Run through the jungle
Flashback: I’m a 28-year-old full-time mom and PhD drop-out, and I’m ready to race my first official mile. Actually, “ready” is probably overstating it.
I live in a new state, again. This evening’s summer track meet is the fifth in a weekly community series, each with a featured event and points for placing. I came in second in the 100-meter and 200-meter features, and then I won the 400 meters and 800 meters. I don’t really know how to run a mile strategically, and one of my competitors definitely seems like she does. But if I win this race tonight, I’ll be the series champion.
How am I back at the starting line of a race? In the years after leaving collegiate sports, I’ve contorted myself into a distance runner. Improbably, I’ve learned to run 5Ks for speed, not just to finish. I have no natural endurance, so every 15-second improvement on my mile pace is hard-won. And it all disappears whenever I fall behind on training. During the first year of my doctoral program, for example. When I was pregnant, for another. When I broke my ankle, running, two months postpartum and determined to recover my fitness sooner with the second kid. Back to square one, every damn time.
But I win the mile. My husband watches from the infield with our kids, who are parked in the double jogger sharing an iPad. It’s a flash in the pan, though. In a matter of weeks, I’ll start law school, traumatize my babies by abandoning them in day care, and discover that one of them is on the autism spectrum. I will spend the next two years figuring out on my own how to help her learn the basics of social life, since no one else seems to know how. Did I mention we’re still potty training?
Distance running turned out to be a perfect metaphor for my 20s. In those years, I learned that I could get where I wanted only if I tried harder than I ever knew I could — and sometimes not even then. There would always be unforeseen obstacles.
I’d trained hard as a sprinter, but ultimately I was just throwing all my energy into a short race on a flat course and hoping for the best. No matter what, it would be over soon. But distance running takes a different kind of mental toughness. You’ve been running hard for minutes on end, often over rough or unpredictable terrain, and all you want to do is stop. And of course, you can stop. You’re an independent person; you don’t have to keep running. Unless you want to get anywhere. And if you also want to get better, you have to not only keep going but go faster. Somehow, you have to find a way.
Often, that involves talking yourself into something, in running and in life:
“I don’t know if I can stay in this relationship.” Hang on, it might get better.
“They’re going to kick me out of this graduate program.” Just try to make it through this patch and then see what happens.
“I didn’t realize this baby would never sleep.” The hill flattens out up ahead.
“I definitely cannot take care of another baby already; the one I have is not even a year old.” Dig deep.
“I had to take a cough-syrup nap in my car this morning after Civil Procedure. These day care plagues are going on six weeks.” What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
“My kid has the wrong day care, the wrong doctor, the wrong therapist. Why don’t any of these professionals know how to help us?” Dig deeper.
“That lawyer said I can’t be in the top ten percent of my class because I have kids. I don’t believe her.” Steady breath; steady pace.
“This judge thinks I might be less dedicated as a clerk because I have a kid with special needs. What if I can’t get a job after I graduate?” The finish line is in sight.
“How am I the only woman attorney in this law firm? I’m not sure I belong here.” If you want to move forward, you have to keep going.
Carl Jung said that we can’t live the afternoon of life according to the rules of life’s morning. My morning has passed, and it doesn’t seem important anymore whether I can still chase the next personal best. I’m trying to catch other things now: Opportunities for my children to find happiness. A fulfilling career. A life I’ll be proud of. As far as I can tell, none of that is available to me without the perseverance I learned from evolving as an athlete. Running turned out to be a means to other ends.
But as my runs get longer, I start to lose track of whether I’m chasing something, or something is chasing me. Family members, old and young, pass away. So do other people I know: A good friend’s husband cursed with a rare cancer. A girl on my high school track and field team who had a baby about the same time I did before the flu took her. A professor at my law school, also with kids about the ages of my own, shot to death in his driveway on a sunny weekday morning.
Steady breath; steady pace. Not too fast. The finish line is in sight.
Lesson four: Your 20s feel like a wilderness, and not everyone makes it out. If you emerge having learned the difference between the means and the ends in life, call it a success and keep going.
Running for Something, Part IV