The Marathon

I was created to be in perpetual motion. Eyes wide open, always hungry for the next experience - it makes sense that the adrenaline that comes with athletics has always been a part of my life. I am grateful for parents who gave me the opportunity to explore sports galore, but out of all the sports I played, I have always most identified as a runner.

My earliest memory of running was jogging around my neighborhood with my dad to train for a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 1 mile fun run at age 7. A few years later, I had to run a mile for time for the fitness test during PE class, and I crossed the line before anyone else in my grade. During a time in my life where I was trying to figure out who I was and why I was alive, running became a part of me.

I ran cross-country in middle and high school, and on my basketball and soccer teams, I became known as the endurance athlete. I wasn't very quick, but I would outlast everyone. As a sophomore, I ran a 19:05 5K at the Jesse Owens state-qualifying invitational meet, and I entertained thoughts of a future in elite racing. Ironically, it was one of my last races that season because I ended up with bilateral stress fractures. I welcomed the sport of running to teach me discipline and perseverance, but it was an unwelcomed injury that taught me resilience and humility. Really, all these things in a proper balance are necessary for life.

In track and field, I excelled most in the 800 meter dash. It was awesome to run as hard as I could for two laps to test both speed and endurance simultaneously. My form has always been pretty awkward. I run very tense and struggle to keep a consistent cadence. My coaches always said it was my heart that fueled any success I experienced in racing. My heart is where the Spirit of God lives, and when I run, I can almost palpate his presence and pleasure.

Alabama State Meet 2002

I played collegiate soccer on scholarship at Bryan College (2005-09), but in my off seasons, I ran races. The stress of pre-med classes was intense, and running was literally medicine for my mind and soul. There was conflict within and conflict at home, and I did not know how to handle my negative emotions of sadness, anger and disappointment as I put pressure on myself to be strong for everyone else. I'd feel overwhelmed, and I'd just bolt for a long run. And then I was able to cope. I ran several half marathons during my college years with a personal best of 1:30 my senior year. It was that year I began to consider the marathon.

Nashville Country Music Half Marathon

I had always been fascinated with the 26 mile beast known as THE MARATHON. As the legend goes, the first marathoner was the Greco-Persian soldier who ran from Marathon, Greece to Athens with news of his army's victory and then he collapsed in death after delivering his message. That's enough content alone to make this distance daunting. The marathon became a part of the Olympics in 1896, and then only men were allowed to participate. As a female athlete born in 1986, I was shocked to discover that women were not permitted to compete in the marathon until merely two years before my birth in 1984. Why? Because women were not thought to be physically capable of long distance running. Not because they had tried and failed, but simply because they had no freedom to try. This really motivated me to get out there to put my body to the test considering how hard my female forerunners had to ask forgiveness and not permission to make this event possible for me.

So in 2009, I promised myself to train for and complete a marathon. But life is life, and many seasons passed that it just wasn't feasible. I graduated college and was married a week later to my better half David. We taught school for a year, and while coaching cross-country I started to train but ended up injuring my IT band and having to take several months off.

We started medical school together in 2010, but I withdrew after the first semester when my state of perpetual motion was traumatically halted by mental and physical illness. There was literally a time when I did not have the stamina to walk down the driveway. I was forced to sit still trapped in a couple decades of suppressed pain and deal with the negative emotions I'd always run from all my life. Some things, no matter how hard you run, will ultimately catch up to you somehow.

Once I was well enough to be released by my physician in 2012, I was surprised by an unplanned pregnancy with my first son Blake after being told for years I likely wouldn't be able to have children. After he was born, I was traumatized by intense post-partum depression, anxiety and panic as my husband slogged through his 3rd and 4th years of medical school.

After months of medication and counseling, I gained the health to slowly rebuild my life again. We matched at Wake Forest for David's residency and moved to Winston-Salem, NC, in 2014. I started physician assistant school and slowly gained the margin to take up running and racing again. I had my second son Jace my second year of PA school, graduated in 2016, and started my first PA position in family medicine. On my 30th birthday, I completed my first trail half marathon, Triple Lakes in Greensboro. When I crossed the finish line, I decided it was time. It was time to start training for the marathon. It was time to keep the promise I made to myself.

I fully expected it to be hard, but it was tougher than I imagined. As I increased my mileage, I found it incredibly hard to log all the necessary miles as I tried to juggle parenting my two sons with David in residency and working a full-time job. I fought one nagging injury after another and missed the chance to train with Fleet Feet, our local running community, due to having to take a couple months off from patella-femoral syndrome. At last, I started to gain ground the summer of 2017.

I completed 14 miles at Little River Canyon in Alabama.

Little River Canyon, Mentone, AL

I did my 16 mile run in Kona, Hawaii.

I completed 18 miles running Salem Lake and the Greenway in Winston-Salem, NC.

Blake and I celebrating after the Mistletoe half.

And I did my longest run - 22 miles - in Cascade, Idaho, on snow-covered paths.

Then I did my 3 week taper.

My chosen event was the BIG BEACH MARATHON in GULF SHORES, AL, January 28th, 2018. My rock-star husband David, my super-awesome father Warren, and a dear best friend from college Ely all decided to cheer me on. Gulf Shores was the race I chose for two main reasons: it was on a warm beach in the middle of the cold winter season (and I HATE the cold), and it is a beach rich with memories from years of family vacations.

The expo was so surreal. This is happening! I was finally here. I got my bib and shirt, and ate out with Dad and Ely at The Gulf bar on the beach. Unfortunately, David was feeling sick and decided to stay home and rest. Soon we got a call from David's mom Anna who was keeping our two boys back in NC. She told us my youngest son Jace had a fever. She took him to urgent care, and as we feared, he was + for influenza A. We realized that David likely also had the flu as well. A feeling of doom started to settle into my gut. I continued to be optimistic as fatigue started to settle into my bones. I laid everything out for the race that night hoping for the best, wondering how I'd know whether or not I should run considering the flu virus was likely also in my system. But the flu decided for me. When the gun went off the morning of January 28th, I was sweating in bed with a massive headache, fever, and my least favorite emotion...sadness.

We flew back to NC with masks on as I searched the internet for another marathon to register for. For days I had no appetite and could barely rise from the couch, and then, the coughing started. And increased. And worsened. A week after the initial symptoms, I went to urgent care and the chest XR showed lobar pneumonia, and I was out another week after that diagnosis. By mid-February, my motivation to find another race had deserted me. I was so burnout and discouraged. I surrendered to the reality that this goal would again not be realized, at least not right now.

Today, JANUARY 28, 2019, is the 1 year anniversary of the Big Beach Marathon, and I wanted to take the time to process the sorrow and express gratitude for the joy that the marathon training journey brought to my life.

First of all, as Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble..." Life is completely unpredictable and full of unexpected hardships. Endurance running has been a true of gift from God in my life because the marathon is very much a metaphor for life. Some miles you feel great, others, you hit the wall. Some days the future is as bright as the sun, and other days, all you can see or feel is deep darkness - in yourself and in the world around you. Disappointment is a part of life. But it can be a blessing if you lean into it. It's not our strengths and achievements that connect our souls to others. No. It is our weaknesses and shattered dreams that open our hearts up to be fully honest with ourselves and others, and most importantly, with God who came and made his home in our mess.

In retrospect, I can see how God allowed the flu virus to hit with epic timing because it placed me in a position of deep dependence on him at a time when he planned to use my brokenness for something much better than the accomplishment of completing the marathon. 2018, post-sickness and failure, may have been the best year of my life. The void this disappointment created in my life made room for making new friends who entered my life with great heartaches that my circumstances helped me be attuned to. And I deepened some of my older friendships as I allowed myself to stop running from pain and be present with others in it.

Salem Lake 7 miler, 29 weeks pregnant

Ardmore Rah 5K, 31 wks pregnant

December 13, 2018, I had my third son Roman. And this pregnancy was the healthiest and happiest pregnancy yet, and I believe coming off 6 months of marathon training gave me the foundation to stay active all 9 months. Currently, I am 6 weeks post-partum, have already run my first 5K race and have commenced training for my first 1/2 Ironman. My friend Bri, who also happens to know the frustration of unaccomplished marathon goals, is my brave and brilliant training partner, and we are registered to crush the Sunbelt Bakery Ironman 70.3 in Chattanooga, TN, on May 19, 2019.

 

My marathon saga also taught me the need I have for community. Running can be quite an individual sport as we each strive to get faster and beat our personal best, but there is a greater joy than reaching personal goals. It's the joy that comes with doing my race and my life with others - making their goals a part of my goals. Feeling their pain and allowing myself to let them feel mine. We all deep down desire to be fully known and fully loved, but you cannot ever truly be fully loved if you do not let others see your whole self. No one actually cares how fast you are. They do care, though, about what battle you're fighting that makes you get out there at 5 a.m. and train. People do not care about your PR. But the story behind that PR - what you had to overcome to make it happen and why you even set your goals to start with...That's what makes us human. The marathon has taught me this and so much more.

Will I ever be able to keep the promise I made to myself to complete the 26 mile beast? Only time will tell. Right now, I'm just grateful for God's faithfulness to me, to give me always what I need more than what I want.