The 10K Gamble and Learning to Trust J
The Fargo Marathon is a pretty big deal around here. It’s a Boston Qualifier, and a really appealing one at that (Fargo is a really REALLY flat course and the weather is usually decent). There are races all week long for whatever floats your boat: dog runs, kid runs, the 5K and then marathon day which includes the 10K, half marathon, marathon relay, and marathon. The city gets really into it. The neighbourhoods do too–live bands play music to help rally the runners, people bring out orange slices to you, there are posters everywhere and hundreds of perfect strangers are cheering you on. It’s a really cool experience.
This year my Aunt and Uncle from Alberta wanted to come down and run marathon week with us. My Uncle and I had plans to run the 10K together and we were super excited for it, except plans fell through and I lost my 10K running buddy. That’s when I decided to take the plunge and sign up J for the 10K. It was sort of a gamble. J’s got the distance down, but a kid with autism, who can have totally unpredictable behaviours at times, running with thousands of runners with loud noises and triggers everywhere was a big gamble. But we gave it a shot.
Here’s what we had working for us:
1. Training wasn’t an issue. J’s been running track all season.
2. 95% of the route was made up of piece of distance runs he’s done for track or XC practice.
3. He loves running and was SO excited to be doing a “marathon day run.” In fact, he was starting to tell people he was running the marathon. To give him a little credit, there are four races going on on marathon day, so it does get a little confusing 🙂 And people around here ask all the time, “are you running the marathon?” which refers to any race during marathon week.
Here were the really big concerns:
1. The 10K and full marathon routes shared the same course, then split, then joined then split, then joined, and finally diverged near mile 5. We would need to run the course once so he could get a visual of where he needed to go.
2. J runs much faster than me now. I wouldn’t be able to keep up. In fact, I predicted he’d finish about 3 minutes before me. That would mean he would be funneled into the Fargodome with hundreds of other runners in loud music and a little chaos as people grab their medals, water bottles, and food. We decided Steve and W would meet J in the Fargodome to catch him as he came through to navigate him through the post race chaos.
The roads were already marked for the race so the Saturday before race day, J and I set out to run the 10K route. I told J to really pay attention to the arrows on the road. I told him that the 10K and full marathon routes shared the same course then split so really watch the arrows on the road. He did a great job paying attention to the road as we ran on the sidewalk. Unfortunately at mile 4, J hit a frost heave in the sidewalk and (with some debate between the pediatrician and the radiologist–one said it was something, the other said it was nothing) got a hairline fracture near his elbow. I know this is terrible, but the first question I asked was, “I signed him up for the 10K this weekend. Do you think he can still run?” Thankfully, the doctor gave us the all clear. J didn’t seem phased by his splint at all. In fact, he ran his last track meet Thursday and was really excited for the 5K Friday and the 10K Saturday.
5K Night
Friday night we lined to run the 5K as a family and J seemed pretty concerned and serious before the race began. The bib numbers made him nervous–because of his OCD, numbers are a huge phobia–and there he was in a middle of a sea of numbers. I saw him leaning over to check bib numbers to see if any tainted ones were around him. 5,000 people were registered for the 5K which means there were 5,000 numbers to worry about. But he managed to “get over it” (as he tells himself) and finish the race just fine.
10K Saturday
J and I arrived at the Fargodome at around 6:50 am Saturday morning. I am so glad that J has learned to self-regulate through overstimulation. In fact, over the years, I think really has desensitized in a huge way to large groups, loud noises, and a little chaos. There were 3,500 10K runners, 4, 670 half marathoners, and 1, 600 full marathoners. I don’t know if that last number includes the marathon relay teams or not, but still, those numbers combined make for 9, 770 runners in the Fargodome at the same time so it was loud and chaotic. Steve was concerned that J might have a meltdown if we went too early, since they start the races 15 minutes apart and the 10K is the last to start, but I prepped J by telling him it was like waiting for his event to be called at track and he did so well! (This is why we push through hard experiences and try as many life experiences as we can, because they are drops in the confidence/familiarity bucket we can use for later)
The 3 sets of fireworks for each race start didn’t phase J at all. He was so pumped to run. Finally we were off and I tried my best to keep up with him. I managed the 1st mile and a half, but after that, J was too far ahead of me to see.
Personally, this was the most crazy, stressful race of my life. Steve and W were racing around the course on their bikes to keep an eye on J. I had lots of friends and neighbours out on the course cheering who knew J was coming through. As I passed every 10k/full marathon split, my heart skipped a little and my eyes scanned for every possibility of J taking a wrong turn. Luckily, the full marathoners started first and by the time the 10K runners came through those splits were pretty much closed off from the crowds. But that didn’t eliminate my stress level by any means. Thoughts of, “what if he sees a bib number he doesn’t like?” “what if he stops at a port a potty or water station and I pass him and miss him, then what?–I was banking on him being ahead of me the whole time.” Then I reached mile 4 and then it hit me–we never finished running the route. In fact, we haven’t run 6 miles since February. For the last 2 miles, all I could think about was, “what if he doesn’t make it to the end? What if he has a meltdown because he’s tired? He says really mean things to people when he’s burning out.” I passed mile 5, the last split of full/10K runners and there were no crowds blocking the full route. Then my paranoid mind thought, “what if he took the full route? I’d never know.” I’ve never booked it so fast for the last 2 miles of a race. I just wanted to get to the Fargodome to make sure he was okay.
Right before the finish, I saw Steve. He looked a little frazzled. “J’s here, but they won’t let me in.” I sprinted the rest on dead legs to see if I could find J in the mass of finished runners. I started asking people if they had seen “a kid in a cast.” Of course no one had seen him. Dozens of runners were coming in at a constant, continual stream.
And there he was by the food table. Neon shirt and toque. Medal around his neck, water bottle under his arm and 2 plates of food. “Where should I sit?” he asked me.
I don’t know if he used his best manners at the food table. I don’t know if he had a mental meltdown for the last 2 miles or not. He finished 2 minutes before me so I’ll never know. But I guess it doesn’t matter. All of those worries I had during that race didn’t matter–I guess I have to trust J a little more and be more confident in his abilities, knowing full well that sometimes disaster could happen. It’s really, really scary to let your kid go out there (especially when they have special needs) and do something big like this and trust that everything will work out. But I need to do it more, because when I do it helps J grow in the ways he needs to.
I get a lot of rough patches with this autism gig. This was a huge, sweet victory.
