Every couple weeks, Boston Marathon champion Des Linden sends me my training plan for this year's marathon. She is a generous coach, quick to respond to texts and extremely encouraging. There are wrinkles in the training I did not foresee, but those secrets are hers and not for me to share. Suffice to say there's variety in the work.
I will say that I'm doing track workouts once a week. I've been coaching for sixteen years now, so I've held the stopwatch trackside hundreds of times. But these interval sessions are the first I've actually run in at least twenty years. I was nervous at first, not sure my lumbering gait was ready for the track after weeks of slow and solitary trail runs. But once I knocked down a couple 400's I could feel an economy to my form that had been missing. It felt good to run faster than on the trails. My self-consciousness faded away and I lapsed into that rhythm of all track workouts — a hard interval followed by a brief walk and then a recovery jog before doing it again. I stopped worrying about the other people on the track, lost in my own world of adding up the intervals one at a time until I had done as many as Coach Linden laid out in the workout plan.
Turns out that minor moment of confidence was providential. I got to the track early one day last week for a set of 10x600 with a 400 jog recovery. My goal was to be there by 6:30 a.m. and I felt rightfully proud that I got myself out of bed, fed the dogs, read the paper, had a cup of coffee, and still managed to arrive at the track right on time. The place was empty. The forecasted 100-degree temps were still a few hours away. I reveled in the solitude.
Then a guy in a pickup arrived, carrying a load of coolers and pop-up tents. I started my warm-up, knowing he was on a mission. Pretty soon those canopies were in place, along with a folding table. Clipboard. Sign-up sheets. It was now 6:40. Clearly, something big was about to happen. I continued my easy warm-up jog. Des had prescribed 1.5 miles and I was determined to do the whole thing before launching into my workout.
Then they arrived, in one and twos and then by the carload. I had timed my workout to coincide with a girls lacrosse summer camp. Normally, this is when I leave. The last thing I want to do is run a workout in front of a crowd. But I stuck around because I'd already committed. In the end, I got it done and felt better for it, taking firm possession of Lane One despite the young lax players and their parents who seemed determined to congregate on the track.
That was a good day. I finished sweaty and uplifted. I felt like a runner.
Two steps forward.
I returned to the track for today's workout. I worked hard yesterday, a hilly trail run of no great length but wearing a sweatshirt in ninety-degree weather (don't ask). Then I went to the gym for an hour. Last Friday I finished writing the third in a series of back-to-back-to-back books, and was eager to embrace a week of pure training. Perhaps I overdid my newfound spare time.
I didn't finish today's workout. Not even close. Barely got started. My body most emphatically told me that today was not going to be my day. And the shame was I had the track all to myself.
One step back.
This is how it's going to be, I think. There will be good days and there will be not so good. But I'm not writing off today as a disaster — I'm treating it as recovery. I lost touch with myself over the last three or four years. Buried myself in work and fear, very much afraid of the future until suddenly, one day a few months ago, I wasn't afraid anymore and wanted to embrace whatever's next in a very big way. I feel like I need to recover from those emotions of overwork and worry before I can fully embrace what's next.
Somehow, running Boston is a big piece of that puzzle. Maybe some sort of closure. Maybe a portal. Who knows. The reason will reveal itself in due time. I just know I need to do it.
But I know this: between starting line and finish lies the process: two steps forward and one step back.