Woman

Savvy Women
last word
The Power of Second Chances
The most important second chance is the one you give yourself.
By Devon Bijansky, illustration by jessica wetterer
A few years ago, I made a deal with a runner friend: If she
would do something life changing, I would run a marathon
with her. Although I run regularly as part of my (amateur)
triathlon training, a marathon was never on my to-do list,
but she did her part, so I was committed. I ended up getting
injured and wasn’t able to run the same race she did,
but I owed her a marathon, so I signed up for a training
program aimed at the 2011 Austin Marathon.
It was agony. The weekly long runs were torture, and it didn’t help
that running took me away from swimming, cycling, yoga and everything
else I liked better than running. But if I was going to do it, I wanted to do
it reasonably well, so I set a goal based on shorter races I had done.
After hundreds of miles of training, race day finally came. Despite all
my training, I inexplicably hit the infamous “wall” around mile 12. The
rest of the race was so demoralizing that I found myself wishing I’d just
pass out already so I could stop. I missed my target by nearly half an
hour. As someone used to setting goals and achieving them, it felt like a
massive failure. All in all, it was one of the worst experiences of my life.
And shortly thereafter, the friend for whom I had run it proved herself
not a friend at all.
Like so many others after a marathon, I swore I’d never run another,
but my feelings went so much deeper than that. If I’d had a time
machine, I would have gone back to before the marathon and never
run one at all. But that wasn’t an option, and I was haunted by a feeling
of that can’t be my time forever. When asked, I continued to say I’d
never run another marathon, but deep down, I knew that probably
wasn’t true.
Earlier this year, a friend (a true friend, as true as they come)
mentioned that she and some of her other friends had registered for
the Portland, Ore., marathon. The time felt right to get back on that
horse, so I invited myself along. Only four people knew what I was
doing, and I gave myself permission to remove my timing chip before
the finish if I didn’t hit that original goal. No pressure.
Maybe it was the different mindset—this one was for me, for redemption—but
training through the sweltering Texas summer felt easier than
my previous cool-weather training had been, and when race day came,
I knew I’d be well under my goal time. From the start to the finish, running
felt good—fun, even—and somehow, all that training turned into a
Boston-qualifying run.
Ultimately, running a marathon, even a fast one, isn’t earth shattering,
but it showed me the power of second chances and taught me that sometimes,
the most important second chance is the one you give yourself.
March’s Last Word topic will be “How SXsw Changed My Life.”
To be considered, email a 500-word submission by Feb. 1 to submissions@awmediainc.com.
96 | Austin Woman | JANUARY 2015