Not A Winner

I've mentioned before that I have run a marathon (26.2 miles.) I'm very proud of that fact for one major reason: I'll never be doing that again.

It's my little slice of personal glory. I didn't win anything. As a matter of fact, I crossed the finish line as they were physically dismantling it. They had taken the time recorder down, and I was logged as a DNF (Did Not Finish) on the official results, even though I actually did finish with a horrid time of around 6:18. I did get my medal, and that's all I really wanted anyway.

But my main point with all of this is that I am actually not good at running. Not even a little bit. I am dedicated to it now (I run about nine miles a week, or so - an addiction to the runner's high might be at work here,) but I'm just not one of those amazing people who can zip about and run races, finishing with the crowd. As a matter of fact, while in training I ran a 15k race. I came in dead last. There is a reason for that term; you want to die of mortification. But at the same time, I was thrilled I had finished it AND gotten the only cool racing t-shirt I have ever received.

There is a special point for every bad-runner who runs a marathon. You start to question your entire reality. Everything is wrong. Everything hurts. Life stinks. Why are you even doing this? What are we, on like mile 16 here? That's 10 miles from the finish line! TEN!!!!! Bigger than most races are to start with! Almost a half-marathon! Are you kidding me? You could be laying in a pool somewhere sunning yourself! Watching a movie! ANYTHING! But no, here you are in the middle of this damn race with a very attractive half-skip-hobble-run pace going, while everything hurts. You are slow as a turtle, one who will most certainly not win any race in this world...

I believe some people call this "hitting the wall". I call it something more colorful that I won't post publicly. It's a very interesting point to get to, because it's the ultimate point in any marathon - not the finish line, like so many people think. It's the pivot point. It's the point at which elite racers who are having a bad day simply quit, rather than finish in embarrassment. It's the point at which everyday people give up and leave finishing the race to someone else. It's sink or swim, do or die.

It is also the most memorable point, more than any other during that race, because it stays with you in perfect clarity forever. The finish-line celebration might blur, but that moment when time stops and you can feel yourself weeping on the inside, and you have to make that decision between what you really want, who you really are, and what is important to you will remain etched in infinity for you. The pivot point is where you find out who you really are, who you really want to be, and what you are actually willing to do for your own convictions. Because, let me tell you that minus the genetic jack-pot winners with a talent for racing, running 26.2 miles is not about ability and putting the steps behind you, but the intricate cloth of which you are made.

I remember that point. I hit it, as I said, at about mile 16. Popular theory holds that most people hit it around mile 22. It's the only thing I was ever early for in regards to running in my entire life. I said all those things to myself. I yelled, I screamed, I was hateful. I told myself to leave. To give up. To get an ice pack and a mega dose of Advil. Go home. Get out of here.

I was stretched so thin, that there weren't any hidden subversive intents or messages. Everything was clear, which is so very rare in life. There wasn't anything left to say, it was all so simple. And in that moment all I saw were the green trees all around me, moving softly in the wind of a sunny morning by the lake. I smelled the water, heard the birds just barely over my own breathing and heart pounding. I stopped, with tears on my face.

It isn't often that my mind empties out into perfect silence, usually I am a cacophony of mass proportions inside. But not then. The loudest sound in my world was the inhale of my breath as it rattled through my nose and mouth and into my body. It was as if nothing was left, as if I was looking at a picture on the wall - you can't add to it, it just is. Empty, silent... vivid perhaps, but lacking in cognizance.

It was out of that which I felt a rise of something else. A whisper from far away, but insistent. It grew. It became louder, and I heard things like "You've come 16, 10 is nothing. Start fresh. You don't have to run 26.2 miles. All you have to do is start over and run 10. Forget the other 16 ever happened. All you have to do, is do this. Move, for yourself. This is worth it to you. Do this." And I did. I finished.

Running a marathon wasn't about beating the distance, but overcoming myself. It was about finding the one true thread that I needed to follow, based on who I was when everything else was stripped away, and finishing what I started because it was important to me.

I know this is a lot of "running" commentary, and likely I have lost a lot of people to boredom. But the truth is that there are not many examples in my life where I have been so challenged, so empty of the rhetoric which gathers like dust on who we are, so clear. It taught me a lesson about who I am, at my core - who I have always been from the very beginning. I have tried to stay true to that, to not let that tenuous hold on that single clear truth snap. It stays with me every day, and it has help drive me to where I am now.

I spend a lot of time grappling with the truth of who I am. There are a lot of words than can clutter things up and confuse my world into convoluted twists and turns. But I had that moment of simple crystalline peace and knowledge, and in that empty space I found my own spirit. Something that existed beyond the talk, and just was.

I found out that I am not a winner.

I'm something better than that; I'm a Finisher.