Anatomy of a DNF, version 10.6

I woke up at 5:18 this morning, though the alarm was set for six. It’s the pain that did it, a jabbing that started behind my right ear and shot up to my right eye and down my neck. It passed so swiftly that I wondered if I’d dreamed it. So I drifted back to sleep and bam, there it was again.  

Startled, I sat up and debated my next move. If I got up and took some meds, I was up for the morning and I knew it. I slid back under the covers, and rolled onto my side, hoping the new position would calm my head so I could get those extra thirty minutes of snooze time. Not five minutes later, the pain attacked again.  

I climbed out of bed and padded into the kitchen, gulped down some pills and water, and made coffee. Outside it was dark and silent. I turned on the computer and checked the weather in Hollis, New Hampshire. Perfect running weather: mid-60s and overcast.  

“That’s a good sign,” I thought. “Everything will be just fine.” 

I still had four hours until the race. Anything can happen in four hours. People on the cusp of getting over stomach bugs can heal remarkably well in four hours.  I’d certainly felt much better last night than I had the night before. Obviously, I was on the mend. Maybe this last pain surge was the end of it.  

I showered, dressed, and packed Body Glide, water, and a change of clothes.  I double-checked that I’d printed out the directions to the race. I was already fed up with the spears that still insisted on poking at my skull and neck. I didn’t want to add getting lost to my worry list. I took another pill and checked the label on the side of the bottle. Wasn’t this stuff supposed to kick in a half hour ago?

Now my stomach was gurgling but I was afraid to eat. I wondered if I needed the calories anyhow. Maybe muscle memory would be enough to get me through the run. I considered the extra weight I’m packing. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need to eat anything today anyhow. I certainly have enough extra nutrients stored away in my thighs and upper arms.  Geez. Hibernating bears survive winter on less fat than mine.  

I packed a banana and some peanut butter toast though, just in case. 

I drove north. The sun had risen. The highway shimmered. The surrounding landscape, undulating trees, sunburned rainbows, breathed and glowed. I played Bruce Springsteen and sang along to drown out the acid bubbling up my digestive tract. At least the skull attacks had finally subsided.  

I got to the start and watched the runners. Wondered who’d be lagging behind at the end with me. Some wore race T-shirts. We talked about races we’d done. Most hadn’t done this half marathon yet. 

“I’ve done it plenty of times,” I say. "But I don’t know how today will go. Stomach bug.”

Everyone gave me a version of the same hollow line: “Oh you’ll be fine.”  Then they’d leave to go talk to someone else and I would too.  

The race started on a driveway next to Hollis-Brookline High School. You run a tenth of a mile down the driveway, then take a left, then a right, then another right and loop back. You hit the high school again at the two-mile mark, and then at the finish, the 13.1 mile mark. 

I’ve run this course at least a half dozen times. As I wait for the announcements to commence, I remind myself of that. I used to meet up with a New Hampshire friend here, and we’d run the course together as part of training for some of our marathons. It’s pretty and shady. There are horse farms and orchards and lots of steep hills.  

I groan at the thought of those steep hills. I clutch my stomach and position myself way at the back.

My plan is to start slowly, and take inventory. Check my legs, stomach, head. If I don’t feel capable of completing the run, I plan on dropping out at the mile two mark. I’ve never dropped out of a race before. I’ve always finished what I’ve started. But if dropping out is the right thing to do, then so be it. I’ll live. Right?

We sing the Star Spangled Banner then move downhill, all 1,200 of us. I run gently and wait for the magic to happen; for my legs to loosen, my stomach to tighten, for some electricity to shock my system. But there’s nothing, except this thought, “If you weren’t signed up for a race today, you would be resting. You know better. You need more time off.” 

But the thing about running distances is this, sometimes that’s the way it is at the start of a run. Your head and body aren’t always in sync right away.  I’ve had plenty of runs where I’ve felt crappy the whole entire distance. But still, today feels different. It feels wrong. 

At mile one, my legs are clumsy and thick. I slow even more. I keep my head down and move forward. I feel like I’ve already run eight miles. 

“Why are you out here?” I keep asking myself that and I don’t have an answer. My legs hate me. My stomach is burning. I make it up the first steep hill at mile 1.5, but as I head down to mile two, I’m clutching my guts. I know the run needs to end. Stopping is the right thing to do. There’s no doubt at all.  I am about to experience my very first DNF – Did Not Finish.

I reach the mile two water table, gulp down a cup of water, and take myself off the course. People smile kindly and start saying nice things to me but I look away. I don’t want to hear them. My eyes start filling up. I take off my race number so I look just like any other spectator.

I knew going into the run that I might have trouble finishing.  I knew the race would hurt. But here’s the thing. I never expected the dropping out to hurt more. 

Showing up matters: Here's proof

I had a tough time running this summer. The heat and humidity chewed me up, spit me out, and left me writhing on the pavement like an ant under a magnifying glass.  

I’d lace up my shoes and set off optimistically enough, thinking that maybe today would be different from the day before, the week before, the month before. But August was as bad as July was as bad as June. I’d start running, but would heat up so quickly I’d be forced to switch to a dull jog, and then would give in to long hot walks. 

Almost every run was awful. I honestly don’t know why I kept trying. Time and again I’d get out there only to end up like the Wicked Witch of the West, flattened and melting.    

I’d wonder if it was time to throw in the towel and throw out the old running shoes. I’ve been running closer to forty years than thirty now. I wondered if maybe my body was telling me I was done.  My knees ached. My stomach churned. My heart rate was off the charts every single run. 

Was it time to say good-bye to my one immutable constant, my friend through fat and thin, misery and joy, high school, college, first career, second career, and beyond? Was it time to bid my running life a fond and sad adieu? 

When you’re past fifty and when your runs are consistently poor, it can’t help but cross your mind that maybe it’s time to give it up. Put that part of your life behind you. Move on to other less taxing pursuits.  

I’m not quite ready to give up my Brooks just yet though. Running is like breathing for me. I need it. It’s a part of who I am. So I’ve been looking for ways to help myself get through this slump. 

I switched up my running routes.  I ran shorter distances. I ran longer distances.  I ran tons some weeks and some weeks ran nothing at all.  I cut back on cross-training. I rested more. I signed up for a couple of races, not because I was hoping to win anything, but because I wanted to mix things up a bit and be around more people with similar goals.  I figured maybe that would help too. 

Usually, when I sign up for races, it’s a pretty big deal. I train a lot. I obsess over how fast – or slow -- I run. I worry I won’t live up to my expectations. So this is different for me, signing up for a race just to run with lots of other runners. These races would be like any other long run, I figured, only I’d get a neat-o running t-shirt, and have water stop support.  

My first race with this new outlook was yesterday.  My only goal was to finish uninjured. My plan was to listen to my body, enjoy the scenery, go slowly enough so I could say thank you to all the volunteers, and smile as much as I could.  

I got to the race feeling happy and relaxed. I had no pre-race jitters because for me, this wasn’t a race.  It was just a long run with water stops. It helped that the race was so low-key. It was in a quaint hilly town in central Massachusetts.  There was no official starting line. There were no serious and imposing- looking timing mats. There was no spray painted mark to toe. No duct tape to stand behind.  

Shortly before the race began, a couple of hundred of us stood around in small groups on a quiet lane lined with Revolutionary War era homes and wild flower gardens. It was House Beautiful meets Runner’s World. Then some guy somewhere in front of us shouted out “Go!” and we went.  The crowd quickly thinned out. My friend W and I stayed at the back and trotted along blithely while nearly everyone ran past us.

Watching hordes of runners pass me by at the start is pretty much the norm. Maybe you’re thinking, “It’s a race. You should be upset that people are passing you.” Nah. That’s not how it works for me. I always start slowly.  If you’re a seasoned distance runner, you understand. Running distances is about constantly measuring distance against energy.  You go at your own pace, figure out what works for you, and tweak as you run. What works for me is starting slowly. Plus, remember. Yesterday was just another long run.  

The race was billed as “moderately hilly.” I’d heard from my friend W that it was actually pretty mountainous. I’d spent all summer running – er, walking --  on mostly flat stuff. I didn’t know what my body would do when it met up with lots of hills. I wanted to make sure I finished this run with my knees still attached to their ligaments.  I was definitely taking it easy and sticking to my plan to enjoy a nice, long run.

  

We scooted downhill for a half mile or so, then came to our first uphill, a narrow road with a surface that reminded me of chocolate cookie crumbs. W and I parted ways at that point. We’ve run many races together. Our paces are quite similar, but we each have different ways of getting through our run. We usually start together then split up. We often see each other along the course, but we rarely run exactly next to one another the whole distance.  We promised to find one another at the finish. 

It had been raining all night and the morning was silent and fairy tale foggy. There were runners ahead of me and runners behind me. The air was soft and cool. I drifted past apple farms and weathered colonials, heard horses braying and roosters crowing, caught magnificent views of distant forests alive with greens and yellows and blazing oranges. We runners were high above the mist at many points. The trees were fiery ghosts far below us. 

I came upon two younger runners chattering roughly, like crows. Their sounds jangled my nerves and interfered with the twitters and crackles from the wet branches all around. We hit a series of steep hills that ran from mile 6.5 to nine.  They slowed down to walk and I kept my head down and sped past. I had to get away from them. I liked running in this mellow dreamland. Their voices were too strident and real. Plus, the hill was a beast and I didn’t need to hear them talking about how crappy they felt. 

Ahead of me, many people were walking. It would have been so easy to stop and walk. I kept my eyes on the pavement to avoid temptation. As my breathing got ragged, I shortened my stride. I tried to ignore how much my feet had to bend to make contact with the pavement. The slant of the road was absurd. It was a five percent grade at that point, according to mapmyrun.com. 

No New England road should ever be that steep, I remember thinking. I wondered how the residents of the street made it home in snowstorms. The nuttiness lasted a half mile and it took forever to run it. I probably would have gone just as fast if I’d switched to walking, but I wanted to be able to say I’d run the whole way.

As I approached the eight-mile water stop, on the side of yet another outrageous incline, the volunteers yelled out that I looked great.  I laughed out loud at that and yelled back, “Please tell me this hilly stuff is done!” They laughed and said there was just one more hill left. Just one. Ugh.

I found it just around the next corner. But halfway up that was another water stop, an unofficial one manned by a couple of runner moms and their daughters. The kids, maybe second and third graders, were passing out Gatorade. The girls flashed me huge grins and the moms screamed that I looked fantastic. They really truly screamed it. Like I was Bruce Springsteen or Lady Gaga. That made me smile. 

I told the kids that their water stop was the best one of all, thanked them for saving my life with the Gatorade, and continued on. Those kids looked at me like I was some sort of goddess. I can’t remember the last time I felt so happy about running on such ridiculous terrain.  

At the top of the hill was the mile nine marker. A nice older gent in a volunteer cap, yelled out it was all downhill from there on. I yelled back, “Yeah! Just like my life! Har har!” He laughed back. I thanked him for being out there, and made my way down.  

I recognized this road. It was the one we’d driven into town. I picked up a little speed but didn’t try to push anything. It was just a long run after all. I wanted to end today’s run feeling good. My breathing was normal and I marveled at the fact that at my advanced age I could still run ten miles as easily as though I’d just walked to the corner.   

In no time at all I saw a few orange traffic cones leading to a roped off section of driveway, where some middle school girls stood holding clipboards next to a timer. I figured this must be the finish line, though I was uncertain of exactly where to stop. I trotted to the girls and they wrote down my bib number, handed me a bottle of water, and congratulated me on finishing.

I made my way back to the road and cheered on my friend as she finished. We guzzled our water and wandered through the farmers’ market set up just down the hill, eventually making our way back to the school cafeteria where we had picked up our race numbers. 

The race results of the earlier finishers were taped on top of a cafeteria table. Our results weren’t in yet. I read through the posted results to see if I knew anyone else who’d run that day. I didn’t, but something else caught my eye. I called W over to verify what I’d seen: So far in our division, only one other runner had finished. 

“You know,” I whispered, “It’s possible we could place in our division.” We laughed out loud. People turned and stared. 

 

Well, as it turns out, we did place in our division. I came in second, and W finished third. I’m still shaking my head and laughing about it today. 

Yesterday, I went into the run expecting to come out with some aching legs and hoping for a smile on my face. Turns out I got that and a whole lot more. Now I remember why I continued to try to run this summer, even when things seemed hopeless: Because after a while it does get better.  It really truly does.  You just have to keep going, that’s all.

On Lady Gaga, Andy Williams, and me

I spent the afternoon surfing the net. When I wasn’t on youtube watching crackly Andy Williams clips, I was searching google images for pictures of fat Lady Gaga, who looks just fine to me.  It was one of those afternoons when I meant to be productive but just couldn’t focus. 

Plus, Andy Williams passed away today. He was a big chunk of my childhood.

Young Andy Williams reminds me of my dad back in the 1960s:  Same taut skin, same hair, same bright grin. I had so much fun today, watching Andy talk so sweetly with little Donny and Marie Osmond. I’d like to think that my dad and mom talked with us kids in much the same way, but that would be so absurd and of course a gigantic lie. They were a little more human than Andy Williams’s television persona. 

Though my dad could give Andy a run for his money when it came to entertainment. My dad was great at banging out pop hits of the sixties on my parents’ prize possession, our Gulbransen piano that my dad got at a bargain price from some friend of a friend of a friend. The piano was the French provincial centerpiece of my mother’s French provincial living room. To my little girl eyes, our three-decker front room was a princess palace.  The good room, which was what we called this fairy tale place, was all gracefully carved chairs and marble topped tables and gold-accented mirrors. Our piano was topped with a plaster bust of Mozart, and next to that a gold-colored chalice artfully overflowing with plastic fruit that always made my mouth water. 

We were not allowed in that glorious sparkly confection of a room without parental supervision. Seriously.  I remember poking my toe into that room from the threshold of the adjoining television room just to see what would happen, and getting yelled at. 

Every night we were allowed in the room while my dad or mom played the piano. My mom loves the classics. One of her favorite pieces has always been Debussy’s “Claire de Lune.”  Even now, she never uses sheet music. She knows all her favorites by heart. Her touch is nuanced and light. As a kid, I  thought she was magic.  Though I took piano lessons for years, I’ve never been able to replicate my mother’s  fluidity and grace. 

My dad’s musical talents were and still are more pedestrian. He plays the songs of the masses. He is the master of the choppy left-hand chord. He loves his college fight songs, his Irish folk songs, and back on View Street, he adored his classic pop songs and he loved to sing. The three of us, me, my dad, my sister, would squeeze onto the piano bench, with him in the middle. We’d sing along to “Moon River,” “I’m a Lonely Little Petunia,” and of course “Daddy’s Girl.”   

Today, mentally anyhow, I’m back on Vernon Hill, in our second floor apartment. I’m sitting on our braided rug, eyes fixed on the black and white television that sits under the shining maple mantle, where the fireplace is supposed to be. It’s just the four of us, my parents, my sister, and me. 

  

Back in the sixties my father was tan and trim. My dad made his living as a teacher, so he was out of school before three. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays after work he’d head straight out to Westborough Country Club for a couple of hours of golf. He played every Saturday and Sunday too, sometimes working in fifty-four holes in one weekend. He’s still a little obsessed with his sport and still trim, though not as tanned because he uses heavy-duty sunscreen now.  

Today, when people ask me how I’ve developed such a strong exercise habit, I tell them about my dad and his golf routine. That’s what I grew up thinking was normal. You spent part of the day working, and part of the day playing.  Until I was in high school, I thought everyone’s dad played golf every day.  

My mother was and still is small and thin. She’s never been a big sports person, but she’s always loved to read and used to love to smoke.  Smoking helped keep her thin. Though my mom wasn’t into athletics at all, her legs could have been runner legs or ballerina legs. They were and still are that shapely. My mom and her two sisters, both now passed, used to joke that the three of them had the best legs in the city. I think they were right.

      

My one sister is much younger than me. She’s built like my mother, only smaller and thinner.  

And then there’s me, the one who doesn’t belong. Here’s me at age five watching Andy Williams and the Osmonds sing “Lida Rose:”  I am thick and meaty and sit cross-legged on the floor. I grab at my stomach and say to my parents, “Look, I have three rolls!”  Of fat I mean. I’m proud because the day before, I had four rolls. Five years old and that’s what I’m thinking. Interesting, eh? 

My mother told me I didn’t start out fat. I was just six pounds at birth. In early pictures, I look exactly right. I have sweet baby cheeks and dimpled arms. In my Polly Flinders holiday dresses, I look like a child model.  

Then my sister was born. She was an underweight, ill preemie who needed lots of attention. Though I was three when she was born, I still needed attention too. According to my mother, I found the best way to get it was to eat lots of Oreo cookies. The cookies were stashed in the silver bread box on the counter in the pantry. The pantry, a narrow room lined with cabinets on one side, was off the kitchen and set far back from the television room. 

It was quite easy to steal cookies. While my parents watched Andy Williams, I’d get up and pretend I was going to my room for something. My room was next to the pantry. I’d sneak in there instead and start gobbling away. Sometimes, my gluttony would get the best of me and I’d lose track of time and place. Discipline wasn’t exactly my forte back then. My mom or dad would sneak up on me and catch me in the act. They’d yell at me, but that didn’t deter me. I just learned to get sneakier and quieter.  

I was put on my first diet before I was four. The doctor who put me on the diet was my pediatrician, Dr. Riordan. I think I liked him. I was never afraid of him, I remember that much. Two other things I remember: He was fat and he was a smoker.  Yup. A fat, smoking doctor put three-year-old me on a diet.  And my parents were okay with that.  

Nothing really changed after that, except that now the milkman brought two bottles of milk twice a week instead of one: a huge full-fat bottle for everyone else, and a small bottle of skim for me. To this day, I can only drink skim milk. The full-fat stuff makes me gag.  

I was thinking about being little after I read about Andy Williams, and that, combined with reading about Lady Gaga’s twenty-five pound weight gain brought me back to being little and fat and the outsider.

I was one of the fattest kids in my class for most of my childhood. I can recall the exact name and address of the one girl in my grade who was heavier than me. I think that says just about everything about my mindset back then.

“At least I’m not as fat as L.” I remember thinking that all the time, even in first grade. I remember being uncomfortable when she was absent, because when she was out, I was the fattest kid in school. 

Over the years, my weight has gone up and gone down. I’ve learned quite a lot about people during this process, because fat me gets treated differently by others than thin me, even though I’m always the same person inside.  I’ve experienced cruelty and apathy, which is a kind of cruelty I think, when I was heavy. I’ve been fawned over and treated like a princess when I was thin.   

I’m curious to see how this whole Lady Gaga weight thing plays out in the press. I hope she stays true to herself and makes choices about her weight based on what she wants, not on what others expect. That’s what I’ve learned works best for me.  

Plus, there are a lot of little girls watching, and their moms and dads too.  Maybe they’ll all learn something. 

Running with hounds

Sometimes I run with hounds. The best kind of running hounds. Greyhounds.

Okay, so they aren’t real dogs; they’re young men. But they are definitely racing. Oh yes they are. 

Honesty here:  I run with them for just a short time, only a few seconds, if that. But I look forward to those seconds. They make me happy. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately running and walking on a rail trail, a three-mile long dirt pathway through a forest filled with evergreens and deciduous flora  – oaks, elms, ash trees. It’s quite green and pretty. The rail trail is always a little cooler than the rest of the world, probably because the trees let in little sunlight. What brightness that manages to weave itself through the canopy dissipates at ground level into a twinkling dreamscape. There’s a sparkling reservoir past the trees and down a steep hill on one side, and bubbling streams everywhere. 

About a mile into the trail, the dense greenery dwindles. The gentle dappling gives way to harsh sunlight as the path scoots under a major highway. Concrete piers hold the behemoth in place. Its harsh noises far above sound alien and wrong. There are remnants of an old mill just a few hundred yards after the overpass, then there isn’t much to see for awhile, except for twisting branches , woodland flowers, chipmunks, birds, then two brooks that you cross via footbridge.    

It’s a great place to be on a hot summer day. It’s where I wanted to be early today. But I’m back at work so now I run in the late afternoon.

Weeks ago, I figured out that the Greyhound cross country team practices at my rail trail. One day after work, I pulled into the small parking lot off the trail, and found myself next to two white vans that said Assumption College on the side. I wondered what I was getting myself into.  

The team had just arrived. Two older gents in street clothes were standing at the start of the trail, giving instructions to a dozen young bucks in running gear, long legged creatures, all sinew and muscle. 

The coaches saw me and nodded in my direction. No one tried to stop me, so I started my run, a little self-consciously and a lot slowly because the first mile should always be the slowest. The second mile the second slowest and so on and so forth.

I was old, flabby, awkward; the broken-down opposite of these shiny new models. 

About five minutes into my run I heard a bit of talking and some pounding; nothing scary, but enough to make me stop and turn to see what was going on. I stepped off the path and onto some tree roots. I watched in wonder as these magnificent animals, sparkly-eyed and panting, passed me by. I must have been smiling because a couple looked my way and grinned. Once they passed, I got back on the trail and followed behind, a doddering old grandma. I watched the pack, the straight backs and clean gaits. I remembered what running had felt like back when I was in college and dreaming of my future.  I picked up my pace. I straightened my core. Soon, the boys disappeared into the dusk.  

  

For a while all I heard was the sound of the crackling waters nearby and the pad pad pad of my shoes on the dirt. There were a few other runners out there, some familiar faces I’ve gotten to recognize over the last couple of months. We nodded politely as we passed, kindred spirits converging then moving on. 

I’d passed the first footbridge and was closing in on the second when I saw the Greyhound frontrunners headed back my way. They took long, luxurious strides. They were talking. As they approached I dared to look in the eyes of the one closest to me. He looked right back. He smiled. For the briefest of moments we shared something alive and electric. 

I continued on and soon met up with the rest of the pack. Some of these guys were struggling. I could see the weariness in their rounded shoulders and broken gaits. Some stared ahead others sought out my eyes. I know they did. I can tell. I’ve handed out thousands of cups of water at plenty of marathons. I know when a runner is asking for help. I smiled and kept my thumbs up. A few smiled back at me and did the same. 

Today I saw the team for just seconds. I was just starting out as they were finishing up. The air was crisp and dry. Perfect for running. They all looked strong. There were a lot of us regular runners on the path today too. In no time at all I found myself tapping the metal barrier that marks the end of the trail. I turned around and trotted toward home. The sun was low and the path was darker in some spots, but brighter than usual in others. In the places where the light appeared, so did my shadow:   longer, leaner, ageless.