by Deacon Rie
"Stephen? Stephen?" Carrie's voice startled him from the memory as he saw the waves of runners before him advancing forward.
"Yeah, sorry. Lost in the moment, I guess." Stephen quickly replied.
"Hey, I was just saying good luck out there today and it was nice meeting you."
"Yeah, you too." Stephen said with a deep breath as a gust of the morning chill caught him again. "You take care of yourself and don't let your sister skip out on you next time."
"Oh, yeah. No doubt, she owes me for this. Maybe not right away but I can assure you we will certainly be running together at some point." Carrie gave an awkward smile to Stephen and the general buzz of the shuffling crowd began to give way to a growing roar of applause as they shuffled closer and closer towards the direction of the starting line. Apparently, the race had already started because in a matter of seconds the crowd separated Stephen from Carrie and he lost view of her. People pressed against one another and within a minute of forward progress being initiated, the entire mass swept in a singular direction. Stephen could no more resist the crowd's movement than he could hold back the breaking waves pressing against idle sand.
The more they progressed, the more the intentional mob grew with excitement. The bobble heads were now in full bounce mode, springing repeatedly for a chance to see anything ahead of them. The caffeine deprived zombies even opened their eyes and realized they were about to go on a multi-hour long run. From the look on their faces, Stephen surmised this to be a fresh revelation for several of them. He heard a high-pitched garble of words rapidly being tossed in all directions and quickly identified the earlier gossip group. They were still going at it and the growing excitement only accelerated their pace of speech. Stephen was pretty sure their lips would catch on fire or spontaneously explode at some point in the race. He purposely slowed to allow several people to pass him and build distance between him and the talkers.
Somewhere among the growing chaos was a man with a microphone. Stephen couldn't see him but his presence was undeniable. The overly excited and jaggedly high-pitched voice emerged and jolted out like trebuchets raining boulders upon the disinterested crowd. But the real sin was the exuberant lift in his voice which advertised his personal excitement with having been designated the official voice of today's marathon. Stephen thought this guy was a little too happy to be on the loudspeaker. He reasoned it was more likely that the man was an imposter while the actual official announcer, a person whose vocal control was professionally honed to deliver calm and soothing encouragement, lay unconscious under a table somewhere with a nasty bump on his head. Stephen gave a private chuckle to the story developing in his mind. It wasn't Shakespearean but it passed the time as the wave of agitated bodies pressed forward and stopped; an irritating progression which continued for a good five minutes. He looked up and saw he was passing the starting line. It was an anticlimactic beginning which grew into a momentary disappointment as Stephen realized that he had been so far back in line that he hadn't even heard the horn blast which announced the start of the race. He drifted into the sluggish pace of the forward shuffle, mindlessly giving control to the crowd's irresistible pull onto the official race course.
Mile 2
The concept of running a marathon really had seemed like a good idea at the time Stephen signed up. Yet, less than two miles into the race he found himself questioning his own judgment. An elbow flung into his shoulder by an extremely tall and flamboyant runner who already seemed to have been transported into another scene by the music piping through his headphones. Stephen winced in pain with no apparent attention given by the other runner. The person behind him was so close Stephen was sure they were fighting to take in the same oxygen. The crowd was dense; no thinner than when he had waited in the corral to begin the race, only now the sea of bodies was about as gentle as whitewater rapids. Shoulders rubbed uncomfortably and any glimpse he caught of an open space which might provide respite shut without a moment's notice, leaving him helplessly lodged inside the embrace of the runner's field.
Without warning, the group around him slowed to a near stop. He could see that the turn ahead of them was causing a bottle necking effect. Claustrophobia didn't set in until he bumped the side of another man and his shoulder slide off an oversized, hairy and sweaty arm that felt like it was covered in soap. Momentary nausea washed over him and Stephen raised his head towards the open sky in the hope of finding a happier place.
He gave in and allowed the aggravation of the crowded course to grind on him. To Stephen, everyone around him was a source of complaint and it caused him to seethe with an unjustified anger. The pointlessness of the entire event began to gnaw at him.
The running of 26.2 miles, he felt was an odd thing to celebrate. It was odd enough to run for the sake of running but it bothered Stephen even more as he considered the obscurity of the distance.
All this because some hero of antiquity ran all over the Greek countryside two and a half thousand years ago.
As a former soldier, Stephen could appreciate celebrating the battle, or the victory, or even the messenger who delivered a critical message. In the clasp of his current discomfort, he allowed his thoughts to became lost trying to understand the concept of celebrating the run itself?
Who came up with this distance? Where the heck did they come up with 26.2? When Pheidippides darted from the Battle of Marathon for Athens did he grab his water bottle and then stop off to program his GPS? What if he actually started from the far side of the battle field? Or heaven forbid he detoured after getting lost.
If Pheidippides had gotten lost, Stephen was pretty sure that part would have been left out of his report to the people of Athens. He recalled that after the Greek warrior got done running, whatever distance it actually happened to be, Pheidippides hastily delivered his message and immediately dropped dead on the stone floor. Now here they were celebrating his valiant effort by trying to do the same thing.
Stephen had to admit there was a really was a pointlessness to it all that made the effort unreasonable. A part of him wished he had his introspective conversation before he agreed to sign up for the race. At the very least, he would have a hundred bucks more in the bank. Paying for the opportunity to run towards your potential death placed aside, Stephen had not met anyone who regretted running a marathon. Along with the never-ending availability of unsolicited advice, he had received numerous words of encouragement as several friends and associates recounted their own marathon experiences. He felt he could appreciate that completion was an accomplishment of both training and the day's performance. He respected the race enough to not expect this day to be just another day running, but that it would be like many hard things which challenged the body and mind yet proved itself worthwhile in the end.
"The person who starts the race is not the same person who finishes the race," he had heard from more than one marathon veteran. Still, he had to wonder how many of those runners had a near Pheidippides-like experience of their own. If someone had a miserable run, would people really be bragging about it? Would they even bring up the idea of running a marathon? Or was it like being at the Christmas party with that guy who invested in the stock market and caught a winner that would soon be his ticket to investing guru status. Guys like Arwin; yes, who could possibly forget Arwin and his annual performances at the corporate Christmas parties.
Having been a member of the National Guard for several years, Stephen had a day job. Through a series of unpredictable events, he found himself pursuing a professional career in the real estate appraisal industry. Being a business predominately based upon relationships, Stephen spent a fair bit of time attending social events and building a network of potential clients. This gave him a chance to meet all types of characters and with the business development work he did for his company, he routinely bumped into those contacts around town and at seasonal events. Arwin was one of those hyper-extraverted personalities who could pull a room together at a moment's notice. It was generally accepted b
y people in his circles that Arwin was an extremely intelligent man of significant success. People accepted this, not from his vast intellect or accomplishments, but because Arwin routinely told them that he was an extremely intelligent man of significant success. Stephen, taking a more passive approach to interacting with people, held the philosophy that the more someone spoke of their intellect, the lower the odds were that they actually had any. He spotted Arwin's gift of gab immediately and made it a point to not get locked into discussions with the walking self-advertisement.
Arwin had the emotional balance of a roller coaster. His highs were near euphoric and his lows would typify him as a manic depressant. Despite his imbalance, Arwin sought life ventures wrought with uncontrollable variables. He worked as a mortgage broker and by nature of the industry his business often lived and died off of the Federal Reserve's opinions on current interest rates.
A saving grace for Arwin was that he was married to an accomplished biophysicist who actually was brilliant and broadly recognized as a leading expert in her craft. She also happened to be a deep introvert, having a small supply of daily words that needed to be used. This meant that Arwin was accustomed to having cash to spare and a captive audience. The excess income paid for new homes, new cars and it supported his favorite hobby, the buying and selling stocks. In a bull financial market where the rising tide raises all ships, as well as investment portfolio balances, everyone thinks they are an expert trader. Arwin's successes during the late 1990's were representative of the massive market increases fueled by the unprecedented growth in technology stocks and newfound startups. The market was euphoric and investing caution was tossed overboard. It was during this time that Arwin became self-aware of his destiny to become the next Warren Buffett, the famous investor known as the Oracle of Omaha.
The annual Christmas party put on by Stephen’s employer brought together a cross section of industry types who had an interest in financial discussions. As a byproduct of the festivities, the event would frequently become the platform for Arwin to deliver his annual report to attendees; whether they wanted it or not. Stephen would quietly entertain himself by watching Arwin arrive and immediately begin to gather party guests for his report.
"Hey Sammy! Good to see you. Say, did you get in on that natural gas company I was telling you about?" Sammy, someone who was still used a pager from early 1990's, would give an apologetic look as he tried to piece together a conversation he and Arwin apparently had several months beforehand.
The moment's hesitation was all Arwin needed. "Ah, probably not. That stock looked pretty scary at first but those of us who had the gumption, got the reward; know what I mean?" He would toss a deviant smile and a nod before moving on and setting his sights on another unsuspecting prey. "Hey Philip! How's your Merrill Lynch guy doing for ya? Still paying those red hot commissions for ice cold stock tips?"
For all his outlandish claims, many attendees would still fall into the trap of believing they were witnessing the reincarnation of Buffet's mentor, Benjamin Graham. It was generally accepted by those more aware to observe the show from a distance, where one could remain cautious to not be mistaken for an Arwinian disciple. The entertainment of watching Arwin's nauseating reality show routine was part curiosity and part hilarity for Stephen. He enjoyed the audience's dramatic expressions of curiosity and wonder as Arwin bragged perpetually around his latest stock picks. He chuckled as the man would go on and on about the level of research he did and the "gut" feeling he so wisely acted upon despite a stock's low reputation by the "so-called" analysts and the collective investment community. The whole conversation would amount to little more than a mental massage as the aspiring portfolio manager stroked his own ego for all to observe and marvel. He was quite content to elaborate to any unwitting audience who could be pulled in by a false hope of obtaining the slightest tip which would somehow perform an overnight transformation of their ever-lagging portfolios. Arwin didn't care what happened to their investment portfolios, his only intention was to feast in the moment of their adoration and swim in their praise of his brilliance.
After a couple years of watching the routine, Stephen had learned that the bragger never revealed any indication of the amount of risk he actually took with any of his investments. The young oracle had been more than generous to discuss the infallibility of blending his keen observation skills and intuitive analysis along with his rare risk-embracing, edge of the cliff, daring personality. But in an offhanded conversation with Arwin's wife one year, she casually let Stephen in on her husband's secret. What Arwin would not discuss about any of his investments was how a pending confirmation screen for a stock purchase would routinely drive fear through every nerve in the oracle's body. In response, he anguished to make a trade and always trimmed a couple of zeros off the investment amounts before submitting them; a glaring representation of his true self-confidence; or lack thereof. Stephen learned that despite the grand talk, Arwin never let his awe-inspired audience know that the cumulative investment in the high-flying success stock was little more than a tenth of a percent of his overall portfolio. It was extreme bungee jumping, but without the extreme, or the jumping, and probably more like looking at the bungee cord still wrapped in a box. Yes, the massive risk taking investment adventure taken by the "Oracle of the Christmas Party" was usually a transaction which may have succeeded in adding about $500 to his household net worth.
Congratulations sir, Warren would be proud.
Eventually, as though the cyclical nature of economic reality should be unexpected, bull markets gave way to bear markets and stock values fell. No matter how sound a financial strategy might be, the majority of investors were calling their financial advisors to ask how they could have possibly lost money. When it came to over-the-counter penny stocks whose volatility and risk exposure was often more than twice the level of broad markets, their fall would quickly become more of a plummet. Ironically, it was during those years when Arwin had conflicting plans and could not make his company's Christmas party.
Similar to the investment heroes like Arwin, Stephen surmised that there were plenty of braggadocios runners who had stories which sounded more like, "I threw up my breakfast, hit my head on a curb when I passed out, talked to leprechauns, and eventually ran slower than I could have walked." He hadn't heard anything like this but it figured that the owners of those stories probably kept their mouths shut and never mentioned the time they tried to run a marathon. There had to be plenty of Arwins out on this course today.
This serpentine thought process provided Stephen with a temporary distraction from the frustration of being smothered by other runners, which had been mere speed walkers among the congestion. As pockets of air began to form between the runners, strides began to lengthen and personal space began to resemble a commonly accepted courtesy. He pondered the type of race he was in for? Would he talk about it or try not to mention it or hope somehow it got lost among the sea of topics that weren't significant enough to remember. The Rookie felt frustrated, nervous and excited all at the same time.
Having embraced an interest in long distance running, Stephen had spent time watching some of the marathon qualifying competitions building up for the Olympic Summer Games the following year. It was both impressive and inspiring. But he simply couldn't relate to someone who ran at that level; to run full speed for a marathon distance. In his view there was no association between what he was now doing and the unimaginable display of athleticism performed by what was clearly Human 2.0.
Still, he had enjoyed watching runners compete at such a high level. He was particularly impressed by the style and coordination of the race start. Even though their marathon run pace was faster than his all-out sprint, the Olympians had opened the race with a grace not unlike a herd of gazelle taking off in unison. Each had their strategic paths laid before them as if guided by imaginary lines telling each runner where they would go straight and where they would pass another runner without disturbing the herd's stride. Stephen h
ad wondered about how the herd would move on the morning of his race. Certainly the fastest of the gazelle would lead from the start. The rest would be farther behind but the unison effort of the herd would no doubt still be set in place as a universally accepted truth. Every runner knew where they were supposed to be. The unspoken professional understanding would create an orderly fashion so as to provide inspiration and motivation to the other herd members. Though tortoises when compared to the Olympians, his marathon peers would simply fall into the herd mentality and gracefulness would prevail.
Gazelles my ass!
This chaos was nothing close to the graceful herd he had envisioned. Stephen shifted along the road, dodging midstride collisions with other runners as they cut across him from either side. The organization and discipline of the herd looked more like someone had just dropped a firecracker in a room of sleeping cats. With the field beginning to space out, runners blindly darted in all directions at varying rates of speed and disorientation. Stephen could see they were yearning to break free of the crowd and would rush to fill pockets of available space which opened before them. They were as aggressive as water flowing into a crevasse, launching themselves without regard and then immediately looking for the next opening. Stephen was pretty sure he saw someone running in the opposite direction and the lady tailgating behind him was so close she seemed to be trying to hitch a ride on his back. The crowd was as graceful as the pothole-ridden concrete road was smooth and in a race of 11,000 anticipated participants, a 10,000-body pile up was all but inevitable.