It’s 7 something am, and we’re running up a hill outside of Charlottesville when we cross the mile marker for mile 8. “What was that?” I ask my running buddy (we’ll call him Tom?")
“That was about a 7:57,” he replies. I ruminate on this for a little bit, performing some calculations, reviewing the last three months of weekly long distance runs, and making some speculative guesses. The nice thing about running distance with somebody is that the conversation is never hurried. Two or three minutes between replies is just fine. When you cover a subject over a 3 or four hour you tend to cover it completely.
“I don’t think we’re entitled to a 7:57 uphill at this point in the race, based on our rather weak training winter,” I state. “It is already much warmer than predicted. That light cloud cover is going to burn off and it’s going to start getting hot somewhere around 9 AM.” Tom nods noncommittally. This is part of the reason why he is the perfect training partner for me. He may be listening to me, or simply his ipod, or lost in his own internal thoughts, but he always comes through with some encouraging skepticism when I make a statement. Sometimes it’s a nod, or a “Mmmm?” or a “You think?” but it’s always enough to make me need to continue. And, with such a mental focus on speechifying, the miles drift by. Occasionally, on some of our very long runs I’ll come to an abrupt end to a story or theory, and having nothing further to say, I’ll suddenly become aware that I am suffering pretty seriously.
It’s still early in the race, and nothing feels bad. I just feel like talking, so… suitably encouraged I continue.
“We haven’t trained as hard as we have in past years, yet we’re putting out a pace equal to any we’ve done here before. When the sun comes out and we start suffering badly at about mile 18 we may regret this.”
Several minutes go by, and there is no outward sign in Tom’s demeanor or pace that he is acknowledging what I am saying. In five years of running together we’ve learned to communicate about such things quite well. He could concede the point by slowing off a bit, or argue against it, by speeding up. Doing neither, he is still considering. He is much much better runner than I, and therefore usually dictates the pace and it is up to me to keep up, or back off if I can’t. I, however, am allowed to argue.
After a few minutes, I continue on again. “It’s really a question of responsibility. What we really need to decide is what, if anything, we owe to our future selves of mile 18? Do we want those future selves to be looking back and cursing the selves of mile 8 as irresponsible idiots? If we burn ourselves out now, they’re going to pretty pissed at us, don’t you think?” Tom hums to his ipod in reply. From the subvocalizations he’s making I think he’s listening to “It’s only Rock n roll but I like it.”
“That’s a good point,” I concede. “We are safe. Our future selves really can’t come back here and hurt us in any way, or punish us for the suffering we are causing them. Ultimately though, it’s moot. I think the argument is whether or not we owe a responsibility to those selves. You see it’s…”
“I can’t understand anything the hell your talking about?” interjects an older but extremely fit fellow right behind me who was apparently eavesdropping. He does so good-naturedly but I am a little pissed off. I was building a very strong argument and was about to segue into a spiel about responsible citizenship, and environmentalism, and protecting the future for our children as precedents to support the logic of a responsibility to the future that is widely accepted by the general populace. With such precedent I can then argue pretty compellingly that not slowing the pace back a little would be just as evil as destroying the environment for all future generations, but now this guy had ruined it.
The protocol is a little odd. In most circumstances eavesdropping and breaking into conversations is considered a little rude. Running long distance though is not “most circumstances.” It is, in fact, perfectly normal. If you are running distance you have the right to listen to or participate in any conversation in which you can keep up. The “keep up” in this case doesn’t refer to any ability to communicate effectively but rather to the running pace. Most runners discuss pretty simple and inane things, and this veteran behind us was probably looking forward to such a discussion, and somewhat disappointed at the machiavellian machinations and convolutions that I was espousing.
“It’s pretty simple really,” I say. “We’ve been running together a long time, and based on our training this year, I think we are going too fast and will pay for it later.”
“Than what’s up with this revenge against your future selves, stuff” the man asks? I think how to respond for a few minutes when Tom saves me:
“I’m just listening to Tom Petty, now,” he says.
We’re about nineteen miles in now, and the sun is up, and it is getting hot, but we’ve just turned into a path by the river with some shade and it’s a few degrees cooler. My future self is here. I’m having some very mild GI distress that could be cured by a potty, but other than that I feel very very good, which is surprising. I am not wearing running shoes, but Vibram five fingers which are supposed to approximate barefoot running. I have about two millimeters of hard rubber between my feet and the pavement, no padding, no cushioning. I’ve never been more than 15 miles “barefoot,” like this, so this is unknown territory. It’s good territory though. There is less weight at the end of my legs. There is no cushioning in the toes, so when they push off, it’s slightly more efficient. The lack of a cushioned heel means I’ve been landing more forward in my stride, protecting my knee. The feet and achilles tendon feel a little rougher than usual, but the knees and quads are fine, just fine.
The differences are slight and hard to calculate… except that after 19 miles they have added up to something, and what they’ve added up to is that I feel GOOD. I’m well hydrated and just ate a clif-bar (which looks exactly like a giant dog turd.)
At this point in the race, the body, The Machine is a delicate thing. It’s been running hard for two to three hours, consuming massive amounts of energy and water and an unsustainable rate I am expending upwards of 1600 calories an hour but my body can absorb only 600-900 or so. No matter how much I drink, I am slowly dehydrating. On top of that the glycogen stores in the muscles and whatnot are getting dangerously depleted and they are not the kind of things that you can fill back up with an energy gel or sip of gatorade. They take days or weeks. I am spending from a bank account that I cannot refill during the race. The account is low and there are miles to go and miles to go. There is something out there called “the wall,” which may or may not be waiting for me. I will finish a marathon at pretty much the redline of what I am capable of. I will be fully depleted.
I am spending freely from an account and pretty soon I am going to be presented with a bill that is “due and payable.” Speeding up because of a fleeting and temporary wave of euphoria (probably brought on by fatigue,) would be an extremely bad idea.
If you haven’t run very long distance, I can’t convey you to this feeling of attunement with self and environment. I am in touch with myself on a cellular level. I can hear the individal anguish and complaints of them all. I can feel the clif bar I recently ate being converted into energy, and feel that move through my blood feeding overtaxed muscle fiber. My hands are thick with the pulse of my blood circulating through them. Oddly my hands are aching from underuse. Almost every other muscle has been working at full capacity for several hours, and as a result my metabolism has stepped up and is feeding them massive amounts of energy in a vain effort to keep up. My hands though have had nothing to do, and they are aching with the need to expend energy. They want to participate, and they ache with the overstimulation and lack of release.
Somewhere beneath my consciousness is my hominid brain. Beneath that is the mammallian brain. Lower still is my reptile brain which tells me whether to fight or fuck or fear, and it can be wrong but it never lies, and it tells me that I am younger now at 42 than I was at 15, and never mind the plan, or what I trained for or any of that other crap. It’s message is that if I ask… it will give.
My hominid brain responds that there are still 7 more miles to run and it’s better to stick with the plan. My mammalian brain says that saving some energy would be a smart idea. My hominid brain agrees with the mammalian brain and asks why, since I am feeling good do I need to suffer? The reptile brain responds that the mammals and hominids are all a bunch of pussies. Look how scared they were at mile 8. Did anything bad happen? No. So GO!
I do.
It all fades away and for the next five or six miles I am a pure and honest creature. I am effort and expenditure and the pulse in my hands, and the furnace at my core stokes up still further and the sweat runs, and the breather rasps. The pain is… and it neither good nor bad, just another sensation, and then I cross the finish line, and my reptile brain has one last thing to say:
“EAT!”