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dragons, part one

March 06, 2007

in the days leading up to the 2007 Austin Marathon, i'd have brief moments, only two to three times a day, when it would occur to me that oh, my god, i was supposed to run a marathon. i knew i wasn't ready, but there could be no backing out. after all, i had already gone on t.v. and talked smack about running a 4:15, or at least, at least beating Oprah.

i didn't feel the same about this race as my previous two marathons, for a lot of reasons, but one more than any other - when i was training for and running those, there wasn't much else i cared about, or felt was worthwhile in my life, aside from my friends and family. those races bore the weight of defining everything about me at the time.

but things have changed, and my life has continued to evolve. the journey begun with the marathon last year, with me deciding to take responsibility for my own happiness, just as i had to take responsibility for my own race, continued. it's been a rough year in some ways, but the new sense of freedom in my life snowballed, and picked up momentum as i continued to make choices, revelling in the fact that regardless of the outcome, i was making my own choices and owning them.

i couldn't get completely out of being a lawyer, because i couldn't get out of paying my bills, but i took on temporary contract work, and things starting stabilizing a bit. more importantly, i began coaching for Rogue last fall, and running took over that much more of my life.

at the end of december, the project i was working on was suspended, and i was unemployed again. this time, though, i was focused on coaching my half marathoners, and then 10K bootcampers, and i had become obsessed with the revamped Austin Marathon. having run Chicago in October, where you feel like a rock star for 26 miles, and the crowd noise on some streets is deafening, i knew the success of the new course would depend a lot on having spectators.

my last day was on a friday, and the next tuesday i popped into the rogue office, offered my help there, and then into the marathon office to do the same. i thought i'd have to beg my way in, but i was put to work immediately.

in the next month and a half, i worked hard, and have never been happier with "work," or my life. happy with my life... i had never really said that and meant it for any sustained period of time. i was coaching a great group of people who were challenging themselves. i was trying to help in some way with the insane logistics of putting on a marathon.

and all the time, i was in the best environment imaginable. the rogue offices, the marathon offices, david grice's raceworks office, shared with Evil, the ubiquitous voice of Austin running, all line one hall on the second floor of the small office building next to RunTex. most mornings, i was greeted by david's dog Lincoln, hanging his head over the baby gate across the office doorway. Leah's new fugee dog, Boo, would be in the rogue office, waiting to be played with. at noon every day, carolyn would emerge from her office and stand smiling expectantly, ready to go to lunch. we'd sit outside at P. Terry's, walk to Freebird's, and I rediscovered Mr. Natural.

fascinating people flowed through the halls. Fila reps, volunteers, a man in his seventies who still runs the half faster than my current goal time. john patterson, the master of the course, who has an actually enjoyable story about every conceivable thing that might come up.

and i liked the work itself. i started off proofreading, after Ruth introduced me as "Rudolph," because of my own freakish but useful ability to spot typos, but then started editing, then writing, then designing.

like everyone else in the office, i did whatever needed to be done, whether it was answering the phone or going on t.v., making deliveries or moving boxes. one day, i moved 5,000 pounds of medals, 41 45 pound boxes of marathon medals, and 60 boxes of half marathon medals, off their pallets and into a storage pod. at one point, i looked at the wall of boxes, and thought of how my own medal, and those of my friends were all in there, waiting snug in their bubble-wrap cocoons.

in the meantime, i was completing a journey with the half marathoners i had coached for six months. i had watched so many of them succeed at the 3M half marathon a few weeks earlier, but for all of them, this was the big event, and i was as excited about their races as i was my own.

so, it was not until saturday night, when my job running the visuals at the pasta dinner was done, that i finally sat, and breathed, and realized that i was done with my duties, and that i could do little more for my half marathoners at that point. finally, just a little bit late, the focus was on my own race.

i was a little worried. i knew i wasn't really ready, although i also knew that sometimes your body can surprise you. i knew i was already tired, had not run that week, and had already done too much running around that day. but i was alright with all of that, too, because looking around at the people i had worked with, answering text messages and emails from my runners about the race the next morning, i realized that for once, my own race was sharing the stage of my life with real and meaningful things, things that had shown me even more possibilities for my own life, things that, quite simply and significantly, gave me a sense of meaning and happiness that would be there even after i crossed the finish line.

Posted by Rob at March 6, 2007 09:35 AM

Comments

Posted by: Lorrie at March 6, 2007 02:59 PM

Posted by: Wiley Coyote at March 6, 2007 03:41 PM

Posted by: Tom at March 6, 2007 06:14 PM

Posted by: rob at March 6, 2007 09:35 PM

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