One Flat Foot in Front of the Other
From flower crowns to the Chicago Marathon
Athleticism was never my strong suit. Childhood was one sporting misstep after another. Making flower crowns and doing cartwheels in the outfield at T-Ball. Always chosen last in gym class. Breaking my left pinky finger while missing the ball in team handball, and eventually requiring surgery.
I desperately wanted to be good at something. Anything. My siblings were good at sports, my friends were on teams. Other than occasional tap dancing, I had no real athletic skill. Couldn’t catch a ball, bench a bar, or jump off the springboard with power. I would watch other high school students in their varsity jackets and wonder how silly I would look with “Drama Club - Choir - National Honor Society” across the back.
Eventually, I realized that athleticism was not a natural gift, and I focused my energies on academics and creativity. Yet something in me stirred after arriving in college. I’m not sure what possessed me to start running a mile.
Was it boredom? Vanity? Novelty? My college campus was a commuter school, so weekends in the dorms felt like a ghost town. I was surrounded by athletic peers, and the new student recreation center was enticing.
One of my dearest friends from college was another psychology major. We met in a Quantitative Psychology course. She was everything I was not- athletic, naturally beautiful, and assertive. The origins of our friendship are a little murky, but I believe we bonded over some rogue pepper spray and a mutual frustration towards the teacher’s assistant.
Anyway, my new friend was full of dreams and ideas. She studied abroad in Australia. Went skydiving over the Great Victoria Desert. Talked about her childhood years abroad, and her possible ambitions to become a PhD or a medical doctor.
Her boyfriend (now husband) was an exceptional runner. He ran cross-country Division 1 in college. He logged endless miles and races. My friend used to play volleyball in high school, and with her natural athleticism, she enjoyed accompanying her boyfriend for runs.
One day she asked me, with full seriousness and intention, “Do you want to join me for a 5K?” I’m pretty sure I spit out my pumpkin-spiced latte. There is no way she was serious.
At the specialty running store, the young clerk retorted, “Your feet are really flat.” I had no clue what that meant for running, but I anticipated that it wouldn’t be helpful for speed or endurance.
Months and miles passed. I started with a walk-to-run program, certain that three miles would be my ceiling if I were even able to manage that distance. Yet something magical happened around three miles. Suddenly, the running that had once felt grueling and painful almost felt like seamless flight.
A few months later, we completed the 5K. Soon after, my friend had her sights set on a half-marathon. I scoffed in the same manner as the first proposition, but this time scoffed with a hint of excited trepidation. Was I becoming a runner?
In September 2009, I completed my first half-marathon. I sprinted towards the finish to an uproarious applause. As I was struggling to finish the race, the winner of the marathon, a Kenyan powerhouse, was bolting into the arena to deafening applause.
Six years and numerous half marathons later, I received a text from my friend.
“Do you want to run the Chicago Marathon?”
That familiar wave of queasy anticipation rushed over me as I entered my name into the lottery system and received the congratulatory email for random selection to the race. My friend, her husband, and a couple they knew well were also selected to join.
“Better start training,” I thought.
The marathon distance is daunting. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to tackle 26.2 miles on willpower alone. I didn’t want to reach the finish line injured, or worse, not reach the finish line at all.
A physician I worked with ran the same race a year prior. She provided me with information for her coach, and we hit the ground running… literally. I couldn’t believe I was working with a coach. Coaches were for athletes. I was an impostor in this running world, just waiting for someone to swiftly push me back to my gym-class failure, flower-crown-weaving roots.
The coach was an awesome, inspiring guy. Looking back, though, I have memories that feel a little more like trauma flashbacks than moments of triumph. Scrambling up bleachers in 90-degree heat. Four hundred repeats under the piercing sun. Lying exhausted in a stranger’s yard, quipping “I’m done.”
On top of my tough-love training sessions, I was clocking additional miles on my own. My right knee started to grip in searing pain. My jogs turned more into hobbling. I would be working in the emergency department with ice packs strapped under my black professional pants. All I had left was possibly a short taper, then a hope and a prayer on marathon day.
I landed in Chicago and met my friends at the hotel. We went to the Expo. Nerves were high. Was I going through with this?
Right before I left home, my coach provided a word of warning… walk through the water stations. He starkly warned me that if I did not, my knee strain could significantly worsen.
We all headed to the starting line and attempted to find a pacing group. My friend and I were absorbed into the 5:00 finish pace group with high hopes. We watched as her husband and his best friend disappeared into the distance of the sub-3-hour pace group.
My friend and I started out running together. A comfortable, steady pace. Despite some internal push to “never stop running” (although my run was more of a slow jog), I took my coach’s words to heart and walked the water stations. My friend and I even stopped to snap a selfie at 13.1 miles. A more leisurely pace than anticipated.
Around the halfway mark, my friend encouraged me to move ahead without her. She had already run a marathon and realized before Chicago that her intended training schedule was not feasible with her current job. She knew I had faced actual blood, sweat, and tears in the previous five months and didn’t want to retract from all of that preparation.
Anxiously, I forged ahead alone.
Granted, there were tens of thousands of additional runners. A record number of spectators. It didn’t feel lonely. Yet at the same time, I was solitary, with only my thoughts for the second half.
The free association that occurred in my brain over the second 13.1 miles was vast and vague. More than once, I wondered if I was dreaming. I’d think about my bum knee and my marked hobbling.
I would reminisce on the previous twenty-seven years of life and wonder how I ended up at the Chicago Marathon. A timid, nerdy bookworm who would rather trade tap shoes for tennis shoes. The one always picked last, the first cut from the tryouts, the weakest link, but somehow I was still here, in a field of elite and amateur athletes alike.
The last 6.2 miles were brutal. Due to my leisurely pace, the October sun was already high in the sky for the final push. I felt chafing on every rubbing surface, sweat pouring from my scalp, and burning my eyes. Suddenly, a thought surfaced in my mind with absolute clarity despite the hazy mirage ahead.
The most powerful tool in my arsenal is my mind.
I wasn’t running 26.2 miles due to an unbridled athleticism. At this point, I was probably not even in the top 80% of finishers. In any room, I would never be the quickest, the strongest, or the most coordinated. Yet as an unskilled, gym class martyr and T-Ball dropout, I was now running the Chicago Marathon because of mental grit. Psychological tenacity was going to deliver me to the finish line.
I crossed the line at 6 hours, far behind my hoped-for pace but with zero regrets. It felt like hauling dead weight covered in salty film over that threshold, uncertain if my legs would continue to hold my body upright on the other side. The course closing car was maybe thirty minutes behind; any slower and I would have been hauled away.
Yet I couldn’t be more proud. My childhood self, being subjected to a forced one-mile time test, would be shocked at the adult version who was voluntarily running a marathon. Younger me, who had not built up years of physical skill, but instead built years of emotional resiliency. I understood failure, understood losing.
I wasn’t scared of coming in last. I was scared of not reaching the finish line. Of mentally quitting before the end. I couldn’t control my physical body, but I could harness my thoughts, discipline my mind, and tap into the resiliency reserves to complete the race.
After the marathon, I collapsed onto the ground, lay in the grass, and looked at the sky. Despite years of failure, deep-seated self-doubt, and evidence to the contrary, I completed the Chicago Marathon. One flat foot, one uncoordinated stride, one unlikely moment at a time.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey of mental health and travel! If you’d like to read more, please visit my Medium archives at https://medium.com/@traversingtherapist. Appreciate your time and support!
