Marathon Redemption - Weeks 11 and 12

For so long my life's been sewn up tight inside your hold.
And it leaves me there without a place to call my own.

I know now what shadows can see.
There's no point in running 'less you run with me.
It's half the distance through the open door before you cut me down.
Again...
Let me introduce you to the end.

And I feel a cold wind blowing beneath my wings,
it always leads me back to suffering.
But I will soar until the wind whips me down,
leaves me beaten on unholy ground again.

So tired now of paying my dues.
I start out strong but then I always lose.
It's half the distance before you leave me behind.
It's such a waste of time.

'Cause my shackles,
you won't be.
And my rapture,
you won't believe.
And deep inside, you will bleed for me.

So here I slave inside of a broken dream,
forever holding on to splitting seams.
So take your piece and leave me alone to die,
don't need you to keep my faith alive.

I know now what trouble can be, and why it follows me so easily.
It's half the distance through the open door before you shut me down.
Again....
let me introduce you to the end.

Vertical Horizon, "Shackled"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unbelievably the marathon is less than 30 days away now. So far, my training has been (knock on wood) blissfully injury-free. But with race day rapidly approaching, the inner demons have started to insidulously worm their way into my mind. Whereas my mind before was contemplating optimum days to run, what to eat, what stretching routines were most effective to prevent injuries, what strength training exercises I absolutely must not skip, my mind now is cultivating much more destructive thoughts: what if it's obscenely windy again? What if it's ridiculously hot? What if I get injured during the race? What if dinner before the race makes me sick? What if I get to mile 16 and physically crash? What if my knee cramps again at mile 24? What if my running buddy is way faster than me and I end up all alone? And on and on.



As runners we're all used to battling the pysical demons that hold us back. Blisters, cramps, IT band syndrome, shin splints, tendonitis, plantar fasciatis, digestive issues, stress fractures...we've seen it all. More than one of us has seen a doctor or PT shake his head and say "well, I could tell you to rest it but I know that won't happen, so let's just figure out how to get you through it." Personally I went through what seemed like an endless stretch of injuries in training for my first half marathon and marathon - persistent bursitis in my left hip, tears in both sartorius muscles, arthritis in my right foot...not to mention two lost toenails, one of which is just finally starting to grow back normally. Cross your fingers that the next 4 weeks don't change that.

But more often than not, it's not the physical demons that hold us back and keep us from reaching our true potential. It's the inner demons that keep us down. Those little voices that say "you can't," "you shouldn't," "you'll fail," "you're a disappointment," "you'll never be as good as ________," "you'll never be able to _______." Those voices. I know we all hear them. And I know those inner demons don't just affect us when we're training for a race -- they have a way of popping up in life sometimes just when you thought things were going your way.

There are a lot of people in my life battling those inner demons right now...some battling the "life" demons, and others battling the "race" demons. And I'm no exception. Somone today asked me how I was feeling about my training, and I responded that I was in the stage of complete paranoia about getting sick so close to the race, but otherwise feeling pretty good about things. No doubt the fact that the pollen count is extremely high today and I've been sneezing all day long is fueling the paranoia. Inner demons. Sooner or later they get to the best of us.

The great thing about racing, though, is that we all show up with a clean slate on race day. As a great runner I know told me, the person that shows up at the start line of a race is not the same person that trained for that race for weeks and weeks. The only thing the person at the start of the race knows is that she's healthy, strong, prepared, and armed with every tool she needs to do her very best in that race. The bad runs that happened in training don't matter any more. The blips, the interruptions, the illnesses, and the injuries that happened don't matter anymore. The only thing that matters when you're standing on the start line with 26.2 miles between you and the finish is what you're made of in that very moment. Training prepares our bodies, but what gets you across the finish line at the end of the day is not the extra hill repeats you did at the end of your tempo run in week 6 of your training plan...it's your will to cross the finish line that gets you there.

So for the next few weeks, I'm not going to talk so much about my specific training runs. I'm still doing my speedwork, still hitting my goal splits - but that's not the most important thing anymore. I know without question that, physically, I'm ready to run this race. The work has been done over the last 12 weeks...the next 4 are just icing on the cake. When I step into the start corral in OKC, my slate will have been wiped clean. What will get me across the finish line that day isn't a bunch of miles and splits written on a piece of paper...only the drive to do better than I did last year. To have more confidence in myself. To challenge myself and push harder. Because if I've learned anything in the last 12 weeks of training, it's that more often than not I give in to the inner demons and I sell myself short. I tell myself there's no way I can possibly run 3 tempo miles at a 9:10 pace...when I'm perfectly capable of running those 3 tempo miles much faster than that.


The next four weeks are all about quieting the inner demons. When I'm running well, I'll push just a little bit harder. When I have a bad run, I'll forget about it. I'll keep taking care of myself, eating well, and doing what I've been doing for the last 12 weeks and do my best not to worry about getting sick, having bad weather, or any of the myriad other things that are absolutely out of my control. And I'm going to start taking extra vitamin C...just in case. ;-)