mantras

In my first marathon, my goal was to finish, but really, I had the goal to finish in under 4 hours. Never having tackled the marathon before, I only had been told how hard the last few miles are. Particularly at Twin Cities, which is a hard marathon at the end with a series of hills that are just killer after you've already run 20. So being my first, I had a stated goal of finishing, sometimes adding that I was hoping for a 4:15. But in my head, I knew that I was trained well enough to run under 4. And I ran a 3:55.

I had a mantra prepared that I said over and over and over again through the last 6 miles of the race. "Dig deep, trust in your training, you can do this." It was so central to my focus in those final miles that when I saw a friend at mile 23 I said, "I can do this" to her. She shouted back, "Yes you can!" As those last water stops went by, as people started walking, cramping, struggling, I just turned inward and focused. And I ran every single step of that race and beat my goal by 5 minutes.

Last fall, I did not have a mantra that I believed in strongly enough that it could get me through those last 6 miles. I was worried going into the race that I didn't have enough miles under my belt to run as well as I wanted to. Greece was wonderful, but it really screwed up my training. I had bonked in a half earlier that season, my first time ever, and that weighed heavily on me too. When a wave of doubt crashed through my brain at mile 20, I was so thrown it took 4 miles to pull myself back together. I walked a bunch, some with kind friends cheering me along, and I couldn't get my breathing and brain back under control. I snapped out of it at 24 and had a good final 2.2, but the lapse cost me 7 minutes off my time.

After that race, many people told me to stop feeling bad about 7 minutes. What's 7 minutes? It's only 7 minutes! But 7 minutes is a lot of time in a running race, even a marathon. People who don't run are the people who say these things. And yes, running a marathon is 95% of the work done in training and only 5% the race. But it's freaking hard not to put pressure on that race and end up ecstatic or devastated, since really, that's what you did all that training for.

I wish I didn't have a lot of pride wrapped up in the coming marathon. I have worked my tail off, week after week, beyond what I even thought was possible. I have set what I think and my coach thinks is a reasonable but challenging goal. It is going to hurt. It will be hard. And it is never a given in the unpredictable beast that is the marathon.

I'll have a lot of people cheering for me and pulling for me, and it is going to be great to count on that. But in the end, it comes down to what I tell myself in those last 6 miles. I'll be testing out new mantras over the next couple weeks so I have one that I believe in and that I know well enough that I can rely on it when my body wants to quit on me. I still like "trust in your training" because I really have trained ridiculously hard, and "dig deep" is always a good one. I'm thinking about something with strength as well as being calm, maybe just "strong and calm." I need to work on that one. Whatever it ends up being, I know it is going to get me through that 26.2 in a few weeks.

dead to me

I think I've mentioned before how when a relationship ends, I usually pretend that the guy is dead. No longer in existence. Never to be seen or heard from again. This is considerably more difficult when I've made the (poor) decision to date men I worked with. It's not as easy to pretend a man is dead when you have to see him every single day. But my dating scars take a really long time to heal, and it's usually better if I don't know anything about them. And even after the passage of much time, I don't usually want to ever see them or know what they are doing. Say what you will, there is no medal given to the woman who is friends with the most exs.

In the last week, I found out through very random ways that three guys I've dated in the last couple years have gotten married this spring. And then tonight, I had a run-in with the ex that I was most screwed up over, and it was nice. I saw him across the restaurant and went up and said a quick hi. We talked for a few minutes, and then I left. It was a nothing. I called my sis to tell her about it, and in an effort of full disclosure, she told me she found out that the most recent ex was going to be running a race I'm also running in a couple weeks. And I don't care.

All of this would normally send me into a tailspin. I'm pretty happy that it didn't this time around. Maybe it's all those endorphins from the running. At any rate, they clearly are not dead, but I don't even need to wish that they were. Progress, I think.

as real as it may seem, it was only in my dreams...

I had a dream last night that I was running a marathon. I showed up to the starting line, and turned out I was the only person who signed up for the race. The race directors decided that since it was only me running the race, they didn't need to close down a course route. They just told me roughly where I should run through the city for 26.2 miles, and come back to the start line for my t-shirt. They told me I couldn't take any elevators when I was running through buildings, but I was encouraged to run through the art museum in town.

So off I ran, through skyways and up escalators. I did go through the art museum too. I kept asking people if I was going the right way, but no one knew what I was talking about. I knew I was on the right route when I saw a piece of construction paper stapled to a stake stuck in the ground with "13.1" written on it in crayon. At that point I was around 2 hours in and knew I couldn't get the BQ time I was shooting for, so I was pretty disappointed. I stopped at a crocodile-shaped port-a-potty, but the guy standing guard said that those were only for park patrons. I saw my parents a bit after that in the lobby of an office building, and they convinced me that I should maybe drop out of the race and that they'd buy me a new running shirt instead.

I haven't had a race-related dream before, but I'm pretty sure Grandma's is a little better attended than this "dream" race. And though I haven't run it before, I can't find anything about escalators or art museums on the website, so I think I'm safe there. I must be a little anxious about this marathon, more than in the past, as indicated by a dream over four weeks in advance. But I'm in the best shape I've ever been and, sluggish week aside, I'm feeling really ready for it. Time will tell.

about face

I go out, occasionally, on these set-ups that end up being pretty awkward. Usually, only one person knows it's a set up. By the by, potential setter-uppers, this is not the way to do it. Although it is highly uncomfortable to be watched by everyone at the table whether you are hitting it off, it is far better than wondering why the hell everyone is whispering behind your back or (worse) knowing why the hell everyone is whispering and wishing they'd stop. Best that everyone is in the know.

Ok, so I went on one such set-up several weeks ago. It was a quick after work happy hour, and the guy was nice and asked my colleague for my number. But I never heard from him. After a week, I figured he wasn't interested and forgot about it.

Fast forward three weeks. I get a text Monday night "Hey, this is ____ . I lost my phone and just got a new one, so this is my new number. Want to grab dinner sometime?" I am getting old, and my memory for names has always been terrible, but I have to admit that I stared at that text for at least 5 minutes before the synapses fired and I made the connection that it was the happy hour guy. He was nice enough so I wrote back that sure, we should go out. We make plans to meet the following Monday evening.

Not 10 hours after our date was set, I receive a 3 part text-novel saying that his relationship status has changed and it would be inappropriate for him to go out with me and that it wasn't planned and he hoped I didn't think he was a jerk. I replied, "Ok. Thanks for letting me know." Which apparently wasn't satisfying enough, because I got another 3 part text-novel saying that he's not the kind of guy that can date more than one girl and that he wished he'd met me sooner and blah, blah, blah. Like I care. The only good thing here is that nothing was invested so little can be lost!