Before I decided to run this marathon, there were a lot of goodbyes. I didn’t move or take a new job. This time, all of the goodbyes were caused by other people moving away while I chose to stay put. My friends, on the tough days, were my sense of purpose. Often what they wanted for me was what I did. Not that this is a bad thing! True friends and family reflect your own desires back to you, and want the very best for you. But what do you do, when they aren’t there, helping you figure out what that is? What do you do when everything you thought you counted on to help define you falls away and there you are alone?
Without really knowing it, I listened to myself. Running in the dark and cold I allowed these questions to exist and the pain of loneliness to move from my heart through my body. In many ways, I think it was the holy spirit that allowed me the grace to be patient through this time, that challenged me to run with loneliness rather than distract myself from it. It was as if God placed those long miles before me just to say “Stay with this.”
It was the most difficult journey of my life so far. To be without everything I knew and try to make sense of who I am, who I had become and what I really wanted. Those are not easy questions to answer. I am still trying to answer them.
I have found incredible grace here. Ways of encountering the holy I never dreamed of: red tailed hawks, indigo buntings, being lost, making choices, finding the strength to say “no” to people I love, and trusting myself when no one seemed to understand. I found new people who understood this part of my soul and deeper friendship with the friends who stayed with me through this. I found a way to let the quiet, the loneliness, and grief make space for new life. I found a way to just listen to myself, and to the God who calls me to simply be who I am, and follow my deepest desires wherever they will lead.
I found a way to accept myself and my path without depending on someone else to second the motion. While I still seek and need and love the companionship of great friends, I know now that if I am without those companions for awhile, God is still there.
It’s been over a month since the race concluded and I see now that dreams change. Somewhere in the midst of that race I knew I wasn’t going to finish in the 5 hour time goal I set for myself. In that same moment I knew that just finishing was going to be a tremendous success. Had I really known what I was in for, I might have stuck to “just finishing” as the goal.
That’s the thing about following your heart. You really never know what you’re in for when you start. You might have to let go of your previous vision of success and some of what you thought you needed to get there. It’s like setting off without a GPS or a map. You will inevitably get lost, but the beauty you will see by opening yourself to the guidance of your surroundings and the excitement of the adventure are worth the inconvenience. The journey really begins with the action of letting go.
02 June 2010
17 May 2010
Marathon Final
It’s hard for me to believe three weeks ago I was running a marathon. My body is pretty well recovered and I’ve moved on to yard work, gardening, short runs and bike rides. In many ways things have returned to normal.
But the marathon stays with me. In the past few days I realized the lessons and formation of these months of running were not over with the final exam of the race, and a grade of passing with a finishers medal. Like any great class, there is a lifetime of growing into these new ideas and applying the lessons.
The one that stays with me these days is the truth about pain. We humans do a lot to avoid pain. Everything from mindless over eating, to watching television, drugs, alcohol, working too much, sleeping or surrounding ourselves with noise and distraction. I understand this. Who wants to deal with pain? Who wants to go looking for it?
Endurance running, training really, for anything is all about pain. It’s all about being in pain and pushing past it. It’s finding a new threshold of what you can endure and reaching for a goal that lies beyond it. In my case, it was a finish line 6.2 miles beyond the worst pain I have ever experienced.
In the days since the marathon there have been left over loose ends, difficult situations, challenging relationships and questions of wrong and right that have nothing to do with running. Painful and messy problems and questions that just keep bubbling to the surface. The real marathon final exam.
Here is my answer. Pain is an inevitable part of life, whether we choose it, or it chooses us. It is uncomfortable and unpleasant and at times unbearable. When pain makes itself known, the easy answer is to run from it, or try to ignore it but pain always catches up, and eventually consumes us. The longer we ignore it or try to avoid it the more it takes over our actions.
I don’t want to be a person that lives with a fear of pain dictating my choices. I don’t want to live in pain either, but sometimes we just have to. I know now not only can I survive pain, I can find moments of grace in the midst of it. Perhaps when we are in the most pain, we are most aware of the smallest things that help us through it. A friend who listens, a well-timed cup of water, someone who will cheer for you by name. Pain, if we accept it as part of our journey and something we are conditioned to handle, won’t consume us. But first we need to accept it. We need to accept that it will test us; force us to be vulnerable, accept our limitations and to ask for and receive help.
My final answer to this marathon exam is pain is often far worse in our imagination and fear then it ever is in our reality. We are conditioned to handle so much. These painful, messy real life issues that have come up during this marathon don’t have a visible finish line right now. There are still difficult choices and unpleasant realities. I accept this pain is part of the process. I know now that I will endure it. I will find the moments of grace that carry me to the other side of the pain, a finish line of a life recovered and joy and celebration in growth. Pain is part of the journey. Only we can decide if it will have the final answer.
But the marathon stays with me. In the past few days I realized the lessons and formation of these months of running were not over with the final exam of the race, and a grade of passing with a finishers medal. Like any great class, there is a lifetime of growing into these new ideas and applying the lessons.
The one that stays with me these days is the truth about pain. We humans do a lot to avoid pain. Everything from mindless over eating, to watching television, drugs, alcohol, working too much, sleeping or surrounding ourselves with noise and distraction. I understand this. Who wants to deal with pain? Who wants to go looking for it?
Endurance running, training really, for anything is all about pain. It’s all about being in pain and pushing past it. It’s finding a new threshold of what you can endure and reaching for a goal that lies beyond it. In my case, it was a finish line 6.2 miles beyond the worst pain I have ever experienced.
In the days since the marathon there have been left over loose ends, difficult situations, challenging relationships and questions of wrong and right that have nothing to do with running. Painful and messy problems and questions that just keep bubbling to the surface. The real marathon final exam.
Here is my answer. Pain is an inevitable part of life, whether we choose it, or it chooses us. It is uncomfortable and unpleasant and at times unbearable. When pain makes itself known, the easy answer is to run from it, or try to ignore it but pain always catches up, and eventually consumes us. The longer we ignore it or try to avoid it the more it takes over our actions.
I don’t want to be a person that lives with a fear of pain dictating my choices. I don’t want to live in pain either, but sometimes we just have to. I know now not only can I survive pain, I can find moments of grace in the midst of it. Perhaps when we are in the most pain, we are most aware of the smallest things that help us through it. A friend who listens, a well-timed cup of water, someone who will cheer for you by name. Pain, if we accept it as part of our journey and something we are conditioned to handle, won’t consume us. But first we need to accept it. We need to accept that it will test us; force us to be vulnerable, accept our limitations and to ask for and receive help.
My final answer to this marathon exam is pain is often far worse in our imagination and fear then it ever is in our reality. We are conditioned to handle so much. These painful, messy real life issues that have come up during this marathon don’t have a visible finish line right now. There are still difficult choices and unpleasant realities. I accept this pain is part of the process. I know now that I will endure it. I will find the moments of grace that carry me to the other side of the pain, a finish line of a life recovered and joy and celebration in growth. Pain is part of the journey. Only we can decide if it will have the final answer.
06 May 2010
Life Beyond the Soreness
It’s been almost two weeks since the marathon. The soreness is only a memory and regular, post-marathon life has resumed in full force. There’s been work to catch up on, and to-do lists to handle. The novelty of talking about it has worn off. It’s as if the “been there, done that” mentality has set in. That’s how it’s supposed to be. It was a few hours and a few months of my life. They are over. Time to move on.
But when that soreness fades, one can find herself with a lot of questions. What’s next? Where do I go from here? There is an abundance of free time and no need to carbo-load or hydrate or even run. And yet, I’m just not ready to move right into another challenge. There’s a lot of wandering around and wondering. Now that I have crossed through that open gate and changed, how do I live? How do I continue to honor the experience and the person I have become through it?
I think these questions will stay with me for a while. But I have discovered something in the days beyond the marathon, amidst all the questions and aimless wandering through each day.
It started with my first, post-marathon run on Sunday afternoon. It was rainy, a dismal day. The timing tag was still on my shoes. I left it there and trudged out the door without enthusiasm for three miles. I had no expectations of this run, so I just let my body carry me through the familiar motions. It was just another routine run.
But something had changed. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s different since this race for the past week or so. It’s not confidence. I don’t have feelings of “I can take on the world, I have run a marathon (though I have joked in that manner to friends.)” The feeling is more like peace.
Yesterday morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw an indigo bunting sitting on the grass below my bird feeder. I gasped when I saw it. They are tiny, smaller than a sparrow but the brightest blue in creation. This tiny bird has a way of commanding attention with its spectacular color. I have only seen one at one other time in my life. The fact that it was hanging out in my yard felt like a small miracle. I watched it for an hour, flying back and forth, perching on the telephone wire and eating at the feeder.
Watching that indigo bunting I realized what changed is my faith. We never can tell when God will grab us, and invite us on a new journey. Grace happens in our routines, in every day moments. Like the bright blue indigo bunting it streaks across our vision and leaves us to stand there, staring with mouths agape at the splendor of holiness.
The post-marathon peace is a trust in God, and a trust in those invitations. I’ve realized my faith no longer needs answers or reasons. Just as I can’t control the indigo bunting in my yard, I can’t control when God will show up and invite me to something crazy, even painful. Something like a marathon. I am now open to those invitations and trust that they will come. Those three-mile runs that lead us to marathons and the indigo buntings that invite us to sit still with the questions and to remember that God will find us where we are, and invite us to deeper holiness. There is a sense of peace in knowing that, and knowing that all I have to do is say “yes.”
But when that soreness fades, one can find herself with a lot of questions. What’s next? Where do I go from here? There is an abundance of free time and no need to carbo-load or hydrate or even run. And yet, I’m just not ready to move right into another challenge. There’s a lot of wandering around and wondering. Now that I have crossed through that open gate and changed, how do I live? How do I continue to honor the experience and the person I have become through it?
I think these questions will stay with me for a while. But I have discovered something in the days beyond the marathon, amidst all the questions and aimless wandering through each day.
It started with my first, post-marathon run on Sunday afternoon. It was rainy, a dismal day. The timing tag was still on my shoes. I left it there and trudged out the door without enthusiasm for three miles. I had no expectations of this run, so I just let my body carry me through the familiar motions. It was just another routine run.
But something had changed. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s different since this race for the past week or so. It’s not confidence. I don’t have feelings of “I can take on the world, I have run a marathon (though I have joked in that manner to friends.)” The feeling is more like peace.
Yesterday morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw an indigo bunting sitting on the grass below my bird feeder. I gasped when I saw it. They are tiny, smaller than a sparrow but the brightest blue in creation. This tiny bird has a way of commanding attention with its spectacular color. I have only seen one at one other time in my life. The fact that it was hanging out in my yard felt like a small miracle. I watched it for an hour, flying back and forth, perching on the telephone wire and eating at the feeder.
Watching that indigo bunting I realized what changed is my faith. We never can tell when God will grab us, and invite us on a new journey. Grace happens in our routines, in every day moments. Like the bright blue indigo bunting it streaks across our vision and leaves us to stand there, staring with mouths agape at the splendor of holiness.
The post-marathon peace is a trust in God, and a trust in those invitations. I’ve realized my faith no longer needs answers or reasons. Just as I can’t control the indigo bunting in my yard, I can’t control when God will show up and invite me to something crazy, even painful. Something like a marathon. I am now open to those invitations and trust that they will come. Those three-mile runs that lead us to marathons and the indigo buntings that invite us to sit still with the questions and to remember that God will find us where we are, and invite us to deeper holiness. There is a sense of peace in knowing that, and knowing that all I have to do is say “yes.”
29 April 2010
The Finish
Eventually, I got there. And those wonderful marathon planners again exercised excellent, strategic placement of the finish line. I could see it for a few hundred feet after turning a corner. A few hundred feet, DOWNHILL. Of course, we all want to run fast to the end. I would have loved to pick up the pace and cross the finish line with gusto and a triumphant arm raise. The truth is, just making it to the finish was all that I could do. I smiled and waved at my friends who were already done and kept plugging away, one painful step at a time, to the end.
The announcer was just as enthusiastic for me as he was for the first few runners across the line (admittedly I wasn’t at the finish earlier, but I cannot imagine more enthusiasm.) I heard him yell my name and my hometown and let out a sigh of relief as I walked (hobbled) to get my medal and mylar blanket.
I met my friends at the end and waited for my sister. Every movement was painful and slow. I have never felt so happy to be done with anything as I was to be done with the marathon. It really is all about finishing. Just getting there takes so much grit and determination. The magnitude of the accomplishment hasn’t really hit me yet.
What did strike me as I crossed the line was the finish line is an open gate. You run through it to whatever is waiting for you at the end. Medals and mylar blankets and a good lunch and friends and family. But beyond that. My favorite quote during training was “There will be days I wonder if I can run a marathon, there will be a life time of knowing that I have.” My friends, my sister, and I were saying after the race, “Welcome to the lifetime.”
Welcome to the lifetime, indeed.
There are gates at the Oklahoma City Memorial that stand at either end of the site. They say 9:01 and 9:03 and represent the innocence of the city at 9:01 that morning, and the lives and a city changed forever after the bombing at 9:03 a.m.
The pain and suffering of that day has changed a city and all who visit it. It started a marathon of memories and hope. I wish that the events of April 19, 1995 had never happened. If I have learned anything from this race though, it’s that every major event, moments of pain and suffering, provide us with gateways to the lifetime beyond it. It’s up to us whether we go through those gateways, whether we endure suffering to find hope, whether we let people help us and push us and support us, and whether we believe enough in the power of love and hope to help others and thank them for being with us. Are we willing to let go of our old selves, to shed our perceived limitations and accept who we become through trials and tribulations? I hope I can do that. I know that the magnitude of the 26.2 miles and the events of the weekend changed me. I only hope I can honor those moments--letting love and hope and perseverance shine through--with my lifetime beyond the finish line.
Stay tuned…
The Agony
The marathon is by far, the hardest thing I have ever done. I have never been in as much physical pain as I was so much of that race. After running miles in the double digits, my feet are burning, my legs are tired and my hip flexors and IT Bands feel like snapped rubber bands. They are moving, but nothing is cushioning them or protecting them from the constant friction. But pain is one thing. The length of the pain is entirely another.
I think the grace of suffering in life is that we don’t often know the end point. So we are forced to take things one day at a time. I don’t want to minimize the hell that not knowing the end point can bring with it. It could go on forever. Or it couldn’t. The thing is, we just don’t know.
With a marathon, you know. You know the end point. You know at any given time (if a race is well marked) how far it is away and how long it may take you to get there. You know that you have 10 miles to go or 16 or even a seemingly small distance like 2 or 4. You know that you can’t stop until you complete every one of them and that it’s going to take a long time to do that. You know all of this at the same time you know that putting one foot in front of the other seems impossible right now. Much less for ________ more miles. You know that this pain isn’t getting better. There were times when I couldn’t imagine my legs and feet hurting worse than they did and I knew, somehow, they were going to. The only way for this to end was to go through more pain, for a long time, to get there.
Finding a will to finish even with all of the knowledge of how long it will take and how much it will continue to hurt is what makes a marathon so difficult. Why keep going? You pay to be here, you did all of this training, no one is making you do this race. Just sticking with training is accomplishment enough. So why go on? Fortunately I found a reason.
There were moments, when the magnitude of this race hit me. When I saw the name of one of the victims (just past mile 21), one who was on the news a lot in Milwaukee after the bombing, tears welled in my eyes. Not to mention the people I saw with shirts that said names and had pictures of who they were doing this for, parents, friends, siblings, husbands and wives, children…all victims with surviving families running this race. Or the firefighters in full gear who were walking the half. This was a race of hope. In a tiny, tiny way, my being there, and my running was a tribute to that hope. In the moments I remembered that, I remembered why I had to persevere and finish, not because it would be an accomplishment for me (at mile 22, if I could have had a cab, I would have said “screw accomplishment” and got inside) but because I believe that hope is stronger than any pain we feel. Therefore finishing was the only choice. Pain wasn’t going to win this time. Hope was. For me, and for all of the people there who believed in it. I had to keep going, to endure the agony, because this wasn’t about me. It was about hope.
I think the grace of suffering in life is that we don’t often know the end point. So we are forced to take things one day at a time. I don’t want to minimize the hell that not knowing the end point can bring with it. It could go on forever. Or it couldn’t. The thing is, we just don’t know.
With a marathon, you know. You know the end point. You know at any given time (if a race is well marked) how far it is away and how long it may take you to get there. You know that you have 10 miles to go or 16 or even a seemingly small distance like 2 or 4. You know that you can’t stop until you complete every one of them and that it’s going to take a long time to do that. You know all of this at the same time you know that putting one foot in front of the other seems impossible right now. Much less for ________ more miles. You know that this pain isn’t getting better. There were times when I couldn’t imagine my legs and feet hurting worse than they did and I knew, somehow, they were going to. The only way for this to end was to go through more pain, for a long time, to get there.
Finding a will to finish even with all of the knowledge of how long it will take and how much it will continue to hurt is what makes a marathon so difficult. Why keep going? You pay to be here, you did all of this training, no one is making you do this race. Just sticking with training is accomplishment enough. So why go on? Fortunately I found a reason.
There were moments, when the magnitude of this race hit me. When I saw the name of one of the victims (just past mile 21), one who was on the news a lot in Milwaukee after the bombing, tears welled in my eyes. Not to mention the people I saw with shirts that said names and had pictures of who they were doing this for, parents, friends, siblings, husbands and wives, children…all victims with surviving families running this race. Or the firefighters in full gear who were walking the half. This was a race of hope. In a tiny, tiny way, my being there, and my running was a tribute to that hope. In the moments I remembered that, I remembered why I had to persevere and finish, not because it would be an accomplishment for me (at mile 22, if I could have had a cab, I would have said “screw accomplishment” and got inside) but because I believe that hope is stronger than any pain we feel. Therefore finishing was the only choice. Pain wasn’t going to win this time. Hope was. For me, and for all of the people there who believed in it. I had to keep going, to endure the agony, because this wasn’t about me. It was about hope.
The Race
There are so many different things a person experiences in well over five hours of running. Most if it is pain (not an exaggeration!) I would say the marathon is a test of perseverance above all else. My legs did not feel great after mile 10. Less than the half way point. You have to find a way to get through all of those miles, the middle miles in a very long journey, without losing your mind.
This is not easy.
I had to focus on something other than the finish. The finish was too far away to seem attainable. Fortunately, there were many options. The first thing I did was focus on just getting to the next mile marker. This is where Oklahoma City shined with their marathon preparation. The mile markers (and even kilometer markers) were giant green and white flags that you could see for a few hundred feet. Genius. Each one was a sign of hope and as soon as I would see them, I would get a boost. I don’t think I walked past a single one. For the few hundred feet I could see each mile marker, I knew I could make it to that next point.
At mile 9, I turned to my sister and said “look, there it is, I was hoping for it.” Certain mile markers stood out more than others. Halfway, of course. Mile 16 (10 to go). Mile 18. Mile 18 was in a beautiful neighborhood and in addition to the green flags, there were permanent, beautiful mile marker signs with the survivor tree on them. This is also where the banners with the names of the victims began in earnest. I thought if I could just get to 20 I was through some of the hardest psychological miles of the race.
Mile 24. I saw mile 23 and it seemed like hours before I saw 24. I don’t know if that was “the wall” for me, but I do know that it was the longest mile in the entire race. It was on busy roads, in the sun, and it just took forever. I still think that mile not measured properly and I actually ran five miles between those two markers. I cheered when I went by 24 (at this point in the race a cheer was a quiet “yay” and half-hearted fist pump!) Other miles were memorable for their water stops, for what I was thinking and for where they were in the city. A marathon is a one-mile at a time race. I fought hard not to think about finishing it but just to think about getting to the next mile.
Another thing I focused on were the notes from friends. I had little index cards cut up that people wrote funny things or words of encouragement on. As it turns out, this was a brilliant idea (that I read in a book.) These notes were the best distraction. As it turns out, I have some really funny friends. Many, of course, were inside jokes. But many were words of wisdom and support and just generally funny. A few of the more universal marathon words that people wrote, are below this post. I used these notes as a reward for getting to a new mile. They also turned out to be a great way to think about the person who wrote them for a few minutes (therefore not thinking about how my legs and feet wanted to leave my body.)
------------------------- some words from the notes--------------------------
“what the hell are you doing reading this? Watch where you are going!”
“ I know you will be running along a path that the OKC victims onee walked/ran/drove. They cannot take that path any longer, but you can take it for them, and that is special. Keep running!”
“I’ve learned that finishing a marathon isn’t just an athletic achievement. It’s a state of mind; a state of mind that says anything is possible.”
“You had a blue moo cookie dough milkshake. You have enough energy for three marathons.”
“Jillian [Michaels] has nothing on you. You rock!”
and countless others….
“You have tasted a variety of artificially created goo flavors, only to still feel like your are eating horribly flavored toothpaste.”
This is not easy.
I had to focus on something other than the finish. The finish was too far away to seem attainable. Fortunately, there were many options. The first thing I did was focus on just getting to the next mile marker. This is where Oklahoma City shined with their marathon preparation. The mile markers (and even kilometer markers) were giant green and white flags that you could see for a few hundred feet. Genius. Each one was a sign of hope and as soon as I would see them, I would get a boost. I don’t think I walked past a single one. For the few hundred feet I could see each mile marker, I knew I could make it to that next point.
At mile 9, I turned to my sister and said “look, there it is, I was hoping for it.” Certain mile markers stood out more than others. Halfway, of course. Mile 16 (10 to go). Mile 18. Mile 18 was in a beautiful neighborhood and in addition to the green flags, there were permanent, beautiful mile marker signs with the survivor tree on them. This is also where the banners with the names of the victims began in earnest. I thought if I could just get to 20 I was through some of the hardest psychological miles of the race.
Mile 24. I saw mile 23 and it seemed like hours before I saw 24. I don’t know if that was “the wall” for me, but I do know that it was the longest mile in the entire race. It was on busy roads, in the sun, and it just took forever. I still think that mile not measured properly and I actually ran five miles between those two markers. I cheered when I went by 24 (at this point in the race a cheer was a quiet “yay” and half-hearted fist pump!) Other miles were memorable for their water stops, for what I was thinking and for where they were in the city. A marathon is a one-mile at a time race. I fought hard not to think about finishing it but just to think about getting to the next mile.
Another thing I focused on were the notes from friends. I had little index cards cut up that people wrote funny things or words of encouragement on. As it turns out, this was a brilliant idea (that I read in a book.) These notes were the best distraction. As it turns out, I have some really funny friends. Many, of course, were inside jokes. But many were words of wisdom and support and just generally funny. A few of the more universal marathon words that people wrote, are below this post. I used these notes as a reward for getting to a new mile. They also turned out to be a great way to think about the person who wrote them for a few minutes (therefore not thinking about how my legs and feet wanted to leave my body.)
------------------------- some words from the notes--------------------------
“what the hell are you doing reading this? Watch where you are going!”
“ I know you will be running along a path that the OKC victims onee walked/ran/drove. They cannot take that path any longer, but you can take it for them, and that is special. Keep running!”
“I’ve learned that finishing a marathon isn’t just an athletic achievement. It’s a state of mind; a state of mind that says anything is possible.”
“You had a blue moo cookie dough milkshake. You have enough energy for three marathons.”
“Jillian [Michaels] has nothing on you. You rock!”
and countless others….
“You have tasted a variety of artificially created goo flavors, only to still feel like your are eating horribly flavored toothpaste.”
28 April 2010
The Start
I don’t know if there is ever more energy anywhere at an insane hour of the morning, than there is at a marathon starting line. I left my hotel at 5:30 a.m. When I got into the elevator, charged up people in running shoes were already headed to the lobby where people were drinking coffee, chatting, and generally looking like it was Sunday after church, not Sunday at 5:30 before we were all going to run a long way.
As we ambled through the darkened streets of downtown, towards the starting line, the crowds and energy only increased. It was as if people were coming out of every building, wearing race numbers, to join the crowds on the street. It was all kinds of people. Short, tall, fat, thin, old, young, people who looked like runners (not me) and people who didn’t. 22 thousand people eventually found their way to 4th and Robinson, right outside the gates of the lighted memorial. 22 thousand participants and countless thousands of spectators. All ready to go by 6 in the morning.
The four of us who came together met left my dad to make our way to the starting corral. Seeing the line of people packed shoulder to shoulder and sidewalk to sidewalk for multiple city blocks brought tears to my eyes. There I was, one anonymous person in an enormous event easily lost in the sea of tech gear, race numbers and running shoes. A celebration that brings thousands of people out of their beds, out of their states (all 50 of them) and out of their comfort zones to run, to volunteer, and to watch on one day, together. I can’t help but think how amazing it is that 22 thousand people, for their own reasons, decided to run in Oklahoma City that day. I knew three of them. Yet I was connected, simply by being there, to everyone. We were all running the same course, on the same day. We were all gathered here, in the space of a few city blocks to see the sun rise while we ran. No matter how fast, we were all running the same route. We were following in the footsteps not only of those who ran before us, but of each other. It’s exciting and it’s overwhelming. No wonder as the 22 K runners plus countless spectators (a number totaling beyond 30k I am sure) silenced themselves for one hundred and sixty-eight seconds (a second for every victim) I couldn’t help but let a few tears fall down my face. This was the beginning of a journey we would all share, but we stood in silence to remember.
The starting horn blew soon after and the sea of people in front of me inched forward. My sister and I slowly made our way to the start line (taking nearly 15 minutes in an already long event!) I heard the beeps of my sister and my timing chips as we crossed the official race start. We were on our way.
With each step through the first few miles I was a bit overwhelmed by what I had undertaken. This was the beginning. It was the beginning of a long way to go and it was exciting. It was exciting to see the people gathered here. To be, for just a few minutes, running with everyone else who was running this race. It was the first few miles that I took it all in. I was running a marathon. I got there. I made it, in tact, to the starting line.
The beginning of the race was the most scenic. It brought us through Bricktown (right past our hotel again!) and past the capital building. We turned into pretty neighborhoods and wove up and down hills. We saw runners and walkers alike.
The most memorable sight in the first few miles was the two firefighters. They were in full gear. Helmets, oxygen tanks, coats, boots, everything. I would find out later they were walking the half. Images of fire fighters on ladders, pulling people out of the debris flashed before me. Whether these two were rescue workers on this day 15 years ago or not, their presence that day was a tribute to the strength of the city and the lives saved that day.
This was the beginning of the race. Before the elite runners would separate themselves from the pack, and before half marathons and 5k runners turned off to continue their own courses. It was my favorite part. Not just because the energy and spirits were high, but because we were all together running and walking, doing our best to follow the same path to the finish line.
It was here, not at the end, that I absorbed the energy. That I took in all of the atmosphere and excitement. Before the marathon is about perseverance, it’s about excitement and a sense of wonder and adventure. It’s that energy that is the most fun and it’s that energy that leads to the strength to finish. The wonder and excitement is what overrules the doubt and fear to lure people into training in the first place. In the beginning I couldn’t help but think “I only hope I am willing to keep following those wonderings right through doubt and fear after this, because where they lead you is worth the risk.” I also knew in that beginning, that it was in the first few miles more than anywhere that I had to trust I would be able to handle whatever difficulty and struggle came my way.
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