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September 24, 2006

8:46
9:04

i stopped, stood, watched people stream in and out of the hula hut parking lot on a wednesday night. the two-mile mark was right at the crosswalk in front of the restaurant.

a couple walked by, holding hands, and i watched, and i wished, and i despaired.

after a couple of minutes, i turned and tried again, running back the way i came rather than run the other two miles of the "enfield four" course, with its hills that would further tweak the occasional pain from my left hamstring.

i don't know what happened after the first mile. i was trying the bold new plan, trying to run each of the four miles at the 8:43 half marathon goal pace. i knew it didn't make sense, but it was all that i had, it was all that gave me a reason to run it at all.

the first mile started down by the austin high school track, by a headless stainless steel galvanized pole that at one point must have told people what to or not to do. the route ran up veterans' boulevard, up the medium-lenth hill to lake austin boulevard. i kept time up the hill, up into the long straight, until i saw the first mile marked out on the street in white spray paint. that was my 8:46.

i figured i could back off a bit, that i must have hit a harder pace to compensate for the hill. i pounded through, still believing in my new mission. lacking the motivation to meet the requirements of my existing marathon goal, i had upped the goal, hoping that the dramatic lure of doing something improbable would finally drive me. it did, but the motivational lure of the improbable goal was illusory, at best.

i took advantage of the stoplight, not a hundred yards down the road, stopped the watch for it. another hundred yards or so, in front of the university's married student housing, i stopped, and walked.

it was already gone, the two days' worth of newfound motivation. i couldn't do it, couldn't maintain the higher pace, couldn't even maintain the pace tht physiology and the pace calculator had dictated for me.

i tried to run again, but the voices were getting loud again, and i couldn't balance the movement and the breathing and the noise in my head, all the voices with different things to say, most of them negative, most of them reminding me of the past, and how the present was just a repetition, and how the future was just the same past waiting to happen.

i tried, i fucking tried. i thought of friends, thought of victory, thought of dramatic sprints to the finish, thought of pre, thought of the people i coach, and it wasn't enough. i ran, i stopped, i ran, i stopped, and each time, the running got shorter, and i began to see the relationship, began to recognize the familiar feel of the pattern of my life, of jobs and dreams and love, playing themselves out in cycles of foolish dreams and failure.

and now, i couldn't even win this one battle in my own mind. my body felt ok. the new, more upright running form, with a quicker turnover in stride that i'd been working at for the last month, felt like it was in place. but my heart and mind failed me.

all my life, it had been the other way around - my body couldn't do, but i was strong in my heart and mind, and i could gut through things, in the name of winning some battle that would help me win a war that would prove that i was worthwhile in this life. there was always a goal in sight, and there was a time that i never doubted that winning that goal would get me closer to meaning something, to
being someone worthwhile.

i kept looking at the watch. it was stuck on "split" mode rather than "lap" mode, which meant the time so far for the past mile was tiny and difficult to see in the failing daylight. i finally made it out a coupel of times, and thought maybe i was still on track, maybe i could get there and be on pace, maybe i hadn't lost yet, even as the failure to have the watch in the right mode added new voices in my head, more screaming, more noise to get through to see the goal, to see what was right.

9:54

i stopped. that was it. there was nothing left.

it took me 40-something minutes to walk through the last mile and back to whole foods, where i had parked.

it was dark, and the friday evening traffic rushed at and past me down sixth street, but it couldn't begin to overcome what was going on in my head, the sheer noise of it all, the thoughts, from every angle of reason and irrationality, peaking, the cumulative noise so great it distorted like a tape recorded with the input levels too high.

and the thing that kept recurring to me was that this was not just about running - this was the pattern of my life. i move along until the reality, the discomfort and banality of what i'm doing outweighs the sense of meaning i was able to give to it. and then, failure, and then, the floundering to find some new motivation to make the discomfort and banality worthwhile.

each time, the cycle is shorter, every time, the failure sharper and more complete.

i got to the store, went in to pick up some things, and returned a couple of calls. the first friend i talked to basically told me she thinks i was chosen to be laid off from my last job because of what i had written here about that job.

this did not exactly help the situation. that voice was hardly distinguishable from the ones in my head.

i next talked to my friend fagan. fagan is also running the chicago marathon. he's a fast runner and a good athlete overall, with a particularly strong and aggressive competitive streak in him.

even he, though, understood the loss of motivation, and he told me about his own issues, and his own perspective on how to deal with it - sometimes, it's ok not to run, if you're not in some way loving what you're doing.

i got enough back in me. saturday morning was our last long run of the training program, a 22-mile run from the RunTex Store for Psychotic Running People at the gateway shopping center up north, to the RunTex Store for Psychotic Running People at south first and riverside, with enough winding and meandering to get all the miles in.

regardless, i committed to showing up to give melissa and fagan a ride up to the starting point, and said i'd decide at that point whether to actually run or not.

the morning came, i got up with less tiredness than usual. i ate, prepared, all the time thinking about the run, through the run, gauging how i felt, and it simply wasn't there. i've been too tired for runs, dreaded them, feared them, but this was different - it simply wasn't worth it to me.

still, i picked my friends up, drove them north to where everyone was assembling in the lights in front of the darkened north store. friendly, well-intentioned, and correct peer pressure prodded me into running.

i started well, maybe a little fast. my body felt good, actually, but my mind did not. most of the runners talked to each other in the first few miles, but some of the other runners were loud, even running at 5:45am past darkened houses.

the noise, the rudeness, the noise... again, the noise was building in my own head, enough that it felt like physical pressure, compounded by my effort, compounded by the voices of the people around me.

i kept running away from people, a couple of times with my hands just enough over my ears that my breathing and the sound of impact drowned out the external voices, but it still wasn't enough.

35 minutes in, i stopped, and sat on a curb for a while. the rest of the runners passed, and i watched them, blessedly heard their voices and footfalls abate into the remains of the night.

i walked back. i missed a turn, and it took me near an hour to get back to my car. i didn't run at all. there was no point. eventually, the skies lightened, and at a certain point, the light was just like more noise, and i just wanted to cover my eyes and ears and crawl under something.

the voices and noise i'm familiar with, but the photosensitivity is new. it only reinforced the awareness that aside from the very real situations and assessments of my life, there is something else at work in my mind, something very wrong.

i got home and made a cave of the living room, as dark as possible except for the television. i slept for most of the day, and got what comfort i could from familiar faces on the t.v. i called a friend about getting something to eat, and she eventually called me back, but they were going someplace that i saw as full of people and light and sound, and i couldn't do it.

and that's it. sunday has come and gone, and nothing has really changed. i will try to run tomorrow - i am still ok running the shorter distances, and i hope that i can rebuild my psyche and my desire over the next four weeks before the marathon. aside from a handful of friends, i have my group of half-marathoners that i've begun coaching, and that does have meaning to me. i'm a good coach, and i feel needed, so that is my crutch right now, maybe it's everything right now.

i have given serious thought to discontinuing the website - there'll be the annual payment due this month, and it would be an opportune time to just stop. i'm tired of people reacting negatively to it, and i'm tired of them not reacting at all, sometimes.

i don't know. i don't know what there is. i just know i need for it to get quiet within and without. and i know that once again, i need a reason for this here and this now, and for tomorrow.

Posted by Rob at September 24, 2006 07:04 PM

Comments

Posted by: Julia at September 25, 2006 07:13 PM

Posted by: rob at September 25, 2006 07:38 PM

Posted by: Rob at September 27, 2006 11:34 AM

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