It's Just Pier, Myself & Time
Last week was a very good week in terms of working out. Just easy runs were scheduled and my strength routine didn't seem as daunting as it usually does. My eating on the other hand was dismal. The sun rose and fell on my nonstop piehole stuffage. So when Saturday night rolled around, my faith in the ease of Sunday's race had all but disappeared. The connection between eating bad and poor performance is curiously strong for me; not saying that in every instance bad eating has affected me adversely but it does trippy things to my mental status...it's almost as if to say "nice try sister but we both know that weakness breeds weakness and I'm just gonna have to try to teach you that lesson again". I'm making it seem more internally ominous than it really is but these are just the thoughts that float through my head...nothing permanent or debilitating, just a reality of how my brain works. Anyhow, I turned to George Saturday night and informed him that this race tomorrow morning just might suck my ass. We laughed about it and I said out loud "this race isn't even really a race. This isn't about time. I'm scheduled for an easy 6 miles anyway so I'm just going to go and enjoy myself". And as I speak, I look directly at him, seemingly to the unpaying audience in my head, to be addressing him-yet my heart and spirit know full well that the comment was made on their behalf.
Besides the mental tug of war going on inside my brain I knew one thing for sure: this race (A Race to Remember) was special, it was different and I'll tell you why. Over the years I've run alot of races-I can't tell you if or what any of them benefited because whatever it was (although this sounds harsh I truly don't mean it to be) didn't have any bearing on my mind one way or another-I go to races primarily to challenge myself, compete against myself...hence the normal selfish preoccupation being, well, ME. But the cause for this race has become pretty prominent to me-a fact that I wish wasn't the case yet the reality is that my dear, dear friend Pier's father is battling Alzheimer's and she in turn has become a pillar of strength for her family and an astounding picture of what I can only describe as incredible. The only experience I've now had with this terrifying disease is through her struggles as caregiver, cheerleader and general captain of her family's ship, plowing through wave upon wave of uncharted, often times dark waters. I feel helpless to her anguish-as her friend all I really want to do is scoop her into my arms to protect her from this hurt and promise her that it's all going to be okay. Since I'm not able to click my heels three times and magically send her and her family to a pain free place , I'll do the best I can-which is to support and listen and provide either a shoulder to cry on, or a sounding board for her anger, or an uncontrollable laughing jag or in the current case, a donation in the form of race dues that will hopefully go towards finding a cure.
The dawn of Sunday morning promised to be a beautiful day. Pier picked me up and I quickly noticed that she was all jacked up on caffeine. I love when she's like this-her already infectious happy attitude gets stronger when combined with coffee. As we make our way downtown, my concerns for whether this race will be one of my best vanishes and I realize how lucky I am to have a friend like her.
We get our bib numbers and saunter back to the car. Although the sun is shining the temp hasn't really warmed up and my corpse like hands need to be thawed before the start of the race. We sit there for a little while and then I look at her and tell her that I really should pee before the race starts so we get out of the car and turn to make a b-line for the bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye I see everybody lined up and it puzzles the hell out of me. I turn to Pier and say something like "what the fuck is everybody lining up so early for?" Which I follow up quickly with "Doesn't the race start at 9:30?" And in true Pier fashion she mocks me slightly and says in her best Homer Simpson voice "Doh! It starts at 9!" Looking quickly at my watch it confirms that yes, my bladder will have a workout as well since it's 8:57 and the race is about to start. We laugh as we make our way to the mass of runners lined up who are obviously not as time-tarded as I seem to have become.
The race commences and Pier and I bump fists, say a quick good luck to each other and we're off! As I approach mile marker #1 the monotone voice of the soon to be bored volunteer confirms that my first mile split is as deliberately slow as I had hoped it to be. All I kept repeating to myself was "run comfortable"...and so, I did. My legs felt strong and my breathing clued me in on what type of effort I was exerting which was a step below the challenging level on my pain-o-meter. By mile two I was well on my way to just enjoying the sunshine and by mile three since there was a lack of suffering on my part, there was little to concentrate on except how surprisingly long three more miles suddenly seemed. As I hit mile four though I realized how nice it'd been to disregard the mile splits, how relieved I was to not have had to feed the inner demon that normally took my focus from enjoyment and perverted it into a masochistic dissection of all the things I could have done better. I hit mile five and happened to hear the guy shouting out times say something like 39:mumble mumble (see, I told you, I wasn't really paying attention at that point). But the second I heard 39 I started trying to do the math for a projected finish time and splits which was unsuccessful since for some reason when I'm running I lose all ability to do simple addition and multiplication. It was in this last mile that I thought the most about Pier's dad. Without even knowing he was doing so, he helped carry me towards the finish.
I tried to simplify it and told myself when my watch said 45 minutes I should try to start hauling ass. So that's what I did. With an overflowing reserve in the tank (or maybe it was really just my near bursting bladder I was feeling) I picked up my pace and before I knew it, I had the finish line in my sight. I sprinted the last little bit and crossed the line with an official time 47:54 (splits were 7:44).
Pier and I reconnected at the finish line and decided that the free breakfast buffet was just way too crowded so we left and stopped at Presti's bakery in Little Italy instead. We sat at a small, sun drenched cafe table and enjoyed our lattes and pastries the way all good little italian girls should. The warmth of the sun was almost cool in comparison to the warmth in my heart. And for that glorious morning I felt anything was possible. I felt everything was possible. And I felt like her Papa was holding our hands the entire time.
Besides the mental tug of war going on inside my brain I knew one thing for sure: this race (A Race to Remember) was special, it was different and I'll tell you why. Over the years I've run alot of races-I can't tell you if or what any of them benefited because whatever it was (although this sounds harsh I truly don't mean it to be) didn't have any bearing on my mind one way or another-I go to races primarily to challenge myself, compete against myself...hence the normal selfish preoccupation being, well, ME. But the cause for this race has become pretty prominent to me-a fact that I wish wasn't the case yet the reality is that my dear, dear friend Pier's father is battling Alzheimer's and she in turn has become a pillar of strength for her family and an astounding picture of what I can only describe as incredible. The only experience I've now had with this terrifying disease is through her struggles as caregiver, cheerleader and general captain of her family's ship, plowing through wave upon wave of uncharted, often times dark waters. I feel helpless to her anguish-as her friend all I really want to do is scoop her into my arms to protect her from this hurt and promise her that it's all going to be okay. Since I'm not able to click my heels three times and magically send her and her family to a pain free place , I'll do the best I can-which is to support and listen and provide either a shoulder to cry on, or a sounding board for her anger, or an uncontrollable laughing jag or in the current case, a donation in the form of race dues that will hopefully go towards finding a cure.
The dawn of Sunday morning promised to be a beautiful day. Pier picked me up and I quickly noticed that she was all jacked up on caffeine. I love when she's like this-her already infectious happy attitude gets stronger when combined with coffee. As we make our way downtown, my concerns for whether this race will be one of my best vanishes and I realize how lucky I am to have a friend like her.
We get our bib numbers and saunter back to the car. Although the sun is shining the temp hasn't really warmed up and my corpse like hands need to be thawed before the start of the race. We sit there for a little while and then I look at her and tell her that I really should pee before the race starts so we get out of the car and turn to make a b-line for the bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye I see everybody lined up and it puzzles the hell out of me. I turn to Pier and say something like "what the fuck is everybody lining up so early for?" Which I follow up quickly with "Doesn't the race start at 9:30?" And in true Pier fashion she mocks me slightly and says in her best Homer Simpson voice "Doh! It starts at 9!" Looking quickly at my watch it confirms that yes, my bladder will have a workout as well since it's 8:57 and the race is about to start. We laugh as we make our way to the mass of runners lined up who are obviously not as time-tarded as I seem to have become.
The race commences and Pier and I bump fists, say a quick good luck to each other and we're off! As I approach mile marker #1 the monotone voice of the soon to be bored volunteer confirms that my first mile split is as deliberately slow as I had hoped it to be. All I kept repeating to myself was "run comfortable"...and so, I did. My legs felt strong and my breathing clued me in on what type of effort I was exerting which was a step below the challenging level on my pain-o-meter. By mile two I was well on my way to just enjoying the sunshine and by mile three since there was a lack of suffering on my part, there was little to concentrate on except how surprisingly long three more miles suddenly seemed. As I hit mile four though I realized how nice it'd been to disregard the mile splits, how relieved I was to not have had to feed the inner demon that normally took my focus from enjoyment and perverted it into a masochistic dissection of all the things I could have done better. I hit mile five and happened to hear the guy shouting out times say something like 39:mumble mumble (see, I told you, I wasn't really paying attention at that point). But the second I heard 39 I started trying to do the math for a projected finish time and splits which was unsuccessful since for some reason when I'm running I lose all ability to do simple addition and multiplication. It was in this last mile that I thought the most about Pier's dad. Without even knowing he was doing so, he helped carry me towards the finish.
I tried to simplify it and told myself when my watch said 45 minutes I should try to start hauling ass. So that's what I did. With an overflowing reserve in the tank (or maybe it was really just my near bursting bladder I was feeling) I picked up my pace and before I knew it, I had the finish line in my sight. I sprinted the last little bit and crossed the line with an official time 47:54 (splits were 7:44).
Pier and I reconnected at the finish line and decided that the free breakfast buffet was just way too crowded so we left and stopped at Presti's bakery in Little Italy instead. We sat at a small, sun drenched cafe table and enjoyed our lattes and pastries the way all good little italian girls should. The warmth of the sun was almost cool in comparison to the warmth in my heart. And for that glorious morning I felt anything was possible. I felt everything was possible. And I felt like her Papa was holding our hands the entire time.
2 comments:
Hey!! You didn't give me enough time to get the pics downloaded! LOL!!
Thank you Maria!
Boy! What a fabulous race! Stupendous time. I'd give anything to run a 10k in that time. You're a wonderful friend to Pier.
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