I generally have very little patience with watching others in their sports activities. Even with my own children’s soccer games, the joke was that I was the worst soccer mom around. I could barely handle to sit there for one half of a game. Watching other people be active makes me want to be active, busy getting something done. However, I can manage to enjoy snippets of running races now and then. Especially for the camaraderie with my husband. So, when he texted from upstairs that the last few miles of the New York Marathon were being televised, I came to the couch.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the degree to which I would empathize with the runners. Having run my first, and so far, only marathon last fall, I was immediately in tune to what each runner’s form said about their mental state and physical stamina. The women were on mile 22, and the winners were starting to really distinguish themselves. I got a huge adrenaline rush, then felt guilty because I am no where near the class of runner that they are.
As I sat there, I was forcing myself into measured breathing to slow my heart rate, since my adrenaline was counterproductive for my current state of virus induced illness. Still, I began to feel each foot step of whichever runner was being highlighted. It was like I was willing them to keep their pace, to maintain the flow of their stride. I was hoping their muscles were not screaming at them as I remembered mine doing at that point in the marathon.
It didn’t matter that these runners were running at paces that would be a dead out sprint to me. The commentators could tell me that the mile times were in the range of 5:20 minutes, but my fevered mind had me running along side. I was irritated by how close the motorcycles and camera cars were driving to us. I was even starting to get hungry.
When the first women’s finisher crossed the line, I almost cried, so caught up in the moment was I. Then, I immediately transferred my energy (if they had only known…) to the next runner coming in. Was she going to be disappointed to get 2nd? What about the 3rd and 4th place finishers, and so on. I was delighted to see that they all expressed great satisfaction with the accomplishment. And I was inspired for when I would run again.
Watching the men come in was made more fun because Meb Keflezighi was in the front pack up until the end. I have read and greatly enjoyed his biography, Run to Overcome. I also follow him on twitter and had fun on this past July 4th when he favorited my retweet of his tweet on running 12 miles that morning, because I had also run 12 miles that July morning!
The next morning, I awoke before dawn, refreshed and alert. There were no signs of the previous day’s illness right then. I ate a light breakfast while I waited for the sun to come up. I NEEDED to run. It was cool enough for warmer clothes. First, I put on my long running pants and a thin long-sleeved wool top. With the air crisp and a bit damp on this November morning, I also added ear warmers, gloves, and a zippered running jacket, just until I warmed up. But my feet would be bare.
The plan was to run 2 to 2.5 miles. I hadn’t run in a few days. Even though I was aching to run, I didn’t have any high hopes, as my recovery runs after an illness are typically slow and relaxed, to test and prime my system. I turned on some music (Christina Aguilera’s “Soar” is at the top of the list) and clicked my Strava app timer into action.
Many of the people that I see on my regular running route know me by sight. Since this is a nearly one mile loop of sorts, a zig-zagging asphalt path around warm spring fed ponds in a bird reserve, I see a lot of the same walkers multiple times during most runs.They have seen me running frequently enough the colder fall temperatures that they don’t even raise an eyebrow when they see me barefoot, though they are all in parkas.
My feet fell into a relatively quick rhythm, and I became aware that the pace of the marathon runners was dangerously embedded in my brain. After a brief moment of panic, I realized it couldn’t really be their paces, as I was not physically capable of anything close to that. Yet. I still have hopes of improvement, for the fun of it. What I did know was that I was going faster than usual at the beginning of a run. I considered making myself slow down, but decided that since there was no pressure to run a certain way the whole time, I would just enjoy my exhilaration step by step. If I needed to slow down somewhere in the run, so be it.
It turned out that even after being sick for several days, that 2.5 miles was not too far to run, even at that peppy pace. I was excited to see that my second mile was at an 8:22 minute mile pace. That was very good for my current level of aerobic base building. I know I could not have continued for several miles at that pace. What I was encouraged about was that I wasn’t totally winded or feeling like I had been at an all out sprint.
Am I recovered from (watching) the finish of the New York Marathon? I don’t know. I still get little shots of adrenaline just remembering it, but I am the person who deals with adrenaline three days before a race and sometimes at the thought of a challenging workout. In some ways, I hope I never recover. I strongly doubt I will ever travel that distance or pay that much to run in a race, so NY is not my goal. Enjoying life and running is my goal. Watching those few minutes of the New York Marathon has fed my joy of running. I don’t want to recover from that.