It soon became clear to me that I wasn’t going to win any age-group awards unless I entered races like the triathlon in Evansville, Indiana, where they gave age-group awards to the top three and there were only two in my age group. But those races are hard to find.
If I wasn’t going to win an age-group award, then I had to find races that awarded medals to people like me whose best efforts were just that: best efforts.
Medals are more permanent than t-shirts. The woman who bought 150 of my race shirts for her car-washing business wouldn’t have had the same interest in my medals.
My medals became my prized possessions, and through them I came to understand how seemingly small symbols can come to mean so much.
When I was growing up, my parents’ house was filled with small symbols that were mostly mementos of my childhood: the plaster cast of my hand, a Valentine’s Day card I’d made myself. Now my home is filled with the same mementos of my son’s childhood: the wreath made of rotini pasta that gets hung on the door every Christmas; the rock with felt feet, head, and tail that, if you have enough imagination, looks very much like a turtle. They are prized possessions.
My home is also filled with the mementos of my return to childhood—that is to say, my return to a time of play and joy. These mementos are my finisher’s medals, my race photos, and even a second-place trophy from a duathlon in which there were only two men competing in the 45–49 age group.
I’m always interested in what other runners do with their medals. I’ve been to homes where each medal is ceremoniously displayed in a glass-covered case complete with the race number, race shirt, and photo. I admire these displays and think how splendid it would be to have one.
My own medals, however, are hung over my closet doorknob. Why? Because that’s where I unpack after a race weekend. I come home, empty the suitcase, and hang the medal on the door. Unceremonious? Sure. But what’s really nice is that, as the number of medals has increased, they have become something like a wind chime. Most of the time I don’t notice them hanging there. But when I move the door, their clanging reminds me of what I have accomplished.
More recently, after completing so many marathons, I’ve had to start hanging the medals on both sides of the doorknob. The ribbons are so thick that it’s impossible to actually turn the knob. And their combined weight makes me wonder about bolstering the hinges. The last thing I want is the door crashing to the ground in the middle of the night.
Recently I was asked if, after so many marathons, it gets any easier. It might for some, but not for me. Sure, I understand the distance better. I know not to blast off in the early miles, I recognize the brain fade in the middle, and I’m not surprised by the fatigue in the later miles. But no two marathons are ever exactly the same. And the lessons learned in one may be of no use whatever in the next.
The medals serve to remind me of the humility it takes to run marathons. I see the medals from Chicago and Marine Corps in 1997. That was the “year of the double,” when I ran them on back-to-back weekends. The idea of running two marathons in less than two weeks ranks very high on the “stupid Penguin tricks” list.
There are seven London Marathon medals. It’s the only course I’ve ever completed seven times and the course that has the most emotional connections for me. One year my aunt, to whom I was very close, died just before the race, and the family waited until I could get back to hold her funeral. So I’ve always run London with a combination of joy and sorrow.
There is a medal from the half-marathon in Florence, Italy, where I learned how good a banana and hot tea can taste and just how lost you can get if you lose sight of the runners in front of you and don’t speak the local language.
The doorknob holds the memories of the good days and the not-so-good days, of people who brought great inspiration into my life and then faded away. There are memories of cities and streets and thousands of steps taken toward countless finish lines.
When I give clinics and seminars at marathons and half-marathons, I am always quick to remind the participants that everyone who finishes gets the same medal. It isn’t as if at some point on the clock the medals change from gold to silver to bronze. I think race organizers have figured out that the amount of effort it takes to complete the distance isn’t a function of how long it takes to cover the mileage.
This fact was brought home to me by Frank Shorter, the two-time Olympic Marathon medalist and iconic figure of the 1970s running boom. He remains one of our most distinguished figures. If he and I weren’t practically the same age, I would call him a senior statesman of the sport.
I’ve heard Shorter describe his gold-medal performance in the 1972 Olympic Marathon many times. But no matter how often I’ve heard the story, I’m always impressed by the passion, dedication, and commitment it took to earn a place on that starting line in Munich.
At a recent seminar, a runner in the audience asked Shorter about Olympic performances. He wanted to know what it takes to get to the Olympics and what it takes to fully seize the opportunity. Rather than describe the racing perspective of an elite runner, Shorter explained matter-of-factly that there are gold-medal performances happening at every level of running, at every pace, and at every event, every weekend.
The mother of three children who decides to take on a marathon must learn to balance her dreams with the needs of her family, just as an elite athlete must do. On race day, after months of training, she’ll give her own personal gold-medal performance by running her hardest and finishing in less than five hours.
The chubby teenager who resolves to change his diet and lose weight for his first 5K understands the discipline it takes for any athlete to get across the finish line. And when he finishes that race, his sense of accomplishment may be as strong as that of an Olympic athlete who has just won gold.
The middle-aged man who quits smoking at age 43 and starts running needs the courage of an Olympian to stick to a healthier lifestyle rather than revert to old ways. I can tell you that firsthand. I can tell you that Frank Shorter couldn’t have felt any better receiving his gold medal than I did finishing my first marathon.
On a crisp Sunday morning in November 1993, I stood at the starting line of the Columbus, Ohio, marathon. I had actually stood at an earlier marathon starting line, in Memphis, Tennessee, in December 1992. That day was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
My preparation for my first marathon attempt would have been funny if it hadn’t been such a disaster. I had been running for about six months or so when a colleague—and marathoner—suggested that I take a shot at running 26.2 miles.
I was, in a good week, running about 20 miles total. And I wasn’t so much running as I was running and walking and jogging and waddling. I was moving at a pace that could best be described as glacial.
By the fall of 2002 I had run a few local 5K races and felt like I was beginning to get a handle on the whole training schedule process, though I hadn’t picked up a book or a magazine that might have given me any guidance. I was blissfully ignorant of my own ignorance.
What I knew for sure, or thought I knew for sure, was that to be successful at finishing a marathon you had to learn to run on tired legs. It just made sense to me that by 20 miles or so one’s legs would get tired, so learning how to keep moving through that fatigue would be a worthwhile skill.
The plan I devised, all on my own, was to, once a week, bicycle until my legs felt like they couldn’t move and then do my longest weekly run. Let me repeat that: My training plan for the marathon was to bike until I couldn’t move my legs and at that point start my long weekly run.
You can see where this is going.
When I have a plan, I am very disciplined about sticking to it. Did the fact that my legs ached all the time, that my knees were so sore I could barely walk up and down steps, that my appetite was gone, that I couldn’t sleep, and that I was on the verge of rage all the time make me change my training plan? No way. Not me. I was an athlete. I was disciplined. I was motivated. I was so overtrained that even my hair hurt. I was an idiot.
I stuck with this plan for most of that fall. I was doing all my long runs on tired legs, so I figured I didn’t need to run more than 15 miles at a time in preparation for the marathon. I calculated that my legs wouldn’t get any more tired from the running than they did from the biking, so as long as I could run to mile 11 of the marathon, I’d be fine.
As race day approached, it occurred to me that I should probably rest up some to give my body a chance to get strong again. So for one solid week before the marathon, I did nothing. That’s right, nothing. I didn’t run. I didn’t walk. I didn’t cycle. I did nothing.
Getting the picture?
Race morning in Memphis was cold and rainy. The friend who had talked me into doing the marathon had decided not to do it, so I was standing there by myself.
Despite the cold temperature and rain, I had decided that I needed to dress like the elite athletes did, so I had on nothing more than a pair of running shorts and a singlet. It was just above freezing. On my best days I was running about a 12-minutes-per-mile pace, and I was standing in the rain in next to nothing.
At the gun, the crowd began to move away from me much more quickly than I had anticipated. I tried to run, but my legs felt like logs. They were so stiff from a week of doing nothing that they would barely bend.
I forced the issue and began to run. Before I had reached the first mile marker, my knee hurt so badly that I could barely walk, let alone run. A policeman on a motorcycle rode next to me for the next 5 miles to a place where I knew a friend would be waiting. It took me nearly an hour and a half. I dropped out, hurt and discouraged.
So when people ask me how long it took to finish my first marathon, I tell them 11 months.
The disaster in Memphis prompted me to think about my race strategy in Columbus. I devised a run/walk plan, bought a long-sleeved cotton cycling jersey with pockets in the back to carry whatever I needed, and purchased a railroad engineer’s hat that I was convinced would amuse and inspire those around me.
The race started well. I was moving at a comfortable pace. The miles were adding up, and with each mile I became more and more confident that I would finish.
The last 3 miles were a struggle, but nothing I couldn’t handle. After nearly five hours of running and walking around the city of Columbus, I saw the finish line. I looked behind me and saw one person. My greatest effort on my greatest day and I was second-to-last to finish.
I crossed that line, exhausted but satisfied. I’d done it. I’d completed a marathon. As I stood there in the finish area I heard, in the distance, the faint sound of a child crying. The longer I stood there, the closer it seemed to be.
It wasn’t the sound of a child crying from being hurt or afraid. It was more the gentle crying of a child who is sad. As I looked around to see where the child was, a volunteer grabbed my arm and asked if I was all right.
There was no child. I was the one who was crying.
I cried for the child in me who had wanted to be an athlete but had failed so many times before. I cried for the young boy who hadn’t made the Little League team. I cried for the junior high boy who had missed the basketball shot.
I cried for the young man who had broken so many promises to himself and to others. I had disappointed employers, my family, my friends. I couldn’t change any of that, but I cried because with that final step, I had erased a lifetime of disappointment in myself.
Running is a wonderful sport. Unlike nearly every other athletic endeavor, it brings every ability level—fast or slow, seasoned or novice—together to share in a common goal: to stand on the starting line and test our strength, our courage, and our spirit.
It may be true that the glamour of the sport belongs to runners at the front of the pack, but the glory belongs to any one of us, regardless of whether we’ve stood atop an Olympic podium. If we face the obstacles, overcome our fears, and push our limitations, we can emerge victorious. And then, like Frank Shorter, we too can have our gold-medal moment.
Sometimes I think I should put my medals in a place of greater distinction. I think I should have them displayed where others can see them. But then I remember why I wanted those medals in the first place. I wanted them not to show to anyone else but as reminders to me of my own journey, not only as a runner but as a person.
And I prize them, like my son’s rotini wreath, not for what they are but for what they mean to me.
