Duel in the Rain

It's still pouring outside.

And it was pouring 2 hours ago when I was due for my 75 minutes of hills training.

I stood at the window dressed in my warm run gear and watched the rain bullet to the ground at a 45 degree angle. This was going to be one of those runs I'll remember. Not in a good way. And I'll admit it, I might very well have taken a pass on the run tonight if it weren't for my bedtime reading last night.

After searching everywhere for the story, I finally discovered Hal Higdon's "Duel in the Sun" online. The entire short story. If you haven't read it, check it out. It's a rivetting true account of the 1982 Boston Marathon duel between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley.

There's a moment in the story where Beardsley has arrived in Boston a few weeks early. He heads out to Heartbreak Hill to do several hill repeats. But the weather is miserable. The snow is so bad that his car can't even get him there. So bad that he can't run the actual road but has to do an adjacent hill. Nevertheless, he does it. He goes out in this weather that no runner is running. And of course, this feeds him. He relishes the thought that he is the ONLY runner who could be out in this god-forsaken weather. It builds him up. Fortifies his mental state for Boston.

And here I am, the night after reading the story, staring out the window at thick, cold Vancouver rain. I almost feel pathetic for even considering skipping. I'm serious. The rain was torrential.

But like Beardsley, I too want to head out there and draw strength from being among the very few. I won't see any runners tonight.

So out I go and in a matter of seconds the rain has soaked through every layers. Yep, this is going to be an ugly one.

After a 20 minute warm-up, I start my hill repeats, important training for Boston in particular. Things are going well. Every time I get a chill or feel gross, I keep reminding myself, "You're alone tonight. All the other runners took one look and made for the couch."

Sure, I might see one runner, but if I do, we'll share a wave, comforted by the thought that another strong soul has braved the biting cold.

Then, as I turn back downhill for my next repeat, there I see it...there off in the distance. Making its way towards me. A steady flutter of limbs.

At least 25 runners in a huddled mass. Their matted hair, shivering, soaked gloves, some in shorts - they trot at an ungodly slow pace. And yet there they are, shuffling through the puddles. I can tell by the run leaders' ugly running bibs that they're all part of the training program for the Vancouver Sun Run.

And suddenly I feel pathetic.

Not because they're the Sun Run group. Rather because I let myself even fantasize about not running as I prepare for Boston and here are beginner runners who might very well be doing their first 10k ever. And with every possible excuse at their disposal, they chose to run.

Just as I'm trying to shake my depression, feeling the rain soaking deep into my socks, another Sun Run group appears...this one even bigger! They must have been at least 30. All marching past full force, chatting up a storm.

I turn around looking back up at my giant hill. Okay, so I was no Beardsley. I couldn't savour any superiority complex. But god-damn, I was going to conquer those Boston hills.

And I march up, steady and strong.