A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Marathon...

So I've noticed an interesting phenomenon about telling people you're training for a marathon: the instant the words leave your mouth, the person you're talking to will involuntarily look you over. I've probably done the same thing, automatically trying to weigh the facts against ambitions. Since noticing this trend, I've been careful not to mention my marathon aspirations unless I'm wearing pants that flatter my bum. I went running for the first time in a while on Sunday. We had a horrendous time in church with the boys that morning; the sweet lady who sat behind us actually hugged me when we left. I think she sensed my exasperation. We got home and had some breakfast, then watched the US/Canada hockey game while the food settled. Later Aaron took both boys to Costco by himself(something we usually do together or with fewer kids) so I could go running while the shopping was being done. It was a lovely spring evening, warm enough to run in a light long-sleeved top. The route I chose took me past at least a dozen cherry trees and the air was soft and sweet. I haven't run long distances for a while; when I say "a while" I mean somewhere around ten years. I ran as a teenager to work out my angst, and I'm simply a lot less angsty these days. I ran 3-5 times a week, between 3-5 miles per run. I liked the way my mind and my body unwound as I ran, untangling the knots in my brain as well as my muscles. Running gave me my own little world, one set apart from my family and friends and all the cares of school and my job. It was something that was mine and mine alone, a world I created for myself from nothing but the strength of my own body. It was a way to get away, literally but perhaps more important, figuratively, from everything that troubled me. I ran a lot after meeting Aaron. In fact, the day after I met him I improved my personal best for distance by pounding out eight miles, not willing to admit to myself where this new-found source of energy and ambition was coming from. On days when I started to feel tired and my energy lagged, I relied on two tricks to get me to the end of my run. One trick, and I have no idea why I did this, was to count my strides in sets of twelve. It was a high enough number to move me a significant distance but low enough that I could always bring myself to run just twelve more steps; every time I got to twelve, I'd start over. Sometimes I'd be counting to twelve for a whole mile, my brain switching to an automatic track that wasn't allowed to think about the discomfort in my lungs or the heaviness in my legs, only to count to twelve and to force my feet to move with each number. The other trick was to think about Aaron. For a good amount of the time I knew him, he was dating someone else. Consequently, I did a lot of running. I had a sense from the very beginning that Aaron and I were meant to be together, so the effect of seeing him with another girl was twofold: it created in me a sense that all was not right with the world, but also a sense of waiting. It was a strange mix of feelings to have at once a sense of dread but also hope, that if I just stuck it out long enough the Forces of the Universe would eventually get with the program and everything would work out. This outcome seemed a lot less likely during the three-year period that Aaron and I didn't speak to each other. I wasn't speaking to him because I felt he'd behaved like an ass, and he wasn't speaking to me because he felt sheepish about having behaved like an ass. Later, the roles would be reversed but eventually it did all work out. In the meantime, I ran. And whenever I felt like counting to twelve wasn't going to get me through the last mile, I'd pretend that Aaron was waiting for me. The end of my run was always the hardest part, two fairly long, fairly steep hills coming between me and my parents' front door. I'd usually walk up them, but on days when I felt particularly angsty or that the universe was so badly out of order I couldn't see how it would ever right itself, I'd channel all my discontent into self-improvement and make myself run up both hills to finish. Often, the only way to get myself to do this was to envision Aaron at the top. He was never there, but the hope of someday propelled me though many a final ascent. During my run on Sunday, my thoughts wandered back to all those fraught runs of my youth and where they'd gotten me. Muscle memory is a well-documented thing, but what I find even more compelling are the mental memories woven into the process. I ran about five miles that evening, and it was just difficult enough to be really satisfying. During the last half-mile, I started counting to twelve. After a few rounds of that, I realized that my other endurance trick would probably serve me better since Aaron would, in fact, actually be waiting for me at the top of the hill.