4th of july freedom run

One thing the marathon did for me: when I picked up my race package for the 8K I did not feel like a total outsider.

The race occurred in the same place and was sponsored by the same store (Fleet Feet) as the Thanksgiving 5K last year. It can get never get more local than this. I got into my car, I drove for 5 minutes. There was no parking space (I knew that!), so I invented one, and lined up at the starting line a few seconds before the anthem started playing. I swear it was even the same balloon rising. Like last year, I wept. Not because of any articulate emotion, as in ”I am an American now,” simply because of indescribable beauty – the music enveloped us, the flag was fluttering from the gondola, the sun leapt over the rim of the mountain range, and we were ready for go.

The course started out eastward, facing the glare. For the first two miles, everybody passed me, youngsters, old hippies with white hair in ponytails, moms with strollers. I wondered what those infants were thinking in the urgency of the morning, recline over pillows, pushed against the light. I tried desperately to remind myself this was just another weekday morning run, a bit longer perhaps. It did not matter who was ahead. The silence behind me said there was no one on my heels, and I did not look back, afraid to find it confirmed.

I did not bring my watch. I repeated to myself time did not matter. The area was residential and quiet. There was road kill on the streets. It smelled of manure, it smelled of hey, it smelled of heat. The neighborhood dogs yelped at the commotion. Somewhere after mile 2 we turned westward, and the valley opened up before us. I ran for a long time, in silence, next to a man in a blue shirt, none of us staying behind or reaching forward.

By mile four I glimpsed on the electronic display that for the first time in the race I was below a 10 minute pace, and ambition suddenly bit me. If I could only maintain that. I had not pushed myself before, not to my knowledge, but now I did. The last mile was uphill again, as the first two. It was too much. Just before I got the finish in sight, I had to walk, breathless and spent.

But I crossed the line in 48 min 45 sec, still below the 10 minute pace, the same as in all my prior races shorter than a marathon, and I ended up on the other side dizzy and happy, soaked in sweat and satisfaction, barely able to reason.

By the time I got home I was hungry.