Sometimes it’s hard to remember when I wasn’t this way. Somewhere along the way, I’ve become the kind of person who willingly gets up before the ass-crack of dawn, throws on a t-shirt and some flimsy shorts over undergarments tight as sausage casings, and drives from my hotel room to a waiting school bus, which will ferry me to the starting line of a 10-kilometer race that I am not only running voluntarily, but that I paid for the privilege of doing so.
And I like it.
My wife and I spent this past weekend in Annapolis, Maryland, a city most notable for being the state capital of Maryland and the home of the US Naval Academy. For us, though, the main draw was a race known as the Bay Bridge Run, a 10k jaunt that takes runners across the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bay Bridge (usually truncated—big surprise—to the Bay Bridge). The bridge connects the Eastern and Western Shores of the Chesapeake Bay, and with no pedestrian walkways, the race is the only available opportunity to cross this particular bridge on foot. If you’ve never crossed an impressive bridge on foot, you should. It’s definitely worth the experience.
This was our second year participating in the Bay Bridge Run. Last year’s race came only days after mom’s heart attack, and while we would have been well within our rights to call it off, we felt it was important for us to keep our spots and run. After all, mom was considered stable, and my wife had to get back to work. Plus, we’d driven down to Baltimore to catch the only flight that would get us to Sarasota the day of mom’s heart attack, so our car was already only about 30 minutes away from our hotel.
There’s a lot of differences between doing something the first time and then doing it again. I mean, saying that out loud feels obtuse, an observation so patently obvious that it’s hardly worth the words used to express it. But knowing there’s a difference and thinking about what that difference actually is, I think, worth the time. And so, if you’ll allow me, let’s take a look.
Everyone remembers their first, right? First impressions are singular, and there can be a great deal of joy in that experience. Firsts are new and fresh, no matter how thoroughly you’ve pictured the experience in your mind. Think of some of your firsts. What kinds of things pop into your mind? Is it a first kiss? A first communion? A first date, maybe? Is it the first time you see your new child? Or their first birthday, or first Christmas? Or is it the first book you really loved, or the first time you tried a new food you were unsure about?
For me, it’s Disney. My wife took me to Disney for the first time in 2018, and even though I was in my late 30s, even though we spent weeks (maybe months) planning our trip from top to bottom, I was not prepared to be as enthralled as I was. Say what you will about issues with the House of Mouse: the park experience was baller. The sheer depth of Disneyworld drew me in, and made the entire day feel like less a collection of attractions and gift shops and more of a total, all-encompassing experience. I mean, it was a collection of attraction and gift shops. But it never felt that way.
It’s the unknown that makes a first so singularly exciting. It feels as though anything is possible, that the events to come can unfurl in infinite ways. We are thrilled by the potential—and also by shades of trepidation. We know it could go fabulously well, but there’s also a chance that any number of things could also go wrong. That trepidation can sometimes outweigh the anticipation. But even then there is the thrill of the unknown, of knowing that something is coming to pass, and once it does it will have, permanently and irrevocably, happened.
The second time around, of course, that sense of the unknown is muted, if not entirely absent. The new has become familiar, and that changes your expectations. The excitement changes flavor, from a bright intensity to a more subtle, savory taste. You are no longer delving into the mysterious. The experience is not about discovery as much as it is memory. You compare the second time (or third or fourth) with the first, noting the differences while reliving the memory. The challenge becomes avoiding becoming so lost in the memory, so lost in that process of comparison, that you fail to notice current experience. Or worse, you see only the deficiencies the second time around, and you unfairly judge the experience by a set of standards you can’t hope to match.
This brings us back to the Bay Bridge Run.
Last year, our running experience was colored by the larger events that had occupied our previous ten days. Before then, I had been training regularly for the race, upping mileage and doing some speed runs to make sure I was not only able to run the full 6.2 miles, but that I would cross the finish line in a reasonable amount of time. But between the stress of dealing with mom’s health and the stifling heat and humidity that makes even winter running in Florida miserable, I wasn’t in peak shape.
Still, I managed a decent pace that race (for me, that is), averaging 10:43/mile. More importantly to me, I ran the entire race without stopping to stretch, catch my breath, etc. I owed part of that success to my training, but I have a feeling I was more dependent on adrenaline, looking for some release to the anxiety and tension I’d been feeling over the preceding week. At the finish line, my wife and I both agreed that keeping our spot in the race was absolutely the right decision, and that we’d be back next year to run it again.
And return we did. This year, the race felt remarkably similar. There were some differences, of course, first and foremost being my level of conditioning. Unlike last year, I did virtually no training beforehand, unless you call the Gritty 5k training.* With our heavy travel schedule, as well as my continued periodic presence in Florida, it was hard to get into any kind of rhythm, and as the race date approached, I found myself more concerned with preventing injuries going into the race than I was with being prepped to run my best pace.
* I find it difficult to call any race that ends with a hot dog “training.” Delicious, yes. Motivating, also yes. But training? That might be stretching it.
The weather was eerily similar. It was slightly colder this year, but the clouds still sat leaden above us, breaking in the east to allow some slivers of sunlight to shine over the bridge. The starting pavilion was much the same as last year as well, with the exception of the portapotty setup. Where last year all the portapotties had been located by the bus corral, this year more of them had been placed closer to the start line, on the other side of a warehouse. As a result, the lines for the first set of potties was much longer this year, with the others out of sight and therefore out of mind.
We still had enough time to pee, stretch, and get in place for our 7:30 wave start time. As the (virtual) gun went off, I trudged forwards before hitting a gentle lope as I crossed under the starting arch. And from there, everything was very much the same as last time.
As you might have guessed, a route that touts running across a long, well-known bridge doesn’t change much from year to year. This can help and hurt you as a runner. Your first time, it’s easy to lose yourself in the route. You don’t know how far you’ve gone, how much you have left to go, or what the terrain or elevation will be like at any given point. On the flipside, with experience comes knowledge, like the fact that mile 5.5 takes you up an exit ramp, the race’s miniature version of Boston’s Heartbreak Hill. You know it’s coming, and you can modulate your pace, but being so aware can make the whole thing seem much longer.
The main difference I noticed was my own conditioning. Compared to last year, I’m carrying more weight, and my calves tend to bear the brunt of that excess adipose. The more I have to pump my legs, the less my calves feel they can relax. Sometimes this leads to cramping or deep pains from over-tight muscles. When this happens, it can restrict the blood flow to my feet—or rather, the blood flow from my feet. They can start to go numb, and I can feel the excess blood swelling the bottom of my feet. When that happens, the only choice is to stop and stretch.
I didn’t feel any calf pain during this race, but I did feel the numbness, which set in just before mile 3. I stopped twice, bracing myself against the wall along the edge of the bridge as I lunged to stretch my calves in order to release the tension and get the blood flowing again. The third time, I decided to just walk.
I was pretty upset at that point. A few years ago, just before leaving Baltimore, my wife and I ran a virtual version of the Baltimore 10-miler. I was carrying many extra pounds thanks to lockdown cooking, and within the first two miles my calves had seized so badly that I could barely run at all. I ended up walking most of that race, and by the end I was so mad at myself I wasn’t sure I’d ever run again.
I remembered that experience, and I could have gotten just as mad. But I also knew two things. One, except for that last uphill, everything coming was either down the grade of the bridge or a flat path to the victory village. And two: it was my race, and even if I ended up doing some weird, random intervals, I was still going to get whatever running out of the race that I could. I fended off the red-faced angries, shook my head, gritted my teeth, and started running, telling myself I could stop whenever I needed to.
The next time I stopped was after crossing the finish line.
I was actually prouder of this race than I was of last year’s. While my pace was almost a minute slower than last year, I actually cut a minute off my average pace over the last three miles. In other words, I ran the second half of the race significantly faster than the first half. Once I decided to just run my own race and do the best I could, I felt comfortable to start pushing myself harder, and in doing so I began pounding pavement and churning miles at a pace that far outstrips my current normal pace—and I did it after running three miles.
Like most people, I think both new and familiar experiences are important and valuable. It’s important to find ways to introduce newness into your life, to keep things fresh and different. But it’s hard to overstate the value of having familiar, comfortable experiences as well, to balance the novelty. One of my weaknesses is I tend towards those moments of comfort, which I usually express in habit and routine. Just ask my wife.
I still love new experiences. But I think my favorite moments are when the new becomes the familiar. I really enjoyed spending time on the Olympic Peninsula, but I hope we get to return at some point, when what felt new and unusual becomes familiar and comfortable. The same thing happened with the Bay Bridge Run. The first time was a new, unique feeling. The second time was a comfortable blanket. Both races were fun, but they were fun in different ways, and for different reasons. And neither was better or worse than the other.
I can’t wait for next year.
MetaFrizzics 