Through a window darkly--with light coming from above

I can't believe I haven't posted here since December 14. I know why, of course. Two reasons: First, it is easier to throw a photo up on Facebook and make some flip comment than it is to come to this space and articulate what's really on my mind. Second, my running life has been complicated over the last six-plus months--it is even confusing to me. When I've pictured myself trying to explain what's been happening, my reaction lately has been to sigh and go play with the cat instead.

So what's been going on? For one thing, I have been back and forth to Connecticut five times since last August for family reasons. All that time spent in a crowded, airless, flying tube is bound to affect a person's general outlook in some way. My way turned out to be becoming claustrophobic, which I've never been before. All I wanted was to be alone somewhere in some open space and free to move my body.

And how about the actual running part of this time period? In October I ran a half marathon and was really happy with how I felt and how I finished. In the same month I started running on Saturdays, pacing the slowest runners training with the LMJS ORF group, which was conditioning for the Oakland Marathon, set for March 22. In December I ran CIM (a Sacramento marathon) and was once again pleased with my time and my general condition after the finish. 

Fast forward to February, when as part of the ORF training I ran the Kaiser Half Marathon in San Francisco and was again pleased with how I ran. So it's little wonder I signed up to pace the Oakland Marathon (the marathon itself, not just the training group). I felt sure that by March I would be at the top of my game.

Can you say "overtrained"? Come March 22, I was not at the top of my game, more like somewhere in the middle and descending. I ran out of gas at mile 18 and walked off the course, wishing I could throw off my "Pacer" shirt and dive naked into Lake Merritt to hide my shame. This was the first DNF in my 36-year-long running career. Crazily enough, BTW, this happened on the exact anniversary of the first run I ever took, way back on March 22, 1978. For that one I jogged around one city block in Key West, Florida--and I still regard it as one of the most wonderful runs I've ever done.

In the weeks that followed the Oakland Marathon, I felt a sea change in my assumptions about how I wanted my running life to go. I sent an email to the pacer coordinator for the See Jane Run Half in June, apologizing and telling her that I wouldn't be pacing that race, even though I had signed up to do it. I spent two separate weeks (on two different trips) back East, where it was snowing, raining, and just being generally inhospitable for this California runner, meaning I only ran twice each time I was there.

The evening I got home from the last East Coast trip, a couple of weeks ago, I stayed up all night emptying my digestive system of all traces of food and drink. I was out of commission for four days, meaning I had plenty of time between groans to think. During this forced hiatus, I acknowledged that i am 68 years old and, in my running life at least, haven't always kept that in mind. That doesn't mean I feel old, just that my mindset in other, non-running parts of my life has changed. As a retired person I've been coming to appreciate the benefits of slowing down--of not being tethered to a schedule or to a clock or to my phone or really to any commitments I don't enthusiastically embrace.

Yet, as a runner I've still been chasing faster times and longer races, feeling that somehow if I push hard enough I will never slow down. Even before I got sick, I'd begun to realize that, never having received a dispensation from above, I will most likely slow down some pretty soon, whether I want to or not, just like every other human being ever born. Maybe I should step out of denial here, as I have in other parts of my life, and think about what can be joyful about pushing a little less hard. Shorter races? No races? Slower long runs? (Giving up long runs did not appear on this hypothetical menu of choices.)

I don't know yet how my sickbed epiphany will play out. I do know I ran the Play Ball 5K at the Oakland Coliseum last Saturday with my friends K. and L. (seen photo on left) and I know I had a great day. 

My finish time was even respectable, considering that while we were running around the warning track inside the park I stopped and took some pictures and just soaked in the joy of standing on what is for this longtime A's fan hallowed ground. 

This is the second time in this post I've mentioned joy. Yesterday, as I was running by the Pleasanton Fairgrounds, I stopped at the fence to watch the thoroughbreds exercise. Seeing these perfect animal athletes deep in their own joy as they ran like the wind brought tears to my eyes. That's what I want, I said. To be able to access that deep happiness that running free can bring. I don't think it's too much to ask of myself. I just need to pay more attention.