Marathon No. 5
I need to find something poignant to frame the story. There is another drum group on the side of the course—this is kilometer 20? 23? I can’t tell. They are tapping out the rhythm from “Single Ladies”, but it’s also the rhythm from Mambo No. 5. No. 5. You know the one. X_X_XX_XX (I’m a single LA-dy). Let’s say it’s Beyoncé because it can’t be framed around Lou Bega. I need to distract the narrative from my unpreparedness and make it about the scenery; Lou Bega won’t cut it. Drum lines and dance performance groups appear every few minutes on the Barcelona Marathon course. So do random tourists who sprint across the course dragging suitcases. They should not be allowed to do that while 20,000 runners are on the course. Anyway, I want to go for the Beyoncé framing, though the traditional Catalonian “ball de bastons” dancers who do choreographed combat moves and then click wooden sticks aren’t a bad option.
There are many topics filtering through my mind. The advertising agencies in Spain allow you to put Pro-Palestine posters on real bus stop boards. I don’t think Clear Channel would let that happen in DC. But the posters are in English, which is odd—they’re for me, not the locals. On the way to Parc Güell, I see another sticker that says “tourists out, refugees welcome” on a lamp post. Yet the English signs are directed at tourists, surely, who have little control over nor interest in the concerns of the locals. On the plane ride home, a physiotherapist from Kent writes out long texts to her WhatsApp group chats. There’s no way to make her give a fuck about the inequalities generated by tourism. Do I even care, in the end? I’m here and plunging forward into time, making transactions, snapping photos. Is the sticker indicative of public opinion, or is it like most stickers—an attempt to drive the complacent into a minority position? I try to speak in limited Spanish, when possible. I successfully ordered at the empanada shop. But the employees at the FC Barcelona game wanted me to talk in Catalan. They were sick of the hordes of English lads, weekenders from Madrid, and American Greek life participants. I see bags from their rival club, RCD Espanyol, the pro-Spain team. A group of sorority girls mutter “perdóname” to me as they get to their seats, I suppose because they assume anyone not obviously Anglo should be addressed in Spanish, just in case. Even though I’m definitively not Spanish. But I have different vibes from the thousands of Korean-Korean tourists in every corner of the city—including the ones hauling their suitcases in front of me as I run at 9:30 pace and try not to throw up.
A few kilometers later, I am greeted with one of the best views in any world marathon; the Sagrada Familia looms over the city, the boulevard is lined with people, and the blue sky haunts sightlines. Then I have to stop as an ambulance crosses the course. That also happened in the half marathon I ran in Cambridge last week, apparently. This is why it’s beneficial to finish the event as quickly as possible; limiting time on the course reduces the likelihood of total chaos. But I’m not finishing the event as quickly as possible. I am moving very slowly, running 1-2 kilometers and then stuffing my face with orange slices. I eat at least four per aid station, and there are 3 aid stations with oranges between mile 19 and the end.
How did I get here? The chain of events that led to this marathon stretches into spaghettified nothingness. We should probably start in eighth-grade spring track, when I didn’t want to do sprints anymore so I would run around the soccer fields. Except I couldn’t go for any length of time, so I would stop every 5 minutes to catch my breath. I’m doing that again in Barcelona, running for 1-2 kilometers and then eating more oranges, throwing up, or stretching out my left hip. So the fields around my middle school are to blame for this habit formation, right? Definitely not the very short-sighted planning decisions (racing a half marathon the week before, signing up without checking the date, racing the 1500m twice for no apparent reason, etc.). Then there’s my interesting training philosophy of doing the bare minimum of mileage and racing my way into shape, which used to work during spring track but has not translated to marathoning. Not to mention I refuse to follow any kind of “Pfitz” plan or create any type of schedule for myself. But the half marathon led to a solid PR, so there seemed to be little downside to muddling through in Barcelona.
This is Marathon No. 5, but it started similarly to Marathon No. 1. Like Marathon No. 1, I traveled from London via Gatwick Airport to a country I’d never been to before. I toured around the city for two days, then I subjected myself to a marathon despite being rather unprepared. Both times, I hit a big wall around Mile 18 with maladies that would force smarter runners to abandon. And yet, in the end, I got through them (with times of 4:00 and 3:40 respectively). To some outside observers, i.e. my parents, it may seem like I have not learned much in eight years.
My job is to convince the reader otherwise. I will admit I haven’t quite solved the puzzle of marathoning, nor have I truly reached the level of work and intensity my body requires to run one well. But I have learned that this isn’t indicative of my entire philosophy of being (or running…same thing). While I tend to write these essays after marathons, which are black holes of memory that obliterate all that comes before and after, I recognize that I am now too old to go on self-flagellating rhapsodies on how I am incompetent and not a serious competitor. Those are funny for 19-year-olds, but they get less and less charming as one gets older. A teenage Andy Murray yelling at himself for making an unforced error shows he’s passionate. A 37-year-old Andy Murray screaming “I don’t know what I’m doing” and ranting in front of the cameras over missing a shot only engenders sadness, disgust, and pity.
As the YouTube commenter JustinLT212 said: “Bro just stop moaning and get on with it 😂 acting like your superior and have a god given right to win every game…act like a professional.” While I’d like to bitch some more about the last 7.5 miles or discuss how I spent Friday night vomiting and writhing around with chills, it would be a lot less interesting. The truth is, I am not good at “getting on with it”, as they say. After the first marathon, I spent about 18 months running atrocious times for the Northwestern Track Club and getting pissed off at myself. My parents and friends were embarrassed to see me race. And I can’t act like I was any better after Marathons No. 2-4. No. 3 was so disappointing I didn’t attempt the distance for over three years. After No. 4, I got home at 3 AM in the morning and complained about not breaking 3 hours until 4:30 AM.
Thus, Marathon No. 5 was more of an experiment in not being unbearable than it was in racing well. I hesitate to call it a vibe shift because that would be declaring an early victory, but I am maybe on a better path with my running career than at any point over the last 13 years. Joining the London School of Economics Athletics & Running Club, where I unexpectedly got to experience the absurdity and joy of a college track club for the first time in six years, helped a great deal. For once, rather than showing up and expecting something magnificent out of myself, I was simply thankful to have people to train with. And I wasn’t LARP’ing as a college runner either, I was somewhat competitive in the London university league and was suddenly a must-add to the club’s relays. And then there were club trips to other cities for races, which awakened long-dormant memories of slogging around the Midwest in Joyce Oakes’ vans. Except I could take advantage of inter-city rail, so it was even better.
With all this in mind, it would’ve been hard to start spewing “I’m dumb, I’m dumb, I’m dumb” (insert preferred quote from famous novel to illustrate depression), “I’m so stupid, woe is me” over and over again. Indeed, rather than frustration, while I was trundling through the final miles I was awed at the view of Barcelona. Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia loomed over the city as we ran back down one of the main boulevards from the beach. It had to be one of the most beautiful sections of a city marathon course in the world.
I’ve found my frustrations with running (and life, as I am not-so-subtly hinting, they’re interchangeable) are largely due to the sunk costs. I get so mad about what I should’ve done and how I should’ve avoided such-and-such outcome. Because I am often the progenitor of these mistakes, this leads to an overwhelming sense of shame and despair. It’s inherently narcissistic too, but in running the failures appear to be so clearly my fault that I feel narcissism is somehow warranted. Although it isn’t. During the race, I recognized I was falling into the sunk cost fallacy, where I was continuing to run and do severe damage to my legs solely because I’d spent a large sum of money to travel to Barcelona and felt an obligation to finish. But I was ok with being fallacious. I didn’t want to be anywhere else, I felt the pull of thousands of other runners on the course and heard the cheers of all the spectators reading my name off my bib. Sometimes they’d yell my name in a Spanish accent (Tristán).
In the words of Weird Al Yankovic, maybe we need to “dare to be stupid”. When I was running much faster and more confidently the week before in Cambridge, I also felt the urge to say “wow, this is really stupid” with about three miles to go. But rather than say “ugh, I’m so dumb for doing this grrrr”, I thought “eh, I’m still out here, may as well embrace it”. I found large sections of the half to be quite dull. Eventually, I had enough orange slices and water to drag myself through the finish line in Barcelona. But, for once, I didn’t pout. It was another dull finish, no hysterics or trash can kicking. I received my medal, picked up some fruit, and waddled to the train station. I suppose, in the end, I do not have a God-given right to PR or run well in every circumstance. But I do have the right to finish in triumph. Or, in this case, I finish under triumph, as the course ends by running underneath the Barcelona Arc de Triomf. And that’s that.
