Keeping going

'The things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them'

I’m twenty-six years old, running through the streets of Washington, D.C. It’s cold, it’s raining, and the sky is puffy with gray, gloomy clouds. I look to my left, where my friend is running alongside me in the Marine Corps Marathon, huffing and puffing too as he keeps pace with me.

“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” I tell him. Normally I time it so I don’t have to during a race, but I slipped up this time.

We stop at one of the dozens of porta-pottys on the side of the course, not far from where U.S. Marines are handing out water, vaseline, anything you need. The line is a few people deep, so we wait. And wait. And wait.

Finally, when I come out of the porta-potty and see my friend, a thought hits me: do I really want to start back up running again? Wouldn’t it be so nice to stop, get out of this rain, and relax? What are we doing here anyway?

Fast-forward a year, and I’m twenty-seven, or thereabouts. I have two marathons under my belt now — including the Marine Corps race, which I ended up finishing — and another friend of mine suggests a triathlon. You know… the one where you bike, swim and run?

I go with him, out to a lake near our hometown, a place with a big enough body of water for the swim portion of the race. And yes, they need a big body of water, because we’re swimming a mile this morning. It’s the first thing we’ll do, in fact, right after we draw numbers on our arms with markers.

We jump in the water, along with a few hundred other participants, all of whom appear more ready for this than I am. (Which, of course, they are, considering I haven’t practiced swimming in an event like this… ever.)

As I get deeper in the water, my arms moving like a dog’s front legs, I notice most everyone else in the water moving further and further ahead. They’re pushing around the first buoy in the water, past the people sitting in kayaks, waiting to see if anyone needs assistance.

I’m the first one who needs it; I get about a third of the way into the swim and I’m gasping for air. “People really do this?” I think to myself as I look over at the shore, where the race volunteers are in warm clothes. I’m wet and starting to shiver a little, and realize how far I still have to go.

“I’ve really got to swim that far?” I ask the guy whose kayak I’m holding onto.

“Yeah,” he says. “Unless you want to get out.”

I sigh a little inside, but keep going anyway. I end up finishing the triathlon, believe it or not, my first and only so far (and probably ever). I still gasp, even today, thinking about that swim, in fact.

Fast-forward again, to this past weekend. I’m 52 and running the longest distance I’ve run in a long time — nine miles, along the Silver Comet Trail just outside Atlanta, where I live (and pictured in the photos above and below).

Somewhere between miles four and five, I hear that same little voice again in the back of my head. The one that says, “slow down a little, walk a little… you don’t have to push it so hard this morning.”

Part of me really wanted to listen to it. Thought about how nice it would feel to walk along the trail, take in the trees that towered over my head all around, and relax. At the same time, though, I felt a little fear — that if I stopped, I wouldn’t start again.

And so my only choice, really, was to keep going. It’s been so long since I’ve run distances like I ran Saturday, I wasn’t sure if I could do it or not.

Thing is, I’ve done all this before, years ago. I’ve learned that I can do it — and I’ve un-learned it too. I have to remind myself, teach myself really, that running these distances is possible. All that physical exertion is a process of becoming, too.

Some things come naturally to us, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote, like the use of our senses. Others we learn only by doing:

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them… Men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

How about you? What do you find goes on in your mind as you train, as you add miles, as you stretch your boundaries of what you thought possible?

As always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life is going.

Your friend,

— Terrell

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Our training miles this week

So, we made it up to 9 miles this week — how did your long run go? This week, we’ll repeat the same miles that we ran last week; each week, we take a step up and then follow it up with another week to reinforce it. And then step it up again the week after that — I hope it’s working well for you.

Here are this week’s miles:

• Tuesday, Sept. 26 — 5-6 miles

• Thursday, Sept. 28 — 4-5 miles

• Saturday, Sept. 30 — 9 miles

• Sunday, Oct. 1 — 2-3 miles

As always, feel free to reach out with any questions about our schedule, your running, or anything else 🙌 — Terrell