[I wrote this several years ago now at which time I was already several years past my most serious training period of my life. It is an account of trying to train as a marathon runner while being a reluctant frequent flyer for work - based very loosely on a hybrid of a past life of mine and George Clooney's character from the movie "Up in the Air" i.e. most of what is in here is either highly exaggerated or quite simply not true. I'm posting it now bc I just went on my first business trip (Memphis, TN!) in several months which reminded me of this piece and I sprang for in-air internet ($3 for 30 minutes) and I can't resist the temptation of publishing a post from 30,000 feet!]
Numbers are
the essence of running. I run approximately 6,000 kilometers in any given year.
This is 15% of the way around the earth’s equator. It is the distance from New York City to Paris
as the seagull flies. It is more than most people though less than many people I personally know;
what matters to me is that it is the amount I need to run to fulfill my goals
as a marathon runner. If I were to run every day of the year,
I would have to cover 16 kilometers a day in order to cover this distance.
However I generously allow my body two days off every month which means that on
the remaining days I must average just over 18 kilometers.
244,000: the
number of kilometers I covered for work last year, criss-crossing the United
States and Canada, at 38,000 feet. 125: the number of days I spent as a road warrior, one of thousands who travel
for work. Pack, unpack, re-pack. 125 times. Off with the shoes, out with the laptop,
remove liquids and gels, 250 times. 250 frantic, last minute searches for the
boarding pass - you'd think I’d have a foolproof
place for it. 250 bags of stale peanuts consumed per year. 1000 cab or rental
car rides to and from the airport. Hours waiting for delayed flights. Dozens of
nights in generic motel rooms due to cancelled flights.
24 hours.
That is all anyone is given to complete the daily grind. In a runner’s world,
every 24 hours the counter resets itself to zero and the task of completing the
daily allotment of mileage begins anew. The only way to get it done as a road
warrior is to create time where apparently there is none. It cannot be during
the precious hours of sleep as they are already too scarce. It obviously cannot
be during the 7 hours spent on the client site. It cannot be done while sitting
comfortably in one`s seat with the seatbelt tightly fastened. What remain are some
6 hours spent travelling to and waiting at the airport.
Consequently
the journey to the airport became my time to run. When I am done with my
clients for the day, done thanking them and saying good-bye, politely refusing
a ride to the airport or a quick drink at a local bar, I change Superman-style
in the closest public toilet. Off come my skirt-always a skirt never pants to
save weight, - my nylons, black flats, cardigan
and blouse. I lovingly wrap them around the unavoidable laptop to protect it
and cram them into my backpack. Never a briefcase because what kind of
superhero runs with a briefcase? On goes the superhero uniform: shorts and tank in the spring, summer and fall,
tights and fleece in the winter. My packing and planning is a science of
efficiency and weight saving. I wear a sports bra under my business clothes to
save weight and embarrassment if I must change in an alley. Everything I bring
on these trips has a purpose if not two or three; nothing goes unused.
Transformation
complete, I move out. I glide past snarls of rush hour traffic, sometimes on
dirty gritty streets, sometimes through the oasis of an urban park. I head out
along my pre-mapquested route to the airport or as close as I can reasonably
get. Travelling to Boston
is always a treat as it gives me a chance to re-acquaint myself with its
emerald necklace and although running all the way to the airport is not quite
possible, a short subway ride gets me there. Philadelphia is a challenge as the airport is
20 kilometers from the city center but one can, with careful manoeuvring, run
right to its front door. It is perhaps not the most aesthetic run however there
is a profound sense of accomplishment in self-locomoting the entire distance to
the airport. Baton Rouge
is another favourite for its scenery and aromas so distinctly different from my
hometown.
Smaller
centers pose unique challenges as their airports can be many kilometres
distant, often shared with other towns. Iowa City,
a frequent destination for me, is serviced by the Eastern
Iowa Airport
in Cedar Rapids,
40 kilometres away. This is typically longer than I have time to run in the
precious window of time between leaving my client and catching my flight. In
situations like this, I will take a taxi to the airport and then create for
myself a running route around the perimeter of the airport. This can be an
unexpected treat, as in Iowa, when
I run past corn fields and along forested trails. Alternatively it can be
downright soul destroying, the route composed of inevitable parking lots, gas
stations,
and fast food joints. One challenge of running on airport property,
particularly with a backpack, is that it makes airport security nervous. I get the sense that they are certain I am up
to no good although they cannot quite put their finger on what I am doing
wrong. My flimsy “story” of getting my run in before my flight is clearly a
sham. I have heard the words: “I’ll have to ask you to stop now,
Ma’am”
a discouraging number of times.
Opting for a
rental car over a taxi affords much more freedom. A plethora of running routes
reveal themselves to me during the drive to the airport. I have parked in a
suburban neighbourhood in Virginia
and run 15 muddy kilometres in woods
underneath the approach path to Dulles airport. As airbuses roared overhead, I
hurdled logs, splashed through streams and startled deer. As my flight took off
later that evening, I was able to identify the patch of woods that had afforded
me so much pleasure and I felt the glow of my secret knowledge of the
intimacies of that solitary patch of woods.
Delayed
flights are an inevitable part of the business travel experience. During one
year I kept track of the total number of hours I spent in various airports during
delays - a staggering 80 hours. These times can afford running opportunities
but the cost of admission is that one must truly not care what other people
think. Fortunately I do not. At least not about this. I have run countless
kilometres on the underground concourse at O`Hare
Airport. Any traveller worth their salt is familiar with the approximately half
mile stretch of underground walkway with its psychedelic, forever-in-the-seventies
light display that connects concourse B and C at Chicago`s famously sluggish
airport. I run back and forth keeping time to the infinite, automated message
“the moving walkway is now ending, please look down!”. Occasionally I’m stopped
by the very human message “Ma’am, we’ll have to ask you to refrain from running
here.”
It is an
oddity of our society that a runner can be such a source of suspicion and
confusion. One of my first experiences of running on the road taught me well
the need for discretion. It was winter in Boston,
the temperature hovering around -5 deg C. I decided I would have to forgo a
winter coat for the trip as it would not fit into my backpack during the run to
the airport. This is not as problematic as it might seem as realistically the
amount of time I spend outside on these trips, not including running time of
course, is less than 10 minutes. I figured I could endure those brief snippets
of time outside. My one concern was being stranded outside due to my cab
breaking down or similar and so I tucked a space emergency blanket I had
received at the end of a marathon into my pack as insurance against that
possibility. I remember discussing my plans with my training partner, whose
nonchalant comment was that I should wear small flats rather than my clunky
heels in order to further reduce weight in my backpack. Just another day of trying to get the miles
in, was her blasé reaction. Her non-reaction lulled me into a sense of
normalcy.
I arrived
onsite and my client was at the door to meet me. I could see him taking in my skirt,
blouse, cardigan, ballet slippers and back-pack. "Where is your
coat?" he asked, clearly perplexed. "Oh, I didn't bring one to save
weight and space because I'll be running back to the airport later today."
I replied. An uncomfortably long and profound silence ensued. From the look on
his face I wondered if I had accidentally announced that I needed to be done by
6 o’clock in order to catch my spaceship back to my home planet. Oh, to be that green and oblivious again.
Sprinkled throughout the rest of the day, at random, inappropriate moments,
were comments and questions as he clearly struggled to understand. As we talked
about research methodology, he interjected with: "but... how are you going
to shower?". As we did trouble shooting on his datasets, he queried:
"Surely you can't run with your laptop?". As we talked about
alternate data analysis strategies, he proclaimed: "But, it's over ten
miles to the airport, you can't possibly run that far!" As we were joined
by various colleagues throughout the day, he began every introduction with:
"She's going to RUN back to the airport. With her laptop in her backpack. To
the AIRPORT! With a LAPTOP!" I doubt anyone even found out my name or the
actual purpose of my visit.
I’ll admit
that I enjoy being perceived as eccentric, extreme, and hard core. I will even
admit, with some embarrassment, that it feeds my ever-starving ego to earn the admiration
of people through my running. However, I realized that day that this habit of
mine was simply too far from the average person’s boundaries of normal to fit
into the strict, mould of the business professional. In our society where the
car reigns supreme and self-locomoting is simply not viewed as a means of
transport, it is far more socially acceptable get drunk and obnoxious at the
airport bar than it is to spend that same time running to the airport.
Regardless, being perceived as eccentric was clearly stripping me of my
professionalism and was creating unacceptable distraction. I realized that day
that I would have to go under cover.
Since that
time I have developed strategies to avoid detection. I get directions to the
conference room rather than being met at the front door so that I can ferret
away my backpack and my lack of coat is not questioned. I politely but firmly
decline offers of rides to the airports or calling of taxis with vague,
murmured excuses. I have shamelessly made up conference calls, office
emergencies, headaches, toothaches and heartaches in order to duck out of
invitations for “a quick drink nearby before heading to the airport.”
I often feel not so much like an athlete
trying to get in a run as an addict trying to get in a fix. I know that there
is a fine line between passion and addiction. The lengths I go to appear to fit
the definition of normal sometimes do make me question on which side of that
line I tread. However it comes down to the numbers. The marathon is a dictator
whose demands are absolute and unbending. The marathon does not care about
normal or eccentric. It does not care whether its subjects trained on a track,
treadmill, forested paths, along the side of the highway, backpack on back
headed to the airport or on the underground concourse at O’Hare airport. The marathon
imperviously deals out its 42.195 kilometres and a fool is the runner who toes
the line unprepared.
