A Story of a Marathon Front to Back
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing the things people say we cannot do."
-nineteenth century economist Walter Baghot

And so it is with the marathon. For some, running a marathon satisfies a desire to achieve their ultimate potential as an athlete. For others it is only the first step on a longer journey to self-discovery. But, among all who take the challenge, the marathon weaves a common bond that transcends their differences and binds them together forever. On an otherwise languid Sunday morning, the sun filters between the downtown buildings to embrace runners of every size, shape, and age lined up for the start of the marathon. Two rows from the front stands Shanura, a young Kenyan woman with legs as fragile as a deer, poised to run her first race on American soil. Her shorts are skin tight and cut close to her hips. On her yellow Lycra singlet hangs a one-digit race number, indicating her status as an elite runner. With heart pounding, her eyes dart skyward in amazement from gleaming skyscrapers to churning helicopters. She flinches as the first strains of an unfamiliar anthem whip the crowd into a fever pitch.

Near the back of the pack, some three blocks away, a fortysomething nurse named Joan struggles to maintain her composure. She repins her three-numeral race number on a simple white tee shirt embossed with a sign trumpeting "GO JOAN!" It was a gift from her father, a veteran marathoner who knew the value of crowd support, especially for a first timer. She smiles bravely as family and friends bid her a last farewell.

As giant speakers blare out the final ten-second countdown, the anxiety of both Shanura and Joan gives way to momentary panic. Shanura feels like a colt that somehow wandered into the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby . . . Joan a passenger waving from the deck of the Titanic as it eases away from Southampton harbor.

When the gun sounds, a blast of adrenalin courses through Joan's body like a giant wave crashing onto a beach. Instinctively, but for no logical reason, she and her fellow competitors begin jogging in place while waiting for the throng of 6000 marathoners up ahead to gain momentum. Two minutes later they are the last of the runners to stream across the orange rubber mats marking the starting line. ChampionChips tied to their running shoes register their official starting time with an electronic chirp, like a staccato barrage of dots and dashes from a continuous Morse Code message.

With the crack of the starter's pistol echoing in her ears, Shanura surges ahead in the first wave of elite women runners. Catapulting down the initial straight away she tries to measure their pace, but the exhilaration of the moment makes an accurate assessment impossible. For the next few miles she is pulled along behind a phalanx of the fastest women she has ever seen--- wondering all the while what she is doing in this race, and for that matter, in this country.

As the first of six children born to a poor African couple, her family's only hope for escaping its grinding poverty is Shanura's prowess as a distance runner. The prize money from one victory in a major marathon could feed and clothe her family for years to come. In pursuit of that dream, they pooled their meager resources to arrange air fare and a one week visa for Shanura to run today's race. It will be her, and their, only chance.

Joan's road to the starting line began only a year earlier when friends convinced her to run with them before work. At first it was purely for the camaraderie and stress relief. With a family, a job, and fifteen extra pounds, she certainly never considered herself a serious athlete. But, soon she began looking forward to her daily runs as a time, however brief, when she could get a glimpse of herself strictly as an individual and not as an adjunct to others in her life. To her astonishment, her runs became a lens through which she could view herself and her problems with remarkable clarity---a kind of secret portal into her soul.

Joan's first notion about running a marathon began innocently enough when she happened across an article about the unique personality traits, good and not so good, of distance runners. The more she read the more she began to recognize herself . . . tenacious, optimistic, and, yes, downright stubborn. Soon thereafter, she found a picture of her dad wearing a finisher's medal from the Boston Marathon, with her, as a grade school child, clinging to his waist in admiration. Her fate was sealed.

As Shanura flashes past the 5-mile marker, the rhythm of her shoes gliding over the pavement offers a welcome distraction. She begins to notice the fine houses along the route, and marvels at their grandeur. Each is larger than any house in her whole village. On the front lawns the homeowners and their friends are sitting in yard chairs having impromptu parties while smiling and shouting encouragement to the runners. When the first women competitors burst upon the scene, the celebrants leap to their feet and roar their approval. This is clearly a special moment for the crowd and, although she is barely hanging on to the leaders like a caboose on a runaway freight train, Shanura swells with pride to be even a small object of that adoration.

The young Kenyan does a double take at mile 9, as an impromptu brass band of would-be musicians, whose instruments are out on their annual furlough from the attic, strikes up its own bizarre rendition of "The Theme from Rocky," and a group of middle aged women dressed in painfully short skirts fling their pom poms in the air. On long tables, rows of volunteers wielding battery-powered knives reduce mountains of oranges and bananas to bite-size fuel for the runners. How strange, she wonders, that Americans harbor such a fetish for running, while at the same time worshiping every form of labor-saving device known to man.

Over an hour later, Joan finally churns by the pom pom dancers. She feels like a VIP as they seize upon her personalized shirt and greet her like an old friend. Her spirits are soaring and she begins to grasp the enormity of the battle she is fighting and its impact both on her and her supporters.

For the onlookers, the simple act of watching an ordinary person, like Joan, struggling to complete a marathon, compels them to appraise their own untapped potential. Through Joan they experience firsthand the profound strength of the human spirit, raw and unfettered, locked in a Herculean struggle against improbable odds. In the few seconds that it takes her to gamely trudge by, they are transformed. For many the change will be almost imperceptible. But for a lucky few, Joan's courage will instill in them a new and powerful confidence to undertake difficult challenges of their own.

As she struggles from one mile to the next, Joan realizes for the first time that her decision to compete in the marathon has given her a gift she could never have anticipated nor acquired in any other way. It has brought her to a new level of introspection--empowering her to consider new possibilities that will redefine the realities of her life forever.

To Joan the race has now become a human drama where the crowd and the runners are all part of the show. The spectators are drawn to the personal battles of each runner, all being fought in the most public of venues. Although they departed together early that morning, each is now traveling at her own pace, playing her own role in the marathon production. Joan is proud to be part of the performance and, with each step, identifies more completely with its cast of characters.

Ahead at mile 20, Shanura begins to feel the unmistakable signs of fatigue. She no longer notices the fine homes and tall buildings, focusing instead on blocking out the searing pain that now ravages her calves and thighs. Nervously she glances around to determine whether any of her competitors have fallen victim to the marathoner's worst nightmare . . . "hitting the wall" at mile 20. She is stunned to discover that the group of leading women has now shrunk to two. For a moment her mind wanders, remembering how she could routinely pull away with ease from the rest of her classmates in village school races. But, just as quickly, she is jolted back to reality by the realization that today her final adversary is an experienced, world-class athlete, battle hardened and pressing the pace.

A stream of marathoners now stretches through the city for some 16 miles, from the leaders approaching the finish line to the slowest runners just arriving at mile 10. As Joan passes the 10-mile mark, pangs of doubt begin to plague her. What earlier had seemed a reasonable pace has now left her grasping to maintain contact with the back of the pack. She glances back and discovers, to her horror, that the runners behind are a mere fraction of those ahead. The crowd seems not to comprehend how much harder she is working than the earlier runners. She smiles robotically but now lacks the energy to "high-five" the children who reach out to touch her hand along the course.

At mile 25 Shanura and her adversary are fighting a desperate battle of their own--straining to gain an advantage on each other. Stride for stride they hammer their way through the final water stop. With every ounce of strength she can muster, Shanura summons one final burst of energy from somewhere deep inside. Out of the corner of her eye she watches to see if her opponent can answer the challenge. Gradually she opens a tenuous lead, first by a foot, then a yard. The crowd cheers wildly, packed shoulder to shoulder and twenty deep as she rounds the final curve at mile 26. She is now ahead by a full ten yards with only the final three hundred and sixty yards to go! A lone figure against a chaotic background of screaming fans, thunderous applause, and blaring music, Shanura feels tears welling up in her eyes. Exhaustion overtakes her as she lunges across the finish line at 2 hours and 29 minutes into the waiting arms of the race officials. She's done it. Victory is hers.

By the time Joan reaches the half-way mark at mile 13, apprehension, like an insidious disease, begins to permeate her psyche and quickly ripens into a frightening secret that she dares not confront--she may not have the strength to finish the race. Her reserves are waning quickly, with the entire second half of the battle yet to go. Her legs begin to tighten and her once brisk gait becomes little more than a shuffle, punctuated by longer and longer intervals of walking. She begins to withdraw from the crowd, avoiding eye contact and feeling like an imposter. Why did she imagine that she could accomplish such a feat? Her legs now feel like she is running knee deep through an endless river of pudding. She is overcome by a sense of desperation that only impending disaster can evoke.

Struggling past the marker at mile 18, the race has now become a matter of grim survival for Joan. Volunteers are dismantling aid stations and raking the last of the thousands of paper cups that have blown across the streets like fallen leaves. Joan's legs are stiff and the pain gripping both thighs is so intense that the most she can coax from her exhausted body is an awkward hobble. Barely a block behind she can hear the relentless wail of police cars closing the course and directing the few remaining runners onto the sidewalks. If she can only stay ahead of these four-wheeled drovers she can avoid the humiliation of being forced off the course. Now her only concern is to somehow reach the finish line in less than 6 hours, when the race officially ends.

An arch of colorful balloons floats listlessly overhead like a lonely sentinel guarding the deserted water stop at mile 23. As Joan trudges by, the few remaining volunteers are loading the last of their equipment into pick-up trucks. The only runners in sight are wearing finishers medals and walking to their cars, flanked by family and friends. They call out encouragement to her, but seem to be registering more sympathy than admiration. She wonders what her own little support group must now be thinking as they stand virtually alone near the finish line.

At this moment Joan is laid bare to the world--stripped of all pretenses. Her clothes are disheveled and green with Gatorade. Her race number is hanging on by a single safety pin and her eyes are ringed with a white film of salt from five and a half hours of perspiration. The glamour of the marathon is gone. She seems to be watching herself in a movie--wondering when the end will come. Her eyes can muster only a dull, blank stare and she can no longer recognize the names of familiar streets along the way.

Approaching mile 25, Joan wonders how she has arrived at this place in her life. Why was it necessary to tax herself to the point of exhaustion--to prove a point? To whom? Yet, somehow she finds the strength to stagger on at a snail's pace, barely fifty yards ahead of the trailing police cruisers. Just when all seems to be slipping away, the distant sounds of a microphone, music, and an announcer's voice offer the faint prospect of deliverance from this ordeal. A ray of hope penetrates her gray world--the finish line is ahead.

The few remaining spectators have judged Joan's pace and, through her fog-shrouded brain, she vaguely hears them scream to her that she can still make the magical six-hour limit. A quarter mile down the avenue she sees the banner hanging high over the finish line. It seems like a mirage and she a desperate survivor staggering in off the desert. Fueled now by pure emotion, her spirit struggles to prevail for just one more moment over the anguish of her muscles.

With victory at hand, Joan is suddenly overcome by an uncanny sense that disaster is near--the same gnawing feeling that has gripped her so often in the emergency room. Then she hears the unmistakable scrapping of running shoes dragging across the pavement and, from the corner of her eye, sees a runner stagger and fall to the roadway. Abruptly her world shifts into slow motion. Without breaking stride she turns and watches him struggle back to his knees, then fall again. The gasps of the crowd ring in her ears and clash with the wild cheers of others urging her on to a six-hour finish. In a few more strides she sees the clock only a half block ahead ticking relentlessly down to an elapsed time of 5 hours 59 minutes. Her heart soars as she catches sight of her family and friends waving and jumping up and down, confident that she can win her hard-fought battle to finish within the six-hour time limit.

For a slit second, Joan rationalizes . . . there must be medics to help him . . . and she has come so very far. One more quick glance, she thinks, will surely confirm that all is well and her moment of triumph will be complete. But, when her eyes locate him again, he is lying on his back, chest heaving and hands clutching his throat. She instantly recognizes the telltale signs of a heart attack, ones she has encountered so often in her career. Without hesitation, she instinctively wheels around and is at his side in a matter of seconds. She pleads with the onlookers to call for the ambulance parked near mile 24, and drops to her knees to give him by mouth what little breath she can gather. Her body trembles with exhaustion as she kneels over her fallen comrade, his elbows and knees bloody from their plunge to the asphalt. She lacks the strength to hold his head in place while she strains to push oxygen from her lungs into his.

After what seems an eternity she hears the siren from the ambulance and, miraculously, feels her patient respond by squeezing her hand. His eyes open briefly and he begins breathing on his own. As the medics swarm over him she bends down and gives him a quick kiss on the check. He smiles at her and she knows he will live to run again.

As the ambulance speeds away, she studies the crowd of on lookers who have gathered to watch the nightmare unfold. One in particular catches her eye . . . a young African girl dressed in a bright yellow singlet and wearing a laurel wreath around her head. Through a translator, the young woman calls out to ask if the injured runner will be all right. Joan nods her head. With a smile the girl gives Joan a quick salute as race officials whisk her off to the winner's circle for more interviews.

Joan turns and walks slowly toward the finish line. The crowd assembled there is now much larger than before and stands silently, stunned by what they have just witnessed. But, as she limps closer to the orange rubber mat that will end her journey they erupt in the loudest ovation of the day. She steps across the finish line and melts into the arms of her family, knowing that on this day she has not only won the victory she trained for but become forever bound to two other runners who would share that victory with her forever.