Week Three: Plan for Worst, Hope for the Best

Man what a great week for alibis!

It's not my fault you got lost on Sunday's run, the rain washed away all the chalk.

What's that you say? I should have had the foresight to bring some extra chalk to mark the course as I ran it with the Finns?

Well my family was in town from Texas so I was too distracted hosting to think of details like that. In fact, they were here until this morning, which is why I haven't run since Saturday.

Huh, maybe those alibis are pretty flimsy afterall.

One of the things I love about running is that it is one of the few sports where your butt is entirely on the line. There are no teammates to pull you up or down. It is such a great risk to step up and devote at least four months of your life to a marathon. We all have one main goal, finish the event. And any subsequent goals are equally quantifiable. The results are almost always black and white, and yours alone to claim.

On the morning of October 8, as you limp to work (or through O'Hare Airport), you will reflect on your marathon. If you met all your goals, thank the running gods that it was your day. And if you made it to the starting line healthy but didn't meet all your goals, you still have to tip your cap to the running gods. Acknowledge that it was not your day, evaluate what changes need to be made in your training (if any), and move on.

Easier said than done, I know. I had a hard time moving past the fact that it rained last Friday night. As I drove to Fort Snelling to our run on Saturday, over the Lake Street Bridge, I had only one thing to say, "Where the &*^@*#$! did my chalk markings go?!?!? Sure, my front lawn and I prayed together each morning for rain. And NOW the only time all month you can deliver rain is the six hours before our long run?!?!?!?!?"

Say that reminds me, didn't Alannis Morrisette have some song about rain on a wedding day being ironic? Sure rain on your wedding day is crappy, but it's not ironic unless the bride and groom are farmers getting married in the middle of a ten year dought, and the only time it rains in those 120 months is on their wedding day. Then Alannis could say rain on a wedding day is ironic. She'd be better off singing about an MDRA coach who wants a green lawn and prays for rain all summer only to get it less than 24 hours after chalking a 13 mile course. I'm not sure how all that would fit the meter of her song, and even my sad tale is not true irony. But it is closer to irony than some pop singer getting rain on her wedding day.

But I digress. Back to plan A for Saturday's run being washed away by the rain. Every good runner/coach has a good plan B. And since I am a mediocre runner/coach, I had a mediocre plan B: the Friday before the run I had printed out about 12 maps for eighty people.

But you guys adpated. Remember this come October 7. Everyone looked after one another. We can't pull each other up or down, but we can support one another. But even more important than that is the fact that everyone adpated.

Someone made an arrow out of sticks at the bottom of the Ft. Snelling hill to direct runners back up to the fort (I still don't know who did that, but THANK YOU).

I owe Anne Walztoni beer for a month after she agreed to sweep the back and catch all Kenyans to make sure no one got lost.

I owe Carolyn Fletcher a car (my 88 Accord is hers for the taking) after she found my car keys lying in the middle of the East River Road running path.

And everyone needs to realize that we can adapt. There will be no guarantee the weather will be nice on October 7. Or that you will be 100% healthy. Or that you will feel great at mile five. But I guarantee you this: you do have the ability to adapt. It will up to you and you alone to exercise this adaptability.

The first rule of Fight Club is there are no... Wait, wait, wait, wait. I mean the first guarantee of Marathoning is there are no guarantees (dude that's deep). It is up to each runner to adapt.

After Saturday's run, it looks like we are a group that can do just that.

-Mike N.