Then a Miracle Happens

“Today you are You, that is truer than true,
There is no one alive who is Youer than You”.
Dr Seuss

This month I ordered an item called a Road ID, which doesn’t ID roads, but rather me, if I am lying on one after possibly falling down and being unable to get up.

The Road ID website prompted me to include the following info on my bracelet: NKA NO MED HX. Which I gather stands for No Known Allergies, No Medical History.

I wonder if those abbreviations really mean that, or whether the EMTs will just look dumbly at them and think it is my Klingon name.

The bracelet will get its first real workout at the Ottawa Marathon on May 29, where presumably I will also be identified by other means – race number, timing chip, the finish line announcer. Not that I intend to fall down with no means of getting up next weekend but you never know. In the past twenty-four months I have pulled up lame in an ultra marathon in South Africa, collapsed in a helpless heap at the side of the highway in the Arizonan desert and launched myself over my handlebars in Muskoka. Worse could happen.


I have to run HOW FAR???

   I’m looking forward to the marathon, because I hope it will show me that I am not in nearly as bad shape as I currently imagine myself to be.

As an avowed goal-setter, I have conducted a symphony of marathon goals over the past six months. The original one was to carve a phantasmagorical 20 minutes off my best-ever time. Once I started training in earnest I began to see that the fast express train had left the station some time ago. No matter how limitless your dreams, you can’t build a house on a foundation of whipped cream.

(It’s possible I could set a personal best for the highest number of bad metaphors in one paragraph, however).

So, over the winter the progressive deterioration of my marathon goals has looked something like this:
1. Finish the marathon in under 3:45!!!
2. Finish the marathon in under 4:00.
3. Finish the marathon in a personal best time (under 4:04, run in 2001)…
4. Finish the marathon?

After a springtime of good, solid training, including intervals, tempos and my mandatory three 30+ km LSD (long, slow, distance) runs, I had decided that number one was out of the question; number two was probably a stretch; number three would be a gift.

All these years of experience might have made me a smarter runner, but not necessarily a faster one.

(Come to think of it, maybe I am putting too much pressure on myself with goal number four. Maybe it should read: Finish the marathon if you’re feeling good and your feet don’t hurt and the weather is nice and they have measured the course short by a few miles).

At the moment my race strategy reminds me of that old systems flowchart, where a number of boxes, lines and arrows all culminate in one final process, labeled “Then a Miracle Happens”.

Of course the prospect of the unknown outcome is part of what attracts me to this type of sport in the first place and I’m not complaining here. All variables aside, I have done the work, have trained myself well and this is not my first marathon but something like my 20th. Not counting Ironman, the last one I ran was in 2006. I did it with no preparation whatsoever, and it took me what seemed like all day; I must have stopped at a Starbuck’s along the way or something.

I guess what is nagging at me is this: what if after all my conscientious training this spring, I still do no better than I did five years ago? What will this say about my running?
1. I don’t know how to train;
2. I don’t know how to run;
3. My body is falling apart faster than I expected;
4. All of the above.

The answer to all this is that if I do no worse than I did the last time, I will be in no worse shape than I was last time, and this can only be a good thing. It will mean I still have my health and my motivation.

Running the same pace as last time will confirm that I have not turned into Paula Radcliffe in the past five years, but this is OK; my Road ID tells me I am still me, and I have come to terms with the fact that most of the world will always run faster than I will.

The true “miracle” in my racing flowchart is the one that happens every time I put on my running shoes or hop onto my bike and head out onto the road: it is the ability to perform the simple act of moving across the planet under my own power. There is a mantra in Ironman: “I am alive, and I am moving forward”. This mantra does not necessarily win races, but it helps me appreciate the journey to the finish line.

If I can’t see the miracle in this, then maybe I should have added “LOOZR” to my Road ID bracelet.