And here was someone with a good job, who didn’t have two heads, who seemed to like me though I had flaws. We talked about weddings and babies and rings. What woman in her right mind would turn that deal down? I told myself to be content—relieved even—that someone had finally seen something in me that was enough to want to live with me and seriously talk about a future together. He wasn’t a drunk like Steve. He wasn’t going to up and move without me like Jason. And even if the little digs and comments grated me, I wanted to try to make it work. Nick’s go-to joke was that given my age no one else would want me, so I was stuck with him.
After the fiftieth, hundredth, two hundredth time I heard it, I started to believe him.
I woke up on marathon morning at 4:00 AM, then 4:30 AM, and then, when the alarm finally went off at 5:00, shoved myself into sweatpants and a jacket to walk the dog, and stepped outside into warmth. November 20, and the pre-sunrise temperature was already 50 degrees and spiked with humidity. I took Emily far enough for her to poop and pee, then slammed back into the house.
I woke Nick up. “It’s HOT,” I said, swapping out the short-sleeve shirt I had planned to wear for a blue tank.
“It won’t be so bad.”
While he went through his pre-race rituals, which included taking a shower, I stomped to Dunkin’ Donuts to get us both coffees, which was supposed to make us poop. He took the upstairs bathroom and I the downstairs, checking the weather on my phone again as if, at my insistence, the forecast would flip to cold. I switched between sips of Gatorade and coffee until the coffee worked. At least that’s done.
I should have been prepared for race nerves by now, but this pressure was enormous, made worse by worrying about another person. We also hadn’t agreed on how to get to the race, a big mistake for someone like me who likes to plan ahead.
“Call a cab,” he yelled down the stairs.
I did, and was told the wait was forty-five minutes. So we walked twenty minutes to the Broad Street subway line, and took that to city hall to join in with other runners who convened in that spot to walk to the start line.
The marathon hadn’t changed much since I ran the half in 2009, except officials crammed more runners onto the course by allowing more half marathon runners in, so again I was stuck in line for a Porta-Potty, and again I peed by a tree, this time with Nick shielding me with my hoodie. He had bought a bib from a faster but injured runner, so he gave me a quick kiss and set off for the first corral behind the elites. For my first marathon, my only goals were to finish and not require immediate medical attention, so I set a conservative projected pace, which slotted me into the gray corral, three corrals behind Nick.
I planned to use my first Ocean Drive 10 strategy: Run nine minutes, walk one minute, run nine, and repeat. I was nervous about the distance, especially since we hadn’t done that twenty-miler. When the race started and we shifted forward to the start line, one corral after another, that was still the plan.
Except race organizers never changed the course to accommodate that larger size of the half marathon field, which jammed the road through those first narrow streets, some of which still had cars parked on the side of the road. I started dumping water on my head at the first water stop. I came up on a water stop at mile 5 at the same time I was taken over by a pace group, made worse by the water stop being positioned on the turn off 6th Street onto the long chute of Chestnut Street. There was no way to stop at that moment without tripping or falling on someone, so I kept going, no walks allowed.
Since I’d run the first half of the course when I did the half marathon in 2009, I knew the dips and valleys and climbs, slight as they are. I stopped to pee at mile 7. By then the crowds had loosened up on wider streets, and I could start to run/walk/ run. My hips protested at mile 9, and I told them to shut up. At Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, right before mile 11, I tried to rip open my package of Shot Bloks, but my fingers fumbled and a spectator did it for me. By the time we hit the stretch along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, the half marathoners started celebrating, and I knew why marathoners had given half runners the stink eye here in 2009. To hear their relief at being nearly done, knowing you must double up, is deflating, especially when you enter that second half on shaky ground. I told myself I was fine—I was FINE—and that I’d do better without so many people around. Good riddance.
In the 2015 Los Angeles Marathon, Japanese runner Mao Kuroda kept with the lead pack through most of the race before falling back and finishing fourth. It was her first marathon, which Olympian and broadcast commentator Tim Hutchings called “taking her giant steps into the dark.”
That’s what it felt like when I reached the second half of my first marathon. I was going where I hadn’t gone in a race before, but instead of taking giant strides into the dark, I tripped.
I turned in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the second half of the course, which is an out-and-back to Manayunk along Kelly Drive—the road opposite Martin Luther King Jr. Drive—and that’s when my intestines felt like they were trying to drop out of my body.
I stopped to use the bathroom again at mile 15, and watched people whoosh by in both directions, the faster runners coming in to the finish, the rest of the pack heading out into the second half in the other direction.
That’s when the race really fell apart. I waited ten minutes for the Porta-Potty, then lost more time trying to push my bowels clear. I’m not sure what happened. Many runners don’t in these situations. The most likely culprit was all that Gatorade I had before the race (I no longer drink it because of its sugar content). When I finally made it back onto Kelly Drive, my legs had started to stiffen, and I never quite shook them out again. When I hit mile 17 and the first hill of the second half, my hips went from protesting to screaming, and I again told them to shut the fuck up. At mile 18, we turned to Manayunk, a Philadelphia neighborhood of hills and bars lined with people partying and cheering, a shock after the quiet of Kelly Drive. There I remembered that it was a rolling hill, and that this was not the flat course the organizers advertised. At mile 19, I passed a woman who had not made it to the Porta-Potty in time. At mile 21, on the way out of Manayunk, I hit the beer stop set up by the Philadelphia Hash House Harriers, a local chapter of a worldwide organization dedicated to beer and running. A friend had pretzel M&Ms waiting for me there, which I scarfed down, followed by a small pour of beer. The booze didn’t faze me. I felt so hot—burning really—that I sweat it out by the next mile marker. Then it was back on Kelly Drive to finish the race.
This part of the marathon is a dead zone, much quieter than the same trip on the way out because there were fewer runners on the course then. It’s away from Center City, and it’s not easy for spectators to get there when they don’t have the option of driving. There was virtually no support (a local running store has been working to get more people out there, to some success). The sun pushed temps toward 60 degrees. At water stops, I walked, drank, and poured two cups of water over my head, hoping that at that point it would soak my braid to lie on my neck and cool me down. I went back to run/walk/run, stopping once every nine minutes, and then, by mile 22, running eight minutes and then walking for two.
Step step step. Bang bang bang. This didn’t feel like running. It felt like hurling myself across nails, pain rocketing through my body with every motion. My hips gave up screaming. They wept quietly, along with my thighs and my shoulders and my back and my toes. Between miles 23 and 24, I saw two people taken off the course on stretchers.
I didn’t quite hit the wall. I wasn’t running strong enough to crash into it. Instead, I crumbled. My legs stopped wanting to move. Just before mile 25, I saw two people I knew—the first ones aside from my M&M mule that I’d spotted in the entire race. They screamed and yelled and I gave back a weak wave. At the 25-mile marker, I stopped to walk again. I thought I’d run the rest of the way, but my legs seized up and stopped me short. At mile 26, I stopped again.
“Go go go! You’re almost there!” a spectator yelled at me.
I wasn’t. Those last 0.2 miles stretched ahead like an unending spool of road, growing longer the more I looked at it. I got mad. I didn’t need to be shamed by spectators for walking. What were they doing that morning other than ringing cowbells and drinking coffee and enjoying what to them must have felt like a nice warm day, not hellfire?
At the last 0.1 mile, I heard Nick, his mom, and sister screaming for me. He had finished and changed already. I didn’t stop then, even though my body revolted at being pressed to move forward, and came across the finish with a lunge of relief.
I wasn’t triumphant, but just glad the whole thing was done and over. I ran a marathon, and I never had to run one again
Finishing time: 4:34:01. Nick beat me by forty minutes.
Post-marathon was a blur. Nick and his sister walked ahead to an Irish pub. His mother accompanied to get me into dry clothes while I moved myself forward with a series of lurches.
No one in my family came to the race. My nephew was being christened that day. I called my mother to tell her that I didn’t die. I thought it would be a joke, but then learned that two people had died on the course that day, one person at the finish of the half marathon, and another right before the finish in the full marathon, right behind Nick.
At the bar, I ordered nachos and a bloody mary, eating a few chips and the olive from the drink. We took pictures. I look stoned. The hoodie I threw on after the race was soaked from my braid and my shirt. In that picture, my shoulders are slumped, my smile both sleepy and forced. I couldn’t sit down. I couldn’t stand up. I shifted from bar stool to standing and back again. I couldn’t get comfortable because pain radiated from muscle, bone, tendon, ligament, from every pore in my body.
The food helped a bit, and I could soon remember my name and at least talk about the race.
Nick and I walked back to the subway, blinking like moles in the sun. I hadn’t packed sunglasses. Philadelphia teemed around us, shoppers and walkers taking advantage of the late November sun. Nick had finished strong, but he wasn’t exempt from the post-marathon pain. We hobbled our way down to the subway, both taking each stair one at a time, one foot, two foot, one foot, two foot.
That night, when my hunger finally caught up to me, I shuffled to the nearby Acme wearing black pajama bottoms, my marathon finisher shirt, an old pair of running shoes, and picked up a tub of Party Mix for me and Hot Pockets for Nick. I swore to the cashier that I was not stoned, but she looked at my food and glazed face, and nodded back with a look that said she thought I was full of shit. I ate half the tub and passed out, my hand still coated with orange grime and pretzel salt.
My first marathon was done. And I’d never do it again, I told myself.
A few weeks later, Nick and I spent the weekend in Cape May. Our hotel included a shop that sold antique jewelry. On the morning we left, he told me to go in and try on some rings. I tried on a few that looked nice, and landed on a square-cut diamond with . . . some other diamonds around it. I really don’t remember except that it was from the 1920s and very sparkly. Even when Jason and I talked about getting married, I didn’t envision the perfect ring or even perfect ceremony aside from those late-night musings. Instead, I envisioned the life we’d live together, which I saw as grand. Here, with Nick, that vision was a blank.
“How much?” Nick asked.
“This one is $15,000. A real value for that kind of cut, which you can’t get in a modern diamond,” the salesperson said.
I’m glad I was still holding the ring or I might have dropped it on the counter.
“No, that’s too much,” I said, sliding it off my finger and putting it back on the velvet mat on the counter. I didn’t want to have that much money on my finger, let alone ask someone to spend what was close to my house’s down payment on a piece of jewelry.
“No, it’s not,” Nick said, and asked for the appraisal information.
He didn’t buy it, but took home a card with its information. I got into his car for the ride home with the same post-marathon glaze on my face. I told myself to stop being uncomfortable with the idea that a man wanted to buy me a $15,000 engagement ring. Discomfort soon turned to terror. I still wasn’t sure about Nick, and our first months of living together didn’t inspire confidence.
So instead of talking about it, or asking Nick to not play the stupid folk album that I hated, I fell asleep, waking up as we crossed the Walt Whitman Bridge out of New Jersey and back into Philadelphia, hoping that it’d all sort itself out before I had that ring on my finger.
chapter 7
CHICAGO MARATHON
OCTOBER 7, 2012
New Jersey Marathon — Miles 16–18
Hot. It’s hot. So very hot.
Two cups of water for my mouth, two for my head. At the water stop just before mile 16, the volunteer in heavy hooded sweatshirt and gloves who handed me water that I promptly threw on myself looked at me as if I had asked her to cut off my ear.
It’s only 50. In August, you ran a half in 75 degrees. This is better. This is better.
Two for my head, two for my mouth.
The Murderesses took a break as we crossed out of Deal at mile 16.5 then ran briefly through the towns of Loch Arbour (population 193) and Allenhurst (population 493), popping out on the other side at Deal Lake. We ran over a flat bridge to plunge into Asbury Park, Bruce Springsteen’s muse that had finally pulled itself away from being that place that ripped the bones from your back and being both a death trap and a suicide rap.
Born to run. Barefoot run? No, not for you. Not for you. Blue? Blue water? Could I jump in the ocean after the race? Would I ruin these shoes? I could. I could. Hot. So very hot.
We ran past the hotel I slept in the night before, then past the Stone Pony, which is still an active concert venue and a musical pilgrimage site, and a new condo project. I had thought of moving here after leaving Nick: new city, new start, a beach and boardwalk to see and use every day, and the chance to plant my flag in a town on the rise.
“Runners! Runners! Runners!” a woman with a cowbell on Kingsley Avenue yelled as she clanged clanged clanged along. I gave her a thumbs-up, that thumb still encased in a sweat-soaked glove, as we turned toward that bridge into Ocean Grove.
Runners runners runners. Running. Running. You are running. You are fine.
And there it was: mile marker 18, where I’d started walking in a marathon six months before.
Nick and I had reached an agreement about the dog. I walked Emily at whatever time she woke up in the morning. He walked her before bed and at any time in the middle of the night, because, a year in, I still did not feel safe in our neighborhood.
Somehow on the way down the stairs once at some ungodly hour, the summer after the Philadelphia Marathon, Emily got underfoot. Nick tripped and fell.
Before I called out to see if he was okay, this thought flashed through my mind, like a beam from a lighthouse: “If he’s dead, I’ll have my way out of here without hurting anyone’s feelings.” And then the beam turned off.
Things had not, as I hoped, gotten better as we settled into our new lives together. As fall turned to winter, then spring, Nick’s criticisms became more frequent (that I didn’t like football, card games, his favorite band) and even bizarre (that he was reconsidering having kids with me because I was allergic to eggs). He also nixed the plan to move to Collingswood and insisted we were staying in the city.
“I’m not ready to leave, so we’re not moving,” he said from his lounge chair in the basement. I sat on the couch, Tosh 2.0 playing on TV.
“I don’t want to stay where we’re at, Nick. That was not the plan,” I said without looking at him.
“Get over it. People love it here. You need to see that,” he said, twisting his wrist in a way that cracked all the joints of that wrist and his hand, a habit he knew I hated, but continued to do anyway. “What’s wrong with you?”
What was wrong with me, I wondered. My discomfort with the neighborhood, with Nick, had turned from frustration to de
spair.
I know I was not the perfect girlfriend. A pallor falls on me every winter, sending me to the couch and books with no desire to socialize, but my bigger flaw, Nick later said to me, was that I didn’t tell him what was wrong, or I’d stop right before we dug into the problem because I didn’t like raised voices. But this situation went beyond those bad winter days or being disgusted every time I went to take the recycling can in and found some asshole peed in it (“If you’d take it in right after it’s emptied, that wouldn’t happen,” Nick said).
When I did bring something up, I did so quietly and calmly and didn’t fight back when he protested against my protest, or accused me of being too sensitive, of not being able to get the joke. Well of course I’m wrong. I should be able to get that joke.
When he did listen, another problem sprung up in its place. It was like cutting off the head of a hydra: One was gone, but others popped up to replace it. When I asked him to stop making stupid blond jokes, he instead focused on me being from New Jersey. When I told him to stop making fun of our shared home state, it was that I wasn’t from Collingswood but Camden. I couldn’t win with him, so instead of screaming and yelling and telling him he was making me despondent, I stopped bothering. I had vowed to never get in screaming matches like my parents had, and I refused to engage in them here. This was my fate, I told myself. And like he said: I better get used to it.
This life, one that looked so good on paper, didn’t suit, and I couldn’t figure a way out. I realized I’d made a mistake soon after I moved in, but I didn’t want to be a quitter. I already felt like a disappointment and a failure, and I didn’t want to add another notch to my belt of dead relationships. So I stayed.
We split up in running before we did as a couple. I told him that it was because he was too fast for me, but I also didn’t want the push/pull of fights about where and when to run. I skipped a possible battle about our running incompatibility by deciding to run solo.
Running Page 13