A year ago on this date (11/17) I completed my first race, the Philadelphia Half Marathon. It was cold, it was early, it was one of those mornings when the sun was bright and you could see your breath in the air. I was nervous, the wait to start was exciting and long. There’s an electricity to races – so many people. It’s a little like a party. Strangers line the sides of the course just to cheer you on.
Looking back, the things I remember most are the days of training leading up to the race. I remember the weekend of the race spent with my ex-fiancee’s friend Morgan who flew in from CA to visit and race with her (our picture at Love Park became our holiday card). I remember the high fives along the way and the satisfaction of having completed the race. I remember feeling so proud of B (the ex-fiancee) for achieving something she had been working towards. I remember the two of us crossing the finish line together, holding hands.
Sometimes I wonder if my enthusiasm for us as a couple overrode B’s true wishes. She often talked about needing space and solitude, and we never figured out the how and when to make that happen. What I offered wasn’t enough, what she asked for wasn’t what she wanted or needed. Running might have been one more of those things where I came crashing in like an excited and slobbery dog – all tail wags and tongue hanging out the side…. She might have wanted solitude and quiet when I wanted belly rubs and scritches behind the ear. We would talk about these things in therapy. How what we admired in each other were often the things that were most foreign to ourselves. I always thought we were great compliments to each other and that we would learn a lot from our differences. I truly believed that our styles and sensibilities would never cease to be our own, but would evolve and shift in ways that allowed us to move through the world with grace and happiness…
I don’t remember when I decided to do the race (though I remember signing up and feeling a sense of “oh crap, I’m really going to do this.”) I know it was late in the registration season (I think it’s why my name didn’t get printed on the bib). B and I had been going on runs together for a little while, and because she was already training, her runs were getting longer and longer. I had planned on going to the race to cheer her on – I wanted to support her in any way that I could, and I wanted to be able to spend time with her during the training. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to just run the race with her. I could go to Philly and stand out in the cold and see her for half a minute as she and hundreds of other runners passed by, or I go and run with her – cheer her on by her side the entire time. I thought it would be amazing to cross the finish line together – a symbol of where we were headed in life. To me the choice was a no-brainer. When I told B I was thinking of running – she was excited. She said she liked the idea of training together and of us finishing together. Now, I wonder if my joining was more of an intrusion on her solitude than anything else – a cause for resentment. Maybe we needed a deeper conversation about whether or not she wanted to cross the finish line with me or if she’d prefer to do it alone. I didn’t want to take away from her accomplishment, I wanted to share in her success. A full year later, it’s heavy to think about where she and I are…. how the finish line, if it’s even visible, looks so different. What we knew and felt about the race that morning, and who we’d be running with, is not what we know today.
I’m a pretty fast runner. I don’t always have the best endurance. Obviously, to run for any distance, endurance is important. When I think about how the two of us trained together, it sometimes seems like a commentary on the overall relationship. From her, I was learning to slow down, to pace myself, to go the distance. She would tell me that running with me was good motivation for her and helped her push through when she wanted to quit… I believe this is exactly how it should work. Two people bringing different and complimentary skills to a relationship – a mutual nourishment and encouragement, not quitting on each other. In reality, B had run and finished races before. She had stuck it out through much tougher things – all the way to the bitter end. She didn’t need me for motivation or perseverance or for encouragement. She wasn’t learning anything new from me. In the past, she would run and dedicate miles to her mom, the dog, her friends, and to her late husband. With me in the picture, she began to dedicate miles to her new family, her new pets, her new partner…. But there are only so many miles in a race, and maybe there was a discomfort in not being able to fit everyone in, an uneasiness about having to choose the present and give less space to the past. Before me, B had all she needed and perhaps all she wanted. If anything, I probably cramped her style.
I can remember times during our training when she got frustrated with me. She would tell me to go on and run ahead, she’ll catch up. I don’t think she understood my motivation. I was out there because I wanted to run with her, not ahead of her. I wanted to learn to move at her pace, to learn to move together. I wanted us to finish together. I was never trying to get her up to my speed – my speed wasn’t sustainable. She was never holding me back – I wanted to slow down. I don’t know what pressures she felt on those runs or in the relationship. Maybe it was the pressure to keep up or maybe it was a sense of guilt in not letting me run free… or a sense of resentment in not being able to run free herself. Maybe she was telling me to go on ahead because all she wanted was to be alone, and it was easier to pitch it in terms of not wanting to hold me back. I can see how having a partner causes extra stress. I can see how giving consideration to another could weigh you down, could feel like just one more thing to think about, when all you want to do is run without thought, without pressure, without any forced adjustments or extra considerations. When you’ve been running alone for a while, it’s hard to change your stride.
I had never intended to run a race, but when I found the right person to run with – the one who would inspire me, who would teach me a different pace, the one for whom I wanted to adjust and learn and consider – I couldn’t sit it out and watch from the sidelines. I expected it to be painful at times, euphoric at others. I expected it to require practice and patience. I knew I’d have to adjust my stride – I liked the idea of getting better because of the adjustment. I didn’t need to know how the course was set up or where the hills and turns were. I wasn’t concerned about how many stops we might have to make along the way. I was happy knowing that we were going to finish – together. We crossed the finish line together that day. We moved as one, stride for stride. We held hands as we did it. I think we were happy in the moment. I know I was.