It only sucks because you suck - scott wilkins

“It only sucks because you suck”. It sounds terrible when you put it like that but I think that it actually brings me comfort. Because “sucking” is a part of learning. There are a lot of things that I would like to learn or do and I am sure I am going to suck at all of them. At first. I am not a naturally good or enthusiastic runner. But I have now run enough to suck less than I did before. The credit, or blame depending on how you look at it, for that change goes to my twin sister Katie and my illustrious Mother (again).

I was still finishing up an internship in Alaska in the summer of 2009 when the seed for that change was planted. Katie came back from serving an 18 month mission for our church 2 months before I came back. She and my Mom had started walking together in the morning. It was during those walks that they hatched a plan to train for and run a half marathon together. A half marathon!? That’s 13.1 miles! They had come up with one (only one!?) logistical concern. Katie and I would be out at school in Utah and my Mom would be in Virginia by the time their training plan ended. They did find a solution however. They decided to find half marathons that were on the same day just in different states. The closest one Katie could find was in California.

Katie and I driving to her race in California

At this point I still had zero interest in distance running as a thing, or in any running if I am going to be totally honest. If they wanted to do it? Sure! You go right ahead! I will support you all the way! So when November rolled around I was the official chauffeur. We printed (yes printed) the directions to the hotel and then printed another set from the hotel to the race start and headed off. Of course we still got a little turned around on our way to the start line. Luckily we still made it to the race but Katie ended up crossing the timing mat just before they rolled it up.

As she was running across the start I yelled “hey! Where is the finish line!” To which she cheekily answered “I don’t know!” And ran off… (yeah, that was a moment…) I asked one of the other people standing around if they could tell me how to get to the finish line. He said he was going to be leap frogging the whole course and cheering on his wife as he went and was happy to let me follow him. So I did.

Katie's halfway point!

I remember how tired she was when I saw her at the halfway point. I was cheering and told her “yay Katie! You’re halfway there!” To which she could only respond “oh neat” as she just kept going. She didn’t win the race. Neither of us have any idea of what place she took. I even tried looking it up and can’t find it. But that wasn’t the point. The point was in the process of getting to the finish line.

It was while I was cheering her along that I had a specific realization: I would rather be running with Katie in the race than cheering on the sideline. Her run that day opened up a desire for me to be “in the arena” with her. Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech titled Man in the Arena. In it he said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood”

Katie and I at the Finish Line

This sums up how I saw her that day. I saw her struggle and work through the discomfort and I wanted to be with her. Not because I thought it was easy for her. But because it wasn’t.

After it though, she stopped running for awhile. She wasn’t a natural runner and the race had not suddenly inspired her to love running. So the realization that I had had went on the back burner. It wasn’t until March of 2013 that I got my chance to jump into the arena.

My mom (again!) shared with Katie that she had always wanted to run a full marathon. It had been on her bucket list since she ran cross country as a kid and now she wanted to go for it. Of course Katie had to say that she would do it with her. I don’t even remember which one of them told me about their new plan first but I do remember my reaction. Alarm bells rang in my brain and I got butterflies in my stomach. Because as soon as I heard about it, I knew I was not going to let the opportunity go by. I was going to join them in the arena and it was going to take a lot of work. To put it bluntly, I knew I was going to suck at it.

We started with learning everything we could about running a marathon. This included finding a training plan, getting good running clothes that wouldn’t chafe and especially, good shoes. Katie even went to a class about longer distance running that was hosted by her local running store the Runner’s Corner. That is when we learned about this thing called “fueling”. Aka you have to eat or drink some form of calories while you are running in order to maintain enough energy to keep running.

After that, it was all about putting the time in and doing the work. All three of us lived in different states and had completely different schedules: Mom ran super early in the morning long before it got light out, Katie would run with her little baby who was not even one at the time and I would have to run after I had finished off a 10-12 hour workday. We checked up on each other and held each other accountable for getting the runs in. The training plan was about 26 weeks long, went through several iterations and our longest run pre-race was 22 miles.

The race we chose was the Richmond Marathon. Its tagline is “America’s Friendliest Marathon”. There were 4842 finishers that year. We were three of those finishers. Mom had sent Katie and I on ahead so that she could just run her own pace without worrying or feeling bad that she was “slowing you down”. We had said we would run with her but she expressed that she would legitimately be happier if we went at our own pace instead. It took hours…we hurt…a lot… but we finished. We had "sucked" and it didn't matter because we had done something awesome and, for the moment, we were done! Then we started to hurt even more.

Recovering from our MARATHON!

Once again, I thought I was done running. I told my mother-in-law that I was never running a marathon again. Because training for the marathon did not make me love or even like running. But I walked away with many “intangibles”: a much closer relationship to my Mom and Sister, the pattern for successful goal setting and the understanding that I can do hard things were just the tip of the iceberg. I found that unless we are innately talented at something it is going to take a lot of work to be good at it. I now go into learning experiences expecting them to be hard and expecting them to take time and effort. I know that if I go into new things with this mindset I have set myself up for success in the "long run". Not being afraid or too proud to suck at something is pure gold!

We all finished!