This is why I train<\/em>. Unlike Shawn, I was not born a runner. He barely trained but was a track star back in high school, his dad had told me when we went to dinner once. I\u2019d been working on my running for seven years and I\u2019d made some fitness gains, but I still wasn\u2019t at all fast.<\/p>\nMy legs feel the load of climbing, but they are strong and fresh. I spring and bound up at a slow pace, though now my breathing is audible to other people. I come up behind a tan girl who\u2019s got a Los Gatos Ultrarunners shirt on. She\u2019s got the right kind of legs\u2014some muscle but not a lot of mass. I fall in behind her.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me know if you want to pass,\u201d she says. I don\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n
They say run your own race and that\u2019s what I intend to do, but this guy behind me is breathing hard, and he\u2019s right on my tail. It\u2019s annoying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy\u2026 don\u2019t\u2026 you\u2026 pass?\u201d My words are broken with my breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m fine,\u201d he says. He keeps on my tail, huffing and puffing, emphasizing the exhale like he\u2019s an exhaust pipe. His cell phone rings. That\u2019s the end of him!<\/p>\n
I hammer my quads on the descent, flying downhill, barely taking time to put my feet down. Another aid station. I run through trees, a riverbed. I take the climb as steadily as I can. I see an upside-down horseshoe emblem on the lower left leg of the girl in front of me. She\u2019s slowing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on Lululemon pants, pick it up!\u201d I say. Her knees spark. \u201cYou\u2019re doin\u2019 great!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks,\u201d she whispers. \u201cYou, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah! We\u2019re awesome!<\/em> My arms brush my sides, and I duck under a branch.<\/p>\nFinally, a clearing. The ground is dry below the sign that says Boney Mountain, and I run on its spine. One side ocean\u2014the surf white, foamy, and smooth from this far away; the other side is snow on distant mountains. I\u2019m somewhere behind Malibu and there was a lot of rain this year, so everything is green in the sulcus below me. I take a long, deep, slow breath, use my finger as a mini-windshield wiper to wipe each brow. Whew!<\/em> I bask in the warmth of the sun up here. But not for long.<\/p>\nA glance at my watch tells me the fast people are probably done by now. People like Shawn.<\/p>\n
Rat tat tat tat, <\/em>the descent is a roller coaster ride. Steep, I get passed by a big guy; he\u2019s young, has the physique of a football player, and he\u2019s got a ton of momentum on the downhill. A hard left now, I use my arms to help me turn. Da dit dit dit dit. <\/em>The sounds of the rhythm of the downhill. <\/em><\/p>\nI don\u2019t want this race to end. There are two miles left, and, of course, one more little bump to scale. The young, big guy who flew past me is walking now, hobbling, he\u2019s semi-injured. His enthusiasm took him past the point his tendons could handle. My legs are getting tired\u2014it\u2019s been eleven hilly outrageous miles so far. I trip over a loose rock but don\u2019t go down. It\u2019s a narrow pass, and there\u2019s a mini-traffic jam, people slowing on the uphill. I assume a prehistoric stance\u2014something stooped, but forward-looking as I climb. I\u2019m working, but I\u2019m not laboring, so now the guy in front of me is in my way.<\/p>\n
\u201cPick it up a little,\u201d I say, as if I am his subconscious coach whispering in his ear. Then I think, don\u2019t be so bossy and add, \u201cIf you can.\u201d I see very little change in his pace or style after a few more steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can\u2019t pick it up, then move over, so I can pass you.\u201d I\u2019m back to bossy.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t you see I tried to pick it up in my own way?\u201d he says, stepping to the right.<\/p>\n
I worked so hard to get over those hills, I\u2019m not going to succumb to a lesser strategy now as I enter the paradox of the last two miles: I can\u2019t wait for it to be over, but I want to it to last.<\/p>\n
\u201cAhhhh, uhhhhhh,\u201d the utterances come from a deep place. They are deep sighs, a heaving. I may be tired but I\u2019m relaxed, and I am loud.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you OK?\u201d the next person I pass asks me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pretty good,\u201d I say. I feel a lot better now, better than last year, when I had the coach who was a good athlete and a bad coach. I feel a lot better than I did over Christmas when I got mad at Shawn for a combination of blowing off my birthday and being himself. After I bitched him out, he told me not to contact him anymore.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m on an earth escalator and the steps are melting behind me. There\u2019s less than a mile of flat land before the finish, and I shift my legs into an easier gear. Here comes that finish line. Good job!<\/em> I tell myself smiling big, dancing around a little with my arms in the air under the banner.<\/p>\n\u201cWell done!\u201d is all I hear. It\u2019s not to me, it\u2019s to everyone.<\/p>\n
The moments after are the best, so fresh and quiet as I walk over to the refreshment table. After I\u2019ve had some water, I check the results, which are just posted. I have taken more than thirty minutes off last year\u2019s time. Shawn finished in fourth place overall, second in his age group. We are the same age, but he is almost an hour faster than I am. It\u2019s as if we ran different races. That was us, different races, different places. A hipster artist who worked in a bike shop with natural-born athleticism, he used expressions like you know the spot, hit you up, that\u2019s how I roll. <\/em>His mother had been an Olympic speed skater, and his father was a hard-core cyclist and runner. They\u2019d divorced.<\/p>\nThis race serves scrambles eggs after, and I grab a plate. We are standing around a grassy parking lot that has some tents with vendors. It\u2019s not hot; it\u2019s a beautiful and harmless day. The announcer says he\u2019s going to start the awards ceremony. There\u2019s Shawn again, over by the podium.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow was your race?\u201d he asks. We\u2019re both sweaty, his is more dried.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve improved,\u201d I look down at his paper plate, which has the remains of salt and pepper on it. We congratulate each other on our races.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, do you still hate me?\u201d I\u2019m direct, to the point.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he says in a relaxed enough way that I believe him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019d you get that salt and pepper?\u201d It\u2019s more of a demand than a question.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have it over there.\u201d He gestures toward the egg table. I walk over to the now-empty steam table trays, help myself to a few shakes. Shawn gets called up to the podium to receive his award. I clap for him and give out a yell, \u201cYeah, Shawn!\u201d<\/p>\n
He looks right at me, maybe a little embarrassed.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how I roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The best way to remember what you forgot to bring to a race is to wake up super early, stop for coffee, head down the freeway, get to the race site, park your car, take a shuttle to the start, stand in a line to use a Porta-Potty, then remember that you meant to bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1839,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions\/1839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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