THE LONG(EST) RUN

My girlfriend and I have a framed photograph of Barcelona above our bed. It was taken on the day we arrived in Spain over three years ago.

In it, you can see everything: from the grid like pattern of the manzanas in Eixample, the violent protrusion of the Sagrada Família among them, to the still waters of the Mediterranean overlooked by the twin towers, Hotel Arts Barcelona and Torre Mapfre. In the center, the Torre Glòries (formerly Torre Agbar) looks out in all directions like a glass sentinel.

The photo was taken at nighttime, 05:03 to be exact, and if you cast your eye out toward the horizon you can see jagged stalks of lightening reaching down from the sky to the surface of the water. There are twelve in total, some thick and bright some spindly, and all blue.

For the last few months, I have looked at this picture differently. It used to be just a nice snapshot, a memento of the day that marked the beginning of a fantastic adventure. But now, having signed up for the Zurich Marató Barcelona (commonly known as the “Barcelona Marathon”), the image has taken on a more ominous significance.

Recently when I look at the photograph, I am filled with a mixture of fear and excitement knowing that on March 10, I am going to be making my way around this maze of streets in the hopes of completing my very first marathon.

My preparations began back in November and for the past few months I have been a slave to my schedule. As anyone who has ever trained for a marathon will likely tell you, weekends are the worst because it’s the most ideal time to practice the lynch-pin of marathon training: the long run.

The long run takes place once a week, usually on a Saturday or a Sunday when the misery of work cannot interfere with the misery of training. It serves to improve your stamina to such an extent that, come marathon day, you have a chance at completing the course without one of your lungs collapsing.

A marathon is a long way, 26.2 miles to be exact, so it makes sense that you would have to put in some hard miles in advance. For this reason, the long run is viewed as the most important part of anyone’s training plan and is placed on a pedestal. We dread it all week and once it is over, the ghostly memory of those painful miles floats beside us until it is time for the next one.

My first long run was 10 miles, at least that’s what it was supposed to be. Sadistically, I was actually looking forward to my first taste of the pain that comes with running to the limits of my body’s capabilities. I was relishing the thought of being out on the roads, alone, for over an hour. It made me feel intrepid, like I was really testing myself.

In the end, I managed only nine miles, the last two at a snail’s pace. Despite the suffering I had endured, I still finished one mile short of my target for the day, in a sluggish one hour and 27 minutes. At that pace, I was projected to finish a marathon in over four hours, a full half hour slower than my target of three and a half hours.

Thankfully, not all of my long runs have been this way; some of them have felt fantastic. When this happens, your stride becomes an involuntary reflex, like the blinking of an eye or the beating of your heart. You charge along the pavements and paths as if you have been possessed by the spirit of a young Brendan Foster. As you shovel pasta down your throat later on that evening, you picture yourself crossing the finish line, somewhere in Barcelona’s warren of streets, fists clenched, smiling.

These effortless runs make the hip-grinding labor of the bad days worthwhile, whereas the long run prepares you mentally as much as it does physically. It is a test of your resolve and how far you are willing to ignore your screaming joints and burning chest.

My hope is that when I line up for the marathon on March 10, I will be prepared for every eventuality, knowing that I have done everything in my power to ensure that I have a good run. Whether I am destined to limp or glide through the streets of Barcelona will be decided by the running gods. Regardless, I will be ready for a long day, the last and longest run of them all.