You have to wonder about the crazy ones. The ones who say things like, “I’m going to row a boat across the Atlantic Ocean by myself.” Or, “I’m going to go into the wilderness with no supplies and live off the land.” Or, “I’m going to run across the entire United States.” Or, “I’m going to watch the entire Marvel Avengers canon this weekend.”
I understand the impulse to do something big, something mighty, something unmanageable. To a greater or lesser extent, we all have that impulse. We seldom dream of being average; mere adequacy excites very few of us. If you’re one of those people, I doubt you’re reading this.
The part I always wonder about with the crazy people isn’t the plan. It isn’t even the beginning, when you’re pushing away from shore in your rowboat with your oar clutched between your shaking, sweat-slicked hands, or when you start your first fire in the wilds of New Mexico. The start of an adventure has its own special magic.
The part I wonder about is the middle, when your momentum is gone, but you still have a long way to go. They have to know it is coming. How do they deal with it? How do they prepare?
It’s day 17 in that rowboat when your communications have been down for a week and you dropped the sunscreen overboard on accident. It’s your third week in the wilderness when you realize that catching and roasting squirrels is a) very hard, and b) not as delicious as movies would have led you to believe. It’s when you hit Avengers: Age of Ultron.
You’re way past the beginning, but you are nowhere near the end. You still have a long way to go.
Even if you’ve never done anything palpably insane, you know the experience I’m talking about: the time where you’re 2 weeks into the worst work project of your life, but you’ve got to see it through, and by your best estimation you’re not even halfway there. The family vacation that you could have sworn was going to be awesome when you were planning it but now you’re 912 miles into a cross-country drive, the kids have to pee every 32 minutes, and your spouse looks like they’re contemplating divorce. The home renovation project that was going to take one month, you could have SWORN it was going to be just one month, but that was four months ago and you still don’t have kitchen cabinets.
It’s graduate school.
And also probably Ironman 2, if we’re being honest here.
A decent percentage of all my runs over 5 miles manifest this experience for me. Mile one I’m kind of excited, my tunes are on point, I’ve got good energy, I’m feeling optimistic. This feeling carries me into mile two, which is when my body finally resigns itself to the fact that we’re going for a run and surrenders to it. I like the feeling when I settle into a rhythm, a groove in which I’m breathing well and I feel strong. Then, around the 40-60% point of the run, I’ll find myself thinking, This run is the actual worst and I cannot BELIEVE I am not finished yet. I’m not close enough to smell the end, but I’ve lost all the energy from the beginning.
(This is also the logic behind my younger daughter’s insistence that Tuesday is the worst day of the week. You have none of Monday’s momentum, you can’t tell yourself you’re at the halfway point like you can on Wednesday, and it’s not Friday Eve, like Thursday is. Her logic feels pretty ironclad to me.)
That place, where you aren’t near the beginning but you still have a long way to go, is, in my opinion, one of the harder things to deal with in life.
I’m there right now, in the in-between.
Not just in running, although running serves as my universal metaphor. After completing my ultramarathon a few weeks ago, I’ve been letting my body recover, following the instructions of my coach, who is both a) a professional, and b) very good at what he does. It turns out running long distances has some negative side effects and your muscles don’t just bounce back. For one whole week I couldn’t run at all, and then it was just little tiny baby runs, not even a half hour, and now I’m finally getting to do runs that feel like I can dig into. I had to rest, I had to wait, it was necessary. And for the first two days it was pretty good. And then it was very hard. But it’s also hard to get my muscles to fully cooperate with me while running at the moment, which is also incredibly frustrating.
I’m there in school, signed up for my second semester of doctoral classes this fall, the path to that degree stretching out to the infinite horizon.
I’m there with my kids, as the responsibilities of mothering children transition permanently to the more delicate responsibilities of mothering adults. We don’t know who we’re going to be to each other yet, and we’re also not sure when or how we’re going to figure it out, but it’s so fraught I find myself frequently on the brink of real tears.
I’m there with my friendships, because during this pandemic I haven’t been able to spend time with my elective family. My best friend, Nancy, and I have been together for 14 years and never had to go more than 10 days without spending time in the same time and same place, until March of 2020. Don’t even talk to me about Zoom. It isn’t the same. I need to bother her in person like you would not believe. I mean, there’s a fair chance that she’s still over-purchasing Diet Coke on the tragic unconscious assumption I’m going to be freeloading off of her.
It feels a whole hell of a lot like mile 14 of a 20-mile run.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been here, in this figurative space. I experienced this when I was getting my master’s degree while working full time: in the fourth semester out of six I remember thinking that there was a fair-sized chance I was going to need to be institutionalized before it was all over. The only thing that was reliable was the exhaustion level.
The worst example I can think of, though, was a few years ago. I was ending an abusive relationship, which had also necessitating my moving. I remember thinking, as everything came to a head and fell apart, This part is just going to really suck. And I just have to trust that it won’t suck forever.
I’m sure you’ve been there – if not in that exact place, then somewhere like it. In the middle of something heavy and unpleasant, something that might not wreck your life but might tempt you to change your name and emigrate to a neighboring country. In the midst of a struggle that feels like being pecked to death by ducks, which can often be more disheartening than a single swift machete blow.
Fortunately, for both the master’s degree and for that more wretched transition, I was already running. And there were a few things I’d learned, things I still try to hold on to. Maybe they’re the same sorts of the things the crazy people cling to; maybe these are my own unique brand of dysfunction. But here’s what I’m learning to do when I am nowhere near the beginning but I still have a long way to go:
Run the mile you’re in. Whatever that mile is, whether it’s 3 of 5, or 22 of 31, Try to make that mile a good mile. Sometimes a mile feels like too much. When that happens, run to the next tree. Or the stop sign, or the bend in the road. Then run to the next tree after that. Leave the next mile for when you get there. There’s no point in worrying about it now.
If you can’t run, then walk. Slow is better than stopped. Some progress is better than no progress. I have an acquaintance who is all-or-nothing about EVERYTHING. Either she’s eating 800 calories a day on a crash diet, or she has “ruined it all” by eating a french fry so she might as well consume a whole cake. Either she’s going to go to college full time or there’s no point in even pursuing a degree because one class at a time “will take forever.” You know what really takes forever? No classes. THAT takes forever. Walking is movement. Even if it’s not the movement you want, it’s progress.
Pause for snacks. This one is important. If you don’t eat enough to keep yourself going, you’re going to crash halfway through. This is true of life, too. Pause. Nourish yourself.
(I also know this is true because my running coach always asks me how I’m fueling for races. Don’t take my word for it. He’s the professional.)
The very first marathon I ran was the Disneyworld Marathon, and I ran it VERY badly. Disney diabolically began the race at 5:30 am, which meant I had to be out of bed at 2:30 a.m, so I could stand outside freezing to death on the coldest January day Florida had seen in years for like 2 hours before my race corral could even start. I had undertrained significantly for the race, although I didn’t know it at the time, and was unprepared for certain surprises, like my guts going into full mutiny at mile 16 or the extent of the leg cramps. As I neared mile 20, I was nearly certain I wasn’t going to finish. Everything hurt and I figured I was probably dying. But every mile marker featured a super-sized Disney character on it, and it just so happened Mile 20 was Pinocchio, and I FREAKING HATE PINOCCHIO, and I was damned if I was going to go out on that little monster. I pushed myself to the next mile, and then I was like, “well, now the finish line is only 5 miles away, you might as well keep going,” and long story short I kept running and eventually finished the marathon and it didn’t matter that I had been slow because at least I was DONE.
At any rate, during that race as we were crossing into Animal Kingdom there were some actual angels disguised as Disney employees handing out Dove chocolate to the runners. I took one and the minute the chocolate touched my tongue, I swear I felt my whole soul come alive. I would have married one of those Disney employees for more of that chocolate.
All of this to say, pause for snacks. Take the time to take care of yourself. It can give you exactly what you need exactly when you need it.
Don’t skimp on sleep. The difference between a good run and a mediocre run, not to mention a good day and a lousy day, is often found in how much sleep I got. I got 6 hours of sleep last night, which is not enough, and that is why I’m about 73% certain as I write this that everyone hates me. But I’m shooting for 8 hours tonight, and if I get that – miracle of miracles – I’m pretty sure everyone will like me again.
I’m nearly certain you can get through nearly anything; people far tougher than I am have proven that this is at least true for them (I’m gambling it’s true for me). The greatest challenge is continuing even when you’re tired, even when the end isn’t in sight, even when you’re worn down and hitting the wall and not sure how much further you can go. Walk if you have to, eat that chocolate, take a nap, push forward. Winston Churchill probably said it best when he said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Even if you’re nowhere near the beginning, and you still have a long way to go.