First of all, let me set the record straight about why I run
the marathon. Because my friend Nick has been killing me lately, calling me out
being like, “Obviously you do it for the attention, that’s why everyone does
it. Otherwise, why wouldn’t you just go out and run 26.2 miles on a random
Wednesday in September?” Listen, I’m not gonna try to deny that. That’s 100%
true. I still refuse to buy the jacket and wear it for the next two months,
because that’s just a whole other level of self-absorption. But yeah, pretty much the
only reason I run marathons is the slight chance that when I run by BC, some
girl from my Auditing & Standards class will turn to her friend and be like,
“Oh he’s kinda cute. I think he’s in one of my classes.” Like, plain and
simple, that’s basically it.
As for this year, I realize that I technically don’t go to
BC anymore. But I spend enough time there and still generally consider myself enough
of a “face on campus” to justify running in a maroon & gold shirt. Besides, being an alumni is the new being a senior.
Unfortunately, when you have legs like Maurice Jones-Drew,
it’s kinda hard to run 26 miles without cramping up. And for the female readers
out there who don’t know who MJD is, he’s a football player with really big
fucking legs. Like, imagine taking Brenny’s legs and sticking them on Calvin’s
body. That’s essentially what you’re dealing with here. There’s literally no
amount of Gatorade, Gu and Jelly Beans in the world that can keep those babies
hydrated for 26 miles.
So naturally, on a 90 degree day, my legs start cramping up
around Mile 10. That’s not good. You expect there to be some cramping. But you
expect that to happen somewhere around Mile 22, and then you just suck it up
and fight your way to the finish line. But when you’re forced to start walking
around Mile 11, then you’re basically fucked.
For about 10 minutes, I seriously considered quitting. Like,
I knew I had no chance to finish in a reasonable time. I had already done this
twice and had nothing to prove. I was already in a tremendous amount of pain
and knew it would only get worse. I had completely lost the motivation to live-Tweet.
And I was fully aware that the next three hours would probably be the most
difficult thing I had ever done in my life.
But then I thought to myself, you know who would quit right
now? Like, you know who would absolutely give up on this situation? LeBron. Like,
there’s no chance LeBron would finish this right now. He would just drop out
around Mile 15, blame the rest of the world for his failure, and then get
demolished by Skip Bayless on ESPN the next morning. That thought literally
came into my head as I was running through Natick. So I was like, “Screw it. So
what if I finish only four minutes ahead of Ray Allen’s mom? So what if there’s
a chance Libby might beat me, in which case I would never hear the end of it?
So what?” And I kept on trucking.
I got a huge emotional lift when I ran by Wellesley College.
For those of you that don’t know, there's this tradition of kissing the Wellesley
girls as you run by. They stand there with signs begging guys to come over and
give them a kiss on the cheek. Basically it’s a way for them to be able to go
home and tell all their friends they “hooked up” at college. The past two years
I ran, I didn’t kiss anyone. But when you don’t have a girlfriend and live at
home with your parents, you need to take advantage of every opportunity that
comes your way. So I found the most American looking Asian-American I could and
gave her a big wet one. Probably made her life, and I didn’t hate it, either.
Actually looking back, I probably should have kissed a second girl. As a
general life barometer, anytime you can kiss two girls by April, you know it’s
gonna be a good year.
The next five miles sucked as much I thought they would. I
walked up Heartbreak Hill, trying to save my energy so I could impress people
when I ran by BC and Cleveland Circle. In my mind, I thought I pulled it
together relatively well. But it’s never a good sign when a Jesuit sees you run
by and immediately posts on your Facebook wall, “Mike, just saw you run by.
Hope you make it to the end.”
Turns out I did make it. And I couldn’t have done it without
Trubow running alongside me for a solid half-mile. At one point, Zack
graciously offered to run up ahead and grab some Gatorade for me. As a normal
person, I probably would have just grabbed a cup from the hundreds of people
standing on the side of the road passing them out. Not Zack though. Zack
decided to run into the grocery store and purchase me an entire bottle.
Shockingly, I didn’t see him again. But I still sucked it up and finished.
Never again, though. And next January when I start getting the itch, someone
please hold me to that.
