Big Sur International Marathon 2011. A route curving along the Pacific coast, all the way from Big Sur to Carmel, stretching across some of the most beautiful scenery California has to offer. The race website even showed a pianist playing a grand piano on a lookout point along the route. This was going to be my first marathon and I could not wait to see my bucket list item turn into reality.
I signed up with one of my undergraduate friends who lived across the hall from me. We had gone on a few runs together, and while he was much faster than me, he was also the only person willing to sign up. By this point in time I was 19 and had completed two Nike Women’s Half Marathons in San Francisco, and could just about visualize doing that course twice in one go. I was terrified but very excited at the prospect that I would run further than I ever had before.
I began training for the marathon the way I trained for the half marathon. I downloaded a free Asics training schedule, added it to my calendar, and started running a few times a week around my university campus. The runs started off between 3 to 5 miles and the plan was to slowly increase up to the big 20 mile run. Having never run further than 13.2 miles before, I could not quite imagine what it would feel like to go further, but I was curious and excited to give it a try.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a time in mind for the race. It wasn’t the flattest course, but I knew I wanted to run it under 5 hours, and ideally under 4.30 which was a somewhat arbitrary goal but seemed like a good number on paper.
What I did not factor into my training was what 2011 had in store for me. To be honest, I should have been a bit more wary based on how 2010 ended. I had my first semblance of a romantic relationship come to a halting stop out of the blue and discovered that my roommate had a few surprises up her sleeve. The day you return home from a weekend away and are accused in a passive aggressive post-it note of causing a ceiling light to fall out of the ceiling will be the day you begin to understand who I was sharing a 700 ft apartment with. However, you may not fully appreciate the situation until you are also sharing that same apartment with your roommate’s mother as well, who will instruct you to take out her trash whenever she sees you in the kitchen. In sum, it wasn’t exactly the ideal set-up I had hoped for.
I found that going for runs was my way of dealing with the stress of my break-up, figuring out sophomore year, and dealing with the claustrophobic feeling I got whenever I put the keys into my front door. I hated going home. I hated cycling by the residence where my ex lived, and I was quickly losing confidence in myself. Running was my escape. For 30-60 minutes I would run along a paved path that led to tree-lined roads and dirt trails. I loved going somewhere with no real reason to be there. It was as if time was suspended during my runs and I was able to focus on my thoughts, on how I felt now that I was no longer in a classroom, the apartment, or on campus.
Sadly, I never made it to my 20 mile training run. I’m not sure I ran any further than 6 or 8 miles during that period as I soon found myself becoming weak and exhausted. I figured it was down to the training until one day I found it difficult to walk to class. I had a very sore throat, the kind where all you can think about is how sore it feels even when you’re doing nothing but breathing. I got myself to a doctor who without the slightest hesitation diagnosed me with mono. The doctor said that she had seen a number of cases of mono on campus and sometimes all it required was to take it a bit easier and it wouldn’t be too severe. She quickly followed that up with, but in your case you will need to take the quarter off and rest at home. I could not believe my luck.
I figured that in about six weeks’ time I would feel better. I would be able to run the Big Sur Marathon with my friend and even though my training would take a hit, somehow I would be better and even if I had to walk it I would finish it.
I was wrong.
It took me a good few months to fully regain my strength, and the last thing I wanted to do was go for a run. I spent the rest of the quarter asleep at home, and when I returned for spring quarter, I spent most of that sleeping 12-14 hours a night. I gained weight, my confidence slipped, and I was too tired to do much more than attend class.
I did go to Big Sur with my friend. As planned, we drove down together and I proceeded to cheer him on at the race the next day. I felt nervous and excited for him to be running it, but also sad. It felt as though this dream I had was slipping away, and as I spent the morning in a cafe waiting out the hours until I would head over to the finish line to cheer my friend on, I resigned myself to the idea that this just wasn’t for me. Who was I to think that I would be able to run a marathon? I was just an overweight, chronically tired girl. I had never been much of an athlete and now I was simply following that path through.
It was about a year later that a stressful week of classes sent me searching for my sneakers again and I found myself slowing jogging along my path to the tree-lined roads and dirt trails.
And about a year after that I crossed the Napa Valley Marathon finish line in 4.28.
