Lessons from My Parents: Running the Race

This article is part of a series reflecting on my values and how they continue to shape the decisions I make as a person, mother, friend, colleague, and leader.

Today’s topic is about perseverance. What my father taught me about pushing your limits, and what my mother showed me about how to do so full-heartedly.

On Saturday I ran a “moonlight” half-marathon in Italy for which I was woefully unprepared. I was 8 weeks out from a major surgery where I wasn’t allowed to lift more than 5-10 pounds for 6 weeks, hadn’t been running, and was perhaps the most exhausted I’d been in my whole life. (And oh, I just keep getting older and creakier for a run of this sort.)

The race began in the small town of Jesolo, near Venice. My friends and I were perhaps the only foreigners there, around us melodic Italian. Because of my post-op recovery, I had told myself I was only going to run the 10K that night, and as a result, I enjoyed some drinks earlier that day in the Venetian sunshine. Not exactly prime athletics.

But that evening, since I was previously registered for the half-marathon, I decided I needed to tackle this race — if for nothing else than to prove I could do it. I had googled “how much harm can you do if you run a half-marathon without training” as we drove there, and nothing seemed to indicate I would DIE. So there we were.

The race began beautifully. With rapidly procured headphones, I had music flowing and energy pumping through my veins. I found one runner to trail — she had “Jamaican bobsledders” on her running vest, and after all, isn’t that an improbable champion? — and hung on.

As I ran, or rather, shuffled along at a reasonable clip, I did the calculations. I counted each kilometer. At the 5K mark, I told myself I only had 3 more of those to do (plus a nice little 1K “finisher”). At the 7K mark, I was 1/3rd of the way through. At 10K, I continued to deny the existence of the 21st kilometer and said I was squarely halfway.

But around that halfway point, it started to hurt. And so my brain started to ask why I was doing this. Logically, it made no sense. What did I have to gain, other than guaranteed pain and minor injury?

And for whatever reason, on that road in the middle of the Italian countryside, I squared my jaw and said to myself, “I am Rick Love’s daughter, and I can do this.”

In his last years, battling cancer, my father said he was going to be a football linebacker—he was going to put his head down and charge into the fray. He was going to fight till the end. And he did.

Like my father, I am built less lithe and lean and more ... linebacker. Running distance will never be my strength.

Also like my father, I am stubborn and resilient and will persevere in the face of challenge. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” he would say.

“I love you, Dad,” I whispered to myself under my breath as I carried on under the darkening sky. “I’ve got this.” I pictured him, watching me, proud of me. The lessons of my father kept my feet moving forward, kept my chest out, my chin up. 

I was moving well. But then, around kilometer 14, with my throat a hot column of tears, I found it difficult to breathe. I wanted to curl up into a ball and wail as the pain enveloped me again. Just like grief to surprise you in strange moments. My father, he was gone. And also in me, driving me forward. 

That’s when my mother’s lessons kicked in. While my father taught me to encounter challenges in the world as opportunities to persevere, my mother taught me to embrace emotional challenges without resistance. To accept those feelings and allow them to flow through me; to not deny them as I always had done, stuffing them down into somewhere I thought they could not affect me. To remain open-hearted.

So, I ran. With feeling, with pain, with hope, with breath. I ran. 

For my father, the linebacker, who tackled the world with verve and passion. 

For my mother, the bamboo tree, the ocean, who bent and swayed and ebbed and flowed. 

For me, now Zoan and Zora’s mother, teaching my girls that we can do hard things.

During the last 3 kilometers along the beachfront, in the dark, my legs felt like lead. It hurt to move, and I was painfully slow across the finish. But finish I did, barely able to pick up my feet, but with a smile on my face and a new personal best time.

And I swore to never run that far again.