Run the race

a lesson on pre-race fuel

Hi, loves. I hope you’re hanging in there today. It is a gray and rainy morning on Tuesday, April 26th as I’m writing this, and I am plopped on a reasonably comfortable, but not too comfortable leather chair, in my AirBnb in Lisbon, Portugal. I arrived here late Sunday night after a delayed connecting flight from Barcelona, but yesterday we had the most perfect weather, so I am not too concerned about today’s dreariness. Sometimes it’s sort of comforting to know the world cries, too, you know?! Portugal might just be my favorite place so far, but that is a story for another day I’m afraid… along with the stories of all my other travels I have yet to catch you up on.

Today’s story is about the half marathon I ran this past Saturday. It was… an experience. I got to spend last Thursday morning through Sunday morning in the Spanish Balearic Island of Mallorca with two of my greatest gals in the whole world. I signed up for the race on a whim in like January with the possibility that I would be running it/traveling there by myself. Eventually, about a month later, my friend, Elaine, came around, and she even booked her flight before I did! Of course, the trip would not have been complete without our dearest, sweetest, truest, most darling friend Mia, so once we all double checked our weekend plans, we booked an AirBnb, marked our calendars, and let the excitement commence.

Little did we know the area we were staying in was Europe’s version of Myrtle Beach… but it was kind of glorious? Like oddly comforting? The tacky beach shops and fried food and overwhelming number of faded tattoos felt like home? We were staying in an area called Palmanova, walking distance from where our race would be in Magaluf. It was a bit colder and cloudier than we were hoping, so we spent most of our time snuggling up in our AirBnb and letting ourselves just be our truest, freest, most whole selves because that’s what you do when you’re around the people who have literally seen you at your very best and your very worst and every single stage and phase of life since 9th grade. And we were doing it with a perfect view of the bluest water you’ll ever see.

Fast forward to race day, Saturday, April 23rd. This was the day we’d been waiting for, the reason for the trip, ultimately. We slept in, took a stroll through the neighborhood, and snagged some souvenirs for our loved ones. Elaine and I planned to eat around 2:30pm to fuel for our race at 6:00pm (such an odd time for a race, I know). You have to understand that our options were very limited. The diversity of available food sort of felt like I was in Clemson again (think an exquisite range of fast food to bar food—which are basically the same thing just in a different type of setting), which while oddly comforting as it made me think of home, was not what I needed before running a half marathon.

We settled on a British-style sports pub/restaurant as it seemed to fit the budget and offer a wide of range of options. This is where the trouble began. Long story short, I settled for the chicken kebab with fries, Elaine ordered beef pie with green peas and fries, and Mia was the smartest of us all, and she wasn’t even racing, with an order of a BLT and fries. Let me just tell you, that chicken kebab pita was as greasy as all get out, but it was absolutely delicious. I also knew as soon as the server set the plate in front of me that it was a terrible idea to eat before running 13.1 miles. But of course, I ate the whole thing like the starving, waste-averse college student that I am and instantly felt like I’d dropped 2.5 bricks in my abdomen. It was glorious.

After we downed our perfectly greasy meals, we headed back to our AirBnb to chill out before the race and *try* to digest our food. A couple hours flew by, and so it was time to get suited up for the race. The thing is that I could still feel the 2.5 bricks in my stomach. R.I.P me. Nonetheless, I selected my firetruck red Outdoor Voices Exercise Dress—it's not like I had anything to choose from as it was the singular running outfit I could fit into my backpack—paired with my chartreuse racerback sports bra and my electric blue Hoka running shoes. Clearly, I was going for neutrals.

I braided my very-much-in-need-of-a-haircut hair into pigtails, greased my inner thighs with a thick layer of anti-friction cream, and loosened my right shoelace which was just a tad too tight. As we began the short trek to the athletic track where the race began, I began convincing myself that I felt as light as a feather and not like a sumo wrestler with a bad case of appendicitis. Honest to God, it worked! Until it didn’t…

Elaine and I began warming up toward the starting line after our final potty break and passing off our bags and water bottles to our best cheerleader, Mia. I had a bumping playlist going, the sun was shining, the temperature was close to perfect, the excitement was real, and I was really getting myself into a good headspace. I opened my Strava app—basically a virtual running log that can also be used for other forms of exercise—right before the gun went off, and so we began the 21-kilometer journey. About 15 seconds into running, all the convincing about me feeling as light as a feather vanished.

I felt a sharp pain in the lower right side of my abdomen which then expanded within a few minutes, and before I knew it, it felt like I needed my stomach pumped. It would have felt much more comfortable to be doubled over, relieving a bit of the pain and pressure, but I was in fact running a half marathon. I pretty much knew there would be vomiting happening at some point, and before the 13.1 miles were over, I had stopped on the side of the course 5 times and thrown up 3 of them. Cheers, mate! This problem could have been entirely prevented, however, by a simple different choice in pre-race food. But I ran the race, I did the thing, I crossed the finish line, and that is a win enough for me. I also promised myself that I would run the whole time and that I would not look behind me, and I did both of those things, stopping only to vomit or attempt to. Another win!

Many lessons were gleaned from this experience. Of course, the most obvious being to not eat the greasiest, heaviest thing possible before running a half marathon. Lesson more than learned. But as I was running and also feeling on the verge of death, I was reminded of why/how running has been one of my favorite life metaphors for quite some time now. It all started with a necklace I was gifted early on in high school when I was a cross country/track athlete. The necklace was from a company which makes jewelry from old coins, and one side read, “Run the race”, with the other side reading “Heb 12:1” after the bible verse, Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Now, if I actually needed/wanted to remove myself from the race, then that would have been entirely OK, and it would have been a win for listening to my intuition. But somehow, there was some still, small inkling inside me, which knew and believed that I could keep my two promises to myself (1—run the whole race & 2—don’t look behind yourself).

Running an endurance race feels a lot like living everyday life. Good God it can be so hard. And it often feels monotonous and never-ending. But perhaps my favorite thing about running in the context of a race is that you’re never alone. While the other 500 hundred runners in the race were of different ages and abilities, we were all suffering the 21 kilometers together; just like suffering in life is inevitable, but not one of us is alone in it. Each time I was bent over on the side of the course, fertilizing the earth with my chicken kebab, I had at least one concerned runner ask, “¿Cómo estas?” or “¿Estás bien?” There were heaps of people lining the road cheering us on. There was the energetic “Woohoo!” or high-five of the runners as we passed each other on the racecourse loops. And it felt especially good when, while running, I encouraged and cheered for other runners because in truly believing in their ability to run the race, I believed in myself a little more, too.

Things also got a bit easier when I didn’t take myself so seriously. From the get-go, I wasn’t taking the race itself seriously because I mean, come on, I was on spring break in Mallorca for goodness’ sake, but the reminder to myself to let loose just a bit made me feel metaphorically lighter, as physically I was still feeling like an appendicitis-ridden sumo wrestler. But the mental game is the toughest fight anyway, right? I slapped a smile on my face as the sideline cheerleaders shouted their encouragement in Spanish, and I jammed to my meticulously curated 6-hour running playlist.

Ironically, while listening to “Mercy” by Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz, I started thinking about the poem “Heavy” my Mary Oliver. If it wasn’t already clear, I don’t think there is any connection to be made between the poem and the song, other than it was just the song that was playing when my mind drifted to thinking about the poem:

That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying

I went closer, and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this,

as well as friends. Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found. Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions), “It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it – books, bricks, grief – it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed?

Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth?

How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe

also troubled – roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?

While I wish I had some larger, existential commentary to offer, my reflection on this poem was a bit superficial. It’s not the weight you carry // but how you carry it – / books, bricks, grief – / it’s all in the way / you embrace it, balance it, carry it // when you cannot, and would not, / put it down—it wasn’t the greasy, heavy chicken kebab in my stomach but how I ran the race when I promised myself I’d finish and knew deep down inside I could. I chose to smile and have fun, to not take anything too seriously, and to cheer others on along the way, which was, perhaps my favorite and the most helpful part. And in the end, the stomach pains, heartburn, and flavorfully acidic aftertaste in my mouth wore off, and my friends and I enjoyed a lovely Poke bowl dinner together, realizing it was probably more in the realm of the meal we should’ve had pre-race. Alas, we did it, we learned, and somehow, we’re better for it. And, thank God, we’re never alone.

In other news, I’m running the NYC Marathon this November, so perhaps this was also a wakeup call for how I need to be preparing for that…

What’s on your mind today? I’m all ears!

Sending you my freest love.

Yours truly,

Cate