Playing Through

Photo by John Anderson

Even if you're not in the least religious yourself, there's something enviable about people who are. Go to one of those holy roller, testifying kind of churches, and you're going to encounter a lot of otherwise ordinary people who seem to have found the Answer.

You get the same exuberant certainty around marathoners. Wherever I've lived, if there's a marathon in town, I'll be there – not usually to run myself – just to soak up their zeal. The day before the race, when the runners are picking up their numbers and complimentary T-shirts, is the most festive. Not everyone who runs a marathon is in awesome shape, yet for that one day, everyone is feeling awesome about themselves. They've trained for months. They've put in countless long, lonely jogs. And now they get to celebrate. For as the novelist John Barth wrote: "The key to the treasure is the treasure." That is, the reward of running a marathon is the marathon.

Twenty years ago, I thought that I needed a much bigger reward. It was early October, at a party in New York, and there was this girl I wanted to impress. She was talking with some people about how they loved to cheer on the participants in the New York City Marathon. That was my in.

"Oh, I'm running in that," I said.

"Really? Wow!" everyone said. "We'll come watch you!"

Until that moment, I had no intention of running so much as a 10K. But now, I had no choice.

OK. Four or five miles into the thing, my stupidity caught up with me. But somehow I finished, and girl or no girl, running has never lost its appeal. Relationships, jobs, 401Ks, friends, pets – they come and go, but running remains. "It's like being a surfer and searching for the perfect wave," says John Conley, race director of last weekend's Austin Marathon. "Not to get all spiritual, but the marathon changes you. After you've run one, you're not the same person you were before. You've redefined your limits."

Take Walter Joaquin, age 67. I met Joaquin at the Palmer Events Center while he was picking up an extra-large T-shirt. "I saw you look at my belly!" he said, introducing himself. It was an impressive belly. But here he was, running his third marathon, hoping to cut more than an hour off his previous time. In that, Joaquin didn't quite succeed, but he did finish (second to last), which, in my book, is every bit as impressive as what the other 4,024 finishers accomplished.

Wanting to join their party this year instead of watching, I ran myself, competing in the half along with another 7,187 finishers. If you do the math on that, 11,213 runners racked up just shy of 200,000 miles. Altogether, we could have circumnavigated the globe eight times, which explains why we needed a half-million cups of water and some 400 Porta Pottis.

As it happens, running 13.1 miles over a surprisingly hilly course is not the ideal way to conduct interviews. But all of those runners have stories of their own. If you get a chance, you should ask them about it. They'll be happy to offer their testimony. Not to get all spiritual or anything.