The detailed account of a once overweight child's transformation into a five-time marathon runner and Division I cross country runner, plus a few other random thoughts. There are always goals to achieve; never settle!
Nights like these keep me up every once in a while.
perhaps it's the peculiar way I'm cerebrally programmed, but sometimes there are just these intangible feelings that are simultaneously so enthralling and, well,
frightening.
You see, I firmly believe that we all have inside of us this intrinsic Voice that demands our attention. It tells us to follow a certain path, sometimes blindly, and to not question it, nor second guess yourself, but to just follow it and see where it goes.
Maybe a poor analogy, or pun, or both, but my running has garnered these thoughts from me. I think that's normal for any of us with an ardent fervor for something, whether it be running, our profession, traveling, anything. We question at some points if this is what we should be doing, if it is worth it, if we are capable of being the best at what we yearn to do. Nobody wants to be satisfactory at their passion. If they do, well, then that's not their passion.
Ever since I started running after I graduated high school just 2-and-a-half years ago, I've followed the path to becoming a 4-time marathoner blindly. I never asked questions. I only ran more, and more, and more, until I reach the point where running 23 miles on a Sunday morning doesn't seem too daunting. I'm neither proud nor upset by this. It's just what I have become, for better or worse. So much has been sacrificed on my part due to my passion for running: fun with friends, time with family, time devoted to other activities, schoolwork, even relationships have suffered due to my commitment. Sometimes, I think this Voice is wrong.
Or maybe I'm just making excuses.
Maybe the jury is still out on that. Maybe I run so much to satiate some internal desire of mine. Maybe it's just the fear of being overweight again like I was for so many painstaking years of my childhood. I guess the reality is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why we focus so much on what drives us, what inspires us, or why the Voice tells us to speed up, not slow down, and just keep going.
What matters is the process. If you cannot be satisfied, or happy, with the journey of greatness (that could also very well lead to failure), then you're doing the wrong thing. Pick something else to take up your time. The Voice gets its own pleasure in seeing the development of the path, the end of the road.
For some, it may be a promotion, the nailing of a presentation, or getting elected. For me, this is my path with my end. And, when I reach it, I am ever so positive that The Voice was right all along.
As some of you may know, either from knowing me personally or through reading previous posts (most likely the former), I ran in the Philadelphia Marathon on November 21st, three short weeks ago. For one of my classes, I was asked to keep a "running" diary of sorts about my experience before, during, and after the race, this is what I came up with. This, I try to explain, is what it is like to run a marathon, and the insane emotional and physical roller coaster you endeavor while running it. Enjoy:
Twenty six point two miles.
One hundred thirty-eight thousand, three hundred thirty-six feet.
It’s almost double the distance between Florida and the Florida Keys.
I ran that distance nine days ago.
On Nov. 21, I ran in the Philadelphia Marathon for the second time in my short life and marathon career. It was the fourth overall marathon I have competed in, but one thing stays the same.
It doesn’t get easier.
Sure, I may have dropped my time 41 minutes so far, from the marathon fledgling I was in 2009 at the Lake Placid Marathon where I ran 3:23:17, (an average of 7:46 pace per mile) to the runner I am now with a personal best of 2:42:52 (an average of about a 6:12 pace per mile). In reality, however, times don’t matter.
With a race of this magnitude, this difficult, this daunting, it’s more about the adventure and how you get there than your actual finishing time.
Marathons have experienced an exponential increase in the last five years due to the most recent running boom that has expanded the sport of running (and, in particular, marathoning) to a new, never-before attained level.
Yet, still, less than 1% of the American population run a marathon each year. And, understandably so. Marathons are asinine to even consider attempting, as it asks for your undivided mental capacity and focus, as well as your best day physically, for all to go well and not hit that disdainful wall, to not pass out at mile 18, to just plain survive. Excruciating mental pain, physical agony, or both, isn’t just likely.
It’s inevitable.
Perhaps the toughest part mentally is waking up at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. Or, maybe it’s the waiting around before the gun goes off, thinking, just thinking, about the wild ride you’re about to go on. You start to question everything, from what you ate for breakfast, to your training, to the guy next to you. Did I eat too close to the starting time? Am I in good enough shape? Can I beat this guy next to me?
Boom.
That’s the sound of the gun. All previous thoughts are tossed aside from the brain and all focus is now upon the 26.2 miles ahead. Adrenaline is so abundant and ubiquitous in the body, in the atmosphere, that you try to start out slowly so that you don’t burn out at mile 22, when you still have four miles left to go.
The first mile was a little too fast, as it always is. About 25 seconds too fast. At least it felt comfortable, I thought. Maybe this isn’t too bad after all. Let’s try to hold this pace for now.
That pace stayed consistent for the first 11 miles or so with no real variation. Perfect, I thought. I’m feeling great. This will be a piece of cake!
Mile 13 saw me go into the halfway point at precisely where I thought I could be on a flawless day. Could I be flawless for the second half? Maybe. Hopefully.
My coach Pete Colaizzo left me with a valuable lesson before I left for Philadelphia. Colaizzo, the director of cross country and track and field at Marist College, a venerable marathoner in his own right with plenty more experience than I, told me not to “crush” miles 12-18. That’s the point where you would get into a “groove” he said, and perhaps burn out before the most important part of the race which begins at mile 20.
He was right.
Around mile 19, I felt myself starting to slow down as I was approaching the final turnaround to head home. Each step seemed to just take double the amount of energy it did before. The blisters on my toes and heels became unavoidable. My thighs felt like cinderblocks. I was out of breath. My 20th mile was the slowest of all. It was clocked in at 6:39, over 30 seconds what it should be at this point and no sign of recovering.
“Let’s go Luke,” random benevolent spectator said. “You’re on your way home!”
“Okay 344,” said a kind runner who was dually experiencing the pain I was feeling. “You look great.”
I am positive that I did not look great, for I did not feel even good and guarantee I didn’t look it, either. Maybe it was the endorphins. Maybe I was hallucinating. But I had no tangible evidence to the contrary.
So I believed them.
Mile 21 was a little faster, at 6:17. Better, I thought, and I’m not dead yet! I push a little harder with only five miles to go.
Mile 22 was much quicker, 6:01. I’m back, I thought. Only four more miles left!
Mile 23 was the same at 6:01. Yes! Only a simple five-kilometers left to go. In the midst of my second wind were cries of, “You got ‘em kid! Stay strong!” said runners as I passed them.
Mile 24 was a tad slower at 6:11. The blacktop felt like quicksand as my legs were getting sucked into it. My brain tried to distract me, but the pain was too difficult to overcome.
I hit the wall.
Mile 25 was when the crowd started to formulate and cheer the runners on the home stretch.
“Pump those arms,” spectators said. “You’re so close!”
I was digging, digging, like I was using a shovel, to get my legs to move quicker, to bounce off the blacktop to no avail. My arms fell asleep from being in the same position for hours on end. Each step was as if spears were stabbing the bottom of my feet.
But, at mile 26.2, with steps to go, I limped across the finish line with a 15 minute personal best time, a smile on my face that travelled from ear lobe to ear lobe, and blisters the size of a quarter on each foot.
Even my legs, my indispensable legs who carried me and worked ever so valiantly for those two hours and 42 minutes, could not take any more, as they developed a pulse of their own, with each beat shooting an influx of pain that viscously simmered for hours.
Yet, all of it did not matter, as satisfaction, and personal glory, were both attained. Which, I suppose, begs one, final question to everyone else.
This is a question that I have been venturing out to answer for quite some time. It seems like a simple question. At least I thought it was. But, the reality is that it is so far from simple. In fact, it just may be impossible to answer such a question.
Luck, I guess, by definition, is the fortunate, (or unfortunate) occurrences in your life that just happen, well, because. I would have to say that it is a phenomenon that is borderline inexplicable. We truly do not know why one has good or bad luck in particular instances, but we do know that it is poingant and always with us.
But can this omnipotent facet of life be as powerful and free-falling as is generally suggested? Is that even humanly possible.
Know what I think?
No.
I consistently labor over such questions as these ad nauseam. My friends will tell you that I am a victim of consistent over-analysis of just about everything from a text message that ends in a period to why I ran 30 seconds slower on my 10 mile run today than when I did it three days earlier.
But this luck thing, I have concluded, that for the most part doesn't even actually exist as this spirit. Truth is, luck is synthetic. It's man-made. We all are responsible for our own luck. People that are primarily considered to have bad luck have it because they put themselves in situations that will be unlikely to engender good luck. Therefore, they will have bad luck. Whether that be not exhibiting healthy practices and eventually paying for it down the road, or being painfully unprepared to the point where you could humiliate yourself publicly.
On the contrary, those that have "good luck" are progressive. They're confident. They do not fold at those tumultuous times. Nothing phases them. They have the gall and patience to see things through and make the right decisions when necessary. Those with good luck will downright refuse to just let life, the intimidating adversary it can sometimes be, come to them. They go to life. Thus, producing their own good luck.
Now, of course, there are outliers. The mother of three who succumbs to vicious breast cancer after beating it decades earlier. The dedicated man who works three jobs to support his family, and gets fired from one of them so he can't pay the mortgage. The family who wins the lottery. These are just a few examples that just illustrate that there are some moments in life that have no explanation. There's no use in even trying to look at those examples because you'll drive yourself up a great wall looking for an answer.
There are acquaintances. There are coaches. There are friends. There are adversaries. There are "friends". There are teammates.There are family members. There are brothers and sisters and parents. There are friends that are as close as family. There are housemates. There are roommates. There are associates. There are outsiders we will someday meet, have met, and never meet.
There are girls. There are girls we love. There are girls we have loved. There are girls we wished loved us. There are girls that will never know of our love. There are girls we now loathe. There are girls we lament loving. There are girls we will never love. There are girls that we'd enjoy nothing more to see them again one last time. And, of course, there girls that we implore for their disappearance from Our earth.
There are those people. There are those we don't know. There are those we do know who they are.
They are friendly. They are supportive. They are covetous. They are malevolent. They are supporters. They are biggest fans. They are haters. They are haters. They are sometimes both. They are not good, not evil, just them. They are capricious. They are fasitidious. They are understanding, but disappointed. They are fascinated, but apathetic. They are conscientious, but oblivious.
It's an enthralling concept to sit around pensively and think about, like I have for the past 4 to 5 days. Everyone we have encountered has shaped us as a human being, for better or for worse. Each interaction we possess, each hardship fought, each triumph experienced, each nonchalant "Hello, how are you?" to strangers has meaning. Those family members, friends, the malevolent, haters, and teammates all have such an impact on my life that I have difficulty putting it into words. I'm not talking about how I'm so close with them and they mean a lot to me. They do. I'm talking about more than that. My reality is a concoction of all of their realities. And, without all of them, I would have no reality. This reality I have now would just be imagination.
Same goes for those haters, those role models, those girls we'll never love and the ones we will forever love. Even those associates, the fascinated and apathetic each have driven to what I have become. If one of my endeavors was just, say, effaced from my memory, I very well could be an entirely different human being than I am right now. If it weren't for you, all of you, those friendly strangers, those that understand, but are disappointed, and even the conscientious, however oblivious people all have direct responsibility to my personal outcome.
And for you, all of you, I say only what I can: Thank you.
Note to self: a monthlong hiatus in between blog posts is not good. I'll make sure to remember that for next time. But, alas, I digress from the beginning.
It is October 25th. A Monday. The beginning of another week, and six days until the childhood wonder day that is Halloween. For me, though, it marks something else.
Four weeks away.
Four weeks until all of my hard work since early June is put to the test in one day.
Four weeks until I aim for my goal that I've been striving for manically.
This day I am speaking of is November 21st, which so happens to be the running of the Philadelphia Marathon. It will be my 4th ever marathon, and my last race of 2010. And, the last four weeks are of the utmost importance to a marathon runner.
At this point out is when the zenith of all the hard work starts to finally ease up and crest downward, to give the body a rest, to "taper" to use some running jargon. More sleep is of the necessity and racing strategies are beginning to be thrown around between my coach and I. Different goals are cogitated, different possibilities of how to start and end the race are debated, but one thing stays the same.
Focus.
Ever since my last marathon in May, I have circled this date on my calendar. I have ran about 1,000 miles since with all of them focused toward a strong time in Philly. I have never worked harder in my life toward something and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Determination, motivation, et. al teaches you many things. Staying the course (no pun intended) and working through poor weather, laziness, and all the elements has taught me something spectacular.
That is, we all have this lupine energy within us to perform the extraordinary, the asinine, maybe even the impossible. It doesn't necessarily have to be running or athletic related, but the thing is, it's there. You may not have experienced it yet. Perhaps you have. But there is some intrinsic mana within all of us to outwill the doubtful, and outwork the others. And the best part of it all is...?
You have it too.
I'm the last person running would come too easily. I could not run more than 2 miles at a time at seventeen years old, which is flat-out lamentable for someone who is supposed to be in the prime of their life and health. I battled my own issues of being overweight for most of my life. Until about three years ago, this was me.
But not anymore.
I know now I am both physically and mentally ready for what is ahead. I can envision myself beating my best time by 5, maybe even 10 minutes. I have never possessed such focus and motivation before.
The same is possible for everyone. We all have what drives us to be better, to be stronger, to strive for the very best and nothing less. It's some internal lightswitch that once turned on by some resplendent memory or event (for better or worse) is impossible to turn off. It's a robotic, recalcitrant even, sense that refuses to be ignored.
And when it finally turns on, you'll never be more ready.
