Wanna Race?

As of December 15, 2010 - 1001 miles run.

I’d had a vague goal of finishing up on the 15th, I liked the idea of two weeks early. Two weeks to wake up and not wonder when I’d get a run in, two weeks to drink in the accomplishment. I’d wanted to finish with a longer run, wanted it to be outside and wanted to end at 1001. The Universe agreed to all. I ran the final 6 miles on a bright, bitter cold morning.

I felt vaguely numb. I’d actually done it. All the way, no shortcuts. Some nights I’d had to get on the treadmill at 10:30 p.m. with eight miles to do, I’d run through injury and illness, I’d run when it was the last thing on earth I wanted to do, I’d run in searing heat, spitting rain and biting cold. I ran races in Belgium and Chicago. I ran through the most trying year of my life, through the collapse of my marriage and through the agonizing illness and death of my dear friend Jill. Save for three beautiful miles run with someone I love, I ran them all alone, but with an ever present cheering section in the form of my kids and friends and family. I never considered abandoning the goal, never once.

Before I was even done with the 1000 (1001!) miles, I’d started getting antsy about the next goal. I signed up for the Chicago Triathlon about a week before I finished the 1000. I figured the new goal could be some combination of swim/bike/run. But that didn’t feel quite right. I hadn’t quite realized how much I’d come to love the simplicity of ticking off miles run, miles left. When circumstance threatened to overwhelm me, there were still miles to run. Running, and the conviction that I simply would not fail became the most basic and effective form of therapy I’ve ever known.

So I’ve decided that I will beat my mileage in 2011. That is, at least 1002 miles by December 15th, 2011. I have till midnight Dec 31 to change my fool mind. There are a lot of things I’ll need to do in 2011. I’ve decided to go back to school, I’ll be working more and more hours, I have the house and the kids and all of the things that can legitimately claim priority number one status. There is also the little matter of that triathlon I signed up for (I swear, I was not drunk when I did that). I woke up in a bit of a panic the morning after I decided to spend anther year running my ass off, but the fact of the matter is that running saved my life this year, and arguably has been saving my life for the past four years. Now is not the time to slow down.

A few years ago, when Facebook was up and running but “defriending” had not yet joined the American lexicon, a girl I’ll call AG, started a stir. AG and I had gone to school together from the time we were in third grade through high school. I have a lot of friends I’ve known and knew somehow to love deeply from early on, from those little girl years. AG was not one of those girls, nothing deep and dark, I just kept my distance. She rubbed me wrong. Somehow though, through the inappropriate connectivity of Facebook, AG became one of my “friends” and I became privvy to her doings. Specifically, she spend a fair amount of time scanning in and tagging yearbook photos from middle school and high school.

AG seemed hellbent on making enemies. She didn’t say mean things about anyone, she simply dredged up pictures of the most awkward times of our lives, and showed them to everyone we know. As I write this out now, it actually strikes me as really funny and if she was trying to make some sort of retributive point, she found a really fucking funny way to do it. It was only a matter of time before I woke up to find a picture of myself tagged on Facebook. I only vaguely remember the picture, it didn’t horrify me as much as the Senior Quote attributed to me on the same page:

“Trust Yourself.”

I untagged immediately.

Not that it isn’t a truth, but who is some dumb 18 year old to be making statements like that? The thing that bothered me the most is that I doubt at all I trusted myself even one little bit. Did I? Why couldn’t I have thought of some much more clever, funny, wry thing to say? Trust yourself? C’mon! What a dork.

Except for that it was a pretty smart thing to say and believe. Somewhere along the line, we start this slow, insidious disbelief in ourselves. Ask any five year old in the world if they are a good artist, and more likely than not, you’re gonna see some fiesty bravado. “Am I an artist? Yes!” Hell yes. And they are good at math, can slide down a slide faster, swing higher, sing better, tell funnier jokes, live in a cooler house and outrun anyone who thinks they can catch ‘em. Kindergartners have the world on a string, baby. They have no reason to believe in anything other than success. If it can be done, they can do it.

There’s a story I don’t tell often. When I do, it’s with the preface “This is the dumbest effing thing I’ve ever done.” But it’s 20 years after the fact and I still think of the story almost daily.

I had gone back to my sleepy rural college for Homecoming. Back when I was in school, I used to take walks along a country road behind my dorm. Miles of the quietest, most solitary road I know. I spent my sophomore and junior years watching a dead dog decompose in a ditch on the side of that road. It was that solitary, that a big dog could slowly rot away and no one, save the rare walker, would ever even see him. I once happened on a little tornado of tiny blue butterflies as I walked. They were there, swarming on the side of the road. They didn't splutter off as I approached, so I watched for a while, then crept up and knelt down in their midst and they kept swarming in this mini twister cloud of pale blue fluttering wings. They landed on my hands and my face, their tiny, powdery tickling felt like magic. The road had some good juju.

This particular day, the sky was a kind of blue that is so true it hurts your eyes, the sun was high, and the breeze smelled like woodsmoke. You couldn’t ask for a prettier day, so I set out on my old walk. A mile or two in, a guy on a motorcycle rode by, fast and loud. I saw him glance over at me as he rode past. About ten minutes later, he came back, slower now. He stopped about 10 yards beyond where I was and looked over his shoulder at me. His youngish face was rough and tan and windblown. He wore a t-shirt, faded, dusty jeans and well worn work boots, like he had just up and left some farm task to take advantage of the perfect riding weather. He shouted over his motor "You wanta ride?"

He seemed honestly curious and maybe even concerned. The question he asked me "You wanta ride?" he could’ve been asking if I wanted a ride TO somewhere, or just a ride. Suddenly, a ride was exactly what I wanted. So I said yes, walked over and got on. I held on to him for being the answer I didn't know I was looking for and I trusted past reason that somehow if I needed to run away from him, I would be able to do it. It was an irrational belief in myself, in my power and my judgement, but the moment I let my feet leave that road, I believed in my decision to accept that ride.

We rode fast and silent along the road that cut through the countryside like a length of tossed ribbon. I had ridden so many hundreds of miles on the back of my dad’s Honda 360 that I knew to lean comfortably into every curve of the road and the man. Every moment of that ride felt right. We rode around for a while until eventually he navigated us back back to the school. He slowed to a stop and I got off the bike wordlessly. I met his green eyes and then thanked him, I’m sure I smiled before I walked away. He rode off and never looked back.

I do wince in retrospective horror at the idiocy of my decision. There is no great vindicating ending here. Nothing will right the massive lack of common sense I displayed and I never think of this story without a deep clutch of thanks that it ended up a good memory and not a tragedy. I’ve never told my kids this story and doubt I will until they have kids of their own and we can scold me together without my fear that they will take it as permission to start taking candy from strangers.

What I can say, is that twenty years ago I took a chance, and it could’ve ended tragically.

But damn, it felt good to believe again that I could outrun anyone.