(30 Weeks)
It was somewhere in Harlem when I stepped in a shin-deep puddle, a driving rain still falling all around me, that I wondered, What the hell were you thinking? You are going to get sick! You may even die! You are never doing this again!
Then about 35 or 40 minutes later, I crossed the finish line in Central Park as the skies cleared and the sun began to shine and I whispered to myself, you are going to do this so much better next time!
Twenty-seven years and twelve marathons later, I know that I may get to a day when I will tell myself “You are never doing this again” and really mean it, but today’s not that day.
When I signed up to run my first marathon in 1997, I wasn’t completely sure why. I was barely a runner having only started the previous year. I didn’t really know that much about running. I didn’t have any close friends that ran.
All of that quickly changed.
My life. My relationships. My career. Running is now the common theme throughout. And I have long attributed that transformation to crossing that first 26.2 finish line. Becoming a marathon finisher succeeded at giving me a sense of self-worth and confidence where outstanding parenting, advanced education, and previous personal achievements had come up a little short.
I think that’s because it was all me. While I certainly have at least one person to thank for introducing me to the challenge and igniting the spark in me, and ultimately providing me with the instruction manual (The New York Road Runners Club Complete Book of Running), everything else came from self-motivation.
I mapped out all the training runs on the calendar just as the book told me to. I subscribed to Runners’ World and learned about nutrition, fueling, stretching, and gear. I taught myself to be a morning person and got out of bed when the alarm went off went off at o’dark-thirty. I was the athlete and the coach.
Playing team sports most of my life, I was used to having teammates that supported me and coaches that motivated me. The solitary hours I was now spending running were something so new and different. No one to motivate me, but me. When I started signing up for 5ks and 10ks, I was competing only against myself.
I went into my first marathon without any concept of what a good time was. And that was probably a good thing. When you run your first marathon your only goal should be to finish. No mater your time, it will be a personal record. You can’t obsess about the weather either because it will be what it will be. And like me, you may run your first marathon in the rain. And it will be epic. You never forget your first.
Although it’s been two years since I ran my last marathon, with Mercy Home Heroes, every year I get to share in the first marathon stories of those running with our charity team. This year, first timers made up 177 of our 474 total athletes. And there are that many reasons for being there. 474 individual stories of self-determination and overcoming obstacles.
From the time I first meet them during their onboarding call and hear why they want to run for Mercy Home, to coaching calls when we work on channeling their values into fundraising asks, to welcoming them back to Heroes HQ on race day as newly minted marathoners, I am often moved to tears.
My relationship with the marathon has changed over the years. There were the races where time mattered. There were races where the experience mattered. And there was my last marathon (so far) that was my slowest but was without a doubt the most fun I ever had on a marathon course.
The most important shift in how I think about the marathon is that, to me now, it is no longer an individual sport. How much I enjoy a race is closely linked to how many people I know are somewhere along the course cheering for me. How well my training cycle goes is more about who I am training with. And some of the best marathons are the ones I don’t even run.
Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.
