the promise of fresh air? Would it be cloaked in the impossible, a surface I struggled and failed to reach while my lungs burned and my limbs flailed helplessly against the heaviness of the water? Would it feel anticlimactic, a threshold crossed but not acknowledged as I trudged on? Would it feel like more of the same, a dense weight sitting on my body as I looked around at the other runners, unencumbered and free? Would my mind propel me forward? Would my body hold up? Would the pains come and go? Would I be tough enough to wait them out? Would my stomach cooperate? Doubt knew what its answer was to each question, its soft voice echoing with each incantation. But I wasn’t sure if I agreed.
I’d been told for most of my life that I could do anything I put my mind to. For teachers and instructors it was often an endorsement of my work ethic, my proclivity for a wide range of subjects or skills, and a subtle acknowledgement of my tendency to employ stubbornness when needed. For others it was a threat, a reminder that failure was simply I choice I’d made, a responsibility I’d let slip. I hadn’t applied myself, they’d said. I was more than capable, I just hadn’t wanted it — whatever it was — enough. They couldn’t hear the sabotaging voice of doubt or see the acrobatics my mind was performing to convince me that I did indeed want to accomplish this or that goal, when I really wasn’t invested. To them, it was a simple exercise, one I often failed. A distinct dichotomy in which I often fell on the opposing side.
What did it look like to set my mind to something, to anything? The closest analogy was water, a stream or river perhaps. Something that flows, with minimal effort, around its paths and obstacles. Something continuous, a nonstop motion made of microscopic starts and stops propelling everything forward. It’s elusive yet mundane, a glimpse into ease that is not available to me every day, not for every activity. It is an acceptance that this was the way things were meant to be, not so much an optimistic hope but a reality, a fact. It is moving, yet unmovable. There is no doubt present, even in the most grueling moments. It is meditative, a simple acknowledgement of fear, pain, grief, or struggle, and watching the thoughts be swept away in the current as I carry on. To those on the outside, it seems inevitable, a result guaranteed before I’ve even begun. To those on the inside, it is an endless parade of decisions, microscopic starts and stops, and waving away of doubt as I choose to take another step. It is not magical thinking, though the magic comes from the thinking itself.
Before going to sleep the night before I saw the hint of the moon, I said aloud that I was going to run 50 miles the following day. I knew, from somewhere deeper than I could consciously access, that I would do it. That I would continue to choose moving forward, that doubt would arise and I would brush it away. That I would rectify the months of hurt and despair within those set 12 hours along a 1.7 mile looped course. I would embrace the monotony and offload the heavy lifting from my legs to my mind. In January, I had done something similar with a climb in Joshua Tree I’d never dared attempt due to my fear of exposure. The night before, I said I’d climb it, and somehow knew it to be true. No games, no manipulations, no capitulations in my mind. We’d all aligned, myself, my body, and my mind. It was only when I topped out on the climb that I realized the achievement, the previously unachievable that now sat below my feet. I’d put my mind to it, and there I was.
And now, months later, I would do it again. I would run 50 miles — 51, to be exact — in under 12 hours. I’d complete that 1.7 mile loop 30 times. I’d wince with each step as my feet pounded the asphalt and blisters blossomed, but I’d keep going. I’d do the math and pick up the pace with six laps to go to reclaim a podium spot and hit my target, both of which seemed unreachable an hour earlier. I rode the wave of emotions, a microcosm of life in just half of a day. I would welcome doubt into the current, and watch as it was swept away. I let my mind lead so that my legs could follow. Together, they led me again to the surface. A breath of fresh air, a sweeping away of all that had weighed on me. A little disoriented, a little bruised, and intensely grateful, I spun my head around and took in the scenery above the water from which I’d come.
This is what it felt like to run 50 miles.
This is what it felt to put my mind to something.
It felt like magic.
Here’s to silencing doubt, no matter how quiet it may be.
- Megan