Marathon

My goal was to average 7-minutes per mile—a pace good enough for a man of my age to qualify for the Boston marathon. The first couple of miles passed quickly; we were filled with adrenaline and the excitement of starting a race. A marine-type fellow inspired shouts of excitement as he played reveille on his bugle. A one-legged man wore a roller skate as he propelled himself with crutches.

After four miles, I saw my fiancée Maura for the first time. Such glimpses are delightful even if they last just a couple seconds. The thrill of seeing someone who is looking for you jerks the mind out of the quagmire of self-pity and back into an attitude that this might just be possible.
After 10 miles, however, my brain began to go into hibernation. I ran progressively slower until I was running like a zombie. My eyes turned inward. I was punching a time clock. After his historic race, Roger Banister, the first person to run a mile in less than 4 minutes, said, “I just went on existing in the most passive physical state without being unconscious.” When I run, I begin to separate from this world and my body. As I think about the larger questions of life, however, I worry about my safety. For over an hour, I’m out of my body solving all the world’s problems and ignoring pain. Pain in my feet, pain in my shins, pain in my knees, pain in my side, pain in my neck, etc. I’m worried that when I get to the point where my body gives real signs of impending tragedy, those signs will also go unheeded. I’m worried that I might run right through the pain at the same pace forever until I die.
I didn’t feel like I was out of the woods until very near the end. Even the halfway point wasn’t much of an achievement for me. At the halfway point, I have over 13 miles left. When I was young, 13 miles was the distance at which places became far away. It was 13 miles from my home town of Newell, Iowa to Storm Lake, the nearest town of more than 800 people. At the time, I wouldn’t even imagine running to Storm Lake. The marathon is like running to Storm Lake and back again—insane!
I have this image of myself that I have a good kick, so I run quickly at the end. At Pittsburgh, even though I had run the preceding 3 miles averaging not 7, but 10 minutes per mile, I stubbornly continued by traditional burst of speed at the end. Such a finish caused terrible pain in my legs.
After the race, I hobbled around the finish area swallowing five cups of water. Maura met me outside the fence.
“Rub my legs!” I commanded. She was unsure what to do. “Please rub my legs.”
“Do you want some water?” She wanted to be helpful.
“Rub my legs!!!” I pleaded.
“Here, have a banana.” She didn’t understand.
I plopped down on the grass in the middle of the crowd and begged her, “Please, rub my legs.”
“Lay on this.” She spread a piece of plastic on the ground.
Soon, I joined the 30 people standing in line for massages. I’d never received one of these complimentary rubdowns before, but I was sure I could not survive without one this time. While others stood in line wearing humble expressions, showing signs of mild discomfort, I crawled on the ground beneath them writhing in agony. My eyes did not focus; I saw nothing but the nails being driven into my muscles.
I can always tell when people ask about the marathon whether they have run one. The folks who have run a marathon ask, “What was your time?” or “How’d you do?”
Others ask, “Did you win?”
When 2000 people are running the race, only a select few have a chance at winning. I’m happy to be one of the 1999 who don’t. The point is not to win, but to be in the race. To understand the marathon runner, one needs to appreciate the camaraderie inspired by enduring a great hardship together. They are members of a club that knows what it is like to run 26 miles. And there is really no way to approximate that experience without doing it.