The first time I told myself to shut the fuck on that day came when I saw the young woman running with two artificial legs. Quit bitching, complaining, belly aching, pissing and whining and run, just shut the fuck up and run I said aloud in my head.
I was beginning my 8th mile, she was starting upon her 4th. The sun had yet to break between the omnipresent lingering black clouds, the obstinate fog still unburned. Storms of the previous evening had strewn mud across the race course and cast a shroud over this morning that was unable to rouse itself from the hangover of its tempestuous midnight.
This, my first half marathon, was the only time I had run this particular course, either alone or with 1500 other runners. We were to go 6 1/2 miles out, turn around and run 6 1/2 miles back. My strategy had been to take mental notes of the trees and structures, formations and landmarks on the first half of the journey so that I would recognize them upon returning thus creating an idea of my progress and position on latter half this expedition.
The weather conditions pretty much kibashed that plan right down the toilet. It was highly disorienting to be in a pack of runners where the visibility fades into dank fog after 30 feet. Compounding my befuddlement was the fact that in the predawn preparation for the race, my wallet, cash, credit card, drivers license and cel phone had fallen out of my preset running attire and were sitting safely on the floor by the sofa in the living room.
This fact remained unbeknownst to me until after I had made the hour drive from home and arriving at the little town in west Georgia where the race to be run. Whereupon I also realized that the needle on the gas gauge was nearing E. I resisted the temptation to being chanting the mantra 'Oh Fuck Me' repeatedly and ad nauseam.
With all things considered, at somewhere around the 4th mile of the race, I saw a young man, limping, clenching his ribs, spitting into the dirt and wearing one of the biggest eat shit and die scowls I have ever seen. At that moment I made a resolution and said to myself:
'I don't know what is going to happen today, but there is no way in hell I'm going to become that guy.'
It was unfolding to be truth of what the old man in the grocery store wearing running shoes and a Peachtree Road Race T-shirt (a huge running event here in Atlanta) had said to me many months earlier; 'You have to go out and run a half marathon kid. It will change your life. Once you cross that finish line for the first time, you'll never be the same again.'
I have always loved running, but the problem becomes when you have trod the same paths over and over and over again, familiarity breeds the shit out of a whole bunch of contempt and you yearn to traverse new vistas. When they don't immediately appear is when we starting hanging up our shoes, saying my race has been run, plopping down on the sofa to watch TV, drink beer and slowly proceed to die. We become entranced and spiral into a fading desire to reveal the next adventures that would take us beyond ourselves exposing the infinity of the potential of our human spirit when fueled by acceptance of the divine spark that put us here to discover how awesome of a species we are and can potentially become.
It was somewhere around the 10th mile that the sun began to emerge from behind the pallourous canvas of clouds, the mists lifting, the forests and hills materializing while the cramps in my legs and fire in my lungs became no longer ignorable. I was beginning to hit 'The Wall.'
"The Wall' can be the most foreboding monsterous son of a bitch ever. It is a state of pain and self doubt. A maschochist that will deconstruct limb from limb every false self confidence you ever held. A tyrant that doesn't care how much poached salmon, whole wheat pasta and steamed broccoli you've eaten for the past several months, how many miles you've run or how much spirulina and Co-enzyme Q-10 you've sucked down each morning with pathetic ass soy milk and cucumber juice in preparation for this event. It proclaimed to me quite loudly on that morning; you buddy are just like the rest of us burger snorting, fried potato huffing heathen that may someday fall victim to your heart imploding to shreds, lungs seizing up gasping your last and disintegrating brain capillaries spurting an endless domino effect that spells your untimely demise well before any well laid plans and profound realizations before the great end-it-all. You may be Superman but your just as fragile as the rest of us.
That is, in so many words, what the wall said to me for three excruciating quarters of a mile before I found a way to climb over it. I hate the son of a bitch 'Wall.' In retrospect, it was my best friend.
I began to gather myself to turn my limping back into a run. I have no clue in those moments about the state of my blood pressure, glucose levels, lactic acid saturation or rate of respiration but I can tell you that I began to hallucinate. As I resumed my running pace, I saw the ghost of my mother appear levitating in the air before. She said, 'Don't you do anything to hurt my little boy.' I said, 'Yes ma'am, I'll be careful.' and I began to cry.
For the next mile and half I ran and cried and ran and cried. Then I began to look down at my legs in motion upon the earth. I started laughing and said aloud 'How the hell are you doing that?'
Two women running together passed me. They said,
Oh God it hurts
Oh God
Do you want
to stop?
No God No.
Moments later I ran past them. One was limping, the other was carrying her.
Do you need
to stop?
Yes.
Sit here.
No God No
We have to
keep on.
This scene repeated itself until the finish line was finally at merciful last within eyeshot.
Something took hold of me and I exploded in a flash of speed and excelleration for the last quarter mile. Limbs astride the air and earth, blood and oxygen in perfect coordination, a dance of mercurial transcendence until I crossed the finish line at 2 hours and 41 minutes. I raised my eyes heavenward, placed my hands in a prayer and mouthed a silent 'thank you.' A chorus of church ladies saw me and shouted, 'That's Right Brother! Praise The Lord For He Is Great! Amen Brother Amen!'
As everyone slowly made their back to their cars, I saw the two ladies. We greeted each other as if we were long lost siblings. They said to me that when it looked as if never see the end of the race, they would see me.
no matter
what happened
you
kept going
no matter
how bad
you
kept going
you
inspired us
to finish
without
you
I
would
have sat
down
and died
During the drive home, I was pleading to not arrive to a gasless farting stumble by the side of the road, ending in a collapse and pray for some good Samaritan to find me, scrape my sorry ass off the pavement and deliver me to the nearest homeless shelter. By some miracle parallel to the homily of the menorah I made it home by the fumes of my gas tank to my thoroughly distraught wife who greeted me with tears, a hug, my wallet and cel phone.
She took me upstairs where I sat on the edge of the tub and she drew me the best hot bath I've ever had in my whole wretched blessed life. I was tired beyond logic and cried once again. I had been lost as a nameless blind man in a foreign desert, spent out of prayers and fortitude, devoid of identity, absent of power or means to communicate my inability to find my way back home.
My heart had not exploded nor were my shins and femurs shattered. By perseverance, extension of good will to others along the path and faith in the unseen magnetism that bonds the weaving of this tapestry of our lives, I had returned here once again, to the family I prayed for in the place that I belong. For where there is life there is always hope and beyond life there is a place for us all called home.
All my love always,
Max
No comments:
Post a Comment