Bethany Takes on Boston: I Am Here Now

Bethany may turn red from the front, but her back is as winter white as it could be. (Love you, Bethany!)

Bethany Meyer is gaining ground on the starting line of the Boston Marathon, even if she can’t feel her hands after running 15 miles in the rain. Bethany is running as part of the team sponsored by Stonyfield Organic Yogurt: to check out the other badass runners on their team and see what’s going on with them, check in here.  

I am making a concerted effort in my life to be right where I am.

Also, to wear comfortable shoes.

If I’m able to be present while wearing comfortable shoes, I feel like I am winning at life. Or, at the very least, that I’m banking memories which I can revisit and enjoy without being preoccupied by how much my feet hurt from having worn those darn uncomfortable shoes.

I put it to work last week.

I spent Monday night at the Maroon 5 concert. Because who doesn’t have a crush on Adam Levine? He is one of the few reasons I would go out on a Monday night. But I did not dress up for him. I’m in marathon training, so I wore jeans, a turtleneck, and my running shoes. Safety first. It just so happens that my girlfriends and I wound up this close to him.

 Had I worn cute boots, we never would have gotten so close. It’s the Murphy’s Law of forty-year-old Moms and hunky lead singers. Wear your running shoes, and you’ll get close enough to make eye contact with Adam Levine. And we did make eye contact!

Adam Levine’s booty. Before he turned around and made serious eye contact with Bethany.

I know this because there were only two people watching him perform instead of snapping pictures of his performance. One was my girlfriend. The camera on her phone is broken. I was the other. My phone was in my purse, tucked under my arm. For the record, he made more eye contact with her than he did with me. She has blond hair and wore a cute pair of boots. So, yes. It’s safe to assume Adam prefers fashionable blonds to practical brunettes.

It’s difficult to be present. As the primary parent, I have to keep this circus afloat. But when I sit in an audience to watch a performance–whether it’s my 2nd grader singing in chorus, my 7th grader acting in the middle school play, or Adam Levine crooning about the map that leads to me (yes, to me!)–I don’t want my view obscured by a lens. I want to experience it. Unobstructed. Not by my phone. Not by your phone. At the end of the night Adam asked everyone to put their phones away for two minutes so that he could feel their energy. He had tired of singing to a stadium of smart phones. It’s like he read my mind. So, while brief, I’d like to believe our eye contact was meaningful.

I spent Wednesday night in Freehold, NJ, at a book signing with Dimity, SBS, and executive editor of Runner’s World Tish Hamilton. We had a great turnout! Thanks to everyone who made it and to Runner’s High for hosting us. Early in the night, Tish and I confessed to each other that we are more comfortable on the page than we are in a big group setting. I felt it when it was my turn to read. My face turns red in front of large groups. I don’t want to turn red. I tell myself, “don’t turn red, there’s no reason to turn red.” Still, I turn red. When it was my turn to read on Wednesday night, as expected, I turned red.

SBS and Dimity are always at ease in front of a crowd. No red faces there. Nor did Tish turn red when it was her turn to read. She is tiny in stature but commands the attention of the entire room when she speaks. She paused from her essay to add back story and inject funny and meaningful sidebars. It was like the writer’s version of VH1’s Storytellers. I experienced every minute of it. With my phone tucked away in my bag. No pictures, no texts, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter.

Chloe, a mother runner a Mom of two boys, was due with her third baby yesterday. Chloe, if you’re reading, did you have the baby yet? Pink or blue?

There were expectant Moms. There were Moms who came with their daughters, who are mothers themselves. There were babies so young that they came strapped to their Mamas. I met and truly connected with half a dozen women. We are strangers to one another, yet the compulsion to lace up our sneakers and put one foot in front of the other unites us. It was an atmosphere of support and encouragement. Inspiration and validation. A community of caring. None of them sings as well as Adam Levine. Still, I wore my fancy shoes for these women. My comfortable, fancy shoes.

I finished out the week on Saturday by running my first 15 mile run. Ever. In my life.

In the spirit of remaining consistent with the theme of my essay (Who Needs Prada? I’ve Got Coach) in the recently released Tales From Another Mother Runner, here are the post-run notes that I sent Coach.  First, you must know that I’ve cleaned up the language. The original edition was peppered with curses. Also, it poured rain. Sheets of rain. Cold, unrelenting rain. I like to run in the rain. I find it cleansing. On Saturday? Not so much. Finally, the run started with a downhill descent and ended with an uphill climb.

You can’t see Bethany’s cute boots, but you can soak up the badass vibes.

I’ll start with the good:
1. I didn’t puke.
2. I didn’t get hurt.
3. No issue with my IT band (an old injury) or my plantar fasciitis (a new injury).
4. No ice to navigate because it has melted or been washed away by the rain.
5. I was in great company with my marathon BRF.
6. Big shout out to the 19th precinct, who have signs posted “No public restrooms,” but allowed me to stand in their foyer and drip water all over their floor while my BRF took “a life changing dump” in their toilet.  Her words. Not mine. A perfectly coined phrase if I’ve ever heard one.
7. My first 15 miler is in the books.
8. I’m glad I’ll get to do this distance again to get my body even slightly acclimated to it.

Now for the bad:
1. That was FAR. And it was only 15.
2. My math is abysmal. So is my BRF’s. We know this because we overshot by 2 miles. I wanted to finish by climbing up the hill. So we ran 14.4 miles. Then walked 2 miles to reach the base of the hill. Then ran up the hill. Ran 15.1 overall, + 2 miles of walking because we are both so mathematically challenged. Dumb and dumber. We almost asked a police officer to drive us to the base of the hill, but we didn’t out of fear there may have been an APB out on us because of the aforementioned bathroom situation.
3. My fueling during the run was BAD. It occurred to me Friday night that I only had 1 salted caramel GU in the house, and that I wouldn’t get the opportunity to buy more before running. I needed 4 if I’m aiming to take one every 30 minutes. My BRF brought Chomps, so we both had one about 6 miles in. Then took the GU at 8.5. Then another Chomp at 10.7, and the last Chomp at 12.5. Chomps, while tasty, do nothing for me. I know this now. I was loopy by 12.5 miles. We were both really quiet between 13 and 14.4. Except when she asked me to sing The Eye of the Tiger at mile 14. I sang it and sang it well, under the circumstances. My bad fueling is a planningissue on my part. I will set up a reminder on my phone to get GU during the week so I’m prepared for the long runs. I will also set up a reminder on my phone to familiarize myself with the words to the second stanza of The Eye of the Tiger. Because I’d hate to disappoint the next time I’m asked to step up to the mike.
4. I threw away my favorite pair of throw away gloves two miles in because they were soaked. By the time we finished, I was worried about my hands. I sat in the car for ten minutes with the heat on high and my hands in front of the blasting air until I felt I could manage steering the car. It was a cold I haven’t experienced before–worse than running in single digit temps– because there was no escaping the rain.
5. I was surprised by how much harder this was than the 13.1 we ran 2 weeks ago.  

I was present during the 15 miler. And—bonus—wearing my most comfortable shoes. I experienced it alongside a friend who, like me, had never run more than 13.1 miles before Saturday. We talked about Adam Levine, about Tish, about SBS, about Dimity. We talked about writing and running and work and our husbands and our kids and school and how we’re not ready to think about what our lives will look like in a few months when our close friend will have left Pennsylvania for a new life in California.

My marathon BRF will perhaps be my biggest cheerleader on April 20th. But oh. How I wish she could be running alongside me in Boston.

I will not fixate on that today, because I’m making a concerted effort in my life to be right where I am.

In the third month of my journey, 34 days from my destination.

Embraced by the mother runner community. Grateful for this opportunity.

And able to enjoy it. Because today my feet feel fantastic.