Missed connections
An unexpected race report
Today’s accompanying tune: “Chelsea Dagger” by The Fratellis
“It’s okay to try something and not love it.”
I was sitting on my bed, logged into a Zoom chat with my therapist roughly three days after completing the Chicago Marathon. I was back in the desert, away from the big city, away from the noise of the crowds that still rang in my ears. Those ears were also clogged, thanks to a now-familiar-to-me case of post-race sinus funk. I’d gotten back the night before and promptly slept nearly 12 hours upon arrival. I was recovering, yes, but the fact remained that the race simply hadn’t been what I’d hoped it would be.
If I think back to Saturday evening, the night before the race, I could have predicted this outcome, the one in which I finished the race — an accomplishment in itself — way beyond my goal time without any feeling of excitement or success. When I’ve attempted big things — whether previous races of other distances or hikes to summits unknown — my insides are alight with the fire of expectation, of anticipation. Not of anxiety or worry, but of the sheer knowledge that I want this thing so wholly, so desperately, and soon I will find out if I can have it. If the universe is working in my favor, if the mountain accepts my presence, if the training and sacrifice leading up to the attempt was enough to make me worthy. I dream of the ascent, of the finish line, dreams so vivid I question whether I’ve already set out upon waking. I go through the motions of checking and rechecking gear, the electric current of near-giddiness carrying me through whatever ungodly hour at which I’ve woken up. I know this feeling intimately. It is my guiding light, always. If I have this feeling, I know I am doing something important, something that feeds my soul and lights up the darkest parts of myself. It’s a feeling I chase, year after year and season after season, hoping to capture it, even fleetingly, just one more time.
And on Saturday night, the night before my first marathon, it was nowhere to be found. I laid out my race kit, snapped a few photos, lined up my hydration for that evening and the following morning. I shoveled in a few more carbs before settling in to watch a movie I’d watched a thousand times before, one which has proved to be ample inspirational fodder for previous big goals. But as I sit so comfortably in the plush hotel bed, all I could think of was being anywhere but here. Anywhere but the high rise surrounded by ambulance sirens and consumed by light. I wished for the energy to become contagious, for the excitement pouring off other runners to consume my mind, for the peer pressure and general hoopla of a World Marathon Major to swallow me whole. For the emotion I felt when watching the Olympics to settle — hell, I’d be happy if it simply arrived. If I could feel anything at all. Anything besides the deep-seated antipathy, the resignation of knowing any time goals, anything that required drive and determination, would be out of the question. Knowing I could finish — that I would finish, barring any major physical catastrophe — meant that the mystery, the draw, the challenge of the race didn’t reside in the same place other races or challenges had.
I woke at a semi-ungodly hour Sunday morning without the telltale buzz of electricity that often signaled that I was about to have the best day of my life. I put on my race kit and assessed myself in the mirror — I looked like I was about to run a marathon. In a few hours, I would be able to call myself a marathoner. I would see the results of months of training, prove to myself that I could do it. I would see friends and family that traveled across the country to cheer me on with handmade bracelets and Taylor Swift-inspired signs throughout the course, their energy hopefully feeding my own drought-stricken reservoirs. A quick thought flashed through my mind — I could just not go. Curl back up in bed and head to the course to cheer on the other runners, the ones who wanted this so badly they could taste it. The ones willing to give it their absolute all. The ones who deserved to be there. As soon as the thought appeared, though, I dismissed it, still under the delusion that my excitement would appear eventually. Once I arrived at Grant Park, perhaps. When I was in the starting corral, definitely. As I ran over the starting line, a given.
I walked with hordes of other runners through the lit-up streets of early morning Chicago towards the Red Line station. The energy was palpable, a nervousness intermingled with excitement and dash of “can I actually do this?” Runners in old sweatpants and throwaway sweatshirts bounced up and down, warming their legs and revving their nerves. We boarded the train heading south, pouring out of the car at our destination and flowing effortlessly towards the entrance gates. Even in the crowd, my buzz never materialized. What I’d been hoping to see, what I’d been hoping would help carry me through 26.2 miles, simply refused to appear. It was going to be a different kind of race, then, I realized.
I ran well within my strategy, refusing to let the crowds early on influence my pace so I still had some gas in the tank for the second half. I exploded with excitement when I spotted my friends and family on the course and took in every sign, every dog, every building. I danced with the performers in Boystown, though I refused to take the free shots offered. I soared through the halfway point with a tight hip flexor and the general pleasure of having kept up with my pace group thus far. I made it out to the United Center, back in via Pilsen, through Chinatown, and across University of Illinois, Chicago, in stops and starts. My headphones died at mile 22, and for the first time a surge of emotion — pure rage — surged through me as I seriously considered chucking the useless piece of rubberized plastic on the ground. If I wasn’t going to hit my goal time in the race, at least I could have had a good time pushing through to the finish with the playlist I had painstakingly curated for this very purpose. No, the universe had other plans, aided by technology. No, I would be alone with my thoughts for the last several miles, thinking only of the pain in my hips and how much I had dropped off my pace. I had to decide, with every step, to keep running. Every second, an agonizing choice to simply not stop. I had decided to finish, therefore I would. But I didn’t want to, had no desire to push the pace and see what I was capable of. I ran up Mount Roosevelt, the last stretch of the race before the finish line is in sight and the only hill on the famously flat course. I clapped on other runners that had slowed to a walk, trying to use positivity I couldn’t muster for myself to help them onward. I rounded the corner and saw my partner on the sidelines near the finish. I was about to be done. I had done it. It was almost over.
I never cried. Not when I started. Not when I crossed the block on which I’d met my dog at the adoption center 10 years ago. Not when I saw my family and friends. Not when each step sent agonizing bursts of pain shooting up my hips. Not when my headphones died. Not when I saw my partner at the end, cheering and telling me I did it. Not when I crossed the finish line. Not when the medal was placed around my neck. Never once, in several hours, was I overcome with emotion. I’d cried on my shakeout runs along the lake, through the high rises, walking amongst the other runners. I was in awe that I was here, I was doing this incredible thing I’d thought about since I volunteered at the race in high school. Now that I had done it, well, I was unimpressed. My legs hardly worked and my mind was akin to soup but, really, there was never any doubt that I would do it. Simply completing it wasn’t enough, and a race against the clock not nearly satisfying enough a motivation. I’d set my sights on a comfortable go, when all I’d really wanted was to get uncomfortable.
I tried to dissect the race, first in my mind and then with my therapist, to diagnose what exactly went wrong. What had I missed, what was missing? Was it the city setting, the big crowds, the running exclusively on paved roads? Was it my fueling, my hydration, my training? After nearly an hour of postmortem, my therapist suggested that it didn’t matter, not really. If I didn’t enjoy it, that was enough. That I had thoroughly convinced myself I wanted this, that I would get that buzzy feeling from this goal, without stopping to think whether or not that was true. I’d done what I thought I was supposed to do instead of what I actually wanted to do — something big and scary and remote and incredibly difficult. It was a box I felt I had to check before moving on, a prerequisite to the goals that, even in their infancy now, generate a low-level buzz. The ones that I don’t know if I can actually do. The ones I want to try.
Here’s to what’s next, what lights your darkest parts, and what keeps you going.
- Megan