What running a half-marathon teaches about life and love, why experts say we’re born to run (barefoot), and the all-new, inspiring Do What You Love clothing
A deer lies, dead, on the side of the road as I drive to my first half-marathon. Several crows fest every now and then, as a perfect colorful sunrise takes place.
“Bad omen?” The thought crosses my mind, but I dismiss it.
It might scare some people but the gothic in me savors this setting. I love life, nature cycles, and I know that synchronicities, meaningful coincidences, happen.
“Just be careful today,” I tell myself. I’ve prepared this race for more than 4 months, journeying into a bit of a nightmare to get to the start line, and, hopefully, to the finish one.
What is life?
I took running as a sport, but it resembled to spinning a lucky wheel for the sports I could do. I picked well though. It was the easiest sport for me, getting back in shape, getting my dogs out, strolling my twins at the same time without using much my shoulders injured with swimming and martial arts. I liked running.
But now, I love it. It’s peaceful, a playful challenge with yourself or others, and we’re just born to run (more about it later). It’s not too much of a beating if you’re not doing it to yourself – life lesson number one that I don’t seem to master yet.
I get from running lots of life lessons. As I confirm again with the half-marathon, life is in running, running is life, and love is in the air.
Pick a hairy goal
We start on this long-distance journey, called life, dreaming what we’d like to do. We spin lucky wheels on activities, careers, or lifestyles we could have. We build castles in the sky and try to build the stairs to get there. Dreaming is a good start, according we have fun in the now and enjoy every step of the way.
When I heard about the mythic Levis-Quebec marathon, cities facing each other separated by the majestic St-LawrenceRiver, travelling by foot the distance like a game we played symbolically as kids, I just had to take up the challenge.
So I set up a test a few months before with the half-marathon (Demi-Marathon International de Québec – Quebec City International Half-Marathon) that was unrolling before my eyes.
It was actually my first time of running the full distance,21 km(13 miles). My training didn’t go according to plan; that’s why living for the future should not be a priority – important life lesson. Nevertheless, I made sure I could do it. That, determination, strategy, boldness, and passion give me wings.
Enjoy the now
I take the first start, for slow runners, to finish the distance, since 6 weeks before I had to be on rest, and I had just resume running continuously 2 weeks prior the half-marathon.
I thought of not going. Then, I just told myself, “I’ll go with how I feel”. Time to run it approached, and I was like a kid kept indoors for too long – I needed to run as far and as long as I could.
The start of the race is dream like; almost no one seems to be awake in town on this Sunday morning, and running from the old Quebec city to the Montmorency Falls was mostly candy for the eyes and soul. The race is sunny and comfortable. The river is like a postal card with thousands of snow geese stopping by. But most runners are so in the race I don’t know if they take time to see how grand the day is.
Running, life, they are a journey, so we better enjoy it.
On the course, people and runners were cheering, having a sweet moment. Near the end, a volunteer handing out endurance drinks yells: “Beer…Vodka… Margarita!”
“Oh yes, a Margarita my way please!” I respond with my arms raised. It seems a good soothing idea as the end was never approaching.
I used precious energy to thank them for their cheers. Running, life, aren’t possible without support and cooperation.
Inspiration in dark places
Where we are, we mostly have done it to ourselves. During my training, even though I should have known better and learn from the past, I ran too fast on my first run outside. Result: calves pull, aching until the very morning of the race. I caused my injuries. But I caused to heal faster with proper research. I caused crossing the finish line too without calves pain.
I found motivation in and out. I first abhorred being passed by the faster runners. But it was a test in humility – my goal was with myself, helping me to the finish line, and each runner was an inspiration. I was able to see their graceful strides, exchange cheers, and get energy from that.
Some in particular were amazing: runners pushing people in wheelchairs, a blind man with his stick, teenagers, people over 60’s, the leading runners having fun running to their fullest… The winner, who passed by at full speed, said a quote was in his mind: “The best rhythm is a suicidal one, and today is a great day to die”. That’s the allure I have at the end, within my limits, and the conscience to live each day fully as it were my last.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Once started, I hate to feel pain in my legs, but I never doubt I could finish it. It was between me and the finish line, and I would beat it. “It’s me or you, amigo, and it will be me”. You get to know your limits and work with them, to do your best.
Work intelligently with discipline and spontaneity
Big hairy goals are mostly attained with discipline. And discipline made easy is with daily habits, brains, and will.
Daily discipline must be balanced with spontaneity, living in the now, too. We can schedule, but we have to stay open to whatever opportunity we have. In fact we should be careful on spending time thinking far ahead into the future, because the future can change. I like to focus on the present. I make sure that I’m committed, I have a demarche that will get me where I want, the training or tasks, and do it in a way a love and at the best pace I can.
Humans are remarkable, at our best: we are astoundingly intelligent, resilient, full of resources, conscious. So whatever our passion, we should research, read and stay open to novelty. At the same time, we should stay cautious, a bit skeptic without being dissonant, and get to know why some strategies work – and then keep what works for us.
I had a last minute strategy for the race. I run slowly, with a 1-minute walk at each kilometer (inspired from Olympian Jeff Galloway’s Marathon: You Can Do It!
I reassess continuously my strategy and make unconventional corrections. Some tactics don’t work. In pain in the last kilometers, I try some imagery and positive thinking. (“I am of the best of the runners there is, it’s easy! Okay, now it’s like you just started the race and you feel no pain.”) Well, magic thinking doesn’t change the distress.
Except other tactics do. I tag along runners, and I start to pass dozens. It’s easy, when you get to one, you go for the next ahead, asking yourself: “Are you giving your all? No? You can go faster!” I stick with what works, ditch was doesn’t, like my shoes… Since knee ache wasn’t going away, I know it could be better without shoes (less weight on my feet, freer strikes), so I took them off and run bare socks for the last 6 kilometers. I have a killer attitude and hope I inspire more than I crush people I pass by, running almost on will alone.
The path less frequented is where the party is
The part I loved most was through pain, both physically and mentally: running, living full speed was one of the best times of my life. Running barefoot already was my preferred way of running on the treadmill; this way I could run faster, and it hurt less. I ran faster that I did in 6 weeks. That felt… awesome! The ground was massaging my soles, my stance was free and I felt like Road Runner. The smooth pavement was a joy, and even the small gravel at the finish line was tolerable.
It’s surprising that our most painful moments can be our greatest time… The lesson being to embrace challenges.
I encountered various comments or looks on the “She runs barefoot!” variation, from wonder to “what the hell!” I saw another “barefoot runner” who was running in Tarahumara sandals (see post notes). I was having a blast, blissfully in the zone, and this topped self-conscious doubts. If I haven’t followed my way, it would have been less fun, running painfully slow.
Wanting to do what I love every single step on the life’s journey, I want to ditch my thick minimalist shoes, and run ever more free from now on.
The end is fun, but the journey too
Getting to the finish line and getting my medal was so quick a moment that it takes me a few seconds to realize it. “It’s over, I did it!” But looking back, the whole journey was awesome.
The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.
To complete a journey is a grand feeling. But wherever we are is as great. Every part of the journey is life and has to be lived fully. As long as we do our best, we don’t have to be bitter if something doesn’t go like we planned.
With our journeys, we get to inspire people and open doors. We get grateful just to have our legs to run, or whatever we have that let us have a sweet life. My aunt in a wheelchair did the last part of the race and passed the finish line, and I’m sure she was enjoying a bit of was running is.
Next year I agreed to do the half-marathon on hands… if my father takes on the bet too.
Coming back to my family at home, I see the deer again. This time, I have no doubt that the omen says, “Life’s short, enjoy it the best you can while you can still run (substitute running for your own passions)”. Rest in peace, deer.
As far as for the upcoming marathon, we’ll go as I feel; I set out to finish it fast as I can, but we’ll see. Because taking this half-marathon test and with previous training on road, I discovered I’d maybe love to run in the woods more – I already took walks with my dog there and I enjoy the décor and peace. “A barefoot long-distance race in the woods could be my next badassary goal?”
Whatever happens is fine, since I’m savoring every minute of life and, the best I can, squeeze all out of it. For me, the melody of life is not so much crossing finish lines but doing what I love at every moment.
I wanna live… A little bit longer. I wanna live, live, live, live… Just a little bit longer.
- Iggy Pop
Post notes on life, love, and running
New Do What You Love clothing
I am happy to tell you, as promised, there is now inspiring clothing to spread the Do What You Love lifestyle!
During the race, I tested the new clothing of Do What You Love Journey. It seemed right to wear the racerback tank top there and I love it; the fabric is comfortable, nicely cut, and the design luminous, stating a stylized, heart-warming “Do What You Love…” in special metallic ink. I wear it often, wash it to make sure the logo stays on, and to top it all my mom loves it too (without her the though of the blog wouldn’t have crossed my mind), so there you go, the test is aced.
More details later on our site, but you can now take a look or get the inspiring and affordable t-shirts (men and women), dress, and tank top in the shop: Do What You Love Journey clothing .
Information from books on born to run and barefoot running:
The Tarahumara, of their true name Rarámuri (meaning “Running People”), are a tribe having running at the center of its life, having kept the ancient ways of humans. They run long distance well into their old age, have excellent health, and no almost no social problems. They have the fastest long-distance runners on earth, and they run barefoot or lightly shod.
“Perhaps all our troubles – all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can’t overcome – began when we stopped living as Running People.”
Talking about a Rarámuri running for hours: “He didn’t even look tired! It’s like he was just … having fun!”
“Runner wearing top-of-the-line shoes are 123 percent more likely to get injured than runners in cheap shoes [...]”
“Putting your feet in shoes is similar to putting them in plaster cast,” Dr. Hartmann said. “If you put you leg in plaster, we’ll find forty to sixty percent atrophy of the musculature within 6 weeks [...]”
The book talks more about why we’re born to run, women and men of all ages (and why ultramarathon is one of the sports we’re on an equal footing), as well as how we are even more efficient than horses and most animals in long distance.
And there’s a theory love and running goes together, touching the heart – scientific facts on doing what we love, how awesome is that! The more compassionate a runner, the better he would be. Born to Run reads well, as a story I hardly could put down, and is inspiring to get in shape running.
Barefoot Ken Bob has almost run 100 marathons barefoot at the time of writing the book. He’s sensitive and since young had problem wearing shoes, giving him many blisters. He perfected running barefoot, or rediscoved the ancient art.
He shows from landmark research and his own experience that barefoot running, landing softly, puts less stress on the body than running shod, landing hard unnaturally on heel. You can also run faster, as the winners of a recent marathon, brothers running barefoot, did. Doing it properly has many advantages, being injury-free, having fun and being fast not being the least of it.
“The bigger the cushioning, the more you land out of balance.” This causes injury and is why most runner are injured in their lifetime. When you run barefoot, your sensitive feet adjust right away and give you “feetback”.
How to run barefoot? Start slowly, a few yards, and build from there. Land 1-2-3: ball of your feet, toes and heel. But I recommend reading the book or reading his site first, it could save you from doing it wrong and being injured, like I was.
Conversation
What does something you love teach you about life? You may tell me on twitter @ dowhatyoulovej.
with no internet connection at home since January!
