Dec. 24, 2010

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I turned 30 at Harry’s Bar and Tables. I had been looking forward to putting my 20s behind me and, like other birthdays, I did a shot at midnight and I got a couple of hugs, but afterward I stared into the mirror above the bar.

So this was it. Thirty. I was stunned by the weight of the moment. I studied my reflection for any noticeable difference. Was I more haggard? Was my hair thinner? When did I get so jowly? Did I look good for 30?

Turning 30 wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling. It just felt different than I expected.

The next morning I was at the gym zoning out on the elliptical trainer with a fitness magazine when I saw a brief article about New Year’s resolutions. There was a quote from a woman who had run 1,000 miles in one year.

I had completed my first marathon earlier that year and it was a life-changing moment for me. I had always seen these people with confidence, people who aren’t afraid to face any challenge, and I assumed they were just born different than me. The marathon turned me in to one of those people. I took on a seemingly impossible physical demand and willed myself to completion. I defied everything I thought I knew about myself. There were no more limitations to what I could accomplish.

Now I wanted to prove to myself that the marathon hadn’t been a fluke. That it hadn’t been a simple checkmark on the bucket list. That I hadn’t done it just to say I’d done it. I wanted to prove to myself that I was a bona fide runner.

One thousand miles in a year sounded like the perfect goal for me.

I am not a natural athlete but running is my thing.

And clearly this was the time to do it. I’m single with no kids. My job could get hectic but basically it was manageable. Frankly, I was flush with free time.

Very rashly, I told my close friends, family and co-workers about the goal. It was a fun thing to talk about. “I’m going to run 1,000 miles in 2011,” I’d say with a confident grin. Most people didn’t get it. I could see by the confused look that they were dissecting 1,000 in their head. Yes, it averages out to 2.74 miles a day, 19.23 miles a week and 83.33 miles a month. But if you just looked at the math you were missing out on the big picture: This was about adventure. Determination.

A few people I told saw the appeal. My brother, my sister and my friend Vi all said they’d take the challenge, too. We were stoked. We were the Dream Team.

My younger brother Ryan is a natural athlete. He’s head basketball coach at a Chicago high school and last year he ran the Soldier Field 10 Mile in 69 minutes — without even training. That’s pretty stinking fast.

Ryan taught me how to use the gym a few years ago and when he’s in town we run in Loose Park and he makes me do bear crawls and Carioca drills. He has no patience for my innate fear of looking stupid and is exceptional at motivating me.

Once my brother signed on, my older sister Rachel couldn’t be the only Hack child left out. She’s a natural leader and the 1,000-mile goal appealed to competitive side. She inherited the organizational gene from my mom, so she was the right person to perfectly pace out my year of running. She would keep me in line. She’s always been the boss of me, and I like it that way.

Vi was an acquaintance when we randomly found each other during the 2010 Kansas City marathon. He was doing the half and it turned out we have almost identical paces. We ran together for a few miles that day until the course for the half and the full split.

We’ve been getting together to run ever since. Something about the running freed us from typical social constructs and shyness. From the start, we could talk about anything. We quickly became close friends.

I had these great visions of what my year of running was going to be like. I would transform into one of those leggy gazelles you see prancing around Loose Park in running tights. I’d start wearing skin-tight yoga pants to Sunfresh.

Obviously, I’d look awesome in a swimsuit. Maybe some really hot day I’d even run in one of those sports bra tops.

More than the physical transformation, I imagined mental clarity and spiritual awakening. I love the remote, out-of body feel of a distance run. The meditative quality. A good long run feels like hitting the reset button on my brain. Decisions are made. Goals are set. Things become simpler. I loved the idea of spending a whole year in reflection. I’d clear my head and my destiny — my life’s course — would be right in front of me.

And then, come December 2011, I would hit my goal with my siblings and friend. Maybe we’d run up the steps of Liberty Memorial and jump around like Rocky, giving high-fives and hugs. It would be glorious. Yes, I had some high expectations. And, secretly, I suspected things might not turn out so perfect.

Not long after I graduated from college, I had what can only be described as an epiphany. I moved to Northtown with a roommate and one summer evening I was walking her giant rowdy dog, Colby, in Macken Park when it came to me.

I could run.

So I just did it. Right then and there, quite unexpectedly, I ran. It was only a quarter of a mile the first time and I’m sure I looked ridiculous. I was wearing my heavy Dansko work shoes and pleated khaki pants and being dragged by a giant Marmaduke of a beast. But I responded to some instinct and I ran.

It seemed such an extraordinary notion. I had never been athletic. I was consistently picked last on the playground and spent every gym class looking for excuses not to participate. When my parents forced me to play outside, I’d sit on the stoop with a book, waiting until they’d let me back in.

And now, here I was. Running. Little voices inside my head simultaneously said, “This is cool” and “This is nuts.” There was the hint of the notion that maybe I didn’t have to be tied down to the childhood vision of myself as a wimpy bookworm. Maybe I could be whatever kind of adult I wanted to be. Maybe I could be a runner.

I decided to try it again the next day. I was too self-conscious to wear shorts in public and I didn’t own any workout clothes so I put on baggy blue-and-white fleece pajama bottoms with polar bears on them and headed to the park with Colby. I didn’t have proper running shoes so I wore my bright blue vintage hipster Reeboks.

It was slow going but every evening we’d run a little farther. I knew nothing about running, or even being outside for that matter, but I made it up. Eventually, I could make it all the way around the park so I started running through the neighborhoods, too.

And eventually I realized how stupid I looked in polar bear pajamas and started running in plaid flannel shorts, which were also pajama bottoms. Some days it’d be too hot to run in the evenings so I started scheduling morning runs to beat the heat. That’s when I knew I was in deep — when I started waking up at 5:30 in the morning to go running in the dark.

A year later, my sister and I signed up for our first 5k. As we walked up the hill on Main Street toward the Susan G. Komen breast cancer run start line, I wanted to go back to the car. I was terrified I was going to be outed. I didn’t belong there. I was an imposter. People were going to make fun of me like they used to in gym class. “Who invited the nerd herd?” or “C’mon, does she have to be on our team?”

But amazingly, nobody seemed to care. There were all kinds of runners — a few inspiring elite athletes, but mostly people like me. In all the races I’ve done, I’ve never seen a gym class bully. Runners are nice. I liked this.

March 13, 2011

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The thing about running 1,000 miles: It’s hard. Some days you don’t feel like running. You’re tired. You’re busy at work. It’s too cold/hot/windy/rainy/icy. There’s a Snowpocalypse out there.

Your ankle is bothering you so maybe you should do the elliptical at the gym instead. Your knee or calf or hip starts to hurt so you take a week off. No need to run through the pain and risk injury. You are working with a whole year. If you miss a run, no big deal.

I’d schedule long runs for Saturday mornings but I was always looking for a tempting Friday night social engagement. No need to force it. I wasn’t going to miss out on life. I could run later.

I wasn’t too concerned when I wasn’t hitting my goals in the early months. My sister, the drill sergeant, knew exactly how many miles we were supposed to have totaled as each day progressed and in February, she was worried to hear I had only totaled 35 miles that month, about 50 miles less than the average I needed to be hitting. She questioned my commitment, but I told her I could make it up easily when the weather was milder.

When the cold weather finally broke, Vi and I went for a long run to make up some of the miles we’d been missing.

After a good month’s sabbatical on my couch, I was terribly out of shape. So out of shape, in fact, that I was back to running in long loose pajama bottoms. That day I smelled like bonfire from the party the night before and Jameson was leeching out of my pores. This was in sharp contrast to Vi, who was in excellent shape and darted effortlessly down the streets. I watched our long shadows bouncing on the sidewalk. Vi’s, narrow, and mine, long and pear-shaped with its distinct saddle bags, or, what my grandma politely informed me at age 15 were “child-bearing hips.”

I prayed for stoplights, where I’d lean against a utility pole panting while Vi jumped up and down, no end to his boundless energy. I was dying. I told him we would need to turn around if we didn’t find some water. Wrong move. He led me to a Westport bar where people were brunching. Vi nodded jovially with the confidence of an actor on the red carpet while he got us water. I, on the other hand, tried to be invisible. I was bloated, panting, greasy, disgusting.

Of course, I would never wish injury on my dear friend Vi, but as he guided our path for nearly two hours that day, my eyes bored into his sinewy calves and I cursed him softly under my breath and fantasized about shin splints, Charlie horses and foot cramps. Anything that would slow him down.

We survived the 8-mile run, ending in KCK where I’d left my car at a friend’s house.

There was a harsh truth emerging. Clearly, if I wanted to hit my 1,000-mile goal, I was going to have to start making sacrifices. Less couch time, less Jameson.

June 1, 2011

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On the halfway point for the year, I did the math to figure out where I was on my goal. I double checked, triple checked. Surely, I had done more than 332 miles? There must have been a clerical error. But the numbers wouldn’t budge. It was crushing. I started to suspect that maybe I was screwing myself.

By now, the Dream Team had dissolved. My brother was the first to quit. He’s a badass and he knows it so he never saw the point of putting effort into an unreasoned goal. He lasted until February. My sister got a new boyfriend (their first date was the Westport St. Patrick’s Day 5K) and started a busy new job and with that, her resolve for running was lost. Vi got a new girlfriend, too, and long runs with me lost their allure.

Now I was tempted to quit, too. It was an arbitrary, purely selfish goal.

Ooh, I was going to run 1,000 miles, pin a rose on my nose.

Maybe it was time for me to stop collecting gold stars and start doing something meaningful with my life.

When my co-workers came in to the office talking about their kids, I would be reminded that running just wasn’t important. Raising kids — now that’s something important. Or my sister would talk about her volunteer work and I’d feel wholly selfish, putting so much effort into a goal that was only about me.

Was running 1,000 miles even worth it? Was there a point? I didn’t have to do this. I could quit right now and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Aug. 26, 2011

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My brother visited from Chicago and he spent the night on my couch. I had just come out of a big relationship and I was having a “What does it all mean?” crisis. I told him I was confused.

I was making us scrambled eggs in the kitchen when he came in to freshen up his coffee.

“I’m proud of you,” he said.

I’m not sure if he was talking about running and it really doesn’t matter. For me, the running and life’s general path are closely entwined. That was all that needed to be said for me to stop doubting the process. I wanted to finish what I had set out to do.

There is scarcely a run where I don’t replay his words in my head.

I signed up for my second marathon, the Waddell and Reed Kansas City Marathon, in October.

Sept. 24, 2011

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Most marathon training schedules recommend a gradual buildup of miles over a course of months. Each week is four shorter runs, one day of cross training, one rest day and, the essential piece, a long run. Your long runs start manageable enough. Say, 7 miles in your first week of training. But then by the end you’re hitting 20 miles or so.

Everything about a 20-mile training run is completely unholy. Twenty miles should be quite an achievement but it’s not treated that way. The ending is completely anticlimactic. There’s no medal placed around your neck. No “I’m proud of you” from your loved ones. Probably not even a high-five.

I rounded out my last pre-marathon 20-mile run on the Trolley Track Trail. By the time I finished the heat and humidity were taking a toll. It felt like I was trudging through a giant bowl of hot soup.

I was at 75th Street when a car of old ladies pulled up to ask me if I was okay. You know you’re in bad shape when strangers are stopping in traffic to check on you. I told them I was fine and they drove off. I fantasized that maybe they would come back by and offer me a granola bar. I was starving. I struggled on.

I was slowly laboring the last mile and a half when I passed the French restaurant, Aixois. It’s a lovely place but for some reason in my state of electrolyte deficiency, hunger and incalculable physical discomfort, I was absolutely enraged to see people with the nerve to drink Chardonnay on the patio on a Saturday afternoon while I was out here dying .

I pulled out my ear buds to see if I could catch part of a conversation. I was sure they’d be talking about literature. But all I could hear was the shuffle of my feet on the kitty-litter-size gravel. I listened closely to the rhythm of my feet and did the only thing I could do, short of burst in to tears. I muttered the words along:

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go.

I glanced around to make sure I was out of earshot of the cake-eaters on the patio.

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.

And with that, Marshall Mathers himself was summoned. He always shows up in a white ribbed tank top pushing Hailie Jade — forever a toddler — in a jogging stroller.

“Hey, Em,” I smiled weakly. “Can you believe those jerks?” I said, gesturing to the patio.

Hailie Jade blew raspberries. “Da Da?”

He scowled at me in typical Eminem fashion. “What? Like your candy ass is any better? You think just because you’re wearing black New Balances that makes you some kind of a badass? Next time you have the nerve to invoke my song you better be running something better than 11-minute miles.”

And with that, he ran off. I put my ear buds back in and ran harder.

Kelly Rowland’s “Motivation” came on and she jogged alongside silently practicing her “sexy” face in the half-shirt from the “Survivor” video.

50 Cent ran with his shirt off and his pecs bounced in slow motion.

No one in Fleetwood Mac would run with me so when “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)” came on, Bill Clinton showed up in short shorts, fresh off the 1992 presidential campaign.

When people say runners are “crazy,” they’re right. Distance running makes me a little nutty.

I made it home, just in time for anxiety to set in. Twenty miles would be my last long run before tapering off (running less) to give my body time to recover for the marathon. But there’s a big difference between 20 miles and 26.2 and it requires a giant leap of faith to believe that you’ll be prepared to cover that difference on race day.

Mentally, the three weeks of taper down before race day were the hardest part of training. I didn’t have the physical distraction of the constant running. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but with the sharp decrease in running endorphins, I felt mildly depressed. I spent all of my new-found free time doubting the process.

What if I did the math wrong and I hadn’t really completed 20 miles? What if I had overtrained? Undertrained? Should I have taken more rest days or less? Why hadn’t I paid more attention to my nutrition? I searched for reassurance but there was none to be found. The marathon was all I could think about but the last thing I wanted to talk about.

To know that you’ve put months of preparation into something where the outcome is still so uncertain is torture.

Oct. 15, 2011

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By the time I hit 75th Sreet and Wornall Road — the same spot where the old ladies had stopped me on my 20-mile run — I was no longer running, I was plodding. People refer to “hitting the wall” in a marathon but I refuse to let myself indulge such a self-defeating idea. If I did believe in “the wall,” this would have been it. My legs were getting heavier with each step.

I envisioned my brother’s He-Man action figure from childhood and was positive that’s what my thighs must look like — orange hardened plastic with ripped protruding muscles. I looked down at my legs, careful not to lose balance and topple over. To my surprise, they were just my legs, little dimples smiling up at me as if to say, “Oh, you think this is hard?”

I had started the race with a group of about eight people in the 4-hour-and-45-minute pace group* and in the moment I had glanced down at my legs, the rest of my group had slipped a full block ahead of me.

I focused on the bright green shirts of the pace leaders. Must. Get. Closer. But it seemed no use. By now, the thousands of runners that had started the race as a giant pack had dispersed along the course and there were few people in sight. A zydeco band polluted the area with incessant cheery clatter. Not to sound ungrateful, but I hate zydeco. This was my own personal hell.

I staggered on. I went through my prepared list of happy thoughts. I thought about being at a concert with my favorite people. Vacation. Dance floors. Justin Vernon in tight pants bending over to adjust an effects pedal, and my friend Chrissy’s resulting squeal. Christmas. Boys. Beer. The finish line.

But these thoughts would only hold for a second. The sad thoughts stuck. Dead grandmas. Dead pets. 9/11. Anne Frank. Cancer. I jammed my ear buds in, hoping for some distraction and was met with a Calexico song. I lost it. I gasped to relieve the lump in my throat but it was too late. I was crying. On the race course. With 10 miles to go.

Mentally, the hardest part of the marathon is dealing with the relentless demoralizing fact that you are nowhere near your goal. And with 10 miles to go, this was too soon to be looking for the finish line.

One of the pace leaders jogged back to check on me. “How ya doin?” He need only glance at me to get his answer. He told me to try walking for a bit — I wasn’t moving much faster than a walk anyway — and advised me to start doubling up on Gatorade at the aid stations. He was kind enough not to address the crying.

After he was gone, I walked, resting. I knew I had to stop being a baby. I wasn’t allowed to indulge silly sentimentalities anymore. I was a proven marathoner. I could do this. I started running again and I tried to think positive.

I had to think hard to come up with just one thing that was going right at that moment. My body was completely broken down. I was slumped over, running on cramped feet. Gatorade, Vaseline and a layer of electrolyte Gu covered every inch of me and I was collecting dirt like a giant piece of flypaper.

One of my armpits was scraping against my shirt with every stride and the resulting raw skin was beyond the help of Vaseline. My sunblock had melted, irritating my eyes and now the crying had made my contacts foggy. One of my socks was slipping into my shoe and I was too weak to bend over to fix it and I was sure there was a bleeding toe on my other foot. And I stank. Bad.

But my bobby pins — they were doing their job. Not a piece of flyaway hair in my face. I had done something right when I chose those bobby pins and I celebrated them. They were pieces of metal perfection in the middle of shit soup.

I was clearly delirious because I started thinking: Be the bobby pin.

Be efficient. Be strong. Be steady. Be durable. Be clever. Be resilient. Be the bobby pin.

I got back in the game and rethought my approach. I segmented the race in my head and tried to deceive myself that I was only running from Waldo to the Plaza. That didn’t seem so bad. Maybe if I was lucky I’d see my sister and her boyfriend around there. Wouldn’t that be nice?

And, after ages and ages, there they were. Cheering me on. I remember telling Rachel and Matt that my pace group was right ahead, that I was going to catch them. They looked at me like I had cracked. There were no bright green shirts in sight.

I left them and imagined I was just running from the Plaza to Hyde Park. Maybe I’d get lucky and see my friend Chrissy there.

And there she was. She jogged alongside me for a few minutes, and I told her about the pace group, too, that I was going to catch them. She just smiled and said, “You’re doing great.” Then I was on my own again.

Seeing a few of my favorite people was just what I needed to get me back in the zone. I had gotten past that wall-like moment and I was feeling stronger. The area around Gilliam Park offered some gentle rolling hills and this is where I excel. A lot of trainers will tell you to walk up hills to conserve energy (this is the smart thing to do) but my ego won’t allow me to look like I’m struggling. I started picking off people and trotted past them with a shit-eating grin.

When the hills crested and the trees parted ahead, I’d catch little glimpses of the bright green shirts. They were little ants now, countless football fields away, but I was going to catch them.

“Go. You got this. This is not the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Run. You’re a badass. Push. Eye of the tiger. Be the bobby pin.”

The route continued north and by the 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District. The pace group was a block and a half ahead of me. We turned west. I ran very moderate intervals for the next few minutes and by Grinders, I had caught them. “Hey! You again!” I was greeted. It felt good. A mile later, I finished the race with my group.

Nov. 1, 2011

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I gave myself most of the end of October to recover from the marathon, figuring the 26.2 was going to be the needed bump to put me closer to my goal.

But when I sat down to do the math, I had a rude awakening. I had 251.4 miles left to run in 2011, about 31.5 miles a week. I had never been further behind in my goal. Every run I’d ever skipped haunted me.

Many days I greet runs with a springy enthusiasm. After all, I genuinely like running. But those days were few in the last two months. I decided that the best way to make up my mileage was with lots of short runs — 3, 4 or 5 miles at a time — and when scheduling allowed, I did two-a-days.

It was discouraging. I wasn’t catching up to my goal. Every morning my alarm would go off and my legs would beg for a rest day, but there was no time for excuses. I started popping Ibuprofen like it was going out of style to deal with the pain.

As much as I hate running in the heat, running in the cold is far worse. I could never seem to select the ideal clothes for the temperature. I’d freeze with numb feet and hands or I’d sweat like a high school wrestler trying to make weight.

More clothes meant more surface area for chafing. I’d try to run with my arms straight to avoid chafed inner elbows and I looked like a slowly-dying windup doll. Most days I just sucked it up and wore shorts and a tank, but any exposed skin was vulnerable to windburn, and when windburned skin was exposed to more wind it was a disaster.

I try not to run by myself in the dark so the short winter days meant that unfortunately I had to do a lot of my running at the end of the year on a treadmill. And I hate treadmill running. I’d drive to the gym in silence, psyching myself with affirmations.

“You are a badass. You are a runner. You are going to do this.”

Once there, I’d cover the treadmill readout with a towel and try not to peek at my progress for as long as possible. My record was about 8 seconds. Stuck inside, I missed the fun of running. I spent so much time on the treadmill that I was afraid my gym was going to start charging me extra.

I tried everything I could think of to make it entertaining. When my energy dwindled, I took discreet breaks to a bathroom stall where I’d dance to Jay-Z. There were a couple of days where I listened to Outkast’s “Bombs Over Baghdad” on repeat until it finally lost its potency. Then I became the crazy woman on the treadmill muttering the words to “Born to Run,” raising a fist in the air to Wendy, the patron saint of runners. I was past caring about appearances.

It might not be pretty, but I was going to hit 1,000 miles. Whatever it took.

December 31, 2011

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I screwed myself over Christmas, taking three days off in a row, leaving about 50 miles to hit in the last six days. It should have been heinous but we got a lucky streak of mild weather and I was just so happy not to be running on a treadmill.

I ran my last 4.2 miles quickly on New Year’s Eve, ending at Liberty Memorial like I had planned. As I made a loop around the tower, a giant grin on my face, a guy yelled out “Keep going!” I’m still laughing about that. My mom and her husband and my sister and her boyfriend came out to cheer me on. It was special.

So this is how it ended for me. I’m not one of those leggy gazelles you see prancing around Loose Park in running tights. In fact, there is probably no greater testament to my love of beer and nachos than the fact that my running created about a 100,000-calorie deficit and I didn’t lose a single pound. But so what? My body has been awesome to me and I’m so grateful to it.

As a reward for hitting my goal, I went on my first ski trip earlier this month in Idaho. I was truly horrible at it but that was fine. I had nothing to prove. It felt good to laugh at myself, to enjoy the process, to appreciate the time with family and to enjoy nature.

And it felt good to get off that mountain alive.

I continue to run but I’m in no hurry to settle on my next big goal. Chrissy and I are talking about a long wilderness backpacking trip. Or maybe someday I’ll do an ultramarathon. The list of marathons I’d like to do is growing every day. And I’ve always wanted to build my upper body strength enough to do pull-ups. If I do these things, it will be because I really want to, not because I’m collecting gold stars. I’m done with that. I know who I am.

I am an endurance athlete. I’m a champion. I’m a badass. I’m hardcore. I’m a marathoner. I am a person who sincerely believes that you can do anything you put your mind to. I am a runner.

Jenn Hack is Ink’s photo director. Talk running with her on Twitter @kcjennhack.