The Marathon

This past Sunday, my husband ran the Austin Marathon. This is the story of that day.

The participants
My husband -- the runner

My brother -- race support team member, comic relief

My sister-in-law -- fellow marathoner, race support team member, the brains of the outfit

Me -- the wife, designated navigator
The kids -- the encouraging progeny

5:45am
The runner and his race support team head downtown for the start of the race. Confidence is high. So is the humidity.

6:55am
I leave the house with the children - late. We drive downtown to rendezvous with the race support team at (or near) mile 2, where we discover that parking is scarce downtown on marathon day.

7:00am, Mile 0
The race begins.

7:20am, Somewhere downtown
I locate the race support team and finally find a parking spot. We missed the runner at mile 2, but we are ready to catch him at mile 8.

Mile 8
The under-dressed children (who remind me, "Mom, you told us to wear shorts!"), now clad in borrowed long-sleeved shirts, cease shivering and are ready for Daddy with camera and hand-made signs.

We are looking for the runner, scanning the crowd for his white shirt. Suddenly he appears (in his grey shirt, not his white shirt, which he has already stripped because it is dang warm & humid), flying past us as he tosses his watch to the boy. Race spectating is a weird business.

Mile 12.5
We are waiting at the crest of a doozy of a hill. We are rethinking the message we have written on our dry-erase sign ("You're not slow, you're just enjoying the course"), judging that the folks coming up this hill are in no mood for humor.

We spot our runner reach the bottom of the hill. As he makes his way upwards toward our position, my brother, ever the motivator, approaches him to yell at him to get moving. When he reaches the top of the hill, as we shout words of encouragement and woo-hoos, he cries out, "Do you have socks?! Socks!"

- aside -

The day before the race, while talking to his race support team, the runner pulls out some sweet looking fancy socks that he has recently purchased, never worn. My sister-in-law, the experienced marathoner, warily asks him, have you run in those socks before?? No, but .... She and my brother, the experienced half-marathoner, exchange a look as the runner assures them that while he did not train with these socks, they are awesome and all will be well.

Mile 12.5 (cont.)
"Socks! Socks!" The requested socks, the trained-in socks, are in the runner's backpack. In the car. Two blocks away. I vow to be better prepared at the next checkpoint.

Mile 16
The runner is shirtless now. Confidence is, um ... medium? Humidity, high. He changes his socks.

Mile 19
We are just past mile 19. The kids are taking turns holding our sign, keeping count of smiles, chuckles, and comments elicited from the runners. Emma counted 47. Only one person said, "That's mean!" (but they said it with a smile.) One girl exclaimed, "That's right! What is wrong with me!?!"

My phone rings. It's the runner. He is close. I wonder why he is calling. He breathes into the phone the unexpected words, "I'm done."

You must know this man to know what this means. I know this man. This man is not a quitter. He is not fainthearted. This man is a runner. He runs. This is a man who routinely, daily, pushes through pain. He is a man who does not lightly abandon a goal. I know this man. And I know what it means when he says that he is done. My heart sinks. Because I know what it means.

The support team, the family, is deeply concerned. My brother walks to meet him, to assess his condition. He is unsure whether to push the runner to go on, or not. When he reaches the runner, he understands better. Nauseous and in pain, the runner tosses his cookies. As I approach, I find him heaving behind a fence; my brother is with him. I go to my husband and I stand with him, I lay my hand on him, I wait.

We are all waiting. We have no other agenda for the day than to be here for this man. Whether he stops or whether he continues, we are here with him. We are not in a hurry, we are not disappointed, we are not hungry, we are simply here. With him.

As he sits to rest with our sister-in-law, my brother and I go for some mineral water. In our absence, he asks advice of the woman who understands his struggle, his pain, his desire. And she advises him - wisely, realistically, quietly. It's not a pep talk - her words are simply truth.

My brother and I return with the Perrier and we sit with him. We wait with him. There is nothing I want more than for him to finish his race. For him. We all want that. And so we wait. I sense a peace in the waiting. With him. We are with him. For him.

Eventually, he stands. He walks. He moves forward, toward the goal. We leave him to head for Mile 22, but, really, we are still with him.

Mile 22
He comes. He is moving forward. He smiles. He continues past us. We are still with him.

(The race support team detours for lunch. I know I said we weren't hungry. We weren't, but now we are, and there are children.)

Mile 23.5
We arrive at mile 23.5, sit on the curb, eat our Chipotle, and wait for the runner. Quietly hoping. He comes. He rests. I rub his back. I joke with him that he had to run 23 miles to get me to do that. We encourage, he departs, we finish our burritos, and then we head downtown to meet him at the finish line.

The finish line.

Mile 26.2
I am excited, guardedly excited. 7.2 miles ago, I didn't expect to be here, waiting, at the finish line. Yet here we are.

We find a good spot along the final stretch and watch the runners come in. It is a moving thing to witness. We are past the 6 hour mark, so these folks are not the elite. They are not running for glory, not now, or even for personal best. They are running to finish. They are the ones who could have given up, should have just stopped, but didn't. They are the mom who covers the last 50 yards hand-in-hand with her toddler. They are the woman celebrating her 66th birthday - on a grueling race course. They are the dad crossing the finish line with his child on his shoulders. They are the man with a prosthetic leg, showing the rest of us what is possible. They are the many others whose stories we do not know, whose secret motivations are hidden from our eyes. But still we are inspired by each one, because we see their heart. We revel in their triumph, and we are proud.

My brother sees him first -- "Here he comes!" I barely have time to get my lens cap off, barely have time to snap the photos and call his name, barely even see him as he is sprinting down the stretch. Sprinting. The man who was overheated at mile 12, breathless at mile 16, done at mile 19. Sprinting the final .2.

This day did not go as any of us had planned or expected. Does anything, really? But we gained so much. I witnessed my husband emerge from a dark place of pain and defeat. He did not do it alone. None of us do it alone. I witnessed the love of family - husband, wife, brother, sister, child - and its power to comfort, encourage, believe, motivate, sustain. This love cherished me and it cherished him.

Don't let anyone tell you that 6:28:46 is not a triumph. It was.

Postscript

When I began writing this tale, I intended it to be his story, but I realize now that it is mine. The runner has his own story to tell and you should ask him about it. It involves many of the things I have mentioned - determination, despair, hope, pain, family, love. All that ... and a cup named Turq.