Part I
California International Marathon: 26.0 miles to 26.2 miles
8th St., Sacramento, California, USA
Sheesh – it’s been a while!
I’m writing this from my new home-office in Washington, DC.
Actually, in Arlington, Virginia – just across the river from our nation’s capital – a little more quiet and a lot more affordable.
It’s been a whirlwind month and a half that’s landed me here by way of Boston, Sacramento, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and then – finally – a loaded up uhaul (complete with a drugged-up cat in a plastic crate, turtle in a shoe-box, and 465,000 pounds of…stuff) wobbling down I-95, all the way across the eastern seaboard to our new home.
But let’s take a step back.
Or, more literally, let’s step back a few thousand miles. Let’s step back to the 26 mile mark of the California International Marathon at 8th St. in Sacramento, California. Just before the turn onto Capital Mall.
It’s then – and only then – that I know that I’m going to qualify for the US Olympic Marathon Team Trials.
This is a goal that I’d set for myself at the beginning of the season – and really had been thinking about at the beginning of every season, every race, (will THIS be the one?) since I’d started running almost a decade earlier.
But now, it’s going to happen. I know that. Sure, people blow up at 20 miles, 22 miles. You can even lose it after 25 miles. But at 26 miles, with 0.21875 miles, 352.044 meters, 1 minute and 8.6875 seconds of running left, I know.
Someone captures a particularly telling photo as I cross the finish line – my hands holding my head, my eyes closed. The expression can be interpreted in any number of ways: disbelief, anguish, excitement, devastation, exaltation. But looking at it now, I recognize it for what it is. As Dave Eggers famously wrote: “Finally, finally, finally.”
Finally, finally, finally. (Photo by Jackson Miller)
The 61 seconds that I didn’t spend running – the 61 seconds that kept me under that oh-so arbitrary of qualifying standards – end up as the most influential 61 seconds in recent memory. Because it’s those 61 seconds that determine the mood (the background music?, the framing?, the context?) of the next month. And really the next fourteen months until I stand on the starting line in Los Angeles at the US Olympic Trials on February 13, 2016.
Because, to me, that photo shows the realization of a huge weight being lifted.
***
In September, I was in the car on the way to the Lone Gull 10k with my coach, Jon Waldron, and we were thinking way too far ahead for our own good, with crazy plans for the spring (like running a track 10k or even some indoor races in the winter – sheesh!). But Jon said something that stuck with me:
“How these next two races [the Hartford Half and CIM] go is really going to determine how fun next year is going to be.”
And there’s a lot of truth in that.
Another conversation between the two of us, a couple months later, just before CIM goes like this:
Jon: These workouts have been going really great. I think it’s clear you have the fitness now to run 2h16.
Ty: I KNOW I have the fitness. And that almost makes it worse.
Jon: How so?
Ty: Well, I KNOW right now that I can run 2h16 in the marathon. There’s no doubt in my mind. The only question is whether I can do it on December 7th between 7:00am and 9:17am PST. If I do it, then great – I’m applauded for my hard work paying off (and for my powers of prediction). But if I DON’T do it, then I have to do all this all over again – the building up for 6 months, the believing in myself while everyone else doubts, the agony of waiting until 10 days out and checking the long-term weather forecast every hour, the medical mask on the airplane to pre-empt any last-minute virus… I know I’m a 2h16 guy, but I’m NOT a 2h16 guy until I put it on paper.
Jon: So… isn’t that a good thing? You know you’re capable of it.
Ty: It would almost be better if I just trained my butt off for six months and then said – okay, I tried, but I just can’t do it. I can’t do the workouts, I can’t run this fast. I’ve found my ceiling.
But I haven’t found my ceiling. Every time I try to find my ceiling, I just end up getting better. Which is amazing! It’s the most rewarding thing imaginable! But in a way, it’s also terrifying and daunting because every other person and historical example and paradigm is telling me its impossible and it’s like I’ve found some loophole in the laws of physics or physiology and I’m waiting for G-d or Mother Nature to realize it and say – Oh, so sorry – and hand me the stress fracture or tendonitis or loss of motivation that everyone’s been warning me of.
Jon: I think we’re getting off topic.
Ty: Right. The point is that me knowing that I can do it – if anything – creates MORE pressure. It’s the pressure of being right there, on the verge of capturing something you’ve been after for years, chased for thousands of miles, and you know it’s right there. It’s so tantalizingly close…
***
Somewhere between those conversations and the 26 mile marker on 8th Street, that pressure – that weight – grew, and at times contracted, and then multiplied like the innumerable heads of the Hydra until, mile by mile, step by step, each and every one blinked out.
It’s the weight of all that fighting that I see in my face in that photo. And the fact that that fight is over. And while there will be new battles and doubts and weights and pressures over the coming months and years, I know that I’ve come to the end of a long, might struggle. This beast has been put to rest.
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