My 13th Marathon Ended Up Being My Luckiest
How I outran my superstitions
At mile 18 of the Oakland Marathon, I’m over the hump—literally, the final major hill of the course—but I still have eight long miles to go. Catching my breath, I turn to the numbers, as I’m apt to do. But this time I look past my beeping Garmin and detailed training plan.
I instead concentrate on two figures: 18 and 8.
Not only do they represent in miles my journey so far and what’s to come, but they also happen to be my lucky numbers. In this precarious moment of the race, with “hitting the wall” a real threat, I tell myself, luck is my fuel.
For me, a child of Chinese immigrants, numbers have always held magical powers. I was born on 8/18, which in Cantonese sounds like prosper, sure to prosper. Adding my doubly blessed weight of 8 pounds, 8 ounces, my birth certificate had fortune written all over it.
Given my auspicious beginnings, I’ve embraced numerology since an early age. Besides favoring 8, I vigilantly avoid 4, which in Chinese is a homophone for death, and also adopt Western views toward 7 (lucky) and 13 (unlucky).
My multicultural superstitions manifested into an elaborate set of rules that to this day governs my basic actions, from when to rise from bed to how many energy gels to…
