"The bus will pick you up at 6:30 a.m.," the race information stated, but really, the bus didn't come until seven. That meant a half-hour of standing, shivering, in the cold desert morning. Behind me, the sun was just beginning to blue the night sky; in front of me, Orion blazed, bright as midnight, nearly setting behind the dark cliff. Orion is a hunter, not a runner (even though he chased the Pleiades across the sky), but he gave me a bit of courage at any rate. I'd been hunting something for the past year, after all: the achievement of a certain goal.
Last year, when I was training for the Snow Canyon half
marathon, I had a thought: what if I could run more than one half marathon in a year? What if I pushed myself and ran four? I consulted the Internet for possibilities, and my nebulous plan began to take shape. Snow Canyon, then the
Provo Half ; Hobble Creek in the summer, and Moab in the fall. Each race was a dot, a destination, a thing I drew a line toward as the twelve months progressed. The races kept me running even when I didn't want to run. The goal became my own personal constellation, a shape drawn out of seemingly-random dates.
Although I didn't get to run the summer race I wanted (Hobble Creek filled up in something ridiculous like 3.5 hours, so I did
Provo Canyon instead, and I am still trying to cope with the fact that the race Ts were printed with the wrong date), I still kept running. The line drew me forward, the dates coming as my mileage increased, and seemingly-all-of-a-sudden I found myself in Moab, at the beginning of my last goal race, waiting for the bus. Listening to the other runners around me, looking at Orion, thinking about the nature of goals and achievement. I had my large goal (the four races), but to accomplish it, I had to break things down into smaller pieces, individual goals that made the larger one possible. The goal that drove me the most between race three and four came about because of a surprise: as I trained, and did a little bit of speed work, an odd thing had happened. I got faster. So I set my last small goal: I wanted to complete the Moab race in under two hours.
Now, honestly, there are lots of runners who would roll their eyes at that goal. I know plenty of people who run four (or five or six) full marathons in a year, with consistent seven-minute miles. They qualify for the Boston marathon. They log 100+ miles in a week. So my four halves must seem paltry in comparison, and my sub-two-hour goal? More than a little silly, because that requires only a 9:04 pace. I know that, compared to them, my little achievements are just that: small. But really, running is something personal. Unless you're one of the elite runners who has a good shot at actually winning the race, you mostly compete just with yourself. Plus, it's all comparative; I listened to one group of first-time half-marathoners on the bus, for example, who were discussing their goal: finish the distance.
And honestly, the "my goals are pitiful" doubts were out voiced by a louder complaint. Had I been selfish during those twelve months of training, putting my running needs before my family's? I invested both money and time in no one but myself. If I were a good mother and wife, would I have a compulsive need to accumulate milage and race Ts? I need to always have my "thing" that I am trying to accomplish. Or, the even bigger question: what to name the fault in me, the weakness that requires a race in order to keep running. Why can't I just run a few miles every other day and be content—why do I need a race to work toward?
What I can't make the person whose questions were a loud voice in my head understand is just how exhilarating a race is. Even when you're not riding the bus with a girlfriend, even when you're shivering in the cold waiting for the gun to go off, there is just something about a race. Other people's energy fills you up. You get to run a road you've never run before—and it's usually a beautiful one. A race gives you motivation because it isn't nebulous or vague, like running a few miles every other day is. It lets you have a process and something to work towards.
Plus, there's always a T shirt, even with the wrong date.
Finally, the buses arrived to take us to the start of the race, and I turned resolute: whether or not I had been blindly selfish over the past year, the only remedy was to run the best race I could. So I silenced the "you're selfish" voice and I hushed the "your goals are pitiful" voice. I put my head on the window and watched the scenery color itself, from bland pre-dawn shades to the burnished-with-new-sunlight the rock walls took on. The Moab Other Half Marathon (called the "other" half because the original, and more widely-known, race is run in March) goes down the scenic Route 128, a canyon carved by the Colorado River.
I wish it had a better name, something that explains how scenic it really is. The early settlers called it the "Heavenly Stairway" but I'd like to know an intricate and earthy Native American name. Narrow spots, and wide, sandy meadows; blind corners that open to views of towers and mesas. Some of the cliffs are sheer, some the tumbled accumulation of massive boulders, but all are red sandstone. Moki holes and desert varnish, the white La Sal mountains sometimes topping the red distances, the sage-colored Colorado slow and wide and constant. I don’t think I’ve run in a more scenic space.
The race starts at the skeleton of an old bridge. There were hot chocolate and coffee, big metal cans holding fires, and long bathroom lines. I took a few gulps of warm beverage, made it to the front of the bathroom line, then stood by a fire when some other runner graciously gave me his spot. There was music, and a guy with a megaphone encouraging everyone to get their sweat bags in the back of the truck. This time, I’d been smart (unlike the Provo Half): I wore pants over my shorts, and a sweatshirt, but I still waited until the very last second to take them off. Then it was time to line up. Since my goal was to run nine-minute miles, I lined up by the 8:30 pace sign, hoping I’d find someone to stick to who would keep me running just fast enough.
After the gun goes off, it still takes two or three minutes to get to the official start line. That affects your time, so I made sure to start my watch just as I crossed the line. There were Native Americans at the start line, beating drums, and for the first half mile or so, that was the pace I followed, passing (and being passed by) other runners. By the first aid station—mile three—I had found my pace and it was, surprisingly, much faster than I had expected, about 8 minutes and 45 seconds. I decided to do something I've never done before: walk through the aid station and take a few seconds to get more than my customary half-swallow of water into my body.
In mountain canyons, the direction is consistent: up the canyon, or down. So if a race is all downhill, I can deal with that. If it is all uphill, I can deal with that, too. Canyons in the desert, though, are different; they take you through a valley rather than up to something higher. What I loved about this course—and what made it the hardest course I've ever done—is that it's mostly rolling hills. The first few hills were no problem, but then other runners started passing me on the uphills. I'd pass them again going down. I kept pushing, though. I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to hold anything back. So I went as hard as I could up the hills, and as fast as I could down. I checked my watch every two miles, and I kept my pace within five or six seconds to 8:45. I walked through the aid stations, I drank water, I had my half Block every two miles.
I felt fabulous. My ITB didn't bother me at all. I felt strong and fast, lithe and nimble. Drawing energy from the desert. Even though it was probably rude—people passing me had to go around—I ran right down the middle of the road, on the yellow line. Up and down hills, through the gorgeous scenery. My running play list, set to shuffle, brought up just the right songs. I thought about how I'd trained for this race—fewer long runs, but five long hikes. I picked a person to pass at random, and then slowly gained on her, and then picked someone else. I kept up my sub-nine pace. I didn't hold anything back.
I felt like a runner.
Maybe for the first time during a race: I felt like a runner. A strong, lean runner.
And then I got halfway through mile eleven. Just a little more than a mile and a half to go. Suddenly my strong melted away. Suddenly fast passed me by. Suddenly I was running through mud, not air. Suddenly I had nothing left.
Running 7900 more feet seemed impossible. Running 79 more inches seemed impossible. I pushed forward through the mud of exhaustion by thinking of what I could blame it on: running out of water on yesterday's hike, not enough long runs, all those rolling hills I didn't train for, bad running karma brought on by passing others, hotel-room beds and how I never sleep well on them, not enough carbs or too much sugar. I kept running, but barely. Everyone I'd passed passed me, having kept a reserve of energy for the end. I stopped looking at my watch and just went on hope that the rest of my miles had been fast enough to get me to my goal time.
The last little bit of the race turns off the canyon road. You run along a long, fence-lined dirt road that's the driveway for the Sorrell River Ranch. But it's not a straight shot. There's a 45-degree turn, and then another stretch, and then the finish line. That last bit seemed longer than all the other miles I'd already run. It stretched out in front of me, an impossibility. I kept running. I didn't pass anyone. I didn't look at my watch. I just pushed, as hard as I could, although it felt like nothing. The mud got thicker and thicker. I turned, finally. I saw the finish line. I pushed. I ran, but barely.
I passed the finish line, pushed STOP on my watch, and stopped running. I swayed. I didn't see Kendell, even though he is always at the finish line. I swayed, and then I tried not to sway. I didn't want to pass out. So I walked, and I looked for Kendell, and I finally stopped swaying, and I dared to look at my watch:
Forty-eight seconds. I missed it. I failed. I didn't achieve that goal that seemed, standing there by the Colorado river and trying not to sway or to cry, like the most important goal I could have ever achieved. Only I didn't. I stretched under a cottonwood tree and I wondered: how should I feel? Happy that I'd achieved the four-halves-in-a-year goal? Glad that I'd shaved three-ish minutes from my previous race time? Or downright disappointed in myself? Being me, of course I felt the latter. The litany of almost-good-enoughs in my life caught up with me for a few minutes, while I stretched there on the grass under the yellow tree by the river. I struggled to offer up the other ways of feeling as a dam to hold the flood back. It sort of worked.
I wandered around, looking for Kendell. Got some water, and a banana and an orange. Some chocolate milk for later. Finally I realized that he was probably back at the finish line, so I wandered back over there and found him waiting, right at the front of the line, camera up and ready. He thought I was running in pants, so he was watching for a girl in black pants, not black shorts. We laughed and I took a deep breath and showed him my time. I wanted him to be proud but I know he wanted me to achieve my goal too. I wanted him to tell me "that's OK, because how many people can say they've run four half marathons in one year?" and I wanted that to be balm enough.
Instead he said "You'll do it next time" and then told me how awful the parking for spectators was. But I wondered:
will I? Will I do it next time? Will I ever be
this close to my goal again? Did it take running four half marathons to get me that close, and if so when will I ever do that again?
I don't know. I was OK, though, with not bashing myself too badly on the ride back to the hotel. I was fine until Becky called, and I could tell in her voice that she was certain I had done it, and I had to tell her I didn't. Then I crumpled up on the hotel bed, the one I hadn't slept well on for two nights, and had an ugly cry. The cry that's full of disappointment, that gathers up all your failures into one lump of anguish, the one that leaves you exhausted and hopeless. Then I pushed myself up, took a shower, and went home, dreading the inevitable questions that would come. "How was your race?" people asked, and I hesitated before I could respond, every time. Wonderful and amazing, and at the same time, an abject failure.
That race was five weeks ago. Since then, I've gone running only twice. I don't want to lace up my shoes and hit the road. I can feel my strength and lung capacity dwindling. Maybe I just need a running break, need to take up another exercise for awhile. My heart tugs me back, though, to that feeling I had during the first eleven and a half miles. I want to feel like that again: fast, strong. Like a real runner. It was a sort of mythic feeling, somehow. Achievable only on rare days, when all the points become a shape, and the constellation was me, running in the desert, fast enough to catch something real.