Commentary: Even the flu can’t stop a runner
Five feverish days — freezing under piles of blankets — over!
Saturday, collapsing into a nap, I awoke, recovered.
“I can race,” I said.
Time healed my body, but my brain? Scrambled!
Overslept through Saturday class. Screwed up the date of a cherished friend’s birthday party, missing it.
Arriving at the race, my friend, Evelyne, pointed to my running shoes.
“Where’s your timing chip?”
Forgot it, flunking “elementary race prep.”
Got a new chip. Lined up with 40,000 other lunatics who’d paid $140-plus to run along Pacific Coast Highway on Super Bowl Sunday morning.
I know this racecourse, my sixth Surf City Marathon. I’d spent the last weeks rolling into bed, rehearsing every step — a nightly visual video. The rhythmic remembrance of footfalls on asphalt is relaxing, meditative, sleep-inducing.
In running, the brain’s importance matches feet. As a novice racer, I longed for each mile marker, worrying over the distant finish. Now, retreating to my nightly fantasy run, I “go interior,” allowing feet to carry me, sweeping away emotional resistance.
Also, strong parental messages of welcome acceptance of fellow humans are hallmarks of my everyday life. But the devil takes over when racing.
“Get a haircut,” I snarl as the guy with dreadlocks passes.
“Out of my way, weirdo,” I think, dodging a lumbering runner.
Reading a shirt: “I Run Because I Like Beer,” I whisper nastily, “You look like it.”
Though I look at the road ahead, my radar hones in on “senior” female runners. I accelerate past.
So 7:30 Sunday morning, pressed between runners of all shapes and heights, I awaited the start. Our moose-horn sounded, bidding me to move stiff legs, knocking against moist marine air.
Struggling though that first long mile, I piled up three more rapidly, leaving Pacific City, Main Street, PCH stores, beachfront condos.
Ran along the oilfield fence, watching my timing device. A pace of 101/2 minute miles slow to 11:50, then 12.
“Run!” I commanded, turning up Seapoint Street, the race’s only hill. “Faster. Nothing hurts; you’re not tired.”
Working hard to ignore a porta-potty visit, I thought, “I can wait till the finish.”
But could not and jumped in.
Never before needing a potty stop, I lost minutes. However, a world of relief opened as I worked to regain time lost.
Salty ocean smell rewarded us as we crossed the bridge over Bolsa Chica Estuary.
Approaching the Mile 8 turn-around, I was chagrined. The expensive race ticket didn’t include a chip reader at the turn. I’ve experienced cheaters in my age group who didn’t run the entire race.
Bringing it on home, not tired, I raced, hard. A gray-haired lady sent me into a sprint at Mile 11.
Friends yelling, “Carrie!” at Mile 13 motivated a surge to the finish.
My sick week? My daughter’s scolding text contained a reasonable question: “What are you doing racing? You’re still recovering!”
Never felt weak, never had that dreadful dead-legged syndrome. I’ll go with my brother’s comment: “Comes a time when you get better by getting out.”
Time was today.
And here is why I sat down to write: A feeling of gratitude overrides the hard racing effort, previous illness, hostile responses to runners, profit-making marathon organizations.
Today, my slowest half marathon, is the first time I have not made the top three in dozens of races. Potty break put me in fourth, 21/2 minutes behind third. However, my memory of the race is infused with light and joy and an acknowledgment of my mastery of the distance.
I am so lucky to be capable of picking myself up and racing 13.1 miles.
At 73, post flu, I did it. I did it smiling. That is the point.
CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK lives in Newport Beach.