I sat there listening to his own techniques to motivate and conquer the messages his body would send him. As I listened, I thought about my own motivations, my own methods to conquer the secrets my body whispers to me while on the road.
He asked about the different stages I go through, at first I was perplexed and confused by the question. 'Stages...' I said, 'what do you mean by stages?' 'You know, the different mentalities and moments you go through while running.' I thought, oh yes I know what you mean. I instantly thought of the constant line of connecting stages and moments throughout each and every one of my runs. Whether it be 3 miles, 5 miles, 18 miles or 20 miles, each stage takes me by complete surprise and complete ambiguity.
I have run two marathons in my life, soon to be three. I mentally envision my first marathon as an event, something to do to succeed. There was no real goal but to cross the outstanding finish line. The stages were minimum, basically a constant feeling of amazing power and strength. A constant feeling of amazement, the idea that I decided to run a marathon, and I alone was running the marathon. I went through a stage of weakness. Mile 13 and a long road in front of me. I was feeling defeated, depleted and down. A short pep talk and a few runners to guide me to the next mile vanished my defeated feeling and left me again with that powerful pump.
My second marathon was full of stages. It seems the same almost every time; the ubiquitous endorphins, the excitement and the rush. It always makes my heart beat to a surprising pace. Chills creep up my skin from my toes to my forehead before the gun explodes and I begin the run. If I can keep my mind quite and my breathing focused, I can maintain a peaceful, stressless, strong run. It is the moments I allow my mind to wander that tend to leave me curled over in a stitch struggling to breathe. It has happened to me on a 18 mile training run, a 15 mile training and a few 5 mile training runs. I allow my thoughts to escape the tight chest I have locked them in. I allow my thoughts to escape the boundaries that I have set for the run. When this occurs my thoughts randomly slither down roads that I normally try to avoid. These thoughts, these feelings, leave me breathless. The tears start to form, the tomato clogs my throat and I can't breath. How can I possibly run, if I can't breath?
At this moment, at this stage, when I am struggling to breath and desperately trying to redirect and calm my thoughts, I become stronger. Because of fear, I try to avoid these moments, but it is in these moments, that I become stronger. I may look weak, arm holding stomach, head at my knees, tears in my eyes, literally gasping for breath, struggling to breath, but I am me, attempting to finally release these suppressed, tightly monitored feelings. I incidentally ran into one of these moments during my second marathon, thankfully I had the power to calm those raging thoughts attempting to bust through the chest. But these stages, they are real, they are powerful and they are what makes a marathon a challenge.
So I continue to conquer one marathon after another...
God Bless
