WEEKS 11 & 12: 'Round the Bend

Miles Week 11: 7 (Sunday's long run: 7 miles)
Miles Week 12: 24.5 (Sunday's long run: 16 miles)
Miles To Date: 166


So two weeks ago, with the 14 mile run, we crossed that big halfway mark: .9 mi past half-marathon distance (the marathon being 26.2).

Last week the recovery run was half of that: 7 miles. SHORT AND EASY, in this context - and it's amazing to me that it really feels that way! 7 miles two months ago was nearly unthinkable!

Similarly: Today we added two miles to our longest distance and ran 16. To accommodate these increasingly really long runs, our coach, starting today, has added a minute to our pace (so my group now runs 12-minute miles instead of 11-minute miles) and adjusted our walk-run ratio from 5:1 (5 min running, 1 min walking) to 4:1.

We finished this run with our timing on the dot: 3 hours, 12 minutes, of running.

How do I feel after 3 hours and 12 minutes of running?

Pretty much like somebody beat me with a stick. And not just my legs. My arms hurt! How about that?

But the cool thing is that this is exactly how I felt after the 10 mile run... and 12 miles... and 14.

Let me reiterate: I feel the same after 16 miles as I did after 10 – not worse. And that means this is damn well-designed training program.

And of course 10 miles today feels, if long, totally manageable. Likewise, my solo maintenance runs this week were between 4 and 5 miles, at a 9.5-minute pace instead of 11 minutes, and I didn't take any walk breaks.

IMPOSSIBLE for me when I started 2.5 months ago.

Really, it's not amazing or shocking; it makes perfect sense. As we tell our students in the afterschool circus arts program for which I occasionally teach: "The more you practice, the better you get." Still, the corporeal experience of this is awe-inspiring. We so often think of ourselves in static terms: This is who I am. So many pounds. So much muscle to so much fat. These strengths, these weaknesses. These likes, these dislikes.

Period.

I won't be getting taller anytime soon (at least, not without platforms). But I totally found a new muscle on the side of my calf this morning! I'm actually changing my body, on a cellular level, just by doing what I'm capable of doing. I'm changing who I am.

I love extending this logic to the rest of my life. Do I want to run a marathon? Okay. It will require time, energy and education - but of course I can do that (and may I add, MANY who are not in the generally good state of health I enjoy are doing it as well - more slowly, but they're doing it!).

So what else do I want? Who do I want to be? Whatever those things are will require focus, time, energy, and education - but if I'm willing to make the commitment, of course I can have them. I'm 36! And one of our East Bay runners today celebrated her 70th birthday with a 16 miler. It's never too late to have fun learning more about who you really are.

Tremendously powerful lesson. Tremendously powerful, to learn that through this - to learn it in my muscles. Tremendously powerful, to witness it in the hundred or so others who also run, at 8 am, every Sunday morning at the Berkeley Marina.