There is a moment in every race. A moment where you can either quit, fold, or say to yourself, “I can do this.”
~Jerry Lynch
“What do you think about running a half marathon?” my wife asked.
“I try not to think about it,” I answered. “Just the thought of it makes me sore and exhausted.”
Even though I was an occasional runner, I had never considered a distance of 13.1 miles as something I would want to run. I wasn’t sure that 47 was the right age to start doing so. But my age was only my first excuse.
“I’ve never run that far. I don’t know if I can.”
“I don’t think I have the knees for such a long distance.”
“The race isn’t for another 12 months. I’m not sure we should register yet, in case I change my mind.”
After one of my excuses, my wife said, “I’m going to register, and you’re coming with me either way, so you can either watch or run. I’ve always wanted to do it, but I’m not sure I can train by myself or even finish if I’m not being pushed by someone else. I think we need to do it together.”
And that is what nudged me to the starting line of a half marathon with my better half. Her idea to be a team sounded reasonable to me. At least she wasn’t asking me to run a full marathon. We would run the first 13.1 miles of a marathon and stop at that. I don’t think anyone can argue that the better half of a marathon is the first 13.1 miles. The first half seemed like enough; we could avoid the last half. So we registered for the race and started training.
We were in better running shape than we’d ever been, although race day would be the first time we would run a consecutive 13.1 miles. Just as we had broken down our training into smaller segments, we paid attention to the shorter distances during the race. We had our best three-mile time and our best six-mile time. We seemed to be trucking along at a better pace than ever before, but as we approached the 10-mile marker, my wife’s actions made it clear why I was needed. I heard some noises next to me that did not sound like heavy breathing.
“Are you crying?” I asked. She warned me this might happen. Just like anyone, she knew that her emotions could get the better of her when the pain of exercise was too much to bear.
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” she said. “Everything hurts.”
I may have been running for my own health and sense of accomplishment, but this moment was the real reason I was on that racecourse. At that point, I realized something: I may have trained to run 13.1 miles by pounding the pavement, but I had trained through the exact same number of years of marriage to be by my wife’s side no matter what. I was there to help her get through this challenge, even if I wasn’t too sure she was going to listen to me, so I tried to distract her from the pain.
“Do you know how long we’ve been married?” I asked.
“Thirteen years,” she responded.
“And how far are we running?”
“Thirteen miles.”
“That is not a coincidence. We are finishing together. You are not stopping. We’ve got this. You are not going to leave me here to do this by myself.”
I may not be much of a motivator, but it was enough to keep her going. We didn’t go fast, but we kept steady. We passed the 10-mile marker, gave each other a high-five, and kept going. As we passed the 12-mile marker, we had been running side by side for two hours and 45 minutes, giving each other a high-five at every mile marker, as if celebrating a yearly anniversary for each mile. I realized that we were definitely going to meet her first goal of finishing. But if she wanted to meet her second goal of crossing the line under three hours, then we would have to pick up the pace for the last mile, which we did. We completed our first half marathon together, clocking the exact same time as we crossed the finish line in unison.
She posted a photo of us crossing the finish line on social media. We had smiles on our faces despite the pain, sweat, and tears. She wrote: “It’s been on my bucket list for a long time. Last weekend, I got to check off my first (and perhaps last) half marathon. I could not have done it without my husband by my side every step of the way.” I also realized after the race that our most recent anniversary, which had only been a few weeks before the race, was also our champagne anniversary, celebrating 13 years on the May 13th date of our wedding. Thirteen seemed to be our number — in miles and years — so it was inevitable that I finish the better half of a marathon with my better half. It was a challenge I never would have undertaken without her.
— Darin Cook —