Si se puede!

Sunday



Limits.

I learn to set limits, respect my limits and the limits of others. And then I push my limits. In so many small ways I like to push my limits. And slowly my tip toing on my limits has become a mad dash into no-man's land, wondering where the line was drawn to begin with. Wearing crazy earrings (I feel daring). Wearing a skirt. (I feel rather feminine). Biking across the USA (I'm stronger than I ever knew). Moving to Spain (what was I thinking?).

It is such a strange thing though...when we push our limits and when we go beyond our limits we feel defeated (I'm not meant to live thousand of miles away from my family, too lonely) or we feel liberated (I made it to California on a bike. By my own to 2 legs. Hell yeah). Which is why limits make me nervous. And so I constantly draw back from them, trying to force a crossing, trying to jump the gap, so my limits might never be realized, but rather, sit like dangerous mines, harmless as long as I find a way around them. This hasn't always worked....

But that emotional detour is not the point of my latest limit confrontation. Spain has been a mental, emotional, social and pyschological (overlapping categories?) challenge, and a very rigorous one to be honest. But physically, it has been constraining. I broke my foot in December, which rendered me a hobbler on crutches and I find that I'm so busy teaching, planning and commuting that I haven't had the chance to do physical that approaches biking the USA. But I began a slow comeback, I wanted to suffer physically, a little bit at least. I wanted something that would put me to the test. And I got it.

This Sunday I ran the Malaga Half Marathon. The bell went off at 10am and the Mediterrean sun was already high overhead, clocking the temperature at 80 degrees. And off we went, running faces to the sun. It was a brutal course - 11 km straight down the beach into the sunlight and 11 km back down the beach, running into gale force headwind. Delirious and nearing heat exhaustion as I ran by a sign telling me it was 31 degrees celcius, I decided I would finish. End of story. People began to pass me as I slowed down. I began to pass men that fell back, walking into the cruel headwinds. And I played the game of "I'm just running to the next stop light....the next stoplight...the next stoplight....the next sign..." until I finally got to "I'm just running till I cross that finish line." And I sprinted it. Legs wobbly with exhaustion but spirit sailing above my body, I sped up and ran the clock down. Satisfaction tempered by exhaustion makes for a healthy glow of pride and gratitude for having finished what I set out to do. Mingling amidst the other runners who had finished I felt strong and I felt very alone. I didn't remember any of them on the course, probably because they finished days before me, but also because running is such an independent sport. It's not a sad loneliness, but a very present loneliness I'd say. You feel all (and yes I mean ALL) the muscles in your body. You feel your lungs breathe. You taste the salt on your skin and you feel the burn starting to set in on your nose. And everyone else is feeling some sort of variation and they can't do anything about you or themselves. And that is what makes it so lonely. You must carry yourself mentally across the finish line. So while there is a comraderie amongst runners that have completed a race because they "did it" there is also a pervasive solitude present. When all you can do is breathe, there is no space for words. You feel your emotions, but you don't immediately emote them.

On the bus ride home, I kept saying "I did it" just to remember that I did indeed do it. That I still had it in me. I certainly didn't check anything off my to do list nor did I add to my resume, but mentally, I feel like Joan of Arc.

How humbling are the moments that make us decide if we are to be stronger than we previously thought? But how necessary and how empowering they are...


[ on a lighter note....2 km out, when it was the worst part of the race, hot as hell, brutal headwinds, an eldery man stepped out and yelled at a group of middle-aged men slowing down to my left, he said, "I know this is hard, but I'll tell you what's harder, being married to the same woman 64 years." That put us all to tears...and I secretly hoped that marriage wouldn't ever be so terrible]