Ten Miles With a Friend

 

 

November 8, 2021

 Greetings from the shuffle,

 Yesterday I went for a walk.  For company, I took my friend Humility.  We have a complicated relationship; we are close, but we don’t spend enough time together.  So, when he comes to visit, after the usual small talk and sort of adjustment to each other, I realize how much I’ve missed him.

 I was walking in an awkward gait, not quite hobbling, not really limping.  It is not a new experience, but I had forgotten the fullness of it.  This is the Marathon Shuffle, the little gift that runners enjoy for the few days after a race.  There is a loss of coordination, muscles don’t cooperate, there is a spectrum of pain, which fluctuates as the legs offer to do what they really aren’t fit to accomplish.  As I walked two miles, unqualified for that simple activity, Humility sidled up next to me and we renewed our acquaintance.

 The day before I was three hundred miles away, a distance I had driven so I could run another twenty-six-point-two miles before driving three hundred miles back, in order to prepare to walk another two miles the next morning.  When I write it out like that, I realize this would be hard to explain to a visiting alien.

 In thirty-three years of marathoning, I have a full catalog of experiences.  I have a short list of rules from this history to help guide me as I run.  One of them, ‘Don’t Judge the Race by the First Miles’ echoed in my mind through the first ten, at which time I realized there could be exceptions. 

 It was not the first time I bonked, and not the worst of those times.  In fact, it was a slow, gentle glide from where I ran as the athlete I believed myself to be, to this other place.  There was no anger, no choice, no amount of motivation that was going to change things.  I simply leveled down. I reached a new pace, fifty percent slower than I had been running, my legs nearly numb with fatigue.  And then my friend joined me.

 What’s comical is that in every other way I felt awesome.  I wasn’t struggling to breathe, no stomach upset, no cramps, no injury.  From inside my head, I was cruising along at my optimal pace, but in truth you could have chased me down at a brisk walk. 

 I ran the last ten miles with Humility, a companion who somehow made it palatable to be passed by older women and kalomping men, couples in matching costumes and rookies from the back of the pack.  Humility explained that this was also what I was made of, the alternate life where the best laid plans are silly distractions.  He reminded me that struggle is not failure. 

 The sky was clear blue, and the sun eased away the freezing temperatures, and by the time my pace, and my race, had changed, it was a pleasant morning to be out.  My companion slowed me a bit more and began to point out the beauties I might have missed.

 I have been in the back of the pack before, where there is more conversation, where people stop to take pictures, where there is a different camaraderie.  There too is the walking wounded, those who had been tempted by the siren of a strong start, or perhaps failed by a petulant hamstring.

I ran by a woman propped against a pole near the aid station, 22 miles in, the lean, hard presence of a contender, wrapped in a foil blanket, wearing three-hundred-dollar shoes and the look of defeat.  Next to her was Humility, at that moment ignored in the agony.

 I leap-frogged with others who were in the struggle. We passed each other, giving a thumbs up, a quiet word, a smile acknowledging how strange this dance is.  Ok, you go, then me, then the guy in the blue shirt, now that woman with the ponytail, then it’s me, now the guy who breathes too loud.

 It takes a certain level of confidence, hubris even, to step up to the marathon starting line, regardless of your goals.  In spite of my experience, I sometimes need to be reminded of how fortunate I am to be able to push myself to whatever is my best on the day.  And how fragile the foundation for confidence is.

 I finished smiling, forty minutes later than I expected, but content with the last step, thanks mostly to my good friend who stayed with me those ten miles.  The woman at the finish line congratulated me, draped my finisher’s medal around my neck and wrapped me in a foil blanket.  I waddled among the others, strangely cozy in my cocoon, all of us glinting in the sun, each with our own companion. 

 Humility, in his kindest way, reminds me how lucky I am on most days, to walk without pain, without gritting my teeth as I go down stairs, or lower myself into a chair.  He tells me this is part of being alive, a book end to the victories I enjoy.  I listen to his counsel, knowing he will have to repeat it on another day.  And like any good friend, he will.

 

 Hope this finds you walking humbly,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2021 David Smith