this is what you came for

reflections on the brooklyn half

On Saturday, I ran the brooklyn half marathon on a whim. In the sense that I didn’t really train for it and didn’t even decide to go through with it until I woke up at 4 the morning of the race and thought, well I’m already awake so why not.

I’d signed up for the half last year and not even a month later, I was sitting in the office of an orthopaedic surgeon, looking at an MRI of a stress fracture in my left tibula. I spent the following month in a boot and 3 months total off from running. Post injury, I’d gone back and forth for weeks trying to figure out if I should run or not. I hadn’t trained for it to do particularly well, and I’d already run a half before so didn’t feel like I particularly needed to prove anything.

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On mothers day, I set out on a 10 mile loop in central park to see if I was even physically capable of running a half marathon. Not even 4 miles in I had to stop because I was physically shaking from hunger. I found myself sitting outside a morton williams eating a cliff bar and vitamin water wondering how the fck I was supposed to run 3x the distance I had just run and run it significantly faster. I finished the run that day, but feeling more grim about my prospects.

With racing there are no guarantees. Even if you did all the training runs (I didn’t), hit all of your paces, and feel really solid going into the race, you can still wake up on race day and your body just gives out. Your stomach feels icky, your muscles cramp, or your immune system falters and there’s nothing you can do about it.

‍The day before the race I woke up with chills, my body radiating heat and feeling really, really run down. I started to get anxious that my immune system was giving up and I wasn’t going to be able to run. In a panic, I messaged all of my runner friends to ask them what I should do.‍

When I had discussed this fear with my friend C, he said it was a normal response before a race where your body knows something big is coming. He then asked what was more important to me, setting a PR or completing the task. I responded, accomplish the task.

So, accomplish the task he said, simply.

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I have a tendency to do this completely insane thing where I’ll know something in my head deep, deep down but compulsively ask other people for advice. I’ll pester friends, acquaintances, colleagues, people I have just met, because for some reason I only trust advice when it comes externally.

The night before, I had walked to a running store in union square, partially to buy some gels for my run but mostly because I needed someone with a vague sense of running authority to tell me I was going to be okay. The guy working the store lectured me on how I should only wear what I had trained in and under no circumstances should I wear anything I hadn’t worn before (I was planning on stopping by lululemon after to buy a new pair of running shorts, but he didn’t need to know that).‍

After he finished, I asked him my real question, which was what do I do if I feel really run down for the race tomorrow.

I was half asking for him to give me an out. I find that most people will give you the “don’t push yourself if you feel like you’re run down” answer.

But he looked at me and told me to just get up the next morning and go. Take the first mile easy and see how you feel. If you really feel bad, then slow down by 30 seconds, slow down for a minute but listen to your body. Your body knows.

I think somewhere I always knew I had to run the race. Even if it meant there was a chance I didn’t finish. I knew when I took the ferry to dumbo after work on Thursday to pick up my bib. I knew it when I set out on my 10 mile run on mothers day. And so when I opened my eyes the morning of the race I already knew that I’d get up, slowly make my way down the stairs of my dark studio apartment to the quiet of the morning, eat a bagel in silence, put on my running shoes, and head out the door.

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It was quiet when I walked to the train station. The subway was mostly empty, but when I got onto the train I felt a sense of communal okayness seeing the bright neons of everyones racing shoes. There was this hopeful, fraternal feeling in this little train car carrying us to our respective journeys on the starting line and yet seeing couples racing together, friends hyping each other up reminded me that I was going into this alone.

I won’t bore you with the details about the race, but there are two things that became clear to me while I was running. The first is knowing how to listen to myself: the human body is surprisingly resilient and will tell you what it needs. So much of racing is knowing when to pace yourself and when to push yourself. It sounds contradictory, but I oftentimes find the same thing occurs in life. There are times when I’m being too hard on myself and need to give myself grace but also times when I’m scared and need to just go.

But I don’t think there’s much else you can ask of yourself outside of putting together an effort you are proud of. The same effort will oftentimes yield different results, but effort is hard to fake and the body knows when the effort feels right.‍

The second thing, came to me at mile 7.5, while I was listening to calvin harris. There’s a part of the race where you hit a wall, start to lose focus, and even get bored. And it’s easy to kind of zone out and go into a hole — but my guided Nike run reminded me that this race that was passing right before my eyes was exactly what I had signed myself up for months ago. And when the race is over, all I will have are my memories, and the moments that I remember are the ones where the effort feels the hardest.

‍The thing I love about running is that it teaches me so much about life. It’s never really just about running but believing that I can do hard things, and then proving it to myself. Deciding one day that I’m going to do something and a few months later on a rainy day in coney island, accomplishing the task