I recently ran the Chicago Marathon for the 20th time. Each time, I’ve been the same human and yet never the same version of myself.
Some years, I’ve gone into the race fit and healthy. Other years, I’ve been working my way back from significant running injury. Twice, I’ve run this race (very carefully) while pregnant. One year, I did all the training while pushing an infant in a baby stroller (would not recommend). Another, I raced months after a late miscarriage when running was just emotional medicine.
Some years, the race or a specific time aspiration has been the goal. Other times, the training process itself was the only goal, the long runs and rhythm a tool for returning to myself.
This year, heading into the 2021 Chicago Marathon, I was healthy and well trained. After a series of four dispiriting stress-fractures, my past three years of training had been injury free. This marathon build-up had gone incredibly smoothly. “On-paper”, I was significantly fitter than the last time I ran this race in 2019—a race that I had both run a qualifying time for Boston and that (by marathon standards) had been very comfortable. I had finished that race with more “left in the tank”.
Leading into that 2019 race, I had worked my way back from a serious stress fracture in my left tibia—an injury that broke not only my bone but my spirit too. I had been in some of the best running shape of my life doing a final training run for the New York Marathon only to end up crawling home, unable to put weight on my leg. In running, I often break without warning.
Repeatedly breaking sent me on a winding journey of self exploration — both medically and mentally. Despite MRIs, bone scans, blood tests, gait analysis, and hours and hours of PT….there was no silver bullet answer. I’ve grown deeper and wiser as a person and as a runner—both more appreciative but, at times, more fearful too. Breaking so often — always after having invested so much— left me fearful of breaking again. It likely always will.
When I trained for and ran the 2019 race, I knew in my head that my bone was healed. But I didn’t know it in my heart.
Training for a marathon inevitably involves grappling with discomfort. By design, a training plan introduces specific, calculated types of discomfort through varying workouts. Over time, as the body adapts, what was once uncomfortable grows increasingly more comfortable. Then new calculated discomfort is introduced. Pushing outside of one’s comfort zone yields expansion. At the same time, the risk of injury is always a reality too. There are no guarantees.
Sometimes, my fear of breaking again had made it hard for me to trust myself in pushing through the discomfort. Despite all medical assurances and counsel, it was hard not to blame myself. Guilt crept in. I questioned myself during hard workouts, worried I would end up injured again. I cut back on the number of days I allowed myself to run wondering if that was at fault. My fault.
During the high mileage of marathon training, it’s inevitable that your body will have some aches and pains. I generally manage these with reasonable steadiness. That said — when I feel something in my (twice stress-fractured) left tibia, my mind always teeters on panic mode. Any time sensation arises there, I visualize a small crack spreading slowly like a spider’s web with each step.
The rational part of my mind tries to assure myself that what I feel is likely not the onset of another stress fracture and instead, just a natural “niggle” from high mileage. The other (also rational) side of my mind argues that I’ve had multiple previous stress fractures so it’s not irrational to think that I could be breaking again.
Actual conversations have taken place between those parts of my mind with one side saying “omg it’s happening again and this time it will crush you worse than the last time.” And the other side responding “calm the &*($ down and hit your prescribed split. Just because you feel something doesn’t mean you are going to break.”
I started to think I might always see myself as a “broken” runner. I’d feel something and push on my bone seeking reassurance that I was ok. But, there are never full assurances we won’t break (again).
Building up to this year’s (2021) race, I pushed up against the same fear. Once, I stopped short in a workout out of worry about my leg. My coach called me on it. I no longer allowed myself to run more than four days a week given my history — hoping that would keep me from breaking. In July, my coach floated the idea of my running five days a week instead.
It felt like permission to choose hope over fear.
Leading up to this year’s race, I defined an A, B, and C goal — even the most aspirational A goal felt well within the range of what was possible while respecting the distance and inevitable variance of circumstance that the marathon presents.
Then the weather reports started coming out.
The marathon emails started warning of… “not ideal conditions for marathon running”… “the event alert system will move to red by the end of the marathon - potentially dangerous conditions for running”… “runners should take a cautious approach to avoid heat-related illness…”
Ugh.
In any marathon, if you go out too hard, you’ll pay for it later. But in this heat and humidity, I knew this was especially true. If I went out too hard (even a bit too hard) in this kind of heat, I’d really pay for it later.
I had to recalibrate.
The night before the race, I sat on the floor in my hotel room trying to shut-out the noise of the football game that was on in the background. It felt wise to re-frame my expectations of what was possible.
Though I had run my last 20-miler at a pace below my “A” goal pace, I took that goal off the table. I wouldn’t go out that fast in the heat. My “B” goal felt possible but left very little wiggle room if I ran the first half of the race more conservatively than I otherwise would have given the conditions. My “C” goal was more likely.
I wrote a few words to orient myself before I went to bed.
- push yourself to explore whatever is possible on this day with its given circumstances
- be your biggest cheerleader when things get hard
- celebrate yourself no matter what time shows on the clock at the finish
In the margin of the page, I wrote and circled the words: Define yourself.
I promised myself I would start conservatively and listen to my body. My hope was that I could pick up the pace at the halfway point to negative split (run the second half faster than the first).
On race day, I woke to my 4:30 alarm, forced down food despite having no appetite at the early hour, and caught the 5:30 am shuttle from my hotel. After navigating the security and porto-john lines, I made my way to the start corral where it felt suffocating to stand still when all I wanted to do was move forward.
Once the start gun (finally) went off, I followed my plan—starting conservatively, holding back in the early miles and allowing the race to unfold. I got through the halfway point feeling strong and controlled. I gave myself permission to pick up the pace slightly. From miles 13-18, I still felt good and on-target to negative split.
I knew that my family was planning to meet me (for the 3rd time) past mile 19 and that they would be holding the neon green sign they had made. As I progressed towards mile 19, I started looking for neon green signs. I saw a few but realized I was struggling to read them. My vision was blurred. I also started feeling nauseous. I was overheating. It had come on with seemingly little warning.
I was relieved to see my family at around 19.5 miles. Once I found them, I stepped to the side of the course, got a hat and put ice underneath it. I poured ice down my shirt and water over my head in an attempt to cool my body temperature. I bent over to lower my head to try to resolve feeling light-headed. I drank Gatorade in an attempt to get more fluids and electrolytes in me despite the nausea—my body immediately regretted this decision.
Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking.
In that moment, the thought creep in: “why are you doing this?”
But as I gathered myself, I reminded myself that this is exactly why I do this. The marathon is challenging. There will be suffering. But the personal transformation is in knowing you are strong enough to find a way through. You don’t train for perfect conditions — you train to be strong enough no matter what the conditions.
“It’s how you respond when it’s time to hurt that defines the experience.”
—Peter Bromka
Once I re-gained my equilibrium, I started moving forward again. I had no idea what the clock said at that point. I was not thinking about the clock. I was only thinking about getting through. I ran as fast as my body would allow without letting the nausea overwhelm me.
The only way through was forward.
I crossed the line in 3:42—a BQ by 8 minutes. Significantly slower than the race I had trained for “on paper” - but 4 minutes and 30 seconds faster than I had run the same race in 2019 under far more favorable conditions. I had accomplished my “C” goal.
(…as an aside, I also immediately threw up that Gatorade. Bless the two medics that assisted me after I crossed the finish line.)
After completing the race, the only emotional choice I allowed myself was satisfaction for having fought through. I had promised myself (and my daughter Cate) that I would be happy no matter what. I kept that promise.
Of course, there is a part of me that wishes the weather had been better. I know I had a “better on paper” race in me. At the same time, the irony is that when the marathon conditions are hardest, even if the time on the clock is slower than it could have been on a day with better conditions, that’s when strength is demanded most.
This past year (completely unrelated to running), I had an experience that left me feeling broken for a season. I had given incredibly deeply to a situation that ended painfully and inappropriately. Unlike in running when discomfort feels purposeful and intentional, this felt senseless and irresolute. Certainly it was not the circumstances I would have chosen or the ending I envisioned. But it is what was.
The only way through was forward.
In running as in life, it’s easy to dream of and celebrate “A” goals and perfect endings. But it’s sometimes when we don’t get the endings we would have chosen that our strength emerges most. Maybe instead of criticizing ourselves for falling short of our “A” goal, these are the moments that we should honor ourselves the most.
For finding a way through.
Things break — bones, trust, perceptions of who we thought people were. Though it’s not always what we would choose, maybe some things need to break. And once we stand in our rawest moments, finally free of the responsibility of holding things together, we are liberated to define our own way out.
Define yourself.
Whether overcoming broken bones or painful experiences — there are days I know I’m healing because I know it in my head or because I can point to something “on paper”. But the real days I know I am healing are because my heart knows. And because I feel it in my bones.
Here’s to honoring and celebrating earned strength—even in a Plan C.
xo,
Amy
I will never be the same.
I can feel it in my bones.
It is an aching that comes with growth, a bleak creaking of restructure as I settle into this new me.
The melody if change is discomfort I embrace because I know that strength can’t be built without breaking first.
But I also know that we are not always made stronger by trauma -
just different…
I know I will never be the same because I allowed myself to feel it all.
For me, there was never any other way.
I cut a broad swath in my soul and here is where the light shines in.
And if not light, then gold. And if not gold, then warmth. And if not warmth, then something.
Something will fill the cracks.
I can feel it in my bones.
—words by @steph_outside