Houston

For its flatness & time of year, the Houston Marathon hasn't been my favorite. I tend to use it as a proximate second chance in an attempt to realize a fitness not properly expressed at a marathon prior. There's fun in the puzzle of prolonging the training cycle, readjusting mentally from "jokes on the first one, that was just a mass stim," and training so that you maintain rather than eke out further gain at a cost that keeps you kicking a stone down the road of mediocrity, or injury. It doesn't have the robustness of female-fuk-yeah that races like CIM do. I go in knowing I'll likely be alone, because the gap between the top and ADP is vast. Based on history, the number of people achieving a qualifier there is small.

This year was different in that I didn't have a marathon before Houston, I had a 100K. I didn't think I could get into Olympic Trials Marathon qualifying shape 2 months after an all-out 100K, but I was curious to see how training & racing for an ultra might translate to a marathon so close. I figured Houston would show me where I was at & what I needed before a more focused attempt in the next year+. 

I recovered in action, risking, did a little MP work & then on a whim largely fueled by the opportunity to see Devon, reached out to Houston to see if they'd let me in despite being sold out. If they said No it would force further recovery & a focus on Two Oceans, and if they said Yes, I'd spend a weekend in Texas with someone I love and ride a line until I couldn't. The RD kindly let me into ADP, and because of that kindness, I'd end up achieving this goal I set out for myself in my 20's - specifically: 2x Olympic Trials Qualifier in the Marathon. I think I made this up as a way to prove to myself that the second would further validate the first, moving from: Anything Can Happen Once, to, Established. 

The last time I was here, in ‘22, it was intense, a splintering. Raced with COVID (somehow ran 2:48), which likely induced long haul & I’d go on to be stuck in place for years with symptoms akin to a copd patient, one provider said. 

I arrive. Devon's got Mexican takeout for me. I sleep on the couch. The next day we get groceries, wine, I go thrifting down Westheimer. I love Westheimer. I probably expel really valuable adrenaline in the peruse. It’s possible I leave minutes on the marathon table thrifting on my race trips, shoulders aching from reaching up high racks & sifting weighted hangers. I’ve ruined Boston this way. For the love of the game, at odds with one another.

High functioning depression is something else. I trained hard, committed to the goal, had an open mind, and was so grateful to be there, in Houston, with Devon, grateful to have a place to stay & an opportunity and I saw & felt all that but I was still miserly. Full of duality, of contradictions. I was sitting on the couch beside Devon, qualifying my negativity, or apologizing for it, hoping that in apologizing, in claiming before someone realized, that I was aware of it, that I could offset any effect & affect. I'd hear myself talking (I've been hearing myself talking a lot), and the basis of every statement, observation, question was/is steeped in negativity. I think I'm emanating this sort of stink, one because it's my default, two because of the state of the world & a deep sense of helplessness, and also, what is most shallow in the collection of promptings - feeling like the sport is obnoxious. There I was, with my friend I rarely get to see, who is uplifting & loves me & believes in me so much it brings her to tears, making this last-minute trip to Houston possible, and I’m angry, spouting costs & loss. What’s beautiful is that I could sit in that, with her & not feel like I sucked up all the air in the room. That says a lot about her, what she gives.

As I've never felt an encouraging or elevated hand at Houston, I planned as if it'd be patterned to fail. I ran with my phone in case I needed to drop. Tell me why a pessimist can plan for pessimism & doesn't then experience it. Big mystery for the self-fulfilling destinyr's, the you-are-what-you-thinkr's. I appreciate that good, that luck, that hard work shows despite. 

I felt this a lot around Tunnel Hill in 2024 - this wonder over how I was "succeeding" despite devastation/poor mental health. Better understood its nuance in racing Comrades in '25, where there was a line drawn from which pursuing high level could be negatively affected. There seems to be a spectrum of sad whose boundaries I’m ill-conceived to understand when it comes to performance guesses. 

Race morning: I've got a latte in one hand and a cup of bicarb in the other. We have the privilege of walking to the start. It's dark, and feels real runnerd & odd (almost or exactly a joke of myself) to be in a $345 Soar men's marathon speedsuit (albeit gifted), $300 Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3's, the sound and height of them, with my waistline weighted in $3 gels (as I’m not fast enough for bottles at Houston). I have to consider it a joke, have to conceptualize it as a gag, because it's at odds with the nature of me, which is, at center chest, that running was best when it found me natural & affordable, with cotton all-comers t-shirt you earned by guessing your mile time to the second while racing sans watch, thrifted split shorts & flats purchased by someone of more means in the family (but not much more) via layaway. All of it is a joke, but an interesting one, and one I buy and buy into so I can seek one obscure goal I set in my 20's to pivot egotism. 

So I go, 6ft tall in my supers, feeling naked but weighted, running little circles in the small cordoned off area reserved for ADP. I'll probably miss it all when it's over.

I prefer a start in the dark; it stills hyper-awareness & self-assessment. I find a group and I'm grateful for it. They're pushing at the exact preference & cadence. Not right on pace, but those delicious several seconds faster. I'm with them for I don't know how long until I move up and into another, smaller group. I like this group too. Save for some of the men are jockeying around for placement in the peloton and I’m a feminist to the task. They’re not helping lead, they’re taking valuable slipstream. I think, en route, that this irritation is good fuel. I’m being an optimist.

Tasked in lightening my load in gels, eager to consume each. The group keeps & surprised, so do I. I think we’re halfway when a space clears & I get a peak at who’s leading, who’s doing the majority of the work: hidden by the height of us, Olympian Fiona O’Keefe. I think: Oh no she must be having a bad day...After a while she peels off to a porto & I dbl down on feeling bad for her. She catches back up, returns to the front, self adjusts to the pace, verifies by watch & I’m slow to realize she’s helping us. She’s the metric. This is a gift.

She stops pacing maybe around 20, and it sort of splinters the group. What I didn’t expect was that it wouldn’t splinter me, and that a few of us would pick it up, as if she was keeping us in line & we were within means & now we were free to explore, a reward of patience. This is rare. I’ve only experienced it a few times in my racing life. That convergence of preparation, timing, luck, belief, the right group. So much of it intangible but once you’re doing it or have done it it’s so conceivably tangible and then it’s years before you feel it again & you’re all like Fuk why is it so intangible!

I never need the brick of my phone, weighted there at chest for a sad call back. I’ve got a mile left and I know I’ve got it so I get to enjoy it. Down the long stretch to the finish, 2:35.  

I’ve trained myself to two Olympic Trials Marathon qualifiers. I’ve PB’d in the marathon in my oldest year, after years of being stuck, after writing off Houston as a lesser, after long haul, after sponsor loss, after no one cares, after I suddenly realize Do I Even? As it happened, after, and now, it’s like it never happened. It feels like someone else. And I have to remember I get to relax. I don’t have to keep trying. I get to focus on ultra for 2 yrs without trying to perfect the balance in training for both simultaneously, interchangeably. The Houston volunteers let me hang at the finish so I could grab Devon in arms, witness the variety of emotions & engage with the wmn in our pace group. It prolonged the moment. And hanging there in the air above awe of others was the question -