At the Finish Line of a Race I’ll Never Run
Reflections upon arriving at a different destination
It’s arguably the world’s most famous finish line.
Right on Hereford…left on Boylston…and you cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It’s a dream destination for countless runners, one that only a fraction will ever reach.
I didn’t arrive there by running 26.2 miles from Hopkinton on Patriots’ Day. I took a different route, motivated by an alternate ambition — a journey that took me through every state in the U.S. But my odyssey was, in its way, as consuming as the effort to qualify for and finish the Boston Marathon.
I’d been competing in races close to home for many years when I traveled to my first destination race — the 2013 Nike Women’s Half Marathon in Washington, D.C. The Nike races in California were top-notch events; when they branched out to the East Coast, I signed up right away. A 13.1-mile tour on foot past many of the nation’s landmarks, a Tiffany necklace in lieu of a finisher’s medal — it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
By the next year, after combining a business trip to Salt Lake City with Utah’s Big Cottonwood Half, I was hooked — traveling to races was addictive. Soon I joined the 50 States Half Marathon Club, intent on completing a half marathon in…
