We'd like to offer our congratulations, once again, to Nikkei Meline on her winning essay. Well done, Nikkei! Check out NW Runner for the print publication of this essay.
Marathons and Motherhood: The Diathlon
“Half or whole?”
That is the question I asked my first-grade daughter this morning when I made her sandwich for lunch, and it is the question I asked myself when I contemplated registering for the Windermere Marathon. My daughter answered, “Half.” I answered, “Whole!” My daughter is smarter than me. She sets achievable goals. I simultaneously underestimate the requirements of a task and overestimate my capacity to meet them.
The truth is that I run to get away from my kids, literally, and some days 26.2 miles doesn’t seem far enough. When I begin training, it’s impossible to get even two miles away—impossible because after only 1.5 miles, the always-smiling daycare attendant at the Y sidles up to the treadmill and taps me on the elbow to tell me that my baby’s diaper needs to be changed. Because after going to sleep at midnight and waking up to nurse the baby at 2 AM and again at 4, I choose to stay in bed at 6 rather than get up to get my run in. Because 9.999999 times out of 10, I’d rather not run at all than run behind my baby and toddler in the jogger. I love irony, but not so much that I’m amused by pushing two kids ahead of my every footfall when the reason I’m running is to get away, not to chase after them.
Marathons and parenthood are both endurance sports. The need for endurance in each is obvious, though I suspect that the sport is more often at my expense than on my behalf. Those with experience or natural-born talent make it look so easy, so rewarding. The rest of us have to get around the training curve, the curve that never seems to straighten out. Thank goodness for the accumulated wisdom and support in the blogosphere. Thank goodness for the always-smiling daycare attendant at the Y, even as she cheerfully enforces the 10-minute cry rule. At least she provided the motivation for me to get my pace under 10 minutes per mile—I could check the kids in, run to the treadmill, and get at least one mile in before I had to stop because the kids had cried the whole time.
Anyone who paid attention during the elementary school birds and bees presentation knows about the moment when one becomes committed to parenthood. For a marathon, the moment of commitment is the registration. I’m always tempted to wait to register after my training is completed, but if I actually did that, I’d never even start my training. So during the dead of winter, I registered for a May race, the Windermere Marathon. A busy parent learns to streamline errands and strive for efficiency, and I was on a roll: I also registered for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Marathon in June. I was determined to save time and get two marathons out of one fantastic training season. Except that the training season wasn’t so fantastic.
I had a sixteen-week schedule to do in fifteen weeks, one that I’d used when training for my first marathon, after baby #3, before baby #4. I had registered for that marathon, St. George, in Utah, mostly out of curiosity. I only got to run the race because my name was drawn in their lottery, and perhaps I never would have followed through if I hadn’t won my spot. I knew that there were thousands of runners all over the country who were disappointed that their names weren’t drawn, and that starving-kids-in-Africa-type guilt worked its magic. What kind of ungrateful person would I be if I didn’t have the decency to finish my broccoli and finish St. George?
Guilt worked for me for St. George, but against me for Windermere. I was headed into the first of the high-mileage weeks when I took my kids, all four of them, to visit my mother in Idaho for spring break. The weather was horrible, but I was willing to run in it. After all, I had gotten off of the treadmill and into the streets in Spokane as soon as the ice broke. I was willing to run in the snow, sleet, and wind of southeastern Idaho, but I wasn’t willing to leave my mom with all the kids for at least 2 ½ hours while I did my 16-mile runs. Our vacation lasted over a week, and I missed my first two long runs. I felt demoralized, and I even resented my children for a moment. When I got back home, I decided to switch to the half marathon and focus on improving my time instead.
For me, getting to the starting line is the real battle of a marathon. Training is the hard part; the actual race is the reward. I didn’t run the full marathon, but I set a new personal record in the half. I smiled to myself when I picked up my “Inaugural Competitor” shirt. Competitor? Me? Well, I suppose so. I compete against myself, against my current best time. I compete against icy roads, dark mornings, sore ankles, vacations for the kids, sleep deprivation, pregnancy, breastfeeding, housekeeping, and all the various and sundry needs of my children. Somehow I manage. I run for my mental health; I run for my life. I run to get away, but I always come back—smelling worse but feeling better.
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