dear Andrew: 21k or bust

Dear Andrew,

It’s the first day of 2013, and this letter to you is the first of 365 posts I plan on blogging this year. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to blog every day of 2013. I want to be a writer, and I need a writing routine; and I feel like a routine is bound to come from writing 365 days in a row. If it’s 21 days to make or break a habit, surely 365 develop a routine!

It’s been a couple weeks after the fact, but we did it.

The 2013 Taipei Fubon Marathon

Amy, Michael, and I BEFORE the race

Found my friend Hannah who came up from Hsinchu to run the half

Me with friends Amanda & Joanna

The whole thing was just a super cool event. There were SO MANY people and so much energy. Everybody on the MRT that early in the morning was headed to the same place: Taipei City Hall to run either 5k, 9k, 21k, or 42k. It was 21k for us, and there were absolutely no regrets.

I didn’t think I was going to be able to run it. 10 days before race day, I went for a run and after 8k, I thought my left knee was going to fall off. On a run prior, I went 14k and experienced a rather pointed pain behind my knee. I looked it up and concluded I had something called Runner’s Knee, which is actually a rather common runner’s injury. Things like keep your leg muscles strong and limber, along with cutting back on distance and giving it a rest, were all remedy suggestions. I did what I could over those 10 days – a lot of leg workouts and no running – but was really not sure how things were going to play out. I wasn’t even sure if I should try to run it or not after what 8k made me feel.

The whole ordeal with my knee was a pretty discouraging time for me. It took 3 days for my knee to recover from the run that induced all of the pain. I was going down steps one at a time. I felt like I had torn my ACL again and needed to start back from square one. I went ahead and bought braces for both knees. I wasted a lot of my time being disappointed and angry. I was supposed to be in prime condition the day of the race, ready to run my fastest 21k ever. And now that wasn’t going to be the case, even I did go for it.

I almost had myself convinced I was a bust.

Then I realized there was no such thing as bust. And because of the encouragement and prayers of friends, I decided I was going to do it. I was going to do all 21k. 

Because of the rest I had given it, my knee didn’t feel awful, and I could always walk. I didn’t want to over-do it, so I soon left Amy & Michael pass me up. The route around the city was pretty cool, and I thought of you a lot. It kept me running – and walking. I ended up walking a total of 6 kilometers (broken up), but was able to run the rest. When I walked, I walked as fast I freaking could and did it whenever I felt my knee start acting up. I even ran into friends along the way. The final 6k was one of the best feeling runs of my life. I decided no matter what I was going to run the last stretch. And I RAN it – painless! In fact, my knees felt fine after the race.

(After recharging my phone sometime after the race, I read this text message from a friend who was supposed to run the half that day but couldn’t do it due to her health: “Lemme know how it went, Vic. Rooting for you and claiming that you’ll have NO pain after the race. Big hug. Lita.”)

21km later! Amy, Alexa, William, Michael, me.

I can’t really describe the emotions I had when I crossed the finish line and joined the others. But I remembered something you wrote about your 100K Ultramarathon in Singapore:

I still think about the race from time to time, but like so many of my so-called “accomplishments,” it is starting to fade away. Another medal to put in the storage box with my dusty 5k trophies and my high school ribbons. It almost means nothing to me now. Just another story that can’t accurately be described when people ask me about it later. I will probably brush off the question with “Oh, it was hard,” or something stupid like that.  I guess that’s why it was important for me to express my feelings directly after the race…

Honestly, that’s just the way I am. The thrill of accomplishments last for about a week or two, then I don’t care anymore.  I just feel like I’m better than that.  I really didn’t train my hardest for this race; I had to walk for parts of it; I wasn’t even disciplined enough to relax and run slowly at the start, and the winner had finished the race while I was still at about the 60k mark.  Garbage.

I guess I see it as a stepping stone that my weight pushed down into the mud.  My eyes are focused on what’s next.

So my eyes are focused on what is next as well. Can’t wait to run my next half, since it’s going to be WAY faster than what I ran on December 16. And a new year just started today, so there’s a lot coming up next, a lot of life to live, a lot of races to run.

Miss you, Andrew. Happy New Year! Or like they say here in Taiwan, 新年快樂!

 Still running with a whole new year up ahead,

珍珠