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A Cliché Worth Repeating April 25, 2010 I hate clichés. I really do. In general, they reduce complex situations into a simple saying that has been repeated so often, it has lost its meaning. One of the clichés I hate the most is, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” What baloney, right? Yea… I get on a plane to go to the Caribbean to enjoy the ride, not to get to a tropical island. Yea… I endure college because I enjoy writing multiple 15 page papers on topics I don’t care about, not because I need a college degree to succeed. How about the misuse of the term marathon? Whenever there is a situation that bears one iota of endurance, someone is bound to say, “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” In fact, I even own a running shirt that says “Life’s a marathon, not a sprint.” As I write this, it is the eve of my first marathon and both these clichés are actually illuminating. Training for a marathon is a very long journey, figuratively and literally. Everyone that trains for a marathon deals with injury at some point or another- the body does not take kindly to multiple 10+ mile runs a week. I’ve been running almost every day the last seven years, and the transition to becoming a marathon runner has been the hardest I’ve made in my running career. No matter how well prepared you are, Sunday morning 20+ mile runs are draining physically and mentally. In my personal struggle I dealt with a strained right achilles 5-6 weeks ago. I took off a few days, no big deal, crisis averted. But just 13 days before my marathon, I began to feel a tug on my left achilles that progressed to nearly unbearable pain by the end of a Monday morning run. As the pain increased, the muttering under my breath became more and more frequent, and more and more profane. What is the point of all this?!? Five months of training, only to be stricken down in the last two weeks by the Angry, I Don’t Want Alex to Run a Marathon God? What could be more unfair, unjust, than having probably the best training cycle of my life interrupted at a critical stage, on an easy run of all things? When you work at something for five months, every day, what kind of reward is it not to even get a chance to achieve your goal? What lesson does this teach? In my dark place, I began to think about the “tragedy” that had occurred. I thought about all the training I had done… all apparently to waste. The memories flooded back- the mid-January night trail race with former co-workers at Running Fit, the Sunday long run with my best friends in running club in 40 degrees and pounding rain the entire 2+ hours, the indoor track meet in Illinois where we cruised Champaign the night before our race. I realized that even if the marathon didn’t happen, I had already received rewards that will last a lifetime: great memories of great times with great friends. Of course, the achilles healed up just fine, and I will run my marathon Sunday morning. I feel a little sluggish from the time off, and am concerned with the 100% (!) chance of rain at race time. But all those minor concerns are just that: minor. I think I’ll run more confidently knowing that I’ve already enjoyed this journey so much. I guess I learned it’s not the destination…
Editor's
Note: Alex finished the Glass City (c) 2010 Novi
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