Going Steady

         It is difficult to believe that it has been almost a week since the Boston marathon. Now that I have worked my way through a pile of marking, I finally have a chance to gather my thoughts. I will try to do justice to the epic journey. Well, epic is perhaps too strong a word; I will try to do justice to the memorable journey. Even as I begin, I find myself trying to dodge clichés.  With the marathon used so often as a metaphor for conquering anything from a lengthy task to an endless day, I am left searching for metaphors to describe the marathon itself.

            There were ten of us from Guelph going to Boston, and four of us--Kelly, Lorraine, Michelle and myself--were making the journey together.  We left Friday afternoon, after I went to school in the morning and was surprised and touched to see the message on the school’s sign, wishing me all the best in running Boston. I also received a poster that several of my students had created with some simple instructions: Run, Robin, Run. Both the poster and the sign would be in my thoughts days later as I went through the check points, thinking of my students and colleagues getting the updates and knowing I was on track and doing as instructed: I was running.

            We had rented ourselves a spacious mini-van and had filled it to the best of our ability with all of our belongings as well as a generous supply of drinks and carbohydrates.  As Michelle said, in defence of her bag containing oatmeal, apple sauce and honey, who knows if you can get this stuff in Boston.  Turns out you can, but had we been forced to sleep in our car for a few nights with no outside aid, we would have been just fine.

            We arrived in Hopkinton well past the dinner hour, but we managed to find a restaurant that provided us with a perfectly palatable if not memorable pasta and salad.  We then rolled into the residence at the New England Laborers’ Training Center, where we were staying for a ridiculously cheap amount that I will not disclose for fear of not getting a room there next year.  For the same reason, I will not disclose our inside connection; suffice to say we were very, very lucky.

            We woke to a sunny morning and a strong chorus of frogs celebrating the mating season in the pond outside of our window.  The weather looked great for Saturday and Sunday, but they were forecasting rain and high winds for Monday, so already I had begun to fuss. Let me briefly explain my rocky relationship with the Boston marathon.  We dated briefly during the heat wave of 2004, and it ended in a terrible case of heat exhaustion.  I swore I never wanted to see Boston again, but in 2012 we made amends, only to go through another turbulent heat wave together.  Boston had promised it would be different, only to greet me with the same sweltering day, complete with a 27 degree start and 31 degree finish.  Of course we broke up again, particularly after I finished in 3:51, but would I let Boston break my heart a third time?  Well, you know distance makes the heart grow fonder and all of that nonsense, and I forgot the pain, or perhaps convinced myself that Boston would never treat me that way again. Now suddenly it looked like the rain and gusting winds were going to be Boston’s new method of heartbreak.

            I had little time to worry, though, as we had to get to the Expo, where we would pick up our race kits and check out the swag.  We drove part way to Boston, and then took the train the rest of the way, which allowed all four of us to play tourist as the train rolled by park after park full of kids playing and trees on the verge of blossoming. When we got to the Expo in the Hynes Convention center, it felt like the whole world might be lining up to enter.  We are talking a lot of runners and their loving partners and screaming children. Kelly and I meandered about, trying to get in as many free samples as possible—bars made with quinoa, carb drinks made with yak’s urine (okay I am kidding about that, but maybe I just didn’t make it to that booth). Talk about a crowd ready to shell out for the next great thing, whether it was compression socks, caffeine-infused gels, space age treadmills, or pizza margherita flavoured organic energy food. I am not making that up; it’s made by CLIF Bar. Kelly made me sample it, and it was awful, though I confess the sweet potato flavour was okay, and the banana mango one was awesome. I bought a tube and ate it on the train on the way home, not realizing how ridiculous I looked until I glanced across the aisle and saw Lorraine laughing away at me.

            After sampling and shopping, we began our adventures of trying to find somewhere to eat on Newberry St, which seems to have the best shops in the city.  If you are from Boston, and I am dead wrong about this, please accept my apologies.  We found a great little deli; however, the woman was determined to make our sandwiches at a glacial rate, while spreading extra-strong Dijon mustard on our baguette with a zeal that, were it applied elsewhere might be considered commendable, but in this context merely resulted in our eyes and nose running. Still I tried to consume what I could in the name of loading my muscles with just a little more glycogen.

            After our mustard-fuelled lunch, we headed back to Hopkinton for a late afternoon jog.  One of the downsides of tapering before a race is that it often leaves you feeling like a lethargic barnyard animal.  As we began our jog, Kelly lamented how heavy and puffy she felt, and we were all wheezing on the first small hill.  This is the time a marathoner might be prone to declaring herself ill. I confess I have fallen into that trap.  Reader, several years ago, a week before the Mississauga marathon, I announced to Phyll I had meningitis and potentially tuberculosis.  Miraculously, I ran one of my fastest times ever. Now, two years later, I am a wiser human being, and I do not declare myself diseased, at least not out loud.

            On Sunday morning, we made our way to Hopkinton to get some photos of the start line, which is on the main street. There was a police officer on duty, and he stopped traffic so we could get out on the street and take pictures. This is when I began to realize how much this race means to those who live in Hopkinton.  Certainly there must be some people who live there who resent the race, or who see it as silly and self-indulgent, but I didn’t meet any of those people.  Instead, I met people who were happy to help, who marvelled at our accomplishments, and who couldn’t believe we had trained through the winter “up north.” This was coming from people who had endured record-breaking snowfalls. In turn, I marvelled at their generosity and interest in us.  Yes we had qualified, and I was certainly proud of that, but I hadn’t been helping out with the race for thirty years as some of the volunteers had done. 

            Much of my Sunday was taken up with marking and report card writing; that may sound painful, but it kept me from checking the weather every seven minutes. While taking breaks, I joined the rest of the Guelph runners, including Art, Eric, Allen, Phil, Chris, and Stephen in the cafeteria.  The food was beyond spectacular at the residence, including Saturday and Sunday night when we were offered such dishes as scallops with risotto.

            We woke on Monday to overcast skies, but at least it was not raining--yet.  Because we were in Hopkinton, we did not have to get up too early.  Carol, one of the phenomenal volunteers, drove us as close to the start as possible, sweet-talking her way through the police barricade.  Once she dropped us off, we prepared to get into the corrals.  The first Guelph runners went off with wave 1 at 10:00 a.m., and then Kelly and I got into our corrals for wave two.  I was in the first corral, so I was right near the starting line.  There was still no rain in sight, but it was chilly, so I kept my throwaways on until minutes before the start, then I put them in the bags provided by volunteers.  Last year, they collected over 15,000 pounds of clothing for Big Sisters and Big Brothers. With minutes to go, I bounced up and down, eager to get going but remembering the two words I had written on my hands—patience and belief.  I was determined not to go out too fast.  It is a downhill start, and with the crowds cheering and the adrenaline flowing, it is all too easy to sprint off the start line like some mad man at the running of the bulls. 

            Even in the first few miles I tried to establish a balance between enjoying the crowds and running my own race.  It is easy to use up a lot of energy reacting to everything around you, or trying to high five every kid along the way.  For those who enjoy doing so, I think that’s awesome, but I wanted to race the course in a way I had not been able to do in the past, so I tried to save my energy.  That meant not engaging too much with the crowds, including the wall of screaming women at Wellesley College, most of whom were waving signs explaining why I, or anyone else, should kiss them.  Kiss me I know CPR; Kiss me I’m studying Geography, or, the more direct approach: Just kiss me for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t help but feel she had started out with a kinder, gentler request, oh say, Kiss me I’m studying Latin, then grew irate at her low rate of return and flipped the poster over to scrawl her second message in bold red lipstick.  Shockingly, I did not stop to kiss her, or any other woman for that matter.

            I can’t remember when the rain started, or at what point it became heavier, but it definitely drenched us.  Still, I was dressed perfectly, with calf sleeves and arm warmers; only my fingers grew colder as my gloves became soaked.  The wind was not nearly as fierce as I feared, and though the elite women felt it at the front of the pack, where sixteen of them battled on their own, it seems the eight thousand runners ahead of me provided a buffer of sorts. 

            I took in water almost every mile, though just a couple of sips, then I took in my first gel at 10 km, and I was soaring.  I definitely felt a lull between 15 and 20 km, and the old doubts started to creep in, but I reminded myself that I had done the training; I was prepared.  Not long after I saw a bright neon orange sign  that said “Almost half way Anne.” I thought someone was way off, but I came around the bend and saw the 12 mile marker, and that lifted me immensely.

            I had been bracing myself for the hills, which I had struggled through during the heat waves, but this time, they seemed small by comparison, and I ran through them steadily and with relative ease. Still, I did not want to go down the final hill, Heartbreak, too fast, as the downhill elongates and shreds your quads, which can make the last eight km torture.  I was conservative, and got down the hill without pain, and then I thought I only have eight km left, I don’t need to be careful anymore.  I am not going to blow up; I am not going to walk; I feel strong. I started passing people and held a 4:30 pace through the final seven km. I have read so many running articles about racing that last ten km, and it has always sounded amazing, but in the past that was something other runners were able to do while I always slowed down.  I am hesitant to say this, lest I somehow jinx myself and never have this wondrous experience again, but when I turned onto Boylston street and could see the finish line banner 800 meters in the distance, I flew towards it. I could see that I was going to come in just under 3:12, and as I passed under the banner, I felt a rush of emotion. I was proud and happy and grateful that the day had gone so well, and that I was in one piece. Beyond the finish line, the volunteers were just as phenomenal as they had been the entire race: there were medics carefully eyeing all of us; there were people waiting to give us our medals and water, and most importantly there were volunteers to put on the thermal capes that would keep us warm, though even then some 1800 runners were treated for hypothermia.  As the volunteer put my cape on, I told her how amazing she was.  She said she was just standing there, while I was the one who ran the race, but I ran that race for myself, and now I was going to go and get warm and dry, while she stood there and handed out capes to another 20, 000 runners still to come.  In my mind, she and all of the other 9000 volunteers were the true marathoners.

            After I finished, the winds began to gust down the main street, making for a surreal and futuristic scene as our silver capes billowed about us, and we shuffled along to the family meeting area.  We were all to meet Lorraine, our support crew, under the L, and I stood there with my bag of food clutched in my hand, wondering where she might be, trying not to whimper as my jaw began to lock.  Suddenly Allen, a fellow Guelph runner, arrived, and we stood together-- two frozen, shivering creatures--until Lorraine came running up with my clothes.  Changing in a porta-potty some minutes later, I thought I was going to have to swing the door wide to the world and ask some complete stranger to remove my sports bra that was now bunched about my middle, but reason prevailed, and I warmed my hands up until I was able to wrestle my way out and put on my dry clothes.

            Not long after Kelly and Michelle arrived, cold but happy, especially Michelle who ran a PB, and we found our way to the bus that would shuttle us back to Hopkinton. As we got on the bus, someone told me I was 6^th in the 50—54 age group, and I was truly stunned.  I had been aiming for top 20, but I hadn’t dreamed of top 10.  The day became even more surreal, and I was just about as high as you can get without ingesting pharmaceuticals.  Is it a tough way to get high?  I guess it depends on who you ask.  For the group of runners who went out for dinner and then sat around drinking beer and wine while watching the race broadcast on the television, I think most of us would say, indeed it was worth it.

            There were approximately 26,000 runners, and though we were all moving along the same route, with the same conditions of rain and wind to confront, each of us ran a distinct race, and in some ways a solitary race in the sense that the true battle is mental, and there is little anyone can do to help once that battle begins. Add to the 26,000 runners, the 9000 volunteers and the million spectators between Hopkinton and Boston, and suddenly the number of races, or rather the number of experiences, is multiplied exponentially, and this is what overwhelmed me the most. I saw that it was so much more than a single marathon.

            As for me, I am one runner who has experienced the rush of Boston, and, at least for now, Boston and I are going steady once more.

Kelly, myself, Allen, Paul, Phil and Lorraine hanging out where it all starts.

Sunday, checking out the corral markers at the start line in Hopkinton.
Seriously, when did I become 6 feet tall?

Lorraine, Kelly and I owning the start line.

Striding towards the finish line. (Photo by by Lorraine Nelson)

Before Sunday Arrives in Earnest

    “The world is too much with us; late and soon,

    Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” 

                                 (William Wordsworth, 1807)

            I got up early, or rather early for a Sunday, due to Xena’s mournful petitioning for food. After feeding Xena, who, for the record, has access to dry food all night long, I took the dogs out to the fields while the sun was still rising. The dogs were cast in a golden haze as they roamed and galloped after each other.  At the corner of the first field, they pushed their noses through the thin layer of ice to get at the small spring that bubbles up all winter long. 

            The world was relatively still, though I knew my neighbours in the farms all around us had probably been up for hours, including our neighbours at Shady Grove Maple Farm, who were preparing for another day of families eager to see the maze of blue sap lines zig-zagging through the sugar bush, or to taste the sweet syrup after watching it boil down in the sugar shack.

            While the dogs dashed around me, I tried not not to think about my to-do list for the day: clean the house, rake the leaves, go for a run, shop for clothes for the marathon, and mark, mark, mark.  It doesn’t matter where you put marking in the sentence, for a teacher it is always looming, and this brings me to the dual nature of Sunday, or rather to the ambivalence that many teachers feel towards Sundays.  It is certainly a day of rest, but it is also the day before you get back in front of the class again, so you better have those tests or essays marked, because the students are going to ask, at least those students who can’t help themselves, because they can’t decode that mildly annoyed look on your face when they do ask, or the greatly annoyed look when they ask for the third day in a row.  Not only is Sunday about marking, it is about preparing your classes, because most of us aren’t that comfortable standing in front of a group of people with nothing to say.  Sure there are those teachers who talk about themselves or their families or their pets ad nauseam (for the record I barely mention my cats or dogs), but you don’t want to be that teacher.

            Therefore when you wake on Sunday, you can hear a faint voice, and if you’re lucky, you can keep that voice at a very low volume for a few hours, but after that, it doesn’t matter how grand the distractions might be, that voice is going to get louder and louder until it says in a strikingly rude fashion that it is high time you got down to work, you sad, slothful creature.  You might argue with this voice, you might sneer at it, or even barter for a time, but ultimately, as Robert Frost said, the only way out is through.

            This morning, the voice spoke in hushed tones, allowing me to witness the world waking up, and I tried to pay attention the way animals do.  In our house, the cats spend their time charting the movements of the dogs, while the dogs spend their time charting our movements.  If I even lift my snow pants from the railing in the front hall, as I did this morning, the dogs are at the ready, tails wiggling wildly, as snow pants mean we are going for a walk, and we are going now.  Griffy, who a minute before had been reclining on his bed, seemingly suffering from excessive revelry on Saturday night, was at my side within seconds. 

            As I stood gazing at the smallest filaments of frost, the world grew noisier. Birds exchanged song with one another while in the distance, traffic on highway 24 created a soft shushing sound. Overhead, a bright yellow plane circled under a lingering moon. As the sun rose higher, I grew hot in my snow pants and jacket, and it was time to return to the house to put on my running shoes and train a few more miles before Boston. 

            I’d be lying if I pretended I was incredibly serene all day long; no, the caffeine coursed through my veins, the voice got louder, and then I began bartering: just let me finish this post and I will start my marking, really, I promise.  And so I must.

What Brings Us Comfort

As I headed out for my run on Easter Sunday, it was hard not to be a little downcast given all the snow that had fallen in the night. I had tights and toque on once more, rather than the shorts and cap I had worn two days before.

I began jogging up the ice-covered road, with Sinead O’Connor singing in my ear about "eight good reasons to stick around," when I glanced to my left and saw a deer loping along in the field beside me. Yes, beside me. I may be stating the obvious here, but wild deer are not given to following humans. They might cut across our path by accident, but they don't generally try to keep pace with us.

I would have been more surprised had I not encountered the same deer for the first time last winter when she followed Griffy and me on our walk. Now that was shocking. She came right up to us, and she stood there calmly as Griffy tried to sniff every inch of her. The three of us walked together to our closest neighbours, and Gary took her to his barn and fed her until discovering that she belonged to a family on a nearby farm. Who knew people had pet deer.

I had encountered the deer again earlier this winter while I was running on the same road.  Once more, I thought she was wild, and was I horrified as I watched the neighbours’ dogs, a shepherd and his sidekick beagle, begin to chase it.  I shouted at them to stop, and they froze, but so did the deer.  She actually waited on the other side of the road for them to pursue her again.  Turns out they were friends of sorts.

After seeing her in the field this morning, I looked behind me, and sure enough there were shepherd and beagle, following me amicably. Last time, shepherd ran almost two km with me to the junction of a much busier road. When I saw he was going to follow me on that road, I decided I'd better double back and take him home. We picked up beagle, who had stopped in the middle of the road, not willing to follow us, but also not willing to go home without his trusty shepherd. Then the three of us ran together until they found deer, who was in the field awaiting their return. I left the three of them romping in the field together while I finally completed my run.

Luckily, on this occasion, deer followed only a short time, while the dogs stopped at the bridge to inspect the slowly awakening brook. With the animals behind me, I turned my music back on and continued my run. I soon turned onto a paved road where the footing was better despite the snow that was beginning to fall. With snow starting to settle upon my brow, I ran by Farmer Parkin's yard and saw my first calf of the spring. He could not have been more than a few days old, yet the falling snow did not seem to trouble him, as he was intent only on his mother's milk, while she was intent only on obliging him.

Cheered by that small moment, I picked up my pace and was striding along when Farmer Parkin drove by with his arm out the truck window, waving enthusiastically. I waved back with what I hoped was equal enthusiasm, while Sinead sang "yeah, take me to church, but not the ones that hurt," and I thought she might not mind this church of sorts, with its winding country roads and deer and dogs and young calves to soothe her.

Arriving home, I found the chickadees flitting back and forth around the depleted bird feeder, and as I placed the replenished feeder in the tree, the sun managed to slip, for a moment, through a snow-filled sky.

Savouring the Taste of Freedom

      Ever work with someone best described as a verbal vortex?  The minute he approaches, you feel your heart race, and you start looking for escape routes. This person knows you, though, so you can't pretend you don't speak the language. As in a nightmare, your limbs feel heavy and you can never move fast enough to avoid detection. He asks, rather ponderously, do you have a minute, and you think, yes, that was it right there, but you nod and say sure.  He begins to drone on about how to clean the computer keyboards, or how to replace the staple cartridge in the photocopier, while you watch the best years of your life slipping away. Because he is kind and ethical, you feel that much lousier as you stand there thinking of ways to extricate yourself.

       Your friend is far smarter than you; she has gone to the lengths of having children and raising them to be responsible, so they will have jobs she has to drive them to. While the vortex traps you in conversation, your friend announces cheerfully that she must drop her child at work, and off she goes while you curse yourself for not bearing children or at least adopting or fostering one or two.

      You’ve come to look like a hypochondriac with all of the appointments you’ve pretended to dash to: dentist, optometrist, gynaecologist, massage therapist, physiotherapist, chiropractor, internist, and now, even, a podiatrist to help you deal with a sixth toe that has suddenly appeared on your right foot.
      Having daily encounters with the vortex has helped you understand the trapped animal’s instinct to chew off his own limb to get free. During a particularly long discussion on past participles, you considered gnawing off your hand—surreptitiously, of course -- and then dropping it in front of you.  Oh shoot, you might say casually, I'd better get that looked at. Or perhaps you’d just leave it there, as a temporary distraction, while you made your escape stage left. Of course the vortex is not easily shaken from his reverie, so it might take more than a detached hand to stop his lumbering train of thought. Could you fake a seizure?  You can almost taste the blood in your mouth as you imagine biting into your tongue, but instead you remain upright.  You listen and smile until your face begins to ache, and then suddenly you remember that cat scan, or was it an MRI, you booked to examine that sixth toe that’s been giving you grief, and you gesture at your toe, and, for good measure, vaguely at your head, and off you go, out into the sunlight, savouring the taste of freedom.