Countdown to the Gay Games - Memories

Week 6

A friend of mine sent this to me. It is the contents of an email that I sent to him after running my first marathon describing my experience and ultimately what the marathon meant. I can't believe that he saved it all this time. Enjoy.

Not too long ago I ran a marathon. It was 26.2 miles. I spent the last half, thirteen miles, alone amidst a crowd of people. Only my thoughts were with me -thoughts of where I had come from, where I was going and what running 26.2 miles really meant in my life. Four months prior to that day, I embarked on a training program for the marathon. I had no real idea of what I was getting myself into with the exception that I tried the same program six months earlier and failed after a few short weeks. I didn't understand why I was doing it or what 26.2 miles could mean. Sure I told everybody that I was running because I wanted a physical challenge. I never saw myself as a very physical person though I spent alot of money on how my outer person looked. In the initial weeks, I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill. It was the only way that I could be sure that I was maintaining a constant pace and that I would run the number of miles I was supposed to run that day, no less and certainly no more. Running that distance was important to get past that day and had very little to do with the larger picture.

After a while, I could no longer run in the gym. The distances were too long and I could not tie up a treadmill for that period of time. I was forced to move it outside. With no plan, I began to run along the lakefront using a watch to time my runs. I figured I would be running the same pace as the treadmill. In those first weeks I was very suspicious. Was I running too far? or not far enough? Was I running too fast? or not fast enough? And then something happened. On what was at that time a long run of ten miles during a somewhat hot day, I was on the return leg and I stopped to drink some water. A breeze had come up and it blew over my shirtless body. An amazing feeling of euphoria washed over me as a wave of stimulated endorphins created a global tingling experience. I began running for that feeling and it occurred to me that there was nothing very special about 26.2 miles at all. I had discovered why runners run.

In the next few weeks people began inquiring about my training. I discovered that quite a few people that I knew and many people I didn't know had run marathons before. I didn't feel so singled out, so important. It was hard to set aside the time to run when the distances became longer and longer and I started noticing what I had to give up in order to do them. No alcohol the night before, no cigarrettes. Had to carry enough water, start out early enough before the sun got too hot. Or if I didn't motivate early enough it meant later in the evening when it was cool enough which meant not going out with my friends if they called. What was so special about 26.2 miles thatwould make me change my life around and stress fracture my foot, blister my toes, bleed from my kidneys and intestines? What happened to the breeze? What happened to the euphoria? I began to skip many days of running.

And then came the fear. In the last remaining weeks before the actual day I began to wonder whether I could even do it at all. I hadn't run 26 miles during the training. What if I wouldn't be able to make it. I would be so ashamed, people would see me as a failure.

Alone again, with my thoughts for thirteen miles, my mind began remembering all of those weeks as I have recounted them to you. I started with an idea to do something I had never done and didn't understand. It's importance was a mere curiosity. It moved to my struggle to understand it, to conquer it, to rise above it with precision accuracy - no more and no less. It progressed to the discovery that it wasn't about the speed or the miles, the equipment or the day. It was about a feeling. But feeling without intent led to complacency and if I were to reach the prize, there would have to be pain and sacrifice as well as euphoria. And at the brink of attainment, I was struck with fear of the unknown, of my own inadequacies, of failure. These thoughts mirrored my 26.2 miles that day as I began running without knowing what lay ahead, looking at my watch for the first 7 miles to make sure I was making good time, breaking free for the next seven as I felt unstoppable. As the pain and fatigue set in, I knew that things would get tough and just before the finish line I felt as though I would fail.

As I crossed the finish line, tears streaming down myface, I realized what 26.2 miles really meant in my life. It meant that what was worth having was worth working for. That was a concept I believed before but never truly understood. Despite the fact that myriads of other people ran marathons, mine was special because I worked hard, I sacrificed, I stuck to it, I committed to making it work.

Week 5