For the (non-running) spouses, significant others et al that support us in our efforts, I thought you all might enjoy this article from American Way .... Running Lessons Eric Celeste For nonrunners, supporting a marathoner can be tough. But as our writer learned, cheering someone on to the New York City Marathon can only be described as a journey. That is clearly not impossible. It is difficult — extraordinary, even. Sure, 541,000 people crossed the finish line in 1,100 U.S. marathons last year, but I’m telling you, finishing a marathon is extraordinary. I’m telling you that because I know there is no way I could ever run one. I’m telling you that because people who run marathons like to be reminded how tough it is. I’m reminding you of that because my girlfriend of five years is running her first marathon in New York City on Nov. 2. And she likes it when I remind her how extraordinary that is. And it is extraordinary. I truly believe that. But I’m going to attempt to do the impossible. I’m going to try, with love and respect, to explain why people who run marathons are a wonderful challenge to those of us who don’t. And I’m going to try to do so in a way that doesn’t augur the end of my relationship. Let’s begin. When Red — my girlfriend has red hair — crossed the finish line, I was crying. It was spring of this year, and she had just completed her first half-marathon. I was proud of her and thankful her journey was complete. (Note: Runners talk a lot about journeys. It is not a workout or a race. It’s part of the journey. I am not making light of this. Journeys are wonderful. I support journeys. Of journeys, count me a fan. Just so we’re clear.) “Red! Over here!” I had pushed my way through to the front of the bystander section so she could see me. As the social-media director of our life’s moments, I envisioned capturing the big moment on my phone: that point when she crossed the finish line, hugged her boyfriend and wept in realization at how much I’d helped navigate her through this journey. Perhaps I would later add an orchestral score. I yelled for her again. She saw me! I waved her over — and she dismissed me with a hand gesture, then walked toward the tent that offered bananas. I was hurt. Wait, hadn’t I rearranged my schedule to accommodate her training? Hadn’t I been there for every prerace freak-out? Tish Hamilton, executive editor at Runner’s World magazine, laughed when I told her this story. “We are always at our worst as soon as we finish a race,” she says. “It’s a terribly low moment. We’re hungry, angry and grumpy.” Runners cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the start of the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 3, 2013. Maddie Meyer/getty images This was my first lesson: At the end of the run, don’t expect thanks for just standing there. In retrospect, that seems fair. I asked Red what comes next, now that the half-marathon goal was over. I was thinking a long vacation. Or maybe joining a book club. “I’m going to run New York,” Red said, smiling big and bright. Red was born with scoliosis, and it worsened with age. By her mid-20s, her spine was S-shaped. At 26, she underwent spinal-fusion surgery, in which titanium bolts are placed between her vertebrae and cranked until the spine straightens. It is unspeakably painful. I met her shortly thereafter. For the first time, she could exercise regularly, and she was hooked, sometimes doing so twice a day. She wasn’t running long distances because she was not yet cleared to do so by doctors, given the wear running does to the body. I was fine with this, as I’d recently lost nearly 50 pounds doing sprints and weight work. My knees hurt when I ran distances more than a mile. As doctors gave her clearance for greater distances, Red took on each new running allowance with great joy. She, like most runners, is a goal-setter. The idea of a months-long training program to run a certain distance in a certain time, and maybe even set a “PR,” or personal record, provided her with a rush beyond the physical. More than that, running is intensely personal to her and her family. Her father and sisters are runners. That she could never run with her father on his early-morning jogs across the Golden Gate Bridge haunted her. Now, every time her father sees her, he first asks, “How far did you run today?” It fills her heart. I was fine with this, and once I accepted that we were going to work together to get her to New York, I wanted to do anything I could to make it happen. Supportive boyfriend = me. Training for a half-marathon is, through some cruel quirk of running math, only one-eighth as time-consuming and stressful as training for a marathon. More to the point, runners self-select their friends the more they train, meaning I was often the only person in the group not training for a marathon. Hence another lesson: The first rule of runners club is that you must talk about runners club. In the 2007 movie Spirit of the Marathon (which Red and I watched for one of our movie-night dates), one of the marathoners says that she and her friends spend all their free time talking about running and all their running time talking about everything else. This led me to believe I should perhaps take up running just so we could talk about the “everything else.” Runners surround themselves with other runners in part so they can talk about running, I’m convinced. I’m amazed at the number of running topics that can be discussed: weather; shoes; training methods; gadgets and software; stretching; tools for stretching; clothing; appropriate ointments; preferred bars, pastes and goo for ingestion; trails versus hills; hills versus tempo runs. I want to reiterate: I have no problem with this. We all get caught up in our passions. I was and am happy Red finds such joy in running, and she can talk about it all day as far as I’m concerned. But what happens is this: I stay quiet, because I have little to say. I listen and learn. I’m OK with that. Inevitably, though, her friends are not. They want to understand why I’m not participating. This is where things get dicey. “Eric, do you run?” The question was asked during an otherwise lovely dinner for six at an upscale restaurant. “I exercise often,” I said, which I’ve found is the best response. “Three to five days a week.” “But you don’t run?” The couple to our left, Annie and Brian, are marathoners. They run, train, love and laugh together. They are the picture-perfect running couple. They also know Red and I well enough not to go down this path. They honor my support-don’t-do stance on running. The other couple was new. The male seemed a little thickheaded. He was the one asking the questions. “I do not,” I answered. “I run sprints. But, no, I don’t ‘run’ like you guys run.” “Why not?” “I just prefer exercising in a gym,” I said. “Easier on my knees.” “Oh, I can show you how to make your knees stronger, if you want to try running.” “I do not,” I said. “It’s OK if you can’t run that far at first.” “Well, it makes my knees hurt,” I said. “And I don’t enjoy it. And I like working out on my schedule. And running is perhaps the most inefficient way to shock your body into substantive change, which is what someone my age is trying to do when he works out. And I like the solitude of my exercising, and I enjoy that I never have to talk about it.” Left unsaid: like right now. We still see Annie and Brian. We never saw the other couple again. So what happens when a runner and a nonrunner decide to live together? Especially insightful is the debate that followed a running-blog question put to readers: “Is it easier to date a runner than a nonrunner?” A typical answer: “Life is an adventure, and adventures are meant to be shared — I don’t want to experience the world while the love of my life sits at home on the couch. That wouldn’t work for us.” Tish Hamilton ran her first marathon in 1989. She ran because a guy at work challenged her to do so. That guy, a triathlete, became her boyfriend and then her husband. She’s since run about 45 marathons. Earlier this year, Hamilton wrote a brave essay for Runner’s World that was picked up by The Huffington Post called “Untying the Knot,” in which she discussed how getting divorced challenged her as a runner. She gave honest advice on how best to navigate the challenges that come with runner/nonrunner unions. “The longer you stick with running and meet other runners, the more runners you have around you,” she said. “It’s like a cult. We make everybody drink the Kool-Aid. When I started running, my sister didn’t run. My mom didn’t run. Today my sister has run marathons in 45 or 46 states. My mom, who is 86, is going to senior Olympics in the 5K. You look around one day, and everyone you know is a runner. I don’t know what it’s like to have a relationship with someone not into running … how you make it work.” Which brings us to the most painful lesson: Despite everyone trying really hard, this may not work out. Sixteen weeks from New York, I went with Red to one of her Saturday runs. Saturdays are sacrosanct for marathoners. They gather together with their training groups to do their long runs. Red runs with a group that averages running each mile in 9.5 minutes. Today she’s running 12 miles. Next weekend, it will be 14. Eventually she’ll run 22 miles, which is just impossible for me to imagine. It was a pretty spectacular scene. We arrived at the Dallas-area lake where she trains at 5:30 a.m. The coaches’ meeting was taking place. Hundreds of runners were stretching, adjusting their running watches, hydrating. A cop’s flashlight directed a stream of cars into the lot. I strode among the fit, in boots and jeans, like a narc at recess. The spirit and camaraderie are truly impressive. Friends are pairing up, talking about how they’ve been. A man named Donny tells me how his boyfriend convinced him to take up running and how it transformed his life, making him not only healthier, but happier. “Is your boyfriend here?” Donny laughs: “He’s on the couch. He gave it up.” That gave me a glimmer of hope. But then I asked several others about their journeys and the people upon whom they leaned for support. Every one of them — the 83-year-old Brit, the college professor, the former beauty queen who is now a painter, the running coach — echoed what Hamilton told me. Everyone close to them is or has become a runner. “I do feel it’s difficult to relate to those who don’t run,” says Heidi Somes, who’d just finished running a marathon with her husband on Easter Island. (He proposed to her at the finish line of a marathon.) “You’re always having to explain the ‘why’ of running. And I don’t see a marathon as a chore. I see it as a test and an adventure.” I see Red before she heads off. “I’ll be in the car when you get back.” When Red was training for the half-marathon, I’d downloaded an app called “Couch-to-5K” and used it to train for a small run. Even though it was only 3.1 miles, I figured it was a way to make a small gesture that showed I supported her running. It was becoming clear that such small gestures were not enough. She still had 16 weeks to go before New York. I barely saw her on Saturdays. (After the run, there’s the group breakfast, then the hours-long nap.) I work out in the evenings, which means our schedules are out of whack. I could tell, seeing her around these people, that it wasn’t just the activity. It was them. They brought her joy. There was no way New York was going to be the last marathon. It was going to be the first of many. I got on the app store and downloaded a slightly different mobile-app program: “5K-to-10K.” I have yet to open it. I plan to, though. I think it holds my final lesson: Red is worth it. THINGS TO DO ON RACE DAY Make a sign! They love seeing it as they pass. Try to let them know approximately what mile marker they’ll see you at. The anticipation helps motivate the runner. Be a calming influence. The runner will be nervous about every aspect of the day (weather, transportation, etc.). You need to stabilize him or her. Don’t eat. The runner is going to want a big meal afterward. Eric Celeste is a columnist for D Magazine, the city magazine of Dallas. As of this issue, he is still a nonrunner.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 17:48:47 +0000
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