sweet sixteen
I ran 16.25 miles today.
From Houston to 72nd Street; from Park Avenue to Riverside Drive; from 72nd Street to 125th Street; and then back again. I left my apartment at 6:30 in the morning and got back at 12:30 in the afternoon.
During the run, everyone told me that I couldn't think about the distance, that I had to think only of the current step, and then the next, and the next. But these distances are so new to me (my farthest before today was 13.5 two weeks ago) that I couldn't help but inwardly mark those moments when I run 10 miles and have a 10k to go, when I run a half marathon and have a 5k to go.
And, you know, it was okay. My feet hurt, sometimes a lot, but there was never a moment that was unbearable, never a moment when I was tempted to give up. The farther we got, the more confident I became that I would finish. In my mind, I repeated, "The mind is strong. The mind is strong. The mind is stronger than the body." And eventually everything becomes a blur, but you keep going.
16 miles was the first time I felt like more than a half marathoner, the first time that I began to understand firsthand the enormity of the marathon. It is colossal. It is a mountain without a sure descent. Whatever I am doing, it is not enough; and whatever I am doing, it will have to be enough. And nevertheless, today I allowed myself to imagine the marathon as something I could -- would soon -- tame. Walking home from the subway, I felt the desire to cry well up in me, the way it did in the last mile of my first half marathon, as though my body was suddenly too small to contain my emotions.
The marathon is 11 weeks from tomorrow. I have 10 miles to go. Maybe somewhere in those ten miles, I will scale the wall between who I am and who I will be. Or maybe that harder wall, between what my life is and who I am, the distilled self that remains after everything nonessential falls aside.
From Houston to 72nd Street; from Park Avenue to Riverside Drive; from 72nd Street to 125th Street; and then back again. I left my apartment at 6:30 in the morning and got back at 12:30 in the afternoon.
During the run, everyone told me that I couldn't think about the distance, that I had to think only of the current step, and then the next, and the next. But these distances are so new to me (my farthest before today was 13.5 two weeks ago) that I couldn't help but inwardly mark those moments when I run 10 miles and have a 10k to go, when I run a half marathon and have a 5k to go.
And, you know, it was okay. My feet hurt, sometimes a lot, but there was never a moment that was unbearable, never a moment when I was tempted to give up. The farther we got, the more confident I became that I would finish. In my mind, I repeated, "The mind is strong. The mind is strong. The mind is stronger than the body." And eventually everything becomes a blur, but you keep going.
16 miles was the first time I felt like more than a half marathoner, the first time that I began to understand firsthand the enormity of the marathon. It is colossal. It is a mountain without a sure descent. Whatever I am doing, it is not enough; and whatever I am doing, it will have to be enough. And nevertheless, today I allowed myself to imagine the marathon as something I could -- would soon -- tame. Walking home from the subway, I felt the desire to cry well up in me, the way it did in the last mile of my first half marathon, as though my body was suddenly too small to contain my emotions.
The marathon is 11 weeks from tomorrow. I have 10 miles to go. Maybe somewhere in those ten miles, I will scale the wall between who I am and who I will be. Or maybe that harder wall, between what my life is and who I am, the distilled self that remains after everything nonessential falls aside.