It’s 7:30 a.m. on race day. I double-knot my Adidas, tighten my ponytail and repeat my mantra: “I am enough. I do not quit. Ever.”
I’m standing amidst a crowd of 4,700 runners, of whom I know no one. The Pacific winds have filled the morning with a salty cocktail of seashells and sailboats, the smell of California coast. Hotcakes and bagels await us at the finish line by the Seal Beach pier, but I’m not much concerned with that. I’m more worried I’ll break my leg, poo myself or rip my shorts at the crotch and have to crawl to the finish line. Typical race-day spooks.
A surfer-type dude with a hot pink sweatband stands next to me at the starting line. He looks like he just smoked a j in the porta potty. In front of me, a small woman with graying locks grinds her foot into the road preparing to charge. She stares at the course ahead as if projecting the path of a hurricane, paying no attention to the crowd, the music or the cross-country kids who will try to beat her; she eats young runners like them for breakfast. I vow to stay away from her.
Poised for the pop of the gun, I adjust my race-day playlist and get ready to run. The 60-second countdown blasts through me and my heart feels like it will beat right out of my chest and through my sports bra. It’s an adrenaline high that could rival any street drug. With five seconds left, I take a swig of coastal wind and feel it swell my lungs.
I hear the gunshot and take off. I do the only thing I know, the only thing I’m good at. I run.
Most people don’t understand my obsession, just as I don’t understand Fantasy Football or iPhone apps. They think I’m crazy because I find thrill in my sneakers, pounding out six or seven miles on the road. I’m a runner, and on this day, race day, I’m intoxicated by the reality that I’m not alone. We’re thousands strong.
On the surface we’re frenzied by training plans and long runs, and fanatical about mile splits and proper pronation, but behind all the crazy, there’s something happening. Something I did not realize until this race, around mile two. Something that changed my perspective on life.
I am a student and these people, these runners, are my teachers. Graying runners are my favorite. You know the ones, the older people who don’t care at all what anyone thinks of them. Ten feet ahead, a man in tiny yellow shorts the length of Daisy Duke’s boasts a moderate pace, thanks to a set of blinding white thighs as lean as laser beams. He wears decade-old Reeboks, a sweatband left over from the ’80s aerobics craze, and a pair of chunky headphones. After five sweaty minutes, his silver hairs have curled like a wet poodle’s, but he trots along steadily, not deterred by age, but seemingly determined by it.
Behind him an older lady glides theatrically as if she’d hydrated with a glass of pre-race Merlot. She glows with white-haired glory, sweating hairspray and face powder, with lips the color of a strawberry margarita. She wears a “Bahamas” t-shirt and doesn’t care about her “chip” time any more than she cares about her unforgiving spandex shorts. Everything about her shouts, “I don’t care what anybody thinks!” And so she runs.
At miles four and five I run next to a clique of little kids. Boys who go to school just for P.E. class and girls who ask Santa for kickballs and sneakers over Barbie’s and dress up clothes. A boy with a buzz cut and grass-stained soccer shirt bolts by, his gangling arms pumping through the wind. He’s not yet old enough to care about calories and heart rate or what a “tempo run” means. One foot in front of the other, he scrambles ahead. I can see it in his stride, he’s got to get it out—the restlessness, the thirst for movement and excitement. No thoughts, no mental commentary or negative talk, he simply goes.
Ten minutes to the finish, I pace my last mile next to a 20-something like me, nervously sweeping sweat from her brow as we approach our goal. We care. We care about this race, she and I, and all it means to a young girl who hasn’t a clue where she belongs in the world. It’s what sets us apart from the older people and the kids. We’re too old to not care but not old enough that it doesn’t matter anymore. At the 5.75 mark, with a quarter mile to go, I realize why she’s here and why I’m here: We’re here to be free. To be free from caring about politics and perfection and the mistakes we made last week. When we run we are exactly who we were meant to be—ourselves.
I power through the finish at a respectable 50-something minutes. The announcer leads the crowd in a fit of cheers as hundreds of runners thunder in around me.
I grab a banana and watch. The little old ladies, the middle-aged moms, the business men and retired baseball coaches, and of course, the kids, with smiles too big for their sneakers.
We’re all crazy, but that’s okay. At the finish line on race day, I learn that being crazy means being free. Therein lies the runner’s victory.
“I am enough. I do not quit. Ever.” Not only on race day, but every day.
The 37th Annual Seal Beach 5K/10K is 4/3. The 26th Los Angeles Marathon is 3/20.
