who wants pudding?

« the beast | Main | six miles »

tested

August 30, 2006

i was still reeling, staggering a little mentally, physically, emotionally. a barrage of blows had hit in the last week, surprising in their ferocity and variety.

i had worried about how to cover all the unusual items that needed to get paid for this month. then i got sick last wednesday, and much as i tried to see the workday through, i had to go home, which put me further in the hole, since i get paid by the hour. it also put me further behind in my running, continuing a two-week period of missing workouts and not doing my solo runs.

i was beginning to feel lost again, in general, like my efforts weren't really changing my life. hope plummeted, despair skyrocketed. at one point, sitting at my desk, thinking back to the things coach janie had said, and of what she's doing with her life, in malawi now, an ocean away, i found myself even a little choked-up, thinking about my own other lives i'd neglected or otherwise failed - that i neglect, and am failing.

friday saw a massive display of bureaucratic arrogance, ignorance, and indifference by the texas state bar dealt another economic blow, and another loss i felt helpless to fight.

then saturday. saturday. i missed an important long run. i eventually woke and rose and went to the computer and found something to top it all - an angry email from someone, letting me know that i had, however unintentionally, seriously hurt them.

i called, then emailed, though apology was worthless and probably meaningless, and though there was no way i could make things any better.

i don't recover well from mistakes, as it is, particularly ones that can't be fixed. it was bad enough that someone was hurt, but selfishly, i also hated that i had done the hurting.

i make mistakes. things happen. luck ebbs and flows. i deal with circumstances with varying degrees of evenness and self-recrimination. but the one thing i have always been able to rely on is the fact that if nothing else, i can control the kind of person i am. the idea was one of a handful that saved my life, in a way, back during a dark period during law school, almost 15 years ago.

i was just learning a love of basketball, and in a book about michael jordan by journalist bob greene, jordan says, with a sense of despair, that all he wanted to do was be a decent person. the greatest player ever, one of the most recognizeable figures in the world, and he just wanted to be a decent person. i wasn't so starry-eyed to believe he was a success at that simple task, that he was some sort of saint, or maybe even a really great person, but the idea impacted me, gave me a sense of something simple and fundamental, but tremendously important that i could control about my life that did say something about who i am.

i fail at it, over and over. but i never let the losses go, and i try, because i do care, and because i need it, i need that to be who i am.

sometimes, though, i've patted myself on the back too much, thinking i'm a good guy, better than most just for making the effort. and to some extent, i really do believe that, and the incredible, loyal, and enduring friends i have and continue to make testify to that.

but here was failure, one of my greatest. something i did to someone, without malice or ill will or even real carelessness, but still - in my mind, good faith and intent and the weight of being a decent person when i have been, seemed suddenly swept away by this one event. i was suddenly a bad person, just like that, and nothing else i had ever done or ever tried to be mattered.

by tuesday, i was moving, in stops and starts, because there is no choice, because stopping and falling down is not a choice. a couple of people i talked to about it had been true friends - they didn't pull their punches, they didn't sugarcoat what i had done, but they also began to restore some sense of perspective, and convinced me that it wasn't the single defining event of my life, much as it will surely always define me in the eyes of the person i wronged.

so, tuesday night after work, i went to my appointment at a lab in the stadium at the university of texas. rogue, the group i'm about to start coaching beginner half-marathoners for, wants all its coaches to have their VO2 max and lactate threshhold (um... it has to do with endurance) tested, so we know a little more about it.

the lab was in the weird bowels of belmont hall. legend has it that when they wanted to build the upper deck to memorial stadium, they wanted to use funds that had been earmarked for more educational purposes. so, the structure under the deck was made a building, with classrooms and offices, as well as some athletic facilities.

they were running just a bit behind, and a guy that looked liek a serious runner was just finishing up. i changed, chatted with the doctoral student that was preparing the equipment, and then the doctor came in.

we didn't get much past introductions before he told me that losing weight would benefit my running a lot. this was not news, but i again had the feeling that i had not done as much with myself as i had been giving myself credit for.

i was put on a treadmill that had a pvc structure over it that held a pair of clear hoses in place. the hoses joined in the center and fed into a massive green mouthpiece. the other end of the hoses ran into some metal cabinetry in front of the treadmill, with a computer terminal sitting on top of it. they put a heart monitor on me. i warmed up for a few minutes, then the mouthpiece went in, the nose clamp went on, and the testing began.

i would run for four minutes at an easy pace, then step off the treadmill, pull the mouthpiece off to swallow the saliva that had pooled in my mouth, and another student took a blood sample from my earlobe. in less than a minute, i was back on, and the pace was increased.

it was just like a scene from a gatorade lab in one of their commercials, only hairier and even sweatier. also, my sweat wasn't flourescent orange or blue or green like in the ads, but simply came off in huge clear sheets, flying and spraying around the room.

at first, i waved off the fan they had placed right in front of the treadmill. at one point, i heard one student tell the other he was getting hit, and the doctor said, "yeah, rob, we're gonna go ahead and turn this on... you're a real efficient sweater..."

run, lather, poke ear, repeat. soon, i was running in minute intervals, and there weren't any more breaks. they'd ask if i wanted to go up a level, and i'd grunt and give a thumbs-up, and they'd crucify my earlobe again and kick the speed up.

it was getting tough. they were encouraging, but i began to struggle. i no longer felt like steve austin, and the occasional low grunt was replacing the bionic leg noises i was making in my head. finally, i finished out a minute interval, but shook my head when they asked if i wanted to go faster. this is known as "volitional exhaustion," though it just felt like giving up.

while the numbers were crunched and printed, i changed, and they set about the massive task of post-flood cleanup. eventually, i sat down with the doctor, and he let one of the students explain the results.

i scored higher than i thought (50.5), but i am not lance armstrong (83). the test projected that if i lost 14 pounds of body fat, i could get to 54, which would make me almost an almost elite female athlete (VO2's of 55.0 and over).

going in, i think i was almost hoping that the testing would reveal an excuse for my running ability. i had fantasies of the doctor running in and saying, "this can't be right! this man shouldn't be able to run that fast, or that far! why, according to this... he should be dead!"

instead, the testing predicted running performance that i haven't even come close to. i should be running 10K's in 47 minutes, not 57, half marathons in 1:52, not 2:10, marathons in 3:48, not the 4:10 i'm beginning to have doubts about running in chicago this october.

as he walked me out of the building, the doctor pointed out that there are plenty of other factors that the predictions don't account for - mechanical efficiency, and all that. and, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "you're just a big guy, rob, and even losing weight, you're still gonna be a big guy. no way around that."

afterwards, i was tired, and the numbers and what they meant swam around my head. i drove to whole foods to get something to eat.

i sat down at the salad bar, pulled out my book, looked up and saw rick barnes, the university of texas men's basketball coach, sitting across from me. this is not important to this story at all, but was interesting at the time.

i pulled the cap off my honest tea (green dragon), and the quote under the cap was gandhi's, saying "There is more to life than increasing its speed." hmm.

i watched coach barnes eat, alone, watching the people around him. a woman came up and asked if the seat next to him at the bar was taken. over the minutes, they began to chat. i never got the sense that she recognized him, and i wonder if that was nice for him.

i stared at the numbers. so much effort, so many hopes, my very potential as a runner distilled to a set of numbers.

all i want to be is a decent runner.

i want to do the best i can with what's in my control. the numbers make me ask about that one factor that can't be measured - how hard do i try? do i let "volitional exhaustion" come too easily? how far do i push myself when the run gets tough?

all i want to be is a decent person.

here, there are no genetic limitations, absent any serious psychiatric disorders. being good is easy, simple. but yet, it's not. we still have to push ourselves, to not let fear or want guide our actions, to do what's right when it's not easy, or doesn't get us what we want.

i've got so much work still to be done, on both fronts. weight and weights to shed, pains to press through, miles to go, battles of will versus fear and selfishness to be fought in my own body, my own mind, my heart, and my soul. i will lose, sometimes. i will never be an elite runner, and never a perfect person. all i can do is try, and hope that the earnestness of that effort will, in the end, make me decent enough.

Posted by Rob at August 30, 2006 03:22 PM

Comments

Posted by: Sheila at September 5, 2006 01:04 PM

Posted by: Jane at September 7, 2006 05:06 PM

Posted by: hsm at September 8, 2006 12:41 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: