enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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running under Blackfriars Bridge, my huge baggage with respect to romance, and how I discovered my fiance was an ass.

So I went for a little run last night at 10:45 p.m. It was frigidly cold along the canal and there were lots of dark shadows, though mostly of people walking their dogs. Sometimes when I go out for a run late at night I feel certain that I am doing it because of the feelings of distorted guilt that I carry around with me, and I feel ever worse about it as a result. Last night, however, I just needed the air. I wore a fuzzy purple fleece jacket that is so early-1990s or Vancouver--take your pick--that I would never wear out in broad daylight. I was warm and cozy and enjoyed sweating and looking at the stars and hearing the ducks in the dark on the water. It's all about perspective.

The thing is that I am still conflicted over my running. I only ran three times this week, believe it or not. This is crazy-little for me. And when I was running I had this thought that running from now on should always be a recreation and a joy. But of course this alternated with thoughts of "I really need to start training seriously again, get fit, race."

I'll excuse anyone who stops reading here, because I know that I sound mostly like the high school football star who keeps on reliving his pathetically mediocre past and never quite moves on to consider achieving anything else.

I know that this is rather similar. I have been putting a great deal of thought into why it is so difficult for me to let go, and I can't come up with good answers. One answer that tempts me, of course, is that it's still a passionate dream and there is still time to compete well again--I'm not too old--and therefore I should go for it again. That is the quick and attractive answer.

But humans are complicated and almost certainly there are other reasons for my clinging. One, of course, is that when I made the national team in 1997 it was something completely unexpected in my life. It was also something that I did on my own. I could compete with the big girls and I had come from nowhere. I hadn't even been coached prior to achieving a 6th place ranking. I felt pure pride in this of course, but what it was was more of a sudden sense that OMG little me--the little girl whose father had died and whose family had cruelly battled over money and who had been shuttled around from house to house and who had attended thirteen different public schools and felt completely lost about what to do with her life, even or particularly during university--really can be a surprising person. It was incredibly empowering for my vision of the world.

And the thing about running then--I've written about this frequently--is that it was always tinged with an edge of something dark: of self-flagellation into something that seemed good enough. I mean, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that since no one had ever told me that I was good enough--even my mother who had always placed extraordinary expectations on my shoulders (in my music, my art, my school work, the math competitions, yadda yadda)--I felt constantly under the whip. I probably still feel this way. It's a tough habit to break.

But I thought of something new with respect to running that makes it difficult to leave behind. As I ran last night I was thinking of my big marathon in London, England. I was 17th. The great thing about that race is that they start the elite women first-- I think half an hour before the men. (Please forgive me if I have written about this before.) And when the top women finish the race, therefore, the race between them that is unfolding is not at all obscured by men running around them (good club running men tend to flock around fast women in races so that they can get on camera, etc.).

So when I was finishing the race--obviously not in the top pack--the runners were hugely spread out and so I was completely alone. As I ran along the Thames after crossing Tower Bridge I suddenly saw two guys standing alone on Bl@ckfriars Bridge above the race course. One of them was the Andrew, the actor and Amn3sty International guy with whom I was having that wonderful fling. I had told him that I was running but not that I was any good. So he was standing there and jumping up and down with his blond hair flopping around and excitedly yelling "121! 121! 121!" This was, of course, my number.
I don't know. It felt like a beautiful moment. Expected cheesy line: I felt like the only person in the world.

And the finish of the race was at Buckingham Palace. As I ran up the mall the crowds were screaming and it was as though they were there for me because, again, of course, I was alone on the course. The next women was probably a minute behind me or something. Tough to explain. And though I was disappointed in my time--I was a little bit ill so didn't run the time expected by my coach--it was still a personal best time and a good performance. That performance ranked me #3 in Canada in that year.

And then of course the wonderful weeks in London with Andrew ensued following the race. And that was a good time in my life. When I look at the photos I think, "OMG I look awful--so thin and what was I thinking with my hair," but I remember the invigoration of the accomplishment. And of course I remember that I felt worthy of an interesting romantic relationship.

And of course that race was the race at which I met my ex-fiance, though I didn't know at that time what he would become in my life. And might I add, ladies, that when I met him at the dinner after the race I thought he was...a bit of an ass. Later on I excused him for that because he was a top enough guy that he had come to London to win--which would have meant a great deal of money, etc.--and he had had to drop out. He was entitled to be pissy, I guess. Nevertheless it took two more meetings and the encouragement of a mutual friend to get us together, finally, at a race in Japan.

So on my run I was thinking about all of this baggage that I carry and how, fundamentally, it's all about me thinking that I will never feel that good again that makes it impossible for me to drop the impractical dream of being fast again. And this turned to thoughts of my ex-fiance, and how I discovered that he was an ass whom I didn't want to marry. And when we get to the end of that story we obviously get to the end of my romantic life, to the end of my trust--to from where I must now try to grow and recover. And we also get to the end of my running, because it is the juncture at which I gave up on the idea of full-time training to pursue my ill-fated Ph.D. Do you get the feeling that my recent problems come from having one foot in one door and one foot in another?

When I moved over to live with The Ass in Aus. I was trying to make the Olympic team. Who better to train with than an Olympic athlete who was a star back home and who was also trying to make the Olympics in the marathon? He was able to get me free flights to races at which he was racing. He also provided me with the wonderful training environment of their national sport institute. When I got the job at the High Commission I thought it was all fated. I was deliriously happy. We spent a *hot* several months traveling around, racing, rolling out of bed in the morning to run beautiful courses in the bush. I won a heap of money in races in those first few months, too. It all seemed set.

But, you see, he was an ass with a past. I'd always had a firm rule about not asking questions about the past, but in this case I should have. In addition to being an ass, he was also a pig. His room was a mess. There were duffle bags of national team gear that he'd worn at races and never unpacked that were lying in piles on the floor. There was a huge layer of loose clothes otherwise covering the floor of his bedroom; his entire house was a pigsty. More importantly, there were letters and papers strewn everywhere.

So you probably won't believe me as I get to the meat of the story, but let me say that I am not a snoop. Nevertheless as I was looking for my own pair of navy blue running shorts on the floor of his bedroom one day I found a letter. And the letter of course I read and it changed everything. Obviously, I was starting to have some doubts about him or nothing in it would have caught my eye. I mean, things had been bulding to a confrontation as I'd heard rumours of all sorts of flings that he had had with inappropriate people. And I'll admit now that I'd been really upset about some flirting that he had done in front of me at a race with a gorgeous blonde surf champion But I rationalized the flings away as being pre-me; the flirting, though less difficult to explain, I attributed to cold feet. But the thing is that this letter contained a description of a fling and a pregnancy that were such a betrayal of any values that I hold dear--had he also possessed them--that I could not forget. And when I asked him about it he was not at all regretful or even defensive. He grinned.

It was horrific. I'd sold all of my belongings and moved over to Aus. to live with a completely self-centred ass. And I had a job that was ongoing for quite some time.

So the only thing I've ever done that I should be proud of is that I had the good sense to leave and never look back. It helped that he left about a month later to race in the U.S. And there he met up with an ex-girlfriend whom he married within a year's time--following, of course, having made the Oly. team.

I, on the other hand, completed my job on the trade mission and moved back to Canada. I returned to Vancouver briefly to continue training for the Oly. trials...and broke three bones in my right foot. I was already in an overtraining spiral and had been ill in Aus. a bit so it had been downward trajectory, anyhow. I'd applied to and been accepted to a Ph.D. program in Montreal and that was the end of it. It was a tough year and it obviously drives my current life to a significant degree.

So when I was running along the canal last night I thought of all of these things! And all in about 30 minutes! And I don't know what to take from these past experiences. There were other flashes, too--of the wonderful races that I got to run on the Canadian team. I enjoyed them then but how I wish I had savoured them even more. The odd thing is that I remember running a 10k race in Toronto--upon my return to Canada and before the broken foot, obviously--and hearing the voice in my head saying, "Enjoy this, it may never be the same again." I didn't believe that it was really the end; one never does.

So I do sound like an aging high school football star. A sad list of accomplishments to which to cling. But I wish I could get to the root of the problem and thereby cease being a broken record. It all just clings to me though, and perpetually fails to make sense.

Well, that was a boring. I couldn't help myself. I must shower and throw on some clothes and run to meet the scientist. Ciao!

11:01 a.m. - 2006-10-15

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