So there I was, hitting the wall hard. I was 24 miles into it and was experiencing muscle cramps everywhere. Only the hair on my head was left not in pain. My legs, which I once thought strong, were now virtually useless. They moved, and I kept running along, but I could not feel them. I was dehydrated and tired. I wanted nothing to do, but stop. Stopping would only hurt more. So I kept on running. Finally, I saw the big Citco sign, and remembering what my friend Matt had told me I knew it was only another mile to the finish. Looking side to side, I could see the anguish in the faces around me. We were all in the same painful boat.
A year ago, I said I’d never do it again. I’d never run those painful 26.2 miles through the heart of “Bean Town.” I am talking about the Boston Marathon. This coming Monday is Patriot’s day in Massachusetts and is also the 2002 Boston Marathon. A year ago, I was prepped to run those miles. This year I am not and will be missing it greatly. Immediately after finishing last year, I told myself never again would I put my body through the horrors of that race. Only to find myself a week later wanting to do it again. Why this is, I cannot to this day understand. There is something strange about people who run. No one really likes to start running, even runners, I’ll admit it. It is the feeling of finishing and looking behind you to see the ground you covered, that makes people run. It is the accomplished feeling one derives from the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other at a rapid pace for a prolonged amount of time and distance, which drives most people to continue.
It is still strange that a person would get together with 20,000 other people and run from one point to another 26 miles away. It is stranger still that someone like me, who had never run a road race longer than 5 kilometers long before would decide to train for and run the Boston Marathon. I finished in a time of roughly 3 hours and 50 minutes. I still consider it the greatest physical accomplishment of my life. As I had said before, immediately following the race, my cramped legs told me to never do it again. The week of limping afterward told me not to do it again. The dehydrated state I laid in for three days following told me not to do it again. Was it my inner voice that somehow gave me the idea to run another one? Or was it the shirt in my Drawer with the Boston Athletic Association logo and the words “Boston Marathon” on the sleeve that enticed me to consider the idea of running another 26.2 grueling miles? Whatever it was, I kept running. However, I fell off track for other pursuits (climbing, graduating, staying financially solvent) that took me away from the amount of training that a race of that magnitude requires. I am not running this Monday, but my heart and mind will be there. I want to be running. I want to be there with the pain and the dehydration. I want to hear the hoards cheering as runners pass by. I want to hear the deafening screams of the girls of Wellesley as I run through the gauntlet of those excited female race fans. And I want to cross that line again, look up and know that I just pushed my body to its absolute limit, but remained standing.
Running the last mile with legs that almost refused to bend any longer, I could see the people around cheering. They were cheering for me, and the people around me. They were not cheering because we were breaking records, but because we were breaking ourselves. We had the courage to start something most will never get to experience. To go along with that courage, we had the determination and the will to finish what we had started. Six months of running in the snow, rain, and wind had paid off as I crossed that line. I thought about the diet planning and the running logs, and the 3 sets of shoes I had worn out to get here. I thought about the monstrous bowl of pasta I had eaten in the North End the night before and how it had helped me get here. Finally, I thought about that step I took 3 hours and 50 minutes ago, forward over the starting line, thinking about how wonderful I would feel if I could finish.