Marathon

Around me, stood about forty people. It seemed that all of them had bulging muscles. They pulled their limbs about, this way and that, stretching. I looked down at my own thighs, hopefully, but they seemed to be drooping under pressure. Without thinking I sprang down and tried in vain to touch my toes.

A woman with a megaphone approached us. I stopped stretching, these sorts of people demand attention. “The secret to this course,” She said, conspiratorially, “Is that it is 26.2 miles long.” I started fumbling with my Garmin watch, knowing what this was accumulating to. I saw her pull out a gun. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived in Alaska, when you see one, you start running. Before I knew it, we were off. A herd of forty people who looked like they’d never seen a carb in their life, and me, who subsists mostly off of Kraft macaroni, and my god send running buddy Kayla.

The forty of us started as a gaggle. Apparently we all read the same article about not overdoing it at the start. Headphones in, I focused on not focusing on how long I would be running. This would be great. I told myself, preemptively imaging the finish line and a victory waffle at my favorite restaurant.

We had made it to the top of the first hill, and my stomach was doing backflips. I can run through this. I thought of all the training, especially Saturday morning training runs where my stomach was not as willing as I was to hit the pavement. But my stomach overwhelmed every positive thought I was capable of. I found myself puking into the grass on the left. The gaggle, being that I was only a half mile in, had not had time to dissipate into small factions. My forty chiseled peers looked on in horror, audibly sighing their pity. My eyes were wide, as surprised as them. What happened?

I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was puke and rally. I joined the race again at the back of the pack. Kayla gave me a back rub and we were off. I felt great. Whatever had been holding me back was clearly gone and I kept on going, running down the Douglas Island highway. I had done most of my training runs along this road. I knew it like an old friend. I passed the usual landmarks- my house, the bridge to Juneau, the skunk cabbage, the dense forest that always left me convinced a bear was lurking, and the place where my own company’s bus had almost hit me when it swerved dangerously into the margins of the road. Ah, memories.

I passed the port-a-potty at mile two and kept going. I felt great. The stomach issue was behind me in a bush somewhere. All until about a half a mile later. When I realized that a toilet was exactly what I needed. Now. Slowing my pace, I tried to remember what the Megaphone lady had said. One was coming up at mile four? It took every ounce of endurance I saved up to make it to mile four, which was depressingly free of a port a potty. So I kept going. Mile 6? Toilet-free zone. Morale was low. I keep putting one foot in front of the other; there had to be a toilet ahead somewhere. How was I in this much pain so early on in the race? Maybe I was sick? I hadn’t trained for this.

I thought of calling Collin to pick me up. It ran across my mind: an out. But all the miles of training played like a tape in my mind. I had told so many people that I was going to run. What would happen if I had to tell them I couldn’t?

My whole relationship with running came gushing back. How slow and ungainly I am. Trying and failing to run track and cross country. Feeling un-athletic, looking un-athletic, convincing myself that I just wasn’t capable of running. The chorus of people over the years who told me I look hilarious when I run.

I thought of how I started running, really started. How it stuck in Japan because I desperately needed something. Something to keep me warm when it was so bitterly cold, something to get me outside after learning to endure eight hour work days, something to remind me to be happy when things seemed bleak. Running became like a theatrical training session. I could keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when my feet were very, very heavy, even when it felt like where I was going was so far away.

Mile 8. With a sunbeam shining down on the port-a-potty, a chorus of angels erupted into Hallelujah. If you have never run six miles while trying not to poop your pants, I suggest you avoid it. Or don’t. I walked out of that toilet a new woman. I started to soar. Which was a good thing since I found myself in last place. The marathon, which was originally appealing because it was a way to run with other people who loved running, had swept past me. I found myself alone on the windy road. Just like all the miles and miles I had run before on this same course.

Suddenly the trees and houses around me disappeared and a panorama opened up in front of me. The ocean, a deep, glistening blue, with mountains shooting out of it. The glacier that I spent everyday paddling to lay large and conspicuous among the mountaintops. I almost started to cry, remembering why I loved running- it put you directly in the way of beauty. Like a dream, I stared at the dolphins who appeared out of the oceanic expanse, swimming and diving ahead. I felt unstoppable. I picked up speed and passed a runner and a particularly agile speed walker. I got closer and closer to the dolphins. I squinted. The squinted harder. Ducks. They were ducks, not dolphins. Still, couldn’t ask for better weather.

I reached the halfway point and caught back up to Kayla. She was running with a middle-aged man who was currently on his 80th marathon. He explained that the man who held the record for running the most marathons in the world was running that day, he had already completed over 2,000. Another man, with a beer belly and long gray hair, was on his fifth marathon this week. All the muscles around me began to make sense. The speed-walker, who passed me again, had walked over five hundred marathons.

“You guys are awesome” The middle aged companion said. “The first marathon is definitely the best!” Kayla and I looked at each other. If this was the tip top of marathon running, what would cause someone to want to run 79 more?

The second half of the marathon was slow and tedious, but much better than the intestinal trauma of the first half. I always thought that if I ever ran a marathon, it would be at the physical peak of my life. I would be, the best, most athletic version of myself, that would ever walk this earth. But what I learned on July 29th, is that the opposite is true. I felt barely capable of movement. Blinking was hard, as big drops of sweat seemed to make holding my eyelids open seemingly impossible. I dragged, cajoled, used reverse psychology, and half hearted pats on the back to get my body, so big and slow and clumsy, to keep moving forward.

I saw the landscapes in reverse, where I almost got hit by a bus, where the bears were likely having a pow wow, the skunk cabbage, the bridge, my house. The finish line was two miles away. Two miles, that was nothing.

The history of the marathon was in the back of my mind as I ran those final few miles. The soldier Pheidippides ran from Marathon, Greece to Athens after a battle, completing about 25 miles. Being untrained and middle aged, he ran to tell the Athenians of the defeat of the Persians. He ran into town, yelled “Victory” before keeling over and dying. It sounded about right.

I crossed the finish line, tears in my eyes because people were waiting for me, with signs and hugs, looking as disbelieving as I felt. Tears at the idea that I had done something that I never would have imagined myself capable of and of course a few tears about the horrible idea that someday I might get so addicted to these that I’d have to run five in one week.

Running. It’s not a hobby I ever imagined for myself. But I’m so proud of all of the miles that my sneakers (which probably need to be replaced…) have seen. I’m grateful to have found a way to spend time that has taught me how to endure and power ahead when things get tough, and a hobby that has shown me what if feels like, in the best of times, to fly. Maybe someday, miles and miles ahead of me, I’ll fit in with my beefy, sculpted marathon counterparts, or more likely, I’ll just learn how to race without throwing up a half mile in. Either way, I’m in it for the long haul.