By Jennifer Savage
Every Sunday morning the training group I run with meets in the upstairs room above the Runner’s Edge, the running store in Missoula. We sit with our coffee, ipods, water, watches that can pretty much predict the future and listen to our coach as he tells us what he has in store for us.
Run against traffic, he says, for Christ’s sake. We’re almost there, he says, be conservative.
As we collect ourselves and our gear a hundred or so of us make our way down a flight of stairs and onto the street. Every Sunday I notice the poster of Steve Prefontaine as I start down the stairs. His eyes are piercing, even in a more than 30-year-old black and white photograph. Nearly every week I have to fight back tears.
I don’t consider myself a sappy person but Pre gets me every time.
Lately I’ve been a little marathon obsessed. I can’t really think about anything unless it’s in the context of the marathon. I remember this vaguely from having run other marathons but somehow I thought this one would be different. When I ran my last marathon I was 25, single with no kids. I was starting my second year of graduate school and I spent my time writing and running. Not a bad way to live, I suppose. But these days I chase little Lucille around the house asking her if she has poop in her dipes, I help Eliza put on her basketballin’ clothes about a hundred times a day. We go swimming on sunny days and read books when it rains. We go to water parks, we visit friends on farms green and deep, we curl up exhausted and try to sleep even though it’s 9:00 p.m. and it’s still light outside. Somewhere in all of this I run. I write. I thought I would be too distracted to get marathon obsessed but somehow I can’t stop thinking about it.
I think about the marathon when I eat. Does this have enough protein? Enough carbs? I think about it when I go to sleep. I think about blisters and icing my shins. I think about the 20-miler this weekend. But when anyone asks me about training, as a friend did the other day, I choke. I can’t talk about it without, well, I can’t even talk about it. My stomach drops. I change the subject.
It’s not a sense of dread that renders me speechless, it’s excitement, anticipation. It’s thinking about what a difference a year can make.
Prefontaine once said, “I run to see who has the most guts.” And there is something in that statement that resonates with me.
Prefontaine was a kid from Coos Bay, Oregon, with one leg shorter than the other, who found himself on the University of Oregon track team. He was one of the most talented runners this country has ever seen. He died, at 24, in a car accident in Eugene, Oregon, where he’d set records and created an adoring fan base who would shout “Pre! Pre! Pre!” during his races at Hayward Field.
I went to the University of Oregon for graduate school, even drove down the road where he died. I walked by Hayward Field nearly every day and didn’t have a clue who he was. That’s the tragedy of youth I guess.
I know who he is now and he stares back at me each week with a look of determination. Do this, he says. Do it with guts.
Prefontaine once said, “You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.”
It always comes back to where it started. Self-satisfaction. A sense of achievement.
I’m not the fastest. I run 10-minute miles. I’m no Steve Prefontaine. But it’s a gutsy thing to run a marathon and seeing that poster of Pre every week reminds me of that.
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Jennifer Savage is a writer and mama of Eliza and Lucille. Lately, she's learning to be a city girl. She writes from her home in Missoula, Montana. She is also one of Mamalode's favorite writers and you can fall in love with her too at Jennifer-Savage.com Read more of Jennifer's mamalode articles here.
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Go Savage Go! Those eyes make me melt!
you’ll have to tell us what your race gear looks like so we can cheer you on! You are an inspiration. Best wishes for your 20 mile run on Sunday.
[...] As we collect ourselves and our gear a hundred or so of us make our way down a flight of stairs and onto the street. Every Sunday I notice the poster of Steve Prefontaine as I start down the stairs. His eyes are piercing, even in a more than 30-year-old black and white photograph. Nearly every week I have to fight back tears. Read More » [...]