Renew

I ran (and finished) my first marathon yesterday.

It was chilly to start, low 40s. I had some gloves to begin but was able to toss those aside after two or three miles. I started chatting with another girl at the start and we ran together the first 5 miles. Unfortunately, her pace was faster than I usually start for long runs and I paid for that later in the race.

The first 8/9 miles went incredibly easy. Beautiful route around the lakes, sunshine, lots of crowds cheering everyone on and more boomboxes playing "Eye of the Tiger" than was really necessary.

I got lovely, supportive hugs twice from Sharon in that first leg, and again around 12 where I also saw my parents and sister. Julie was waiting for me around mile 14 and at 20 my parents and sister were on the sidelines again, cheering me on. My boyfriend, Jason, had the misfortune of missing me around mile 25, which was partly my fault as by that point I had stopped scanning the crowds and had my eyes firmly stitched to the pavement.

The race was not difficult until mile 18 or so. I suppose that's pretty typical. At 18 I was bored and frustrated by the pain in my left foot, aggravated that a pain I'd never had on any training run was choosing Marathon Day to introduce itself. Is that a muscle? A bone? Whatever it was, it ached for four miles straight and then disappeared (replaced by other pains, of course). At 20 I was exhausted and felt like if I stopped at all I would never get my engine started again. So when I saw my family just past the 20 mile mark, I couldn't stop for hugs. I did smile, I think.

Mile by mile, I can't differentiate much between the miles 21 to 26. But I did cry a bit at mile 23, stopping for powerade. A little old woman shook her fist at me goodnaturedly and said, "you can do it, sweetie." I felt like a wimp, crying in public like that. But I bucked up with the powerade. 23 and 24 were pure misery. The miles felt twice as long as I thought possible and the "you're almost there"s being screamed from the crowd started to annoy me. Because after running 24 miles, knowing I still have 2 more to go does not feel like "almost there" in the slightest. It feels like an eternity. I could tell the screams that were coming from former marathoners (or maybe they just had a better grasp of the pain involved) because their cheers were more specific. "8/10 of a mile more of this hill and then it's flat again" "less than half a mile until the next water stop"...those smaller milestones were much more reasonable in my head.

I carried two Bible verses with me, Isaiah 40:31 (but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will rise up on eagles' wings, they will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint) and Hebrews 12:1 (therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that entangles and run with perseverance the race set before us). I have both memorized, generally, but carried post-its with me to read over while warming up at the Metrodome and just in case some emotional meltdown required some spiritual sustenance down the road. Mile 23/24 required such sustenance. I didn't break out the post-its (I think I forgot they were tucked in my pocket, actually). And I couldn't remember much of the verses at all. Hebrews altogether vanished. All I could remember of Isaiah was eagle wings and "renew their strength" so each beat on the pavement was accompagnied by an (I assume) intelligible-only-to-God prayer to give me wings and "renew" my strength. I remember praying something along the lines of, "I know you promise only to renew my strength, you don't promise that this will feel good. I know it will hurt. Just renew my strength enough to get me to the end. However that renewal works, just renew me enough to finish. Please. Amen."

And, as is so often with God, his answer was weird. For some reason the eagle wing thing got me thinking about birds which led to me thinking about this baby bird I found growing up in Arkansas, that my parents let me attempt to nurse to health from the comfort of a cardboard box in the garage. I spent at least 10 minutes trying to remember the name I gave that bird. And then what about that kitten I found once? Did I name that? Did we give him away or did he run away? I couldn't remember. Oh, and Rocky! The "flying" squirrel that fell on my head off our roof in St. Louis and we kept in an easter basket hung from a tree limb for a day before calling animal control. But what was the name of that bird I found? I remember it started with a T, I think. Or maybe an S. And what happened to him? I assume he died. Did I bury him? I remember burying some goldfish. And a couple hamsters, including Buster, who might have been inadvertently murdered. What was the name of that bird?

This mental detour carried me through 23 and midway into 24. By the time I realized I'd been running that entire time I could see the sign for mile 25. I felt lifted. Renewed?

I will admit that 25 felt good. Not physically good. My heart just felt tired, my lungs felt tired. I thought maybe that's what it feels like to die, or if not to die, to grow old. Sounds morbid, but the thoughts get a little wacky near the end. 25 felt physically awful. But mentally, it was the first time I'd thought, "you're actually going to pull this off."

Before 25 I was mainly going for mini-milestones. Mile 6, eat a gel. Mile 8, put the iPod on shuffle. Mile 12, eat a gel. Mile 19, get a banana. Mile 23, eat a gel. Intersperse some powerade stops in there. But at 25 it dawned on me that I was 1.2 miles from the finish. Even if I walked the rest (which I didn't), I would finish with time to spare. So 25 was a happy mile and knowing I'd done it helped me believe that mile 25 was not actually 7 miles long (although it felt that way). I thought that must be what "renewal" feels like, in any sense of the word. To feel completely exhausted and yet suddenly find some wellspring of energy or hope or passion that just makes you know that what felt over is not actually over. You still have work to do. And you have been blessed with the power to complete it.

At the top of the hill, with about .4 miles left to go, you can see the finish line. A huge American flag waving over a line at the foot of the Capital. I turned off my iPod then, wanting to remember the sound of finishing. And I told myself to remember what that felt like. Not to forget that feeling, too, and not just the feeling of leaden icepicks driving through my thighs. Remember that lump in your throat when the finish line was visible. A metaphor for everything. (And yes, only an English major would state to themselves--you're living through an actual metaphor right now, not a simile, a metaphor!)

Isaiah 40:31 doesn't waste its time on simile either. Upon renewal, you do not rise up on something like eagles wings. Those wings are actual and real. Wings that carry you when you recognize you can no longer carry yourself. Wings that give you a moment to catch your breath, renew. Then cross that line.