Number Six

This picture was taken in 2010, the year after I ran my first marathon. I'd always assumed that I'd only run one race that distance, but as soon as I crossed the finish line I knew I'd do my best to do it forever. Maybe not every year, maybe never any faster than that first one, but forever. 

When I started running I was fat. Not chubby. Obese. Nobody would have ever looked at me and thought, "that girl is destined for marathons!" Over the course of running my first 5K, first 10K, first half, I dropped enough weight (80+ pounds) to no longer categorize myself as fat, at least not objectively. And on some level running continued to be the method by which I sought to escape ever being fat again. Running has continued to have that role in my life and I can't say that I expect that reason to disappear, but my need for a run shifted while training for that first marathon. At some point running stopped being just a means to an end, the end being a body I could accept. At some point running became the single fastest way to make me happy. And that's when I stopped feeling like a poser, some guest in the running world. It wasn't a fad or a quirk while I slimmed down. It was a visceral, emotional need. In my mind, that made me a Runner. Capital R.
Friends who'd known (and loved) me in my fat days voiced surprise and encouragement for my new love of distance running. I always struggled to respond adequately because the running-to-lose-weight thing had lost its luster. Running carried me through every season of doubt, every heartbreak, every disappointment, every joy. It reminds me every day that anxiety is wasted energy, energy better channeled into two feet and the pulse of pavement.

I say all this because my companion in training for my upcoming sixth marathon is Stephanie, pictured beside me. She knew and loved me in law school, when running was the last thing on my mind, and she encouraged me throughout my steady accumulation of race t-shirts. This will be Stephanie's first marathon, and she's flying up from New Orleans to experience Grandma's Marathon in Duluth with me. And she gets that current of joy, that happy easing of the shoulders, when she runs now, too. To be a person who doesn't run and then, over the course of months, to become a Runner (capital R), is a transformation that leaves you a bit breathless. It's like the world opens up, lets you in on a secret, that the agonies of the day are lessened by the quickening of your heart.

All of my marathons have been special.  They've felt important, each in some unique way.  But number six will be especially sweet, because this time a friend who knew and loved me when I wasn't a Runner, will run beside me, having since become a Runner herself. It's a reminder to me that the best friends are the ones who see the stuff buried deep, love the You beneath the flesh and beneath the veneer of accomplishment. The ones who loved you before you dreamed of running a marathon are the absolute best people to have at the finish line.