Commit, Run

Today is Marathon Monday, also known as Patriots’ Day, which is a major holiday here in Boston. On April 19, 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord marked the launch of the American Revolution; and, today, 250 years later, people from all around the world come to Boston to test their limits at one of the most famous, challenging marathons in existence.

As a kid, I would wander down to Beacon St, a five minute walk from my childhood home (mile 23) and become swept up in the density of signs, chairs, and maniacal cheers. Later, I was living in New York City at the time of the tragic Boston Marathon bombings, and stayed glued to social media for updates as the whole of the city, including my parents, were confined to their homes as the frantic search for the perpetrators unfolded. The Boston Marathon is the true representation of our city: the willingness to forge forward through difficult terrain, over the hill when the hill feels impossible to climb.

Marathons represent a colossal challenge to the human body and spirit. Most perfectly healthy people cannot and will not run 26.2 miles. To do this, you have to be a little bit insane. You have to be the type of person who keeps commitments to yourself just because you promised. (I should pause to add that both my mother and my sister, who have run marathons, are exactly these types of people.)

When I was undergoing treatment for Aplastic Anemia in 2015, I read an article in the Dana-Farber newsletter about a woman who, a number of years out from transplant for Aplastic Anemia, was preparing to run the Boston Marathon. This story sparked my interest and gave me hope.

This year, my friend Tess and I decided to run the Boston Women’s 10K together, a race that seemed doable as a way to get back into running -- low-stakes mutual motivation. We should have known it would serve as a gateway to more racing. Coming down off the runners’ high that Saturday, we pledged to sign up for another, farther distance.

I began to search for half marathons in Boston and Philly, where Tess lives, and found The Love Run in Philly in late March. In a fit of optimism, we booked it. And that was when the difficulties truly began.

This winter in Boston was snowy as it hadn’t been in years, and occasionally the entire ground would harden into thick rivulets of ice. Whole weekends passed with uninviting gray skies, and the wind whipped bitterly against my face when I attempted my usual route around the pond.

And yet: Was this not what a half-marathon calls upon us to do? To go endlessly forward, even on the days when you’d really rather not? I kept expecting some sort of magical leveling up, to feel my limbs light and free, to breathe easily, but the runs always started hard. The change happened when I realized it was okay to be uncomfortable at miles four, five, six (and then seven, eight, nine). And then to realize that, once I had pushed through distances that had felt previously unfathomable, I could do it again, if only because it had been done.

There was nothing romantic about the white-knuckle training period through the winter, nor particularly joyful. Occasionally, occasionally, after a certain period of slow plodding in icy slush, I realized that I was picking up the pace ever so slightly, enjoying the music in my headphones ever so much more, and I would remind myself: this is the reward. More often, I would take to my couch after the longest runs and refuse to leave until the inevitable nighttime transition from reclining space one to reclining space two.

But I wanted to become a person who kept my commitments to myself and others, only because I made them. For no other reason. Not for the cardiovascular benefits, a specific time I was hoping to beat, or any other goal. Just because I said I would.

Race weekend in Philly was chilly and damp. On the starting line, I rued the fact that I had decided to forgo a jacket. Tess and Nick, Tess’ boyfriend, and I, and our fellow slow runners, lined up at the back, and began the process of stopping and surging forward, like traffic flowing through a signal, the controlled release of kinetic energy.

For the first few miles, Tess and I went very slow, conserved our energy and chatted casually. At mile four, realizing that the race was well underway, we decided to increase pace and part ways. As I put in my headphones and pushed myself to go faster, I began to feel some of the excitement of being in the midst of achieving a goal that I never thought I would reach.

At mile ten, I felt the benefits of training in the Arnold Arboretum’s hills and drumlins, as I kept my pace despite the steep final hill. By mile eleven, with the finish line in mental sight, I picked up the speed a bit more. By the time I saw Eric and Annie cheering us on near the finish line, I was close to sprinting.

My finish time of 2:30, though slow, was faster than I had expected -- and I had kept my commitment by completing the race. Will I run a marathon? Definitely not. (In fact, Tess and I pledged not to get so excited after the race to even entertain thoughts of further distances.) The Philly Love Run was indeed a labor of love, but more specifically, of commitment (and what, in the end, is the difference?). Of that boring, inevitable choice to do the thing over and over again.

I’ll be cheering for the Boston runners today and every year from the sidelines, awed by the mystical, mundane power of people to push themselves past the point of discomfort to achieve a goal.