how bad do you want it?

Watching the Boston marathon Monday morning, I couldn't help but admire the tenacity with which Desi Davila chased down a win which Caroline Kilel fought so hard to prevent.  Kilel's collapse at the finish was desire in the raw, broken and spent, nothing left to give.  We witnessed her willingness to lay it all on the line in that moment.

Boston is itself a testament to desire.  Those athletes committed themselves to training hard, through doubt and sickness, injury and apathy.  They were willing to gut it out in a prior marathon, to spend all day on a computer one October day just for the chance to toe the line.  Their race that morning took place only because they wanted it bad enough.

Standing out in the cold rain at the Lumberjack this past weekend, I had the opportunity to ask myself how bad I wanted it.  Watching those runners stumble and weave, grimace and move on, was grim proof that to complete a 100 mile race, you have to want it.  And you have to want it badly.

To get yourself to the point that you can complete 100 miles, you must train.  In heat and cold.  In rain and sun.  Through wind and hail and sleet and whatever else mother nature may throw at you.  You must be willing to train in the morning and in the evening, on weekends and through vacations. You must rest when necessary, and eat properly to fuel your body.  You must try out new gear and different gels, test backpacks and headlamps, evaluate socks in the mud and in the heat, and learn to tape your blisters so that you might continue.  You must learn to be comfortable losing toenails and suffering through ice baths. And that's just to get to the start line.

When you finally begin, you have to want it badly enough to keep going when the course conditions are bad.  To keep going when your legs ache and your hips are locked.  To keep going when the blisters grow, pop, and grow again.  To keep going when nothing tastes good, when you have nothing left in you to give, when curling up and going to sleep is all you want to do.  You have to want it bad.

I would love to be able to say that I want it that badly.

But I don't.

Not yet.

I want a 50 miler badly enough to want to put myself through what that race entails, but I am not there with the 100.  I saw that clearly this weekend.

Maybe one day I will realize that yes, this is something that I want with my whole being.  Until that time, I am not going to push it.