TheBanyanTree: potential

[Julie Anna Teague]

I told my running buddy (and co-worker) Tanya this morning, "Friends 
don't let friends run 17 miles."  But that's what we did yesterday--17 
long miles--and even encouraged each other to keep going.  With friends 
like that, you need a lot of Ibuprofen.  The last 3 or 4 miles were 
pretty damned painful.  I feel fine today except that my legs are 
pretty stiff, but they are loosening up more as the day goes on.  We've 
just about proven to ourselves that we can run a marathon in April, but 
we were sitting there yesterday, on the benches at the end of the rail 
trail at the end of our 17 miles, bone weary and aching and mud 
splattered up to our knees, asking ourselves why the hell we want to.

Of course we know why we want to, it just sometimes defies reason.  
Tanya wants to because she hasn't run a marathon and wants to take on 
that test.  It's the next logical step since we both ran several half 
marathons this past year and did pretty well for a couple of weekend 
warriors.  The marathon is sort of the holy grail of road running.  I 
want to because I'll be fifty this year and I wanted a challenge to 
mark the occasion.  Maybe I have something to prove.  Not necessarily 
that I can run 26.2 miles (I ran the Chicago Marathon when I was 25 
years old, and yes, I know, now, that I could do it again) but that I 
can rise to a challenge, that I have it within me to reach a reasonable 
goal that I set for myself.

It's always been important to me to push myself physically and 
mentally.  Just part of my personality, maybe.  Even though I meditate, 
"stillness" is not a characteristic that I possess in large quantity, 
in mind or body.  Since I work in the ever-changing field of computer 
programming I get enough mental challenge just by showing up for work 
everyday, so my mental challenges these days are mostly limited to 
reading classical works or other books that I decide, in my own humble 
view, are important to read.  But goals that put this human sack of 
bones and muscles to the test are most enticing (and possibly 
addicting).  I've climbed a 14K mountain, run a marathon, learned to 
ride a motorcycle, rock climbed, spelunked some scary caves here in 
limestone country, hopped a moving train, jumped off a cliff into a 
raging river, been thrown from a raft in white water rapids, 
para-sailed, and various other crazy and not so crazy things.  I 
wouldn't say I'm an adrenaline junkie--I know I don't need these 
experiences to be happy because I'm just as content and even 
exhilarated working in my garden or spending time with my sons--but I 
do enjoy these things.  They give me some sense of my own inner 
strength and tenacity. They give me a lifetime of amazing memories to 
fall back on when I need to fall back a little.  We all have our 
varying ways of finding the source of our personal power and potential, 
and this is mine.

I'd like to say these physical feats also help to "get me out of my 
head", and to a degree, running definitely does that.  It is a calming 
influence on my mind.  But any physical challenge must be met with both 
mind and body.  Running 17 miles, or even ten miles or two miles, is 
done as much with the brain as with the brawn.  I've had to really push 
myself through this training program, and when I've felt like quitting, 
Tanya has been there for me, backing me up and cheering me on when I am 
mentally or physically not up for it.  It's good, and for me, 
essential, to have a training partner.  And a few times, sure, I have 
let myself off the hook, skipped a training run, stopped to take a 
break to regroup, did some whining and healing, and started in again.  
Part of all of this, and the thing I was most lacking at 25, is the 
desire to always practice self care.  If I am pushing beyond my limits, 
I back off.  I respect my body and my existing limits, while at the 
same time having the sure self-knowledge that, with care and consistent 
effort, I can push those limits out a little further into the great big 
world of pure potential.

Julie