Depression

To get to Portsea, one has to drive through a series of Melbourne, Australia’s finest seaside resort towns like Rosebud, Sorrento and Rye, all towns on the Mornington Peninsula, the southern portion of land that hugs the Port Phillip Bay. Located at the tip of the Peninsula, Portsea feels like it’s at the very end of the earth.

In the Australian summer months of January and February, getting there means traffic and drunk, beachwear-clad teenyboppers. I was going to Portsea to run a 6.7-kilometre race, and as my 1991 sea-green Toyota Corolla wound its way through the streets of Sorrento and Rye, I wondered what I was doing.

Running was a favourite pastime in high school, a way to relax and enjoy endorphin-induced highs. Long distances were out of the question; four laps around the Faith Academy soccer field were my limit, which was approximately a mile at 15 minutes. A lap into it, I started battling my mind to keep going. Our basketball cheerleaders used to cheer, “You can do it, you can do it! If you put your mind to it, you can do it, do it, do it!” with the last “do it” trio at a high pitch. It was cute. I used to play it over in my mind, and the cheer kept me going another three laps or so.

I tried to run while a student at John Brown University. Short runs all and mostly around the cemetery opposite our campus. I used running as an anti-depressant because I needed the endorphins and mental clarity. Ignoring the creeping depression that started haunting me at the beginning of my second year was not working. The signs were all there. Always tired. Sleeping long hours. No motivation to do anything. Drowning in feelings of separation and isolation.

What began as weekly runs became monthly and eventually it was just whenever I could. Even though I needed it, I could make myself run. Usually after 10 or 15 minutes, my mind couldn’t take the mental taunts.

I can’t make it, I can’t make it, I can’t make it.

I stopped running in the autumn of 2003, my third year at university.

Three years later, a friend started training for a race. There are many reasons why something squeezed in my heart when I heard about her effort because I was not looking for a new hobby. It wasn’t a jealous squeeze, it wasn’t a painful squeeze, but it was a familiar squeeze. The I-Can-Do-This-But-I-Don’t-Think-I-Really-Can Squeeze.

I can’t remember when I began to think training for my own race was a good idea, but I started running. That was November 2006, and my test was six weeks later on January 6, 2007. I read about the 6.7-kilometre Portsea Twilight course on the day of the race, and cringed at this statement, “The tough bits are the undulating, short sharp hills on the way out and then the undulating short sharp hills on the way back followed by 1.5 kilometres of sand running just before the finish.” I trained on the flat streets of our neighbourhood, definitely no hills.

Before the start, I set a time goal. I had run 7.4 kilometres the week before at 50 minutes, so I decided on the same time because the Portsea course was harder. But it could have taken me five hours. All I wanted was to run the whole way and finish.

The start gun went off at 6:35 pm, and almost immediately the “undulating, short, sharp hills” started coming. After the first small one, I’m impressed by how my lungs are holding up. Then I got to the top and saw several hills in a row, the path snaking through them covered by runners and walkers.

My first thought was that it looked like the Great Wall of China. It was quickly followed by the Heart Squeeze. I can do this, but I don’t think I really can.

“Remain calm, and be positive,” I instructed myself as I quickly begin to notice a fire building up in my lungs. My legs send out help signals first, but my lungs usually stay strong and burn-free until the end, but here I am, five minutes into the race and already struggling. Every step I take I have to remind myself that one, I am going to run the whole race - there is no other option, and two, this will be finished soon.

The wind blew on all sides as we ran on the small strip of land jutting into the Port Phillip Bay. As I watched the waves of the Pacific Ocean breaking on my left and the waves in the Bay dashing against the rocks on my right, in my mind I heard a favourite song, “Spent my life this far on castles made of sand, tossed in the breakers in the palm of your hand, now I can finally stand.”

Now I can finally stand, now I can finally stand, now I can finally stand. So I clenched my teeth and ran.

I finished the race in 49 minutes and 10 seconds. How I ran over those hills, I do not know. Maybe they were smaller than I remember. Or maybe I’m just stronger now.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 8:22 am and is filed under All Articles, Depression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.