It’s Sunday, April 18th, 2010. In a little more than 12 hours, I’ll wake up to what most folks in the U.S. would call April the 19th, but folks in Massachusetts, as well as Maine and — strangely — Wisconsin call Patriots’ Day.
Here in Massachusetts, Patriots’ Day is more widely known as Marathon Monday — the annual running of The Boston Marathon, distance racing’s most hallowed event. As a kid growing up on the Marathon course, I went to see the thousands of runners pass through my home town every April. I remember seeing local heros Bill Rogers and Alberto Salazar duelling it out before a wave of Kenyans pretty much took over the winner’s podium starting in the late 1980s. Then there were the waves and waves of runners who came behind the leaders –sometimes wayyy behind them: ordinary folks grinding it out along Route 16. Sweating, getting rained and snowed on — all with that distinctive runner’s stare: both determined and vacant. Its the look you get when you’re pushing yourself and at the same time trying really hard not to think about it too much, I’ve since learned.
Just out of college, I worked from an office on Boylston Street blocks from the finish line and would bring my camera to work on Patriots’ day, taking photos of the runners after they crossed the finish line: medals dangling forgotten around their neck, wrapped in mylar and wandering the streets of the Back Bay like wounded soldiers.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I told myself then that I would run this race, too, though, at the time, I couldn’t run much more than a city block without becoming winded. Fifteen years later, and here I am: preparing to run my first Boston Marathon tomorrow, after qualifying to run the race in October. Though this will be my third full marathon, it will also be the hardest marathon course I’ve run. And, with over 25,000 people taking part, the largest field of runners I’ve been a part of. At 40 years old, I’m also wrestling with the reality that my body is aging. My training for Boston has illuminated that unfortunate trend all too well. Pulled hamstrings, sore calved and gimpy knees have plagued me at various points in the last four months as never before. I took two weeks off of running altogether at one point in the vain hope that it would make the pain go away before I realized, with dismay, that running with a certain amount of discomfort might just be my new “normal.” After I wrapped my head around that, things have gone along swimmingly.
All these are reasons, perhaps, to be concerned about what awaits me on the course tomorrow – but I’m not. At the end of the day, Marathons are the quintessential democratic (small d) sporting event.
The men and women who actually compete to win Boston and other major races are super human. They’re not even from planet earth — tearing along doing 4:30 minute or 5:00 minute miles. I have a better chance of going deep against Josh Beckett at Fenway with a Wiffle Ball bat than I do of keeping up with Deriba Merga or Ryan Hall from the starting line to Ashland. I mean, I feel like I’m pretty fast for my age, and I was damned proud to run a BQ (Boston Marathon qualifying time) six months ago. But, let’s face it, I’m still crossing the finish line next to guys with man-breasts, so how speedy could I be, really?
Put the 300 or so uberrunners who actually have a shot aside, and the other 24,700 of us out there are just trying to do our best – live up to our own expectations, reach some personal flag that we’ve planted in the plains of our lives, or send a message to our kids that they can accomplish anything — and those are all great reasons to do this. At the end of the day, I love running and the other runners I’ve met and trained with.
I love the weird calm that comes over me when I’m out running long distances, and the strange little mental games I’ve invented to make them seem not so long. I like the challenge of training — the beardsicles and frozen fingers and chaffed nipples. I love the fact that I don’t get sick anymore and can eat whatever the hell I want without feeling guilty.
Tomorrow, I’ll run 26.2 miles through my home town and past friends and family and thousands of strangers cheering me on. Assuming I don’t lose control of my bowels or keel over with rippling muscle spasms, I’ll cross the finish line at some point and, even if its not my best time, I know I’ll have done something big that day — run the Boston Marathon and shared a bit of history with Rogers and Salazar and so many other amazing runners. I’ll have achieved a lifelong goal — and that’s more than most Mondays have in store for me. I’ll take it!
