Longest Day of the Year

Oct 23, 2020

6

min read

1

% of the world’s population has run a full marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles. Believe me, the 0.2 matters. You fight for that last .2 and you are furious at the people standing at 26.1 and telling you you are almost there. I have run 5 full marathons. This pandemic feels like a 6th.

No matter how you train and whether you are a natural athlete or what you imagined youth or muscle could do for you, a marathon is about mental toughness as much as it is physical fitness. What your mind needs will change as the miles creep past and every mile is a surprise.

In the first few, you are excited about the journey, and buoyed on by the rest of the pack.. It’s still novel, you are still getting a rhythm, still pacing your consumption. You are waving at the crews of roadside volunteers or exchanging jaunty salutes. Some of them have signs that say “You’re Not Sweating You’re Sparkling!” or “Seems Like a Lot of Work for a Free Banana!” You are all joined in a crazy relatability, because you all set out to do something miserable and amazing, whatever size or shape or age you are. You’re in this together. And you get it.

By around mile 6, you start to do little arithmetic problems: 6 miles! So I just have to do that about 3 more times plus a little more! That’s the middle school and back. You do that all the time! But you have started to notice that your running tights are chafing in a way you hadn’t planned and so start doing the multiplication of what that raw spot will feel like if you do three more of this. And then you tell yourself that this is not a useful equation to solve and to keep your eyes on the road. Keep getting there.

At mile 12 you start having the “one more mile and I’m half way there!” conversation with yourself. By the time 13.1 gets there you realize that it’s more about having half way yet to go. It’s not novel anymore. It’s not fun anymore. It feels like it will never stop. It’s lonely because you have passed the few slower people and real athletes are ahead. The volunteers used up their enthusiasm on the elites and you are just a chore now. The clever signs are no longer funny and feel mean-spirited.. You are pretty sure that the chafe has become an open sore but the goal is to get through, dig in and keep your head down. You wish you would have worn different tights but it’s too late for that.

Time was you would have thought of mile 16 as “only 10 to go!” but it doesn’t feel like only anything. You have started to reel in not mile after mile but phone pole after phone pole and promise yourself that you will just have to go to this next one and then make a decision about whether or not you are going to try for the one after that. Thinking about 10 miles is too much, it’s too big, it’s too going-over-the-cliff to think about. Let’s make it to the next pole.

Or maybe 10 feet. You can do 10 feet. Do that and then we will discuss. Also stop calling that feeling in your heel “pain”. Think of it as something else. A color, maybe. We will imagine your heel suffused with a green glow and maybe that will help convince your brain that it is not receiving alarm signals. You no longer care about the finish line. You no longer care about what you will eat afterwards and you barely holding it together to get the next mouthful of Gatorade.

And meanwhile while your defenses are down, you go inward. You might find this an opportunity to connect with your essential self, to slide into a meditative space. More commonly, this might be a good time to bring up every regret you have, every mistake you have ever made, every person you have harmed. Why not unleash your demons? You have all this time on your hands! I have literally started crying at this point in a marathon.

The pack has spread out and everyone has a dreamlike, muted quality, lost in their own rumination. Everyone is doing a loping shuffle and no one makes eye contact or conversation. Everything social is wasted energy. We just get through. It’s about getting through. We are in it together but have run out of things to say. We are all fighting our own wars. It’s so lonely. It's so monotonous. Just getting through will have to be enough.

And where are we now, in this particular marathon? Are we at mile 6 where we are starting to realize what we are getting into? When people tell us we are “almost done” do we want to weep with relief or swell with rage because we are not “almost” anything? What minor annoyance from March has become a raging open sore by June? Are we stuck in our minds, or feeling like the rest of the world has forgotten us? Do we feel imprisoned? Are we going a little bit crazy? Who in the pack has been lost forever by the side of the road? You can never train completely for a race this long.

I can tell you that all marathons stop eventually and that you change with every mile and that the people who run with you are connected to you whether you see them on the road or not. You have learned how you do “tough” and now you know that about yourself and how you wear it. You have learned to be at peace with what’s in your mind, or at least to coexist with it. You have also learned what other people can do and to have a new respect for the people you never understood before.

Scott Jurek is a famous ultramarathoner, which means he runs distances well over 26.2 miles, sometimes 100 or more. He is known for being incredibly tough and incredibly fast and for finishing way ahead of everyone. He is also known for waiting at the finish line of each race until he has seen every other runner cross, and cheering for each of them as they pass. He honors the uniqueness and the importance of their shared experience, whatever pace they made.

1% of the planet has run a marathon but 100% of the planet has experienced this pandemic. We have lost jobs, lost loved ones, lost lives, and saddest in many ways, lost memories that never got made. Such great cost. So much tragedy. So much time with our thoughts.