Shortly before I sat down to gather my thoughts to write, I ambled over to the kitchen, opened a cupboard door, and found the PowerBar I’d been looking for. Within 3 minutes, I wolfed it down.
With that, it became clear to me that running has permeated every aspect of my daily life.
Such was hardly the case before this last February, the time when I’d firmly made up my mind that I’d run in the 2006 Los Angeles Marathon, and would begin training for it later that year. Training for me, at that time, meant ramping up my 5 weekly sessions on the LifeCycle exercise bike to 35 minutes at a time. By next March, I reasoned enthusiastically, I’d be ready to go for LA. (Ain’t ignorance bliss?)
Two months later, reality bit. Hard.
I proclaimed 2005’s Revlon 5K Run/Walk, held on May 7, as my first official running event. At my side was David, my better half of nearly 18 years and a 6:00 miler in high school. Beaming even though we’d both awakened at 4:45 am, we took our first step in our first race in nearly (gulp) 28 years.
Seconds later, my shoulders, neck, shins and my right knee began to whimper. Within two minutes, those whimpers became piercing screams. Work through the pain, I told myself, but if it gets too ugly, stop for a few moments and walk.
Walk I did, after a rousing run of 2.8 miles in a tick over 35:00. Feeling as if I was gonna lose my breakfast of whole-wheat toast on the street, I clutched my stomach and wheezed to David, “I think I’ll need to walk for a bit.” That “bit” turned out to be 4-1/2 minutes. After crossing the 5K point at – behold – 44:14, I tossed up my arms and grinned if I’d run that same distance in 16 minutes flat. David, who finished the race seconds earlier, snapped a photo of me in full celebratory mode.
For the next week, my calves, shins and feet hollered at me, letting me know that I’d need much more than a quick twirl on the LifeCycle.
Enter AREC.
Early one soupy, gray Saturday morning in mid-June, I hauled my groggy self into the parking lot next to Joe’s Crab Shack for my first marathon-training session. Unsure of what to expect from this long-time running club, I felt my stomach tighten slightly. The club sounded valuable, worthwhile and enjoyable, based on what I’d read on its website, but would its wise veterans with decades of racing wisdom under their belts tolerate moi, a pathetically green newbie?
Over the next four months, they sure did – and they turned out to do far more.
My fellow AREC members became my coaches, my mentors, my cheerleaders, and my sports psychologists rolled into one. Equally valuable, they became my friends.
During this last summer, I was treated to Todd’s steady support, Bernard’s vast storehouse of expertise and insight, Donna’s gentle caring and concern, Linda’s happy spunk, and Emmett’s bubbly, unbridled joy of running. (At the end of one of my first runs, I found him and Rich waiting for me at the top of the 2nd Street hill. As I chugged my huffing, red-faced self along to the summit, they joined me en route downhill, chatting happily the entire time. That was the first time in my life I found genuine pleasure in running, and I thank them for that moment to this day.) As the summer progressed and my running improved, I joined the AREC crowd for regular Wednesday-night “fun runs” and equally enjoyable chats afterward in the sweetly cramped quarters of Limerick’s.
While I slowly learned the bucolic, winding streets of our weekly runs by heart, my endurance increased and my legs slowly (and, on occasion, painfully) became those of a runner. My muscles, tendons, and ligaments, woefully short and knotty since college – I was addicted to the Nautilus machine in the university weight room – became longer and lighter.
Once September arrived, my training progress told me that the half marathon would be my first longer event. Even though I’d run as far as 15.43 miles in a late-August training run, I still needed 3:38 and change to turn that trick – a tolerable time for me, but coyote ugly by a typical runner’s standards.
Adhering to the long-respected advice of tapering, I monitored the length and intensity of my runs by mid-October, the week before this year’s Long Beach Marathon. By then, I was in all-systems-go mode – my spirits were high, my confidence was strong, and my attitude could be best described as can-do.
Just one problem cropped up: The Thursday before the race, my throat became unbearably painful and raw. It got progressively worse that weekend – yes, I fear I was Typhoid Jannie at this year’s awards potluck – and, by the morning of the Marathon, I became weak, woozy, headachy, and nauseous. Ignoring those symptoms as an overdose of pre-race adrenaline, I soldiered through that morning, focusing tightly on getting through my 13.1 miles, no matter what. (Apparently whatever bug bit me that weekend affected my eyesight; I couldn’t even locate the AREC booth before the race. For shame, Jan!)
There’s no denying the giddy rush when you hear the gun go off for your first official long run. Indeed, that rush sustained me as well as two gel packs, helping me keep pace – sort of – with several runners, as well as aid me with a close encounter with a Bott’s dot. (Yep, there’s nothing like nearly getting nailed with a strained hamstring in your first race!)
When the runners at my pace started their haul up the Rainbow Bridge shortly after Mile 2, I knew immediately that our Saturday-morning training runs, replete with hills of all lengths and grades, had prepared us beautifully. “Oh, my god!” moaned my fellow runners, already wheezing mightily by the second mile. “I can’t believe this hill. It’s awful!” Awful? I thought. This is child’s play, compared with the 2nd Street mountain I scale twice weekly with AREC!
Somewhere close to the six-mile marker, however, I could no longer pretend that I was A-OK. I’m normally in fine fettle by that point, having passed my “struggle” period and ready to take on another 10 or so miles. That said, my legs suddenly wobbled like Jell-O, my gut and intestines churned ferociously, my throat burned, and my head felt like a volcano about to explode.
Unfortunately, my other end exploded.
As I usually do when I’m down with the flu – and readers with weak stomachs shouldn’t think of reading beyond this point – my bladder let loose and I, ahem, dribbled as I plodded along. (The photos sent to my email address by the race’s photographers showed that I did a whole lot more than dribbling.)
Even though I was definitely feeling below average physically, my spirits soared, especially after seeing Bernard cheering us AREC members during our run. Toward Mile 12, I caught sight of the men’s winner of the marathon; after he’d won his event, he apparently re-ran along the last mile of the course, beaming, applauding, and waving at us half-marathoners. Talk about a rush, being cheered on by a champion!
That rush inspired me to sprint my way toward the finish line … and finish my half at a lusty time of 3:02:08. David happily met me as I giddily stumbled along in those odd post-run moments, a time I can best call as an out-of-body experience. (For the record, he’d done vastly better in his first officially timed 5K since high school, turning in a 31:58 mark and finishing 21st in his age group.) He patiently and gently led me to the AREC booth, where I offered congratulations to, and compared notes with, fellow members for their racing efforts that day.
As we walked our way down Pine Avenue after the Marathon, I showered and hit the hay … hard. It turned out that afternoon was a harbinger of things to come that week; I spent a boatload of time in bed as I recovered from what turned out to be an ugly, persistent flu. (I wouldn’t get my flu shot for another week and a half.)
The next time I was even mildly active was the Saturday after the race; I ran a sluggish 35 minutes on the treadmill in my apartment’s workout room. Two weeks later, I was back to running four times a week, and feeling strong in the process.
Since last February, I’ve altered my race goals a tad. This next year, I’ll run at least two half marathons, and I’m pushing back my full-marathon debut to October, my second Long Beach Marathon. That’s because I’m taking direct aim at a pretty respectable time of 2:30 for the half marathon during the next calendar year. With a full year of monthly Boeing 5K races, AREC marathon-training runs next spring and summer, year-round “fun runs” and thrice-weekly five-mile races with my challenging and speedy hubby, I think I’ve got a semi-reasonable shot of reaching that goal.
L.A.? That’ll be March … 2007.