And Then I Cried

Dear The Internet,

I kind of started running in a funny way. For a few years after I graduated I stuck around the beautiful seaside town were my college was located. It’s an odd experience living in a college town after you graduate. It’s sort of like watching a play with a different cast. The lines are the same, but the delivery is totally different. The characters completely unaware that they are telling the same story others have told before them. I started running mostly out of boredom and ended up taking a liking to it.

After I moved up to San Francisco, I decided to run the San Francisco Marathon. It’s a pretty hilly course, but there are a lot of flat parts and they close off two lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge to run across. I injured one foot after a month of training and the other a month after that. I also partially tore off one of my toenails a week before the race. So, after a fiasco were the cab I called decided not to show up, I took my place late, inexperienced, and under trained.

Things actually started off really well. I kept my pace (10 minute miles and a goal of under 4:30) while cutting through the slower runners in the coral I ended up in and tried not to burn myself out. My splits were great and consistent all the way through the first 20 miles. I started to feel the affects of fatigue at about mile 22. By mile 23, I had hit the wall. I was prepared for this and first started walking through the water stations to conserve energy. These stretches of walking lengthened until I could only run for a few blocks at a time. Those weeks I had to take off for injuries were catching up to me. I knew I would finish, but 4:30 was not going to happen.

By the time I rounded the final corner and came into the home stretch, I started to feel something I was not expecting. See, a friend of mine had told me how she had wept when she finished the marathon the previous year and I thought I understood it. I figured that while I have been known to shed a few tears during an occasional (okay, all of them) Pixar movie, I tend not to cry that much. But, coming into that last 385 yards I completely broke down. I felt an intense cocktail of emotions welling up within me and I had a total emotional collapse. It was as if little cracks had been forming in me for the past 26 miles and just seeing that finish line shattered me.

Just when I crossed the finish line (4:52, not that bad considering) I heard someone call my name. I sort of ignored it at first because my name was on my bib and people had been encouraging me by name most of the race. The voice persisted and I looked around to see my girlfriend in the crowd. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone at the finish line because most of my friends had waited for me on the course. She had apparently gotten a cab right after seeing me and made it there just as I crossed the line. I was glad she was there, but covered in salt from the evaporated sweat and tears streaming down my face, I must have been quite a sight. I crumpled on the curb, drained physically and emotionally.

It’s hard to explain to someone what I felt when I finished. It wasn’t a great sense of accomplishment at what I had just done or a sense of relief that I could finally stop running. It felt like every part of my physical body and been run to complete exhaustion and my soul was set free. The only response my body could come up with was tears. I just couldn’t do anything else. It really is an entirely unique feeling.