Hello! Well, this is it! Finally, the end to my three-part series on shit. As the other two installments were quite lengthy, I will try to keep this final piece of shit short. Just a quick recap, I was supposed to run my 10th marathon in the Bahamas as part of the Mountains to Marathons (M2M) Leadership Program. The idea was to spend a weeklong leadership and self-development retreat in the Bahamas with the other participants in the program. The retreat would culminate with each of us completing the Bahamas Marathon in January of 2021. Unfortunately, or at least I thought unfortunately at the time, the Bahamas Marathon went all virtual sometime around late November because of Covid. Jamin and Jen, the M2M coaches,tried to stay positive and reassured us that we could still create a beautiful retreat but I wasn’t so sure. Although I had done a lot of work on myself and my attitude, I still had asshole tendencies that expressed themselves occasionally. To be honest, I was extremely disappointed. All of the marathons at that time were being cancelled. How was I ever going to run my 10th marathon without a race being held? I remember messaging another participant in the program, Melissa, and just venting about how pissed off I was. I honestly didn’t know if I would even continue the marathon training or the program at that point. It is a big ask to train for a marathon over the holidays, and I was tempted to say fuck it.
Jamin and Jen explored several options, however, at the end of the day, with travel being so dicey and all of the quarantine rules pre- and post-travel, the decision was made to have a virtual retreat over Zoom. I have to admit I was angry at first. Zoom? Are you fucking kidding me? How can anything meaningful happen over Zoom, I wondered. I was sick of Zooming as I had been working from home since March of 2020. I found it hard to focus and concentrate on Zoom and had been looking forward to meeting Jamin, Jen and the other participants in person. And what would happen with the marathon? Jamin and Jen told us the plan was that we would still all run the marathon on the day it was scheduled. We would just be running it by ourselves, in our own remote locations. Great, I thought. I live in fucking Iowa. I am sure most of you know how shitty the weather can be in Iowa in January. I was frustrated and honestly did not think I had it in me to run 26.2 miles, in Iowa, in the frigid cold, by myself. At any rate, I sort of put all that in the back of my mind, half or maybe more than half, believing it would never actually happen.
Eventually, the first day of the virtual retreat arrived. I remember on the first day, Jamin and Jen gave us this wonderful pep talk about how none of us were going to flake out on the marathon. They said it much nicer than that, but that was the point. We were supposed to report back with our race plans and send a picture of our race layout, which is basically a layout of everything you will need on race day. Jamin and Jen talked about getting people out as support persons and setting up a Zoom link where friends or family could check in on your progress. I still didn’t know if I had it in me to complete a one-person marathon so outside of Jamin, Jen and the other M2M participants, I literally told three people I was running a marathon by myself on Sunday, January 17, 2021. One person lived out of town, the other person was traveling out of town and the final person was watching my kids during the five hours it would take me to complete the marathon. Jamin and Jen were going to be keeping track of us on Zoom and checking in on us every hour. My plan was to run around a two-mile lake trail 13.5 times with my water and fuel stored in my truck. Every two miles, I would stop at my truck and drink water or refuel. My back up plan was to straight treadmill that bitch but that was a last resort. But part of me still believed I might just do a half marathon or maybe not do it at all.
In order to save time, I am not going to get into all the details of the retreat. Suffice it to say, it was a powerful experience and I felt badly for thinking it would be a piece of shit over Zoom. The overall theme of the retreat was examining what kind of life I wanted to create. The second half of my life did not have to look like the first half. That realization, in and of itself, was extremely impactful to me. Prior to the M2M program, I had felt stuck, depressed and had little hope for the future because I was so focused on the failures and disappointments of the first half of my life. However, with some of my old baggage resolved, I could envision a different future for the second half of my life. Before I never let myself dream of the possibilities because I didn’t think they were possible for a person like me. But now, well, I could vocalize how I wanted my life to look and believed it did not have to look the same. It was during the retreat when it finally dawned on me why I could never get motivated to complete my 10th marathon. I was carrying around too much baggage from the past and had lost hope in the future and faith in myself. Jamin and Jen told me I had already ran my marathon before the actual marathon. Thinking of what I had been through a lot over the past six months, running the marathon by myself during an Iowa winter didn’t seem so daunting. I finally started to believe I might be able to run the marathon in spite of the less than ideal circumstances.
On Marathon Day, I woke up to one of the most beautiful snows Iowa had this year. The flakes were large and steady, blanketing the world in white as they clung to the trees and ground. I was immediately pissed as hell. Fuck the beauty, I thought, how the hell am I going to run in this shit? I immediately called Jamin and just let him have an earful. Jamin, always the epitome of calm, told me I needed to at least try to run it outside like I had wanted to. I showed him a picture of what it looked like outside and he was not deterred. He said I had to try to run the race how I envisioned doing it. I think Jamin knew if I didn’t get out there, I wasn’t going to do the marathon. If I tried to run it on a treadmill, I would never start or if I started, I would stop well before I finished 26.2 miles. I honestly don’t know why I did half the shit Jamin asked me to do over the past six months, but this was no different. I waited until around 11:00 am for the temp to warm up a couple of measly degrees, put some plastic bags on my feet, said goodbye to my mom and kids and drove to the lake. The trail had not been cleared off and it was still cold but I forced myself out of my truck and just started running. After about six miles, I had had enough. I honestly didn’t think I could keep going and I wasn’t even close to being halfway through. How the hell was I going to do another 20.2 miles out in this shit? Luckily, Jamin was available on Zoom and after listening to me bitch, told me there was no way I wasn’t finishing this marathon. Once again without really knowing why, I listened to him and kept running. I told myself I could finish a half marathon so I would run that far and see how I felt.
I didn’t stop at exactly mile 13 because the trail was 2 miles around so at mile 14, I had a decision to make. My feet were wet and numb but I had an extra pair of shoes and socks. I was tempted to pack it up and go home. I told myself I could switch to the treadmill but I knew in my heart I would not finish if I started to drive home. I remembered Jamin and Jen saying I had already ran my marathon before the marathon. Somehow, that inspired me to keep going. I hadn’t come this far to just do a half. Besides, by this time the snow had stopped, the trail had been cleared and I was already one mile over a half marathon. So I changed my shoes and socks, rubbed my feet until they weren’t numb and got back out there. I don’t know how to explain what happens when you get in a zone when you are running, but somehow miles 14-20 flew by even though I was just plodding along. I just told myself do one more time around the lake (two more miles). Then, I would stop at my truck, drink water and tell myself to do one more lap. Six point two miles left, or about three more times around the lake. Although it was going to be another hour or so of running, I knew I could not turn back. I had to finish.
At mile 26, Jamin and a few others virtually “ran” with me the last two tenths of a mile. When it was over, they cheered and I thanked them, then got back in my truck, let the three people I had told know I had finished and drove home. There was no after party, no medal, and no beer. And yet, it was the best I had ever felt after running a marathon. My time sucked due to all the stopping I had to do but I didn’t care. I honestly think it was my favorite marathon – even more so than the Disneyworld Marathon-because I overcame a lot of self-doubt and adversity. It was truly unlike any other marathon I had ever run. I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything but I had no idea I could run that far by myself. I was afraid I would fail, which was part of the reason I hadn’t told anyone about it. Yet, I really felt like running that thing all by myself was a necessary and critical part of my journey with the M2M program. There was a final lesson I needed to learn and it was about fear. You see, as I was running, I kept thinking of some Eleanor Roosevelt quote that I vaguely recalled – something about “you must do the thing you think you cannot do.” After the marathon I looked up the entire quote and it goes like this: “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” I think it is a profound statement on fear and not letting it rule your life or your actions. Everyone is afraid of something. It is what we do with that fear that defines us. I was afraid to look at my past and deal with my failures and grief. I was afraid to envision a better life for myself because I didn’t think it was possible. I was afraid to try to run a marathon by myself because I might fail. And yet, here’s the thing - fear kills more dreams than failure ever will. The fears you don’t face become your self-imposed and self-chosen limits. I still have my shit. We all have some. I’m still afraid of getting hurt, I’m still afraid of failing, and I am still afraid of the future. The difference is that I feel like I can face these fears instead of fighting with them. Fighting your fears is an endless battle, facing your fears is what leads to freedom.
I am thankful for the M2M program. I do not regret for one second spending the money in retrospect. While I was in Cape Cod debating whether to do the program, Jamin told me I couldn’t even begin to imagine what my life would look like after completing the program. To be honest, it still looks a lot the same, but the difference is that the person living it regained something she had lost – hope—and one can’t really put a price on that. And that’s it. That’s the end of this shit. Thank you to Jamin and Jen, thank you to the other participants in the M2M program, thank you to the three people (you know who you are) that I trusted enough to tell about the marathon, thank you to the people that I didn’t trust enough but will next time, and thank you to you all for reading about this journey I went on. As Jamin would say, Big Love to each and every one of you. Oh, and the Bahamas Marathon sent me a medal and the shirt for completing the virtual marathon so in the end, I did get my 10thmarathon medal, which is pictured below. And, as a courtesy, all registered participants for the 2021 Bahamans marathon were automatically transferred to the 2022 Bahamas Marathon. So who knows. Maybe I have one more in me :)
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