Pre-Race: I stood in the plaza with about 2,000 other people, my anxiety mounting. Would I be able to finish? Would I collapse and fall to the ground? Would I injure myself? Would I get a side stitch that would keep me from running? Would I have to go to the bathroom so bad that I’d have to duck into some stranger’s house and beg to use their toilet? Would I be the very last person to finish the race?
The anxiety I was experiencing is the same I get when I fly on an airplane over the ocean or when I have to drive in snow. And it occurred to me, as I was stretching and feeling anxious, that if life is becoming more crowded, one way to pare things down is to not do things that cause anxiety. Like running a ten mile race. “This will be the last year I run this race,” I decided.
Miles 0 to 3: I spent an enormous amount of brain power wondering if they would have port-a-potties anywhere along the route. I also mis-remembered the number of hills. There are three hills…but there are three in the first three miles alone. And all of them are kind of steep.
Miles 3 to 4: Finally, I start to feel good. “I just needed to warm my legs up,” I think. I grab a cup of water from some volunteers, splash a little on my face, and start a new playlist on my iPod. A few people who live in the houses we’re passing have their sprinklers out for the runners. And I run through them. It feels awesome.
Mile 5: Oh. I was feeling good back there because we were more or less running in the shade. Downhill. Now there is no shade. And we’re on a straight away. And it’s super humid out. And no one has their sprinkler out. It’s almost 80 degrees, and wet the way I remember summers in Washington D.C. were when I was growing up. And Washington, D.C. is built on a swamp. I make a volunteer on the side of the road pour water straight from the jug over my head.
Mile 6: Uphill. A long uphill. I can’t do it. It’s just too hot. I start walking. Amazingly, I am still keeping pace with many of the fine and fit people around me. They are either also walking or jogging so slow they might as well be walking. Mile 6 actually crosses the road I live off of. I briefly entertain the idea of making a right instead of a left and jogging the .5 mile home. I can then take off my bib-number, relax, and ride my bike up to the car later in the day, after the race is long over. Instead, I reach the top of the hill and turn left, where there is a water stand. I grab some, gulp, and splash the rest right in my face. Then I start running again, feeling strong. At the end of the mile, there are two ambulances, sirens screaming. A runner has been sidelined–from the looks of it, it’s from the heat. An EMT stands close by with a stretcher.
Mile 7: I forgive myself and start walking again. I try to remember why I dismissed turning right and going home in mile 6. Around mile 7.5, just before the beginning of the last and steepest hill, I notice port-a-potties. But I’m now too tired and probably too dehydrated to use them. About half way up the hill, a man passing me asks me what the back of my t-shirt says. “AIDs Kills. Protect Yourself,” I tell him. It’s written in Portuguese. He jogs (super slowly) passed and I wonder about that conversation for the rest of the mile. Is my t-shirt offensive?
Mile 8: I’m running again but I may be delirious. I mistake a parking meter on the side of the street for a person cheering the runners on. There’s another sidelined runner. She’s lying on someone’s lawn, her legs curled up towards her chest, and a policeman is talking to her. I become obsessed with seeing the Mile 9 marker. “Where is the Mile 9 marker? Where is the Mile 9 marker?” Finally, I see the Mile 9 marker, and I’ve turned my iPod low enough so I can hear the split time. He calls it out and I realize even if I walk the last mile, I’ll still somehow miraculously finish the race in the time I’d hoped to.
Mile 9: I walk. I run. I walk. I run again. My toes start to hurt. But I notice that my knees are hanging in there. Other than being super tired, super hot, and super stiff, I feel OK. I’m still with a lot of the same people I’ve been with since around mile 5. They are walking/running too, or else they are running so slowly that they really don’t pull too far ahead of me. I decide to take my iPod off altogether. I want to hear the people around me. We pass a police woman monitoring traffic about .5 mile from the finish line. We’ve passed a dozen other police during the race who said nothing, who did not clap, who did not change the expressions on their faces as we passed. But this police woman–she claps her hands above her head, even. She shouts out, “You did it, you did it, you’re almost there.” So I charge ahead. I turn the corner and see the finish line and someone has written on the street in chalk “400 meters to go.” 400?? Good lord. That seems kind of far…..”You can do it, you can do it, this is what you’ve been waiting for,” I tell myself. “Pretend every cheer you hear is for you.”
Finish: Somehow I cross the finish line. My t-shirt is drenched. I grab two bottles of water and walk around a bit. The line for food is too long. The clock on one of the office buildings downtown reads 78 degrees. Every part of my body is stiff. I decide I definitely deserve ice cream tonight. Major ice cream. Perhaps even a really decadent flavor. Because I finished. I FINISHED!
And depending on the weather, I may even run that race again next year…..
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Red Lipstick Runner 