The Dandelion Adventure

Sunday is a designated rest day. No running workouts scheduled. I laid down on our living room couch at 1PM and when my eyes opened back up again they scanned immediately to the clock on the shelf. Twenty minutes to five. Dang. I crawled a few inches from my warm sanctuary to the switch for the Christmas tree and it instantly lights up. I gingerly re-wrapped myself in my grandma’s patchwork quilt and stayed on the couch, sleepily watching our tree and the cityscape behind it turn from dusk to black. A long time passed. I didn’t get up until I became more hungry than tired. Thirty six hours earlier I was standing on the corner of North Ave. & Larrabee Streets across from my apartment building, pitch black except for the streetlight overhead the bus stop. I was waiting for my running coach. We live in the same neighborhood which in turn makes us good carpool buddies. We were heading to the suburbs for our Saturday Long Run.

Chicago the city is very flat, and hill training is a must if you want to be a strong runner, the kind of runner that can handle Boston Marathon. And I do. It’s 32 degrees and spitting snow. Nothing is sticking yet it’s wet and damp and messy. As the wet pelts my face I can’t believe I’m in this moment. Standing on this corner, at this early hour, about to do what I'm about to do. I’m certain that the imprint my body made only 30 minutes earlier into the flannel sheets of my bed is still there and warm and I hopelessly imagine it’s every curve as my coach’s car approaches. It’s still dark as we travel an hour out of town to Morton Arboretum. Morton has hills, lots of them, and that’s where the Chicago runners go for hill training. The further we get from the city, the more black turns to gray and the snow sticks and the more white it becomes. From the inside of my coach’s warm volkswagon, the view is beautiful. It’s Christmasy and inviting. It’s a Bing Crosby song. Then it’s not. Reality hits me yet again. I’m about to run in this.

I’ve never run outside in this weather before. The non-runner, and even the recreational runner would say that running outside in this weather is insane or stupid and understandably both. The type of runner I was last year I would have slept in till mid morning, then possibly head to the warm comfort of my neighborhood gym to glide for 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, watching Brett Michael’s disasterous “Rock of Love” or some other indulgent trash reality tv show on a 6 inch screen devoted entirely to me. Now I want Boston. I want to be a good runner. I’m not alone. There’s a line of 6-7 vehicles waiting to get entrance into Morton, and in the distance I see group upon group of runners lightly jogging away. Snow is coming down well here, with a good 3 inches of white on the ground and no end in sight. “You’ve probably run in worse than this, right coach?” I quietly asked, not wanting to seem like a whimp, but also searching for some validation that this just might not be a good idea. “Well, it’s definately not good” he said. “You gotta really be careful today. Don’t worry about time.” I always worry about time, cause I’m always last. Since beginning with this group, I’ve already gotten a minute faster per mile, but I still bring up the rear. It sucks to bring up the rear. I hate it. I loathe it. I can’t wait to be good. I can’t wait to keep up. I can’t wait to easily converse with these runners and talk about random marathons and qualifying and times and be right in the same world as them.

Right now I just push myself to keep them in my horizon line as long as I can, that the colors of their jackets not leave my view. I push my legs and pump my arms till the back of my throat is dry and my breathing is heavy. I mantra in my head over and over not to lose them. They are gone before I hit mile two. Our car approaches the entrance and the guard in the booth informs us they were heavily sanding all trails, but with the weather hovering at the freezing mark best be careful. Runners have already reported falls. Now its 7:30AM, and I’m staring out the window of the Morton Arboetum warming house. Our running group is gathering. My nerves and two granola bars from earlier this morning have had a good two hours to digest that this run is actually going to happen, yet I still can’t seem to grasp it. “People do this,” I thought to myself, “now I’m one of those people.”

Out the window of the warming house, snow was still coming down. We’re missing two people yet, and with the weather being what it is there’s no hurry to start without them. A low running murmur of conversation about winter gear and stories of weather conditions from past years fill the time as we wait for the last two runners from our group to show up. Fourteen of us in all. Just as our coach begins his traditional Saturday morning pre-run pep talk, a runner walks in with two others, a huge mound of snow pressed against the side of her forehead. We all grow quiet, and our pep talk turns into a safety speech. “Go slow,” he says, “this is not about the pace but the miles. Be careful on the hills, go down them sideways if you have to, and if you feel youself sliding, head into the fluffiest snow.” We begin the run as a group, but as usual I lose them. My horizon line today even more blurred by the wet flakes of snow sticking into my eyelashes and dripping from the rim of my hat. I’m on my own again.

I’m a minute slower than normal, but my heartrate is as high as if I was making a dash for a finish line. I plod away, focusing on the ground beneath me. Keeping to areas that either have an abundance of sand or where the snow hasn’t been packed down yet. I greet or return a cautious “good morning” with other runners, and we all shout out either a plow around the corner or an extra ice warning. I hate this run. The damp cold vibrates through me and the muscles in my thighs and rear end feel every pounding inch of these hills. This snowfall teases me, dares me to land flat on my ass. I begin singing Christmas carols in my head. “Oh the weather outside is frightful...” and it helps me keep cadence with my feet. It also gets me past the first 3 miles. I’m fine again until mile 7, when I know I’m almost there, but I know I’m almost not. Finally, at mile 8 and the run is over. I never worked so hard for eight miles and yet again I have brought up the rear.

I change into warm clothes, and join the others in my running group in the Arboretum cafe, long into their coffees and conversations. The chatter of the day is who took falls and how bad. Apparently a lot of people did. I got lucky. I slid a few times but never fell, blissfully finding that fluffy snow the coach mentioned. We all wished each other a Merry Christmas and began the journey home. Still snowing. My body starts to let me know that it’s tired. I admit to my coach that I don’t like being last. He says not to worry about that. This is just the beginning. He promises that running hills on a day like today will make me better, faster, stronger. “You’ll see.” he says.