"spirit of the marathon"

It was not my initiative. A friend invited us to see the movie on January 24. What a shame I had passed the sickness on to my boyfriend, so he could not go, in spite of his faithful presence at so many finish lines. I was not healthy yet, but thought I could handle a night out.

The movie was cool, as expected. Deena Kastor, switching from her shy smile to a grim determination visible on her face all through the race, got to me. I do not like races as big as the one featured (the La Salle marathon in Chicago), but the tens of thousands of participants made for splendid filming at the start line. Truly amazing was the director comprising so much content in a two hour duration. My companions, all non-runners, said they got tired simply by watching.

Next morning I knew I wanted another marathon.

With less than a month and a half to go, it was almost to late for El Paso. I sat down with a sheet of paper and allocated mileage to the available week-ends. I had to do ten miles the coming Sunday, or El Paso would be lost.

Ten miles is not much, but the most I had run since the December 2nd marathon was a six-miler before I got sick. I had not run for ten days, and I was still coughing my lungs out.

The run itself was not that hard. My muscles hurt, predictibly, nothing unmanageable. The body cooperated, at least for the length of ten miles. Once home, already showered and comfortable, I had a bad spell of dizziness and nausea. My sight went black, the ground swayed. I thought I would faint, but I did not panic. It was sheer exhaustion, the organism protesting against exertion, too much of it, too soon. I laid down, waiting for weakness to pass, and I was all right within the hour.

The door to El Paso was open.