Chicago Marathon: I do believe in you, and I know you believe in me

Oh yeah.

Thank you Chicago, for welcoming me, my daughter and all the other 44, 998 dreamers and doers to your epic skycraping, knee-shaking, heart-quaking, endorphin-making runnerfest. 

It’s been two weeks since the marathon, but that’s not why I’m having trouble writing this post on my experiences.  The fact is, when I wasn’t spending my time watching my footing and trying to maneuver my way over the course, I was mainly looking up. After all, this is the city that put American architecture on the map: Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Gehry, Charles Atwood, Daniel Burnham, John Mead Howells, Louis Sullivan and on and on.  Geez. 

My only regret going into the race in addition to the usuals --  wishing I’d trained more, lost that extra ten pounds – is that I didn’t bone up on my architecture history. I have the books at home and everything, ancient, dog-eared relics from way back in college when I was obsessed with learning everything I could about art and architecture.  

During the marathon, I’d be trotting along thinking,  “Gee I’m tired. Wow those marathon fans are awesome. Ugh. Why do these runners insist on stopping suddenly and walking four across, right in front of me? The heat is killing me. This sucks. I will never qualify for Boston at this rate (quick chuckle, dripping with sarcasm).”

Then I randomly look up and BAM, it’s 8:30 Friday morning  1981, O’Kane Hall. I’m in Professor Kurneta’s Architectural History Part 2 class, and I’m taking notes on that very same building I’m running by in present time, only in my head it’s shining in all its glory on that movie screen right in front of hung over, overly caffeinated  twenty-year old me.  

During this latest 26.2 mile trek, I didn't spend as much time noticing the crowds and the course as I did trying to remember architectural facts.  So please forgive me if my info on the marathon goes slightly astray. The Willis Tower made me do it. 

First, just getting into the Chicago Marathon was a stroke of incredible luck. Because so many folks want to take part in this world-renowned event, one of the top marathons in the world, a raffle application system had to be instituted several years ago.  Last spring, I entered both myself and my daughter and – lo and behold! – we both got in. What are the odds, right?

As soon I got word we’d been accepted, I booked a room at one of the marathon-sponsored hotels, located just ten minutes from the Grant Park start and finish.  The hotel also offered a free shuttle to the marathon expo, and hosted a pre-marathon buffet dinner. Perfect.

The morning of the race, the kid and I threw on our running gear and topped that with matching vanilla-scented garbage bags.  The day was supposed to warm up to high seventies -- terribly warm for running marathons, but it was still just in the 50s when we left the hotel. Garbage bags, by the way, are standard pre-start gear.  They keep out the wind and provide a bit of warmth. You toss them away when you’re ready to run. The scent? An extra bonus. I’d forgotten to bring bags from home. My daughter remembered and brought an extra for me. Apparently she likes her garbage to smell sweet.

The kid and I had scoped out the five marathon entrance gates the evening before, while taking an after-dinner stroll down Michigan Ave, one of the park boundaries.  Bridget needed to enter Gate 3. I would be entering Gate 4. 

Like any good mom sending their child off to preschool, first grade, high school, college,  I walked the kid to her gate on race morning and took some photos of her wearing her standard race gear, her hallmark marathon outfit: faded blue-checked Race Ready shorts, torn Run for Research Boston Marathon singlet. 

Then I walked a few steps to my gate and waited in line with a bunch of similarly tired-looking folks, with the exception of one: a tall runner wearing a Tom Brady face mask and a Brady Patriot’s jersey.  Taped to the front of the jersey, under his bib, was a paper with “Deflated?” scrawled across it in black magic marker. He juggled three slightly deflated footballs.  We got to talking. Yes, he was from Massachusetts. Yes, he was planning on juggling the footballs while he ran the entire 26.2 miles. 

Once through the security chute I started looking for a bathroom. Not that I needed it right then. It’s just that I know enough about the process by now to know that it’s never  a bad idea to find a spot  in a long port-a-potty line a half hour or more before a marathon starts. 

In line I had the pleasure of meeting up with Claude from Oregon, a fellow Marathon Maniac. He was running his 37^th marathon and his first Chicago. We spent nearly the entire twenty minutes in line comparing notes about where we’d run and where we were heading next.  He mentioned he hoped to run some marathons in a kilt, and asked me where I got my running skirt, which is a yellow, black, red Marathon Maniac plaid. He said he wanted one and I believed him. There was no joking in his voice.

By the time I got to my corral it had filled up, so I lined up in the back with a bunch of wicked  neat people. Irene from North Carolina was running marathon #155. The college kid next to her, Chris from Chicago, was running his first marathon and was nervous because he was injured.

“My training didn’t go as well as I planned,” he said. 

Irene and I looked at each other and smiled. “Does it ever?” I said.

Irene, who looked to be at least ten years older than me so she had to have at least three decades on this nice kid, patted him on the back. “You’re going to be just fine,” she said.   

I got talking with a woman my age from Washington state, who was running her first marathon and was already limping even though we had yet to cross the start line. I met a kind 80-year-old experienced runner who was initiating his granddaughter, age 30, into the marathon cult. 

I got a great photo of a seven-foot tall Team in Training Coach in a tutu and wig who’d dressed up like that to inspire his team.  As I reached out to take our photo he took the phone from my hand and pointing to his long arms said, “I have built-in selfie sticks.”

I met Alan from Colorado, who introduced himself as “The Sweeper,” because he fully expected to be the last runner out there. Chicago was his 29^th marathon.  He’s run some of the most difficult terrain around and completed the Pikes Peak marathon three times.  “I was in better shape then,” he said. “But I’ll finish today. I know I will.” 

I nodded. I understood where he was coming from. I may not be as fast as I once was, but there’s a lot to be said for still being out there, and continuing to plug away at your dreams, one slow, steady step at a time. 

“Born to Run” started playing over the loudspeakers as we slowly shifted forward. I don’t know what it is about that song. I hear it on the radio and I turn to another station because I’m just plain sick of it. But when it comes over the speakers at the start of a race, my heart starts thumping and all I can think is, “Yes. This is exactly where I am supposed to be.”

By the time we started running, sixty-six minutes after the initial starting gun, the front-runners were already at mile 13. Thank goodness for computerized timing chips.

I ran into trouble right away. Like, scary trouble. My nearly new running skirt fell off. Well, almost fell off. I’d taken it out for a test run on my final long run of twenty miles, three weeks earlier. I’d had no problems then. But boy oh boy, did I have problems that first mile. As soon as I started running, the skirt slid down my waist to my hips and kept trying to travel farther south. I grabbed the waistband and wrenched the skirt up as high as I could, which was pretty high and probably made me look like a real nutcase to the runners at my back. As soon as I let the skirt go, down it slid again. Yikes!

I started to panic. I wondered if I’d have to drop out. The idea of traveling all this way, putting in all that training, and then having to DNF because of an issue with an article of clothing? I was not happy. I yanked the skirt up again, and again, and again. For close to a mile I pulled on that stubborn fabric, to try to get it to stay in place, sometimes with one hand, sometimes with both. Just as I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d be spending the entire race yanking at plaid, the skirt settled at my hip and stayed. I have no idea why. (The skirt company says that maybe I was sweating by then and the sweat caused the skirt to stick. I emailed them the day after the race to let them know I was not happy.)

I was just glad the skirt wasn’t falling off anymore. I had no problems with it the rest of the race and was able to spend more time focusing on the city, the crowds, the course.

Spectators lined both sides of the streets the whole way. Bands played. Cheerleaders cheered.  I ran with an experienced marathoner – Chicago was #28, who’d recently had back surgery. Drafted for a bit in the hunky shadow of Firefighter Joe, a young guy running the entire race in full hero gear, oxygen tank and all. Passed around mile three a couple of Chicago’s finest, decked out in dress uniforms, including shiny leather Oxfords.

At around the 10k mark, witnessed a sobering sight, an older runner on a gurney, oxygen mask strapped to his face.  I read later that he’d had a heart attack on the course and had bypass surgery the day after the marathon. He’s alive and recovering, thank goodness. 

The Chicago Marathon takes runners through twenty-nine Chicago neighborhoods. The one that stands out most in my memory is Boystown, from around mile eight to ten. Also known as East Lakeview, Boystown is the first officially recognized gay village in the United States, according to www.chicagopride.com. The entire way, there was non-stop singing, dancing, bands, and goodwill to all.

The landmark that stands out more than any other? Has to be the Willis Tower, which watched us no matter where we were, welcoming us when we ran near its base in the first few miles, and taunting us when we were far from downtown.

I was on course to finally finish in a time somewhat close to the marathon times I'd hit when I was in my forties. But around mile 18, the heat just plain got to me. The temps were close to 80, not a cloud in the sky. I started getting dizzy and nauseous. I had to stop and walk a bit. I took a potty break. I wasn't experiencing anything different from those around me. The heat was getting to all of us, but we ran when we could, walked when had to. Smiling fans lined the course with hoses. There were sponges every couple of miles for our sunburned necks and sweaty backs. The yells of encouragement were constant. The support was phenomenal.

As I took the turn at Michigan to enter the park, I heard my name. I tried to locate the kid but couldn’t find her in the crowds, though she swore later on that I looked right at her and smiled, or maybe grimaced. 

As with all marathons, the last .2 passed much too swiftly. You’d think that after 26 miles, a runner would be glad to be done at that point. But with the crowds cheering me on and those endorphins coursing through my blood, I was genuinely sad to end my run, though my tired legs and feet were more than appreciative.

A lovely Goose Island brew settled my stomach, which was roiling from the heat and the hours of Gu and Gatorade. I got my medal from the sweetest volunteer ever. I confess that even after all these races, I still get teary-eyed and my “thank you” comes out all wobbly  as the volunteer puts the ribbon over my head. 

The kid and I found each other. She had yet another terrific race. Marathon # 18 for her. Wow!

We showered, changed, and found a great spot for deep dish pizza. Then we wandered up and down Michigan Ave. congratulating all the other folks like us who were walking stiffly, sporting silver medals and who were congratulating us too.

My kind of town, Chicago is.  Feeling stronger every day. 

Marathon: #20

State: #11

World Marathon Majors: #3. 

The other side of normal

I did two seventeen-mile runs in less than a week. Within six days, to be exact.

Covering that amount of distance in such a small amount of time is usually a no-no for me. When I'm in marathon training mode, I normally alternate weeks. One Sunday I might run fifteen. The next Sunday I'll run ten or twelve.  Many endurance athletes, especially us older ones, operate this way. We still build stamina, but we also give our muscles and joints the recovery time they need.

That's how I normally operate. But normal went out the window last weekend, when my daughters' cousin died suddenly, unexpectedly.

Divorce changes everything. Family interactions sometimes end. Vocabulary shifts. Hence, "daughters' cousin," not niece. I hadn’t seen this beautiful child since she was a kindergartner.  But I knew of her from my daughters because they'd see her at certain holidays and kept in touch with her online. They knew her and loved her. 
  

The first of my two seventeen-milers was the day after we learned about the death. The run did not go as planned. My brain and legs weren't communicating. Or maybe they were communicating too well. My head was back in the 1980s, when all the children were young and we were all still connected. My legs wanted to stay close to home. Running was the last thing I wanted to be doing. I wanted to be with my daughters, but that was impossible. The one most deeply affected was coping by working. The other is off in the Midwest. We talked a ton on the phone but you can’t spend all day on the phone. So I ran. 

Sometimes running heals. Sometimes it doesn't. That day, I walked for the first time at mile one, for a few seconds on some flat stuff. I walked for the second time at mile four, a no-brainer hill which I always manage slowly, steadily, easily.  Mile five I walked again and thought about turning around and heading home. But I convinced myself to keep going. Reminded myself that sometimes things get tough, but if you just hold on, things usually get better again. 

I was run/ walking on the rail trail at mile eight when I saw a young gym friend, S. She’s about the age of my older daughter.  S is a swift and elegant runner who just returned to running distances about six months ago, after a half year off. Last summer she had a stroke. She was in a rehab facility for awhile, relearning how to walk and talk. For awhile, things were bad. Then things got better.  In October, we’ll be running the same marathon together, though she’ll finish at least an hour ahead of me. 

From mile ten on, I mainly walked. I cried a lot and thought a ton of sad thoughts. I mentally rescheduled the next weekend, a weekend already chock full. I’d have to somehow get that seventeen in. The usual reel of inspiring running quotes spooled through my head, but sad phrases seeped in too: The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare.  Fall seven, rise eight.  No one ever said it would be easy. Addiction affects the whole family. Why did this child have to die? There but for the grace of God. . .

  

The funeral was at the end of the week, Friday. The priest talked about lots of things related to losing someone so vibrant and beautiful, so hell bent on living. He talked about the Mass being a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. He talked about learning lessons. He talked about anger. 

I sat in the back, an outsider to all but a few, and kept my eyes focused on certain beloved family members near the front of the church who could write books on the Herculean struggles of getting clean and staying sober. See, there's a bigger story here to tell, but it's not mine. So I have to write in generalities to show love, honor, respect, support. Certain ties -- memories, genetics -- run tangled, dark, deep. 

  

As the crowd dispersed I was approached by another ex family member.  “I can tell you feel the same way as me,” she said. I kept my mouth shut because, as with other things, she had no idea. She hadn’t known the child during the newborn, toddler, protected years. She doesn't know what I know about some of the others.

I said I was angry. I could see my response surprised this woman. I said I was angry like I couldn’t even believe. 

People sometimes assume roles in tragic times. This woman seemed to want to take on the role of counselor with me right then, right there, in the church. 

She glanced over at the procession of mourners, standing in the center aisle, right behind the coffin, and started in with “there but for the grace of God.”

I finished the sentence for her and said, "Yes I know: Go I. Go we."


I wanted to add: “I am not an idiot. I know how addiction works. I know how genetics works. I know how depression works. I know how compassion works. I know about accidents of circumstance. I know that you don’t ever ever dare judge someone else until you walk in their exact, specific shoes and so the truth is you can’t judge. Ever. That doesn’t mean I can’t be angry. I absolutely am allowed to be angry. It’s part of my process. “

In truth, the sights and sounds of those mourners knee-quaking stomach-shaking terrified me.

I ran my seventeen miles yesterday. It was not as disastrous a run as I expected. Considering I’d covered the same distance a scant six days earlier, though much of it walking, it went pretty well. I was slow, but steady. Sometimes I walked and cried a little.

On my run, I thought of what it means to be resurrected.  I thought of loved ones, genetics, sobriety, accidents of circumstance and that horrific phrase that starts with there but for the grace of God. I thought about the nature of perseverance, of getting up that eighth ninth, fifteenth time and trying again. But here’s the thing. Today, though I’m tired to the core, the anger is still there. The fear that's stoking it just won't subside. Hopefully, some day it will.

Never give up.

I left my quads in San Francisco

I left my quads in San Francisco.Yes I did.

The title for this piece came to me as I picked and swerved my way down the mountainside that is mile 19 of the San Francisco Marathon. 

Near me, other runners had thrown on the brakes, twirled themselves around, and proceeded to negotiate the precipice by walking backwards, toe to heel.  Me? I shrugged and continued doing what I’d been practicing for months now on the hills near home, gently slaloming, like I was skiing the steep parts of our blue square trails at Killington and Stratton. 

I wondered as the road went on and on and on, who took the smarter route, me or the reverse runners. I beat them all to the bottom, but at a cost: my quads were quivering like jello. Only time will tell, I thought, and reminded myself of a great runner saying: “If you feel good now, don’t worry. That’ll change.”  The saying works in reverse too because there are plenty of times during a marathon when you think nothing will feel right ever again, and then, lo and behold, suddenly you’re feeling like you could run forever.

  

Sure enough, the shakes were gone in a matter of minutes and I felt good for at least another ten, until the next downhill. It’s not just my heart I’ll be leaving behind here, I remember thinking, as my quads got weak and gooey all over again. 

The San Francisco Marathon was easily my hilliest marathon to date, though I’ve covered plenty of other courses with some interesting elevations. The Derry, NH sixteen-miler is ridiculous. The race organizers advertise it as being “moderately challenging,” though the elevation map looks like an EKG readout.  The Stu’s 30K course here in Massachusetts is known for being tough. If you can make it through Stu’s, finishing the Boston Marathon is a piece of cake.  The Manchester City Marathon and the Vermont City Marathon also offer up interesting ways to kill your legs. But San Francisco was a whole new experience entirely, though it wasn’t just about the hills. 

There were some hills.

  

The people involved in the marathon were easily the friendliest bunch I’ve met so far.  When I think back on San Francisco, I know I’ll remember the hills and I’ll smile a little. But I’ll remember the people too and even now I can’t stop grinning ear to ear. They were phenomenal. 

I met Monica, the head of the race pacers, the Friday before the marathon, on the shuttle bus to the expo at Fort Mason, a former military camp right on the bay.  She spent the entire bus ride giving me pointers on surviving the course. She told me the worst hill was just past the two-mile mark, and to not worry about finishing the race because the last half of the race is almost all downhill. When I arrived at the pacer table, she made me laugh, telling the volunteers to take good care of me because I was a friend of hers.   

And the volunteers DID take good care of me. They took good care of all of us.  From the expo volunteers, a mix of school kids and runners, who smiled and wished me good luck, to the leather clad, gray pony-tailed bikers who manned the water stops and helped with crowd control and yelled out lies like, "Looking good!" and "Almost there!"

At the expo,  I met a couple of guys giving away free wine if you signed up for their half marathon, which unfortunately is during my work year. We got to talking and turns out we’re practically neighbors. One is from a town a few miles away, and the other is from New Hampshire. Then I met wonderful Stephanie, a race volunteer with a great Facebook page dedicated to running California. She gave me some tips on staying hydrated out on the course and shared how psyched she was to be accompanying gorgeous and gorgeously strong ultra runner Dean Karnazes on a pre-marathon shake-out run the next morning.  

Dean Karnazes is awesome.

Race morning, my daughter and I were out the door of our Union Square hotel way before dawn, and speeding the mile down to Market Street hoping we weren’t too late for her  5:50 a.m. Wave 4 start time. Around us, the streets were silent, the only other pedestrians our fellow race participants. 

We arrived at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero just a few minutes too late. Her wave gate had been closed. No biggie. She decided she’d start with me, in Wave 8. We hit the portable toilet line along with several thousand other runners.  The guy in line behind me noticed my Boston Marathon hat and started talking about his 2015 Boston finish. Turns out, he ran for the same charity team my daughter and I have run for.  Typical marathon magic: Traverse the country to run a race in a new place, and randomly meet up with a teammate from all the way back home.  

My daughter got bored waiting around, and scurried off to join Wave 5. Pedro and I headed to our start line. We spent all our wait time talking about marathons we’d done and hoped to do. Behind us, the Oakland Bay Bridge glittered in the gray dawn. A couple of hundred feet ahead of us, the start banner beckoned. 

Once we began running, Pedro and I parted ways.  Every runner needs to run her own race. As my wave passed the Ferry Building, crowds screamed and waved like it was mid-afternoon at Fenway, not 6:25 a.m. in a city that had just gone to sleep hours before.  

Things quieted down a bit by the time we made it the two miles to Fisherman’s Wharf. Workers kneading dough in the windows of the Boudin Bakery restaurant nudged one another and laughed at us as we ran by. No one stood outside at Ghiradelli Square offering chocolate. 

The first hill – the steepest, according to Monica, took us to Fort Mason, sight of the marathon expo. From the top of the hill we took in breathtaking views of the Golden Gate Bridge, at that time still mostly enshrouded in fog.  We took a meandering route along the bay, past the Palace of Fine Arts and Crissy Field, and eventually, just at mile five, started the second steep hill on the course, one that took us up and onto my reason for running: the Golden Gate Bridge.  I’d been dreaming of running over that bridge since the last time I visited San Francisco, on a 2003 cross country trip with my daughter. That's when I learned from another tourist that it was due to a marathon in the city that the traffic was so bad that weekend.

 "A marathon in July? Over the Golden Gate Bridge? I could run that!" I remember thinking.And now here I was, finally.

You’d think I’d remember a ton about running across that bridge, seeing that I’d been dreaming of doing it for more than a decade. In truth, I don’t remember all that much. All us marathoners were scrunched up into a couple of the lanes heading toward northern California.  My people ran in one lane north, while the speedier folks who'd already reached the other side and turned around ran south in the lane next to us. The rest of the bridge was open to traffic. 

The bridge was wet. Not sure if that was due to rain during the night or the fog, which still lingered among the topmost cables.  I studied the faces of the runners headed toward me from the Marin Headlands side, looking for my daughter who was at least two miles ahead of me by that point.  When I wasn’t watching for her, I was high-fiving the speedsters, or watching my footing. The roadway was slippery and pocked. When I could, I remembered to look up at the glowing metal above, and sideways to the massive pipes holding the structure in place. We couldn’t see much beyond the bridge because the railings were so high and the fog over the water was pretty dense. 

At the other side, we did a loop in a parking lot around a parks building. A few runners joined some entertainers who were doing in-line skate dancing to loud music coming from a tie-dyed painted van. Don’t know where those crazy runners got the energy for that.  The air on this side of the bay was thick with the scent of some flower I couldn’t put a name to. It was beautiful. The hills beyond were green and gold. Mist was everywhere. It was Disneyland forest. I would have been happy to continue running on that side of the bay. The smells and colors were just perfect. 

But the race continued back over the bay so back we went: up the bridge’s slight incline, then the flat middle, then down again, then up a steep hill to mile ten which gave us more great views and a sweet downhill that I could have stayed on forever.

We soon entered the Sea Cliff district of San Francisco and found ourselves rolling up and down streets lined with pastel homes.  When we finally entered Golden Gate Park, all I could think was, “Well, at least the hilly portion of the race is done.” Then we hit more hills as we scooted by picnickers out enjoying the morning, and bison grazing in distant gray green fields. 

The hardest hills for me were the park hills. I don’t know why. They weren’t long. They weren’t steep. They were dull though, quiet views of mossy trees and fields; sleep-inducing, compared to the rest of the vibrant course. 

At mile 16 I had a moment of panic. We left the park and I assumed, from having memorized the course map earlier, that we’d be heading back into the city. I did not need any more greenery and solitude. I wanted cheering crowds and pretty houses. But I’d read the map wrong. We weren’t done with the park. We were simply entering a different section. As we re-entered, I could feel my resolve faltering. I was finished. 

The marathon however, was not. So after a few minutes of walking and feeling sorry for myself, I started to run again.

We re-joined humanity at Haight Street. You couldn’t ask for a better, louder wake up call. The fans cheering us on were nutty. The storefronts were bizarre. The music was loud and perfect.  I could have run there forever and certainly, by the end of that steep downhill at mile 19, I felt like I had.

Miles twenty to twenty-three were urban and somewhat blighty. Nothing I hadn't been running on for decades. As I cruised that part of the city I got talking with the runner next to me, a California woman who travels to Boston every year to cheer on her qualifier husband. She talked about wanting to run the Boston Marathon too, one day. I told her about my connection with the American Liver Foundation and said a nationwide organization like that would be a perfect Boston charity for her. 

Then she told me about her sister, who died from liver disease complications brought on by diabetes. She said running on behalf of ALF would be a perfect fit for her. We marveled at fate, and talked about how strange it was to run into one another when we both shared such an important commonality. As we parted, I couldn't help but feel strong, even though the landscape was bleak and my legs minutes earlier had felt so worn out. Marathons are magic that way.

The miles passed pretty quickly, as I thought about this kind runner and all the neat people I'd met these few days on the left coast. Before I was ready, I hit mile twenty-four and we were back at the bay, Oakland off in the distance, past freighters so close I wanted to run up and touch them. Then we ran around AT&T  Park and there ahead of me, was the Bay Bridge and the marathon start where Pedro and I had chatted for a good twenty minutes, then the finish line banner just beyond.

I turned up my headset which, weirdly, was playing my latest psych song, Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," then heard a familiar voice call “Mom!” There was my favorite sight of all, my daughter. She was cheering me on from the sidelines. She’d finished much earlier, walked the mile uphill to the hotel, showered, changed and, legs stiff and worn out, had walked the mile back to watch me cross the finish line. Which I did. 

The next hours and days were a blur. We spent the rest of our time in San Francisco walking everywhere and eating everything and saying to each other, “Did we really run a marathon in San Francisco?” The whole thing felt like a dream to me.

My daughter, who is speedy, would say, “Well I know I did.” 

And from me, the slow poke:  “Well, I sort of did.”

I left my quads in San Francisco. And a little bit of my heart too. What a great time!

State:  #10, which means I get to join the 50 States Club!!!!!!!

Marathons: 19

Life happens on the hills. Plus, the views are phenomenal.

Miles. Smiles. They go together

After  I ran the Philadelphia Marathon in November, I had big plans. I decided because I’d survived running five marathon in 2014, that I would do another five marathons in 2015, all part of my big plan to run the U.S., one state at a time.  I sketched out a tentative plan, starting with an April marathon in Kansas that would give me an excuse to visit my daughter who lives in the Midwest, and finishing up with Chicago or Hartford in the fall. 

I deliberately gave my legs a break in December.  I ran once or twice a week, and focused instead on cross-training. I even skipped a few workouts, and took some time to enjoy life in the real world. 

In January, I started ramping up my distances. Within a few weeks I was back up to a fourteen mile long run. But something was off.  I was worse than sluggish. My runs were slower than my usual slow. I ached the entire time I was out there,  then was sore for hours after. And these were not your normal wear-and-tear muscle aches. These pains seemed to be emanating from deep in my bones.  

One thing all my 2014 long, slow runs had in common, including those lasting 26.2 miles: I recovered fast. I had no aches and pains after any of my practice runs.  Two days after Philly, I was walking around like I’d spent the entire weekend sleeping in front of the television.  I took it slow last year, and my body came back strong. Every. Single. Time.  

Now, two months after my last marathon? My body was 54 going on 99.  The shortest, easiest elliptical workout left me aching. My long runs killed me. My normal, thrice-weekly weight routine left me flattened.  I was getting discouraged. Maybe I’d used up all my running mojo during those five marathons?  Maybe I’d damaged my body? Or, maybe the problem was my brain, not my body? Maybe I needed a cheerleader, a coach to remind me that distance is as much mental as it is physical? 

I started working with a personal trainer, a guy from my gym who is an awesome coach.  My head improved a little bit, but my physical stamina didn’t show much of a change. Weights I’d been able to lift with no problem just months earlier were beyond my universe. Recovering from our half- hour gym sessions took days instead of hours.  

I began to notice problems outside of the gym too. Getting up for work was a struggle. Just getting out of bed hurt.  Carrying groceries in from the car left me exhausted.  My classroom is three long flights of stairs straight up. For years, I’ve been able to sprint that distance without thinking twice about it. Now, I’d have to stop twice on the way to catch my breath.   

In early February, I spent five days in bed with what I thought was the flu. Everything ached. The fatigue was like an anvil. I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. It was that hard to move. After days of sleep, I felt a little better, but not much. This had to be something  serious.  I made an appointment to see my primary care doc. 

She listened to my whine list: constant fatigue, aches everywhere, depression, constant burning in my stomach.  She drew some blood and checked my vitals: blood pressure good, resting heart rate the usual low 40s that always send substitute medical pros into EKG scheduling mode until I tell them I run long distances and suggest they check my records.  

I asked her if I was dying, or maybe had pushed myself too far running all those marathons. She laughed her kind doctor laugh and said I probably was not dying and said yes, I was an idiot (she didn’t call me an idiot but I knew that’s what she meant) for running so many marathons but hadn’t she been telling me for years that marathoning is silly? 

She predicted I was suffering from low Vitamin D, a problem she was seeing among many of her patients, due to our record cold and snowy winter.  She reminded me that even in summer my Vitamin D level tends to be fairly low. She asked if I’d been taking the supplement she recommended to me the last time I’d seen her, back in June.  I admitted that no, I hadn’t. She told me to start taking a supplement and said she’d be in touch once she got my test results. 

Yup.

She was right about the Vitamin D. Probably about the marathoning too, but I’m not ready to listen to reason there yet. 

My summer levels hover at a barely there 32. My Vitamin D level this February was 17. My doc prescribed 50,000 units of Vitamin D once a week for twelve weeks, then 1,000 units a day.

Within days of taking that first supplement, I started feeling better. Within a few weeks, I was carrying my weekly grocery shopping into the house in one trip and running up the six flights of stairs at work again.  The depression and fatigue lifted. The stomach upset subsided. The deep aches abated. I began making huge strides with my trainer. I was back.

I’d planned on three spring marathons, but by the time I was well enough to run again, it was March and I'd run out of training time. Instead, I chose to work toward completing a stupidly hilly summer marathon  I'd had my eye on for years. 

This week, that summer marathon kicked my behind big-time. But every ache was one of those good ones that reminded me of how lucky I was to be alive. I recovered like a dream. 

I’m still awash in these huge waves of gratitude that come from understanding how phenomenally lucky I am. This week, the biggest problem in my life wasn’t anywhere near as serious as what so many folks dear to my heart are coping with. I’m not dealing with cancer, or worrying how I'll put food on the table, or coping with the death of a loved one. 

This week, all I had to do was run for 26.2 miles.  And I did. And the best part is that I knew how lucky I was the entire time I was out there, which probably explains the idiotic grin I’m wearing in each of my race pictures.  I just couldn’t stop smiling. Still smiling now.  More to come. Smiles and words, I mean. Miles too.

I'm running considerably slower than this, so I guess that makes me above average.