Race Numero Uno

Twin Cities Marathon 2012 – 03:54:35

Welcome to the world of running, Ryan Duff! It’s been quite the journey since this beautiful early October morning over 5 years ago. That was my first registered, official, chip-timed race I ever competed in. There are few times I can remember where I had more fun in my entire life. I’m not sure how many other marathoners are screaming from excitement during their debut after 26 miles. Nonetheless, there I am at the bottom of Summit Ave just a few short blocks from the capital building.

So – what was the inspiration for me to start this marathon journey? In a lot of ways, this was a long, long time coming. I remember from an early age going on runs with my mom as she trained. It was always relaxed, and I think that was when I first understood how much I love to talk and talk and talk and…

BLOG. Well, we’ll see about the latter anyway. But running loops with your mom as a 3rd grader, I believe, stimulates quite the creative juices. My mom is an excellent confidant (a trait we share, though I’m definitely not on her level), and is a terrific outlet for a kid who can really, really vomit a stream of consciousness. Any existential pondering you can envision, from relationships to religion, thoughts on society, meta-cognition (I’m seriously not making this shit up – I was much more intelligent as a grade-schooler than I am now), you name it, I poured it out. All while running. It was a space that we created that I not only never lost, but found a way to expand. I didn’t have her to communicate with as I ran in college, but I did use that energy and that ability to exercise my mental faculties to peruse the subjects of my head space that gave rise to insightful questions. Even in high school, I would use my sparse solo runs to speculate on many of those issues I had unearthed as a kid. Is there a God? What distinguishes platonic relationships from romantic ones other than just physical intimacy? What happens when you die? Is there free-will? What makes people act against their own self-interest? These essentially unanswerable questions were borne out of this safe-haven of free thought. I was fortunate to have my mom help me cultivate my presence of mind that allowed for such inquiry.

That type of deep, meditative, even spiritual endeavor lends itself well to a healthy dose of distance running. Or perhaps just a great explorative outlet for a quasi-ADHD mind. Either way, when I signed up for this race in the spring of 2012, I was excited to have something to really train for. I was going to be following the footsteps of both my mother and sister, who had completed the journey years before. I was certainly behind my big sister though, who was barely a teenager when she clocked in under 5 hours. Better late than never I guess.

Most of the training I had leading up to this race was based on what I thought I needed to do to accomplish just finishing. I ended up running through a stress fracture in my leg, and was really side-lined for about a month with Plantar Fasciitis about 2 months before the race. It sucked. I got through it. Not the crux of the story. What I really want to get at is, after this race, the training wasn’t really about racing anymore. I’ve been running consistently for years, and (albeit with a few years of eating disorder thrown in) I have really only run a handful of actual races. The miles and miles you spend every week on the road is transformed into a space that feeds you energy and vitality, joy, and catharsis. Hell, I’m sure I have maybe even experienced a little peace. As cliché as it sounds, the training is the destination for me. The long runs in the blistery snow and cold, tempo runs in the muggy, nasty Minnesota heat. Eating pancakes with friends on Friday morning after a few miles shooting the shit. Waking up early Wednesday morning to do some ball(ovary)-busting workouts with some kick-ass peeps. Being greeted by the sunrise on the south side of Lake Harriet, or by the booming Minneapolis skyline crossing the Broadway Avenue bridge. Dodging squirrels racing under your feet as they adjust to their human compatriot rounding out loops in Theo Wirth Park. Yeah. It’s in these places and spaces that I grew (and grow) my love for running. As I have matured (and regressed in a sense, and then subsequently grew stronger than ever), this persistent attraction to the sport has manifested something much bigger than myself (for a later post). But suffice to say, for now, that after this race, well, there was no going back. I was hooked!