Hitting the proverbial wall

Today the rain is coming out of the sky with a vengeance. I despise running in the cold and rain. But I live in the Pacific Northwest. I live in a place that ranges between 38 and 48 very wet degrees for the better part of ten months of the year. When I run in this weather, I bundle up with several layers and don hat and gloves and rain gear. The one thing I cannot figure out how to keep warm is my face. Several years ago I had a crown put on one of the molars on my left side and a teeny, tiny bit of the root was left exposed in the process. When I run in the inclement weather, as is inevitable around here, the cold hits my face and gives me a whopping ice cream headache that will not quit. Once this happens, I have to complete my run with something like a Charlie Horse pounding behind my left eye socket. Nothing warms it up and stops the throbbing except a hot shower.
Fortunately, this weekend I had the foresight to look at the weather forecast and chose to do my long run yesterday when the temperature was at the upper end of that ten degree range and the sun was shining. The conditions were nearly perfect for what I expected to be a 21 mile run – my longest single run before the Whidbey Island Marathon (which is Sunday, April 13, by the way). I could have wished for it to be a few degrees warmer, but this would be a futile waste of brain cells. We may not see 60 degrees around here until June.
So I strapped on my running belt with all my supplies securely in its zippered pouch and started out for four and a half hours of pounding. The beginning of the run was actually fairly pleasant. I took the same route I had run on my last final pre-marathon training run. Starting at the Squalicum Boat House near where the local whale-watching cruises depart in the summer, I ran past the harbor and took in the hundreds of sailboat masts and fishing boats advertising fresh salmon for sale. Most of the first four miles were in the sun and were populated with walkers and dogs and bicyclists and other runners. This is the best part of any run for me – the part where other creatures join me in seizing a moment in life, breathing in the same cool air that gives me a headache and using the same trails that take me out there and back here every week.
Bill met me after I had traversed into the woods and had been running in the shade for about one mile. One month ago, a woman was abducted and raped on one of our trails in the north part of our city. The running community has been shaken by this. We’ve always felt proud of how safe our extensive trail system is, how well-used and welcoming, even to lone women runners. The terrible violation of this woman runner has scared me and made me adamant about not running the more lonely parts of my training without companionship.
But Bill’s presence, along with a sense of safety, also gave me the perfect “out” when I hit my wall. We ran for an additional 5.5 miles on the Interurban Trail, which runs parallel to the shoreline looking out at the Puget Sound. To our right was the magnificent jutting Lummi Island, green and wooded, and the blue of the water, smiling at the unfamiliar sunshine that shimmered on its surface. To our left stood expensive, majestic homes built into the hillside with their super sized windows and towering chimneys. This part of the trail, as you can imagine, has vast charm, but for me, the overwhelming feeling was the drop in temperature as we progressed into the deepening shade.
By the time we hit our turn-around point in the parking lot at Clayton Beach, my left eye was throbbing and my energy was suddenly, completely depleted. In spite of the two energy gels and the granola bar I had consumed in the first ten and a half miles, I felt sleepy and sluggish. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. I could have lain down, nestled against the unthawed earth, and fallen asleep.
My car was more than ten miles away at that point, but I hatched a plan to “see how I felt” when we reached Bill’s car, which was only five miles away. Naturally, the closer we got to his vehicle, the more sure I became that I wouldn’t go one step further than I had to. The wine and cheese from the night before, the cold air, the option of stopping early and (I later realized by the dark yellow color of my pee) some slight dehydration, all weighed in and convinced me to throw in the towel and let Bill drive me the extra miles back to my car.
Demoralized, a half hour after reaching Bill’s car and our 16 mile mark, I stood in the shower and tried to justify my actions. Everyone hits the wall once in a while, after all. But I really needed those miles. I needed them to know I can do 26.2 in three weeks. I needed them to know I actually possess the psychological and physical endurance to complete that Whidbey Island race. I’ve run the marathon distance before, but my doubts about my running abilities are not assuaged in the least by this fact. This is a different time, a different course, a different continent. I have to be sure I can do it.
Next weekend I have another chance to string together more than 21 miles (though not all in one day). Saturday, we’ll run an 18.6 mile race in Birch Bay to support Girls on the Run, a local club that encourages girls in the third through fifth grades to start running and to run in 5K races around our county. I support this program and wish I’d encountered this kind of confidence building opportunity in my own childhood. Maybe I wouldn’t be so doubtful about my athletic capabilities now if I had. Bill will be running ahead of me in this race and his car will not be available to rescue me before the finish line. In order to get back to where I started, I’ll have to finish.
On Sunday we’ll run, along with many others in the city, a short but important 5K organized on the trail where that woman was raped. We’ll “take back our trails,” the newspaper says, and with any luck (okay – and determination) I’ll take back my miles.