My nipples hurt.
To explain how they got to this state, we have to examine the role of chance in the universe. Despite our desire to believe in free will, that we control our fate with the choices we make, it's clear to me that many events in our lives, even major ones, take place entirely by accident. Some would argue that it's a matter of fate, but I firmly belive that there is a strong element of random chance that shapes the course of human events. I don't see this as an aetheistic view, because I think randomness is a perfectly good device for a busy god.
A series of chance mishaps causes two people to meet that are perfect for each other. People find themselves pregnant. Fleming discovers penicillin. Fate? Destiny? Maybe. But I am confident in saying that as of about 5:45 last night, I accidentally began training for a half marathon.
About a week ago, my friend Diane invited me to come join her running group for a run, followed by beer. She had joined up with a group at her office that was training to run the Susan Komen Race for the Cure, and they were meeting at the Run-Tex Store for Psycho Running People on Riverside Drive. When I wavered on accepting the invite, Diane... well, she pouted a bit. So, knowing that Diane was a complete beginner at running and still had her doubts about it, I figured the gig would be easy enough for me, and would be followed by beer.
Yesterday afternoon, it rained, and I rejoiced. Then it stopped, and a massive rainbow appeared over the city, bringing with it a great sense of dread and sorrow. Nonetheless, I left work a bit early, changed clothes, and hustled down to the Run-Tex Store for Psycho Running People on Lake Austin Boulevard.
There was already a fair-sized collection of people there when I arrived. Some obvious beginners, and a lot of the gaunt, tanned and taut types stretching and chatting in the parking lot. I bounced up and down, untied and retied my shoes several times, and fake-stretched to try to look inconspicuous as I scanned the crowd for Diane, who was not there.
Eventually, a woman with carrying a clipboard that clearly denoted some sort of official status called for everyone's attention. She asked for all those training for the half marathon or marathon to come forward, and then started saying things about beginner, intermedate, and advanced runners.
It seemed clear to me that there were four groups of people here. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced runners. Then there was the fourth group, the freakish running addicts who were training to run either 13 or 26 miles.
History tells us that the marathon got its name when a well-conditioned and apparently overenthusiastic Greek runner named Phidippides ran 24 miles to Athens to tell the Greek king that the vastly outnumbered Greek army had defeated the invading Persian Army at the village of Marathon. Then he died. Why he wasn't given a horse to travel 24 miles is unclear. Why someone found it necessary to add two miles to the modern day marathon is also shrouded in mystery. What is further unclear is why centuries later, runners are so eager to fully reenact the event that killed its first participant.
Furthermore, a "half-marathon" of thirteen miles did not sound half-better to me. It sounded suspiciously like "half-dead", or "half-stupid," which as we all know, is still dead and stupid.
So, I thought, surely these delusional types were being separated out from the rest of the runners to discuss with them what a bad idea running 13 or 26 miles is, or to make them feel silly, or at least to prevent them from recruiting any more of the weak-minded for their little CoolMax-clad death sprint.
The beginners were given directions, and people began jogging down the hill towards the running trail. Still no Diane. I fell in with them, and began plotting. We would run right by my car. If I could get to the back, I could then dive behind my car and get away. But I couldn't get to the back, trapped by dozens of chatty runners. So, I reverted to my original logic of, "how bad could it be?"
We ran about a mile and a half to Zilker Park, where the now clearly evil woman with the clipboard ordered us through a series of calisthenic exercises. Then interval training. My shirt, which failed to have any of the evaporative properties of today's high-tech athletic gear, grew heavy with sweat, and was seriously beginning to chafe my nipples. Ugly, but true. Though my new socks were extremely high-tech, I immediately exceeded their absorbent capacity, and I could feel water puddling in my cool Nike Shox running shoes, which I had never intended to subject to such abuse as "running."
I was even more amazed and impressed at Diane than before, because, even being in fair shape, I was clearly going to die in the park. After several minutes of asking frantic-sounding questions, I discovered that this, in fact, was the training group for the half-marathon. My anger at Diane increased, then the street names "Riverside Drive" and "Lake Austin Boulevard" made brief and accusatory appearances in my mind. Applying all the skills that my English degree certifies me to have, I determined that these street names were not the same.
There are three Run-Tex Stores for Psycho Running People, and I had clearly gone to the wrong one. Diane was somewhere already done and drinking beer. Here, everyone was sweaty and insane and not going for beer afterwards, and I, unwittingly, was among them. Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the die had been cast. Mistakes had been made, and now I would have to pay the price.
After the calisthenics and about a mile and a half of interval training, we were allowed water, from a cooler on the back of a car. I was concerned about the logistics of our return trip. There were dozens of runners, and only one vehicle that I could see, a Pontiac Sunbird. Was a bus coming? Would it be air-conditioned? Or would Evil Woman With Clipboard reduce us to savages, fighting for three to four precious spots in the Pontiac?
It quickly became obvious that we were expected to get back to our cars under our own power. I fell in behind some of the kind people I had met in the course of this ugly, ugly accident. I had found their camaraderie, gallows-humor and enthusiastic support of each other infectious. One of them who had patiently listened to me explain how this was all a big mistake asked if I was going to stick with it, if I was going to train for and try to run the half-marathon in February.
The nipples were getting pretty painful, and I tried to hold my shirt away from them. My hamstring was developing a twinge, and my cool shoes would almost certainly never look the same again. But I grudgingly had to admit to myself that I was sort of pleased with myself, that I enjoyed pushing myself physically, and that I even sort of had fun in some sick way. It took me a while to answer through my labored breathing, to be loud enough to be heard over the soggy sound of my shoes, but I told her, "Yeah. Why the hell not."
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