More Strong Women--My Training Partners

This is the fourth day on which I will discuss my tattoo with respect to my experience in and around the Boston Marathon.  Yesterday I spoke about the most important strong woman in my life--my wife.  There are many other strong women in my life--personal and professional. However, when it comes to running, one of the most important groups of strong women is the group of women with whom I train.

It is funny that I never really thought of running as a place to meet a lot of women when I was in high school.  But, the simple fact of the matter is that in my circle of running friends (and at least on  Facebook running friends account for one of every six people on my list), women are a majority.  And among the people I run with most often, women are the dominant majority.

In Back on My Feet, Team Christopher's Place supports gentleman in a work training program.  But most of the non-resident runners who come from the community to run with the guys are women.  And while none of the women from Team CP is one of my most frequent training partners, it is definitely the case that much of the team leadership has been female and those women definitely have shared their energy and enthusiasm for running with the entire team to make running a better experience for all concerned.

But it is not only the women in Back on My Feet who have made a difference.  I can count five women in particular who represent important aspects of my training experience.  They represent how running is an egalitarian sport.  Everyone faces the same course.  Everyone faces the same rules.  Everyone faces the same objective--get to the finish line as quickly as possible given the condition you are in.

The first of the women I will mention is the one with whom I formed a two-person marathon relay team.  She and I called our team "Who's the Mentor?"  The question in this case reflects the fact that I have served as a professional mentor, she has served as a running mentor, and together we have taken each of these issues into other parts of our lives.  In the weekend before the marathon we shared emails in which I credited her for her ability to share her enthusiasm and bring others to do things and she credited me with helping to motivate her and see her through her academic program and then challenged me to strive for greatness at Boston.  Not greatness in the sense of winning against all others but in the sense of being all that I could do.  I think I rose to that challenge on April 15.  Most days when we train together she runs ahead or at least sounds like she is not working as hard based on her steps and her breathing but there are days when I run ahead.  She is an excellent runner and clearly the better runner of the two of us but she is human.  And the strength with the humanity makes clear just how egalitarian running is.  On any given day either one of us might run ahead--although at the end of the day, she has the better personal best times.  She is a leader.  She has run Boston, but not this year.

The second woman who is a consistent training partner is a fellow employee at Johns Hopkins.  She has times that are just about as good as or better than mine at most distances but she points out that her times have been getting worse while mine have been getting better.  I am not entirely sure about that but it is an interesting juxtaposition.  I usually run ahead on the track.  She easily keeps on the occasional long run.  We have never run a race together.   We ponder whether running a race together might help each of us to get a better time.  She has run Boston, but not this year.  While she did not have all the same inspiring words as my relay partner, it was wonderful to speak with her in my second workout after the marathon.

The third woman who is a frequent training partner is someone with whom I have done many track workouts and with whom I have done some tempo workouts and a few long runs.  We have crossed paths in a couple of races.  I fairly consistently run ahead but she is always close enough to me to keep me going and some of her best race times are very close to mine.  I think she is still figuring out what her ultimate running capacity is.  Maybe she will find out in the next couple of years.  She will run Boston next year.  And I imagine we will have a long conversation about the race as she sorts it out afterwards.  Although I hope that her sorting out is all about the run and not about other events on the day as my sorting out has been this year.  

The fourth woman has not run Boston and may never run Boston.  She represents the other end of my running friends.  Not very slow but not someone I would run next to on most workouts.  I would run ahead.  Yet we are good friends and both runners and each respects where he other is.  Each recognizes how far the other has come since we first met.  Each recognizes how wonderful each running experience is and what the other gains.  Running is egalitarian.  Everyone is welcome.  The key is for each person to run the best he or she can and she always does.  Runners can be friends without even running together in some cases.

The fifth woman I will mention is the one I have run with most often.  In the first year of marathon training I thought I would never keep up.  She ran ahead in most every workout and outran my by 12 minutes and some in the actual marathon.  However, by the next year while she still seemed to have the capacity to run ahead we ended up running near similar times.  She and I have been consistent training partners since the summer of 2011.  That was the second year of participation in the Charm City Run training group.  We were well matched.  After that race, neither one of us has gone back to a formal training group, but we have run together.  At least on weekends when we are both in town, when we don't have another race, when we don't have more important kid activities, and when we are healthy.  This means we certainly don't run every weekend.  But we have shared many miles.  We both enjoy early runs--cooler in the summer, gives each of us the rest of the day for our kids.  And we have each achieved our personal bests while training at least some of the time with the other.  Perhaps one day in the future when we are both healthy and ready to race again, we will race together and push each other-not just for a good run through the streets of Towson, Timonium, Lutherville, and Baltimore or the trails by Loch Raven Reservoir or the NCR Trail--but for each of us to achieve the best we ever have in running.  And while she has run a Boston qualifying time, she puts her kids ahead of going to Boston.  Perhaps some day she will have the joy of a Boston experience as well.  Until then we just continue to support each other in our running endeavors.

Do my training partners have to be female?  Of course not.  The people with whom I run most often just happen to be. I could tell stories about five guys just as easily.  The focus on the women I run with is driven by the tattoo imagery.  And it is a matter of when schedules and needs line up.  It is a matter of who I have met in my running experience, who has needed a training partner, and who has been willing to act as a training partner.  Regardless, these five women are five examples of strong women who have had an influence on my running life.  Each hears about a sliver of my personal life and/or professional life as we converse while we run.  

Each was concerned about my safety on April 15--as were many other people.  And, as someone who made it through April 15 safely, I hope not only to grow my personal and professional relationships and activities to be stronger than ever, but I also hope to continue to strengthen all of my running friendships and to make it clear how much I value them.  Every relationship (personal, professional, and running) should be cherished every day--since I never can predict when they will be taken away or when I will be taken away.

Marathon Time and Bible Verses

Time has put enough distance between the events on Monday and me for me to really start processing what happened on Monday. This is more than a gut reaction.  This is more than first feelings.  This is now trying to sort things out.

Many runners I know have recently posted Psalm 26:2.  Obviously a reference to the marathon distance.  The verse (from the New American Bible Revised Edition) is:

   Examine me, Lord, and test me;
   search my heart and mind

Usually following this will be a phrase about how the marathon runner at the end of the race is not the same as the marathon runner at the start of the race.  I knew that was true all along.  At least one friend had commented before my first marathon about how she learned something each time she participated in a marathon.  I would have to say that this is more true for me this time than any other time.  There were things I learned about running a race that I will address later and things I  learned about my reaction to bad events (which I will also comment on later).  Although I suppose in the same way that as part of a three day retreat long ago that talked about how to live in the proverbial "fourth day" the reactions I have had are mostly about how to deal with the proverbial 27th mile.

But this Bible verse was not of my finding and was about the distance a marathon always is rather than about my number (which I wrote about back on 13-March using some verses that had to do with parables--how fitting since I use story telling to sort things out and one of the verses I found for my time is a short parable) or my time 3:15:56.  My time was very close to 3:16:00 which a friend had told me long ago would lead to the obvious John 3:16.  But since I came in 4 seconds under 3:16 and I value those 4 seconds, I tried to find something using my exact time to help me make sense of the events around me.

For that, I chose two things.  Verses of joy.  And verses of sorrow.  Together they will help me to initiate a healing process in my own mind, heart, and soul.  A process by which I will find the strength to face all things--running or otherwise--that challenge me and not run from or hide from the challenges and risks that I face in life.

First verses: Gospel #3 (given the typical order of Matthew, Mark, LUKE, and John), Chapter 15, verses 5 and 6.  

   And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with 

     great joy

   and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and 

     neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I

     have found my lost sheep.’

Anyone familiar with this verse knows that the Pharisees were accusing Jesus of choosing to spend time with sinners and tax collectors and that the "found after being lost" sheep was symbolic for a repentent sinner.  However, the verse can be taken out of context a little as we recognize the simple joy of finding something or someone that was lost or that was feared lost.  I cannot express the enormity of the gratitude I felt on Monday as people checked in on me or commented after I had checked in on FB (or by a text with my wife). I was the sheep that was thought to be lost or at least people were worried I might have been lost.  There was a joy for others in knowing of my safety.  And there was a joy for me in being able to share my safety.  Not that a sheep is sentient enough to have feelings and state in any way that it is happy to have found its shepherd, but certainly in the context of Jesus's short parable the repentent sinner takes great joy in finding comfort.  I took great joy in having already retrieved my stuff so that I could be in communication with those who were so worried about me.  And I feel the safety and camaraderie of the "flock" of runners I was with that day and the fact that runners share a bond that makes all feel like a community around the city, around the country, and around the world taking strength from being a group.

The verses of sorry: Psalm 31 Verses 5-11 (11 being 5+6):

Free me from the net they have set for me,
for you are my refuge
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, LORD, God of truth.
You hate those who serve worthless idols,
but I trust in the LORD.
I will rejoice and be glad in your mercy,
once you have seen my misery,
[and] gotten to know the distress of my soul.
You will not abandon me into enemy hands,
but will set my feet in a free and open space.
Be gracious to me, LORD, for I am in distress;
affliction is wearing down my eyes,
my throat and my insides.
My life is worn out by sorrow,
and my years by sighing.
My strength fails in my affliction;
my bones are wearing down.

No one was setting a net specifically for me.  We still don't know whether the two accused of being the bombers (one being dead and the other being in a hospital as I write this) targeted any ONE specifically.  What we do know is that they set a trap for someone or some cause.  And throughout, my religion has been part of my refuge.  Even on Monday, I commended my spirit and sense of self to God.  I am not accusing Islam in general of serving worthless idols (although I know some do).  But anyone of any faith who indiscriminately kills and injures young and old and those who thought there were in a safe and joyful family environment is serving some idol that is not worth anything in my book.  It could be an ideology.  It could be a cause.  It could simply be for fame.  It is not the God I serve.  I have felt miserable this week many times.  I am glad to be alive.  This event was too close for comfort.  I will discuss later the many different ways in which I interpret close that could eiher have made me close or not to the events on Monday.  I feel the verse about not abandoning me into enemy hands but setting my feet into an open space sort of representing the fact that I was on the subway and released to the open area of Boston's city hall at the next subway stop.  It may have even more meaning if at least one of the two accused men was at the same subway station at the same time.  I cannot say the latter for sure, but there was a young man who made a comment that seemed awfully out of place at the time and who looked at least vaguely like pictures of the suspect in the hospital this morning.  Will return to that later as well.  When I first came upon the verses here earlier this week, I would not have claimed years of sighing and affliction, but I was definitely feeling in distress.  My eyes were being worn down from watching all the bad news.

But now that I can juxtapose the sorrowful verses and joyful verses that I relate to my time on Monday and I continue to think about what it all means, I think my psyche is on the road to recovery.  The memories of Monday will remain with me for a lifetime.  For example, where was I when the Boston marathon 2013 bombing occurred?  On the green line of the T headed toward Haymarket where we had intended to transfer to the orange line. But despite the memories being there and strong for the rest of my life, I will move onward.  Not leaving that day behind.  But making that day part of a life long learning process that makes me stronger.  

Extroverted and Introverted Running

So, despite my best efforts to actually write every day (and not just average every day) during Lent, it looks like today will mark the point at which I achieve averaging every day rather than writing every day.  I had a very long run yesterday (2 hours 56 minutes and a few seconds) and multiple family activities (and lots of driving) during the day.

In any case, I am thinking about extroverted and introverted running and how much I have changed since mid-summer 2010.  Before that time I almost always ran alone--except for counting, perhaps, my time at the gym in the room with the fitness machines.  It was about me, my health, my speed, my exercise.  

Since mid-summer 2010, things changed.  That is when I first started with a training group.  And from early August 2010 through October 2011, I trained with the Charm City Run marathon and half marathon training groups appropriate to specific races and fund-racing efforts for cancer-related charities.  Since then I have run with Back on My Feet as an organization, with individual members of Back on My Feet I've come to know well, with alumni of the Charm City Run training groups, and with people with whom I work.  Generally, I'm still running with others twice a week and alone 3-4 times a week, but the mix is obviously different and very importantly different.

I refer to them as extroverted and introverted running going back to the Meyer-Briggs.  Where do I draw my strength.  I find that I increasingly draw from my strength from running with others rather than from running alone.  One difficulty for me in running with others if finding people people who meet two criteria: run at speeds that are compatible with my getting a high quality workout and their getting a high quality workout and wanting to run at the same time of day.  I want to, like to, and almost have to run so that I am done and ready to start my day very early every day.  I have found a group willing to come to the track or to do tempo runs at 5:30 AM.  That is not a problem during the week.  The challenge is to find a group that or an individual who wants to begin before 6 on Saturdays.  

My concern is that one of my long-time training partners for Saturday may have to reassess her long-term plans for running.  A second person with whom I just had a first very enjoyable Saturday run is about to leave the Baltimore area.  There are others, and I am perfectly capable of doing runs like the 22 I did yesterday alone, but it is just not the same.  I truly draw energy from the runs with others.  They make a huge difference to me.  And running has warn off on the rest of my life as I find myself increasingly thinking of myself as at least a weak extrovert rather than a strong introvert and I think it has affected my ability to perform my job, my career advancement, and the way I look at life.  It is so amazing to think that it may have all begun with my running.

I owe something to everyone with whom I have ever run--not just for being good company but for helping to bring something out that had not been so prominent before in my life.  And, I owe something to Gerry whose passing brought about this change in my running.  I doubt anyone ever knows how their life or their death will completely affect others.  May I be so lucky to inspire as the years go on.