Run

 This is an excerpt from the book, “I Have No Business Being Here” - available now. Read the whole collection here.

People often describe runners as sort of smug. For instance, someone may casually slip in during a conversation, I've finished three half marathons. For me, that's actually true. I did finish three half marathons. You wouldn't know it to look at me. I don't look like a runner. I look like the wacky best friend in a rom com. But I have finished three half marathons. Notice, I say "finished" them rather than "run" them. There is a distinct difference. What I do is not running.

It's described by bystanders as a "slog," or "narrowly escaping the scene of a crime." In fact, I tried to say that I have finished one-and-a-half marathons. According to real runners, that is misleading, even though the math checks out.

I do have a friend who is an actual, accomplished runner, Jody. Unlike other runners, she is not smug. She is far worse. She's optimistic. She says things to me like, "You can do it!" and "You'll be fine!" which is true for her. She can do it and she will be fine.

She is so athletic; she looks like a gazelle in a Disney movie who made a deal with a witch to become a princess. So, she's beautiful and fast. I believe birds land on her shoulder when she runs. She tells me all the time, "You can do it, I believe in you!" despite a lot of evidence to the contrary.

After I had run two half marathons, she called me and asked me to run the Cowtown Half Marathon in Fort Worth, Texas with her. It is a historical race that snakes through rustic downtown Fort Worth, Dallas's cowboy-boots wearing sister city. My initial reaction was, "Under no circumstances will I do that." I had not trained. I was not hydrated. There are videos on the internet of people crapping their pants when they run races unprepared, and I didn't need any help in that department.

But Jody was insistent. "You're amazing! You have already finished two half marathons. How is this any different?" I still said no.

"You'll get a medal," she offered. I remained unconvinced. "Plus they have bananas at the finish line."

This I considered. I thought it could not be that hard. I have finished two other races this long. But could I run a half marathon with no notice, no training, no water? I had done it twice before. This logic was not sound, however. It is a like your grandfather agreeing to get into a fist fight just because he took out some Nazis in World War 2. There were some acts of valor way back when, but now it's mostly delusion.

Nevertheless, I agreed to do it. When it came to race day, I was standing in the corral. They separate you by your mile time. I was in the 13-minute mile zone because I am delusional. Jody was way ahead in the 7- or 8-minute mile zone, rightfully so.

Then, the gun goes off, the race starts. I look around and I am doing it. I was killing it. I ran a 13 minute mile for three quarters of a mile. Suddenly, everything from the neck down just gave up. I was surrounded by cheerful nice people, including the pacer. Pacers run with the pack and keep you on pace to finish at your goal time. They're also like personal cheerleaders. When my pacer saw me start to falter, she tried to cheer me on.

I told her, "Go on without me." And they did.

Then another pace group went past, and another and another. Until I remained at the very back of the pack with the walkers. Much like the zombies of the same name, walkers are tottering along, arms outstretch, hungry, confused, dead inside.

Everyone at the back was just trying to finish, and I was, too. To my credit, I didn't quit. I made it to mile 3, then 7, then 9. But around that time, the whisper that my body had been making, saying Stop, Stop it and save yourself. Became a blood curdling scream of What are you doing to me?

By brain said, "We are buckling down and we are doing this." My body disagreed and that is when my foot broke. Just a little bit. It was only a small bone, but according to doctors, your foot is full of those and you actually need all of them.

At the time, I thought I would be fine, but when I took another step, I knew I was out. I sat on a curb and took my shoe off to survey the damage. I didn't notice anything going on around me, which is how I missed the ten-foot-tall sheriff in a cowboy hat who approached me.

"You all right, little lady? You almost sat in a pile of horse shit." Because it's Fort Worth and of course I almost did.

That's when a frail old man ran between the sheriff and me. He was basically a skeleton in a fanny pack and a tank top. He was trucking along, ahead of the walker pack.

At first I thought, good for you, old man. Then the sheriff said, "You're not going to let that old geezer beat you."

My body said, "Yeah, I am because I am going to die here. I am going to throw myself off this bridge and into the river below and let it take me away."

But my brain said, "No we are not." So I shoved my shoe back on, stand up, and fix my eyes on the back of the grey old head in front of me.

I will concede that perhaps he was someone's grandfather, a lifelong husband and love of some woman's life. Maybe he is a war veteran or a titan of business. I didn't care. I wanted him gone.

I put a target on the back of his head and thought, If I can run faster than that little old man, I'll feel like I won. This, of course, wasn't true. It wasn't even rational. Instead it was the combination of my bruised ego and good old fashioned jealousy. At the time, it seemed like the answer.

So I ran as fast as I could right at the old man, and I managed to pass him. I was shocked that I actually passed him and disappointed that I wasn't immediately showered with roses. With him in my rearview, I was forced to now drag my leg beside me, right past the 12- mile marker. Just in case you didn't know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles.

I still had a little over a mile to go, and I felt in my stomach I couldn't make it. I believed it was time to call the wagon. The wagon is a truck that they pile all the lifeless corpses into then wheel you back to the parking lot and give you a banana. I decided that the next race official I saw, I would gesture that I needed help and officially tap out.

That is when I saw a woman running toward me, salmon-style, up the race course. She had a banana in one hand and a medal in the other, yelling, "You can do it!" It was Jody. She had already finished the race, claimed her banana then turned around to make sure I finished.

When she got up next to me, my body really started to give out. With every step, I accepted the inevitability of my death. But there beside me, I had a little bird on my shoulder with Jody's voice telling me that I could finish and that I shouldn't give up.

"You can do it," she said again. "We'll do it together." Even though, she had already done it, much faster and more gracefully, I imagined. The race photos confirmed it.

When the finish line was in sight, I began to cry. I cried because my foot hurt, of course, but I also cried because I was grateful. How lucky I was to have a friend who finished the race then willingly exercised more just for me. I was also grateful that despite everything, I didn't give up. I cried with relief because I knew I was never going to run a race that log again. And most of all I cried with joy, because they did have bananas at the finish line.

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