Sunday Night With John: Marathon 2.0-The Little Brother Marathon

What am I doing in Fargo, North Dakota, standing in the Fargo Dome (Home of the North Dakota State Bison)? Well, I’m staring at the starting line of my second marathon, wondering whether I will have I what it takes to finish. The temperature is roughly 43 degrees with a chance of rain at some point today.  So while the nice indoor start will hold off the miserable running conditions for the first 100 steps, soon enough I will attempt to traverse 26.2 miles weaving through Fargo and the surrounding areas. However, the cold and possible rain is not what concerns me this day. Just 21 days ago, on my second 20-mile run, I pulled my back muscles and hip muscles going down a hill on mile 10. The pain running down my leg was excruciating, and my first thought was, there goes the 500 training miles I have run. After nine hours of physical therapy sessions, hours of stretching, long slow jogs, and, let’s call it good karma, I am standing at the starting line set to run my second marathon.

The thing is: my goal was to run a sub-4-hour marathon, and, during my training, I was running at a pace quick enough to pull it off. My first 20-mile run was completed in two hours and 45 minutes. Now, as the National Anthem played, my brain went back and forth between,"I can do this", and, "I missed eight days of running while allowing my hip and back to heal". It went through the, “I’m pain free and loose. It will be all good,” to “How long will my left hip hold up?” So the goal today has been adjusted. It is no longer the sub-4-hour marathon time I’m aiming for. It’s the ability to keep going despite the setback, to still reach the goal when the terms have been changed.  This unfortunate turn of events brings me back to the days of being the little brother, seven years younger than an older brother who often used me as a punching bag, wrestle move dummy, and took much delight in pounding me into the ground, no matter what sport we were playing.

The memory that most sticks out was a late January night in our driveway. I had challenged my brother to a game of basketball. It was below 32 degrees and at least a foot of snow was on the ground. On the first play of our little game my brother fouled me hard, on purpose I might add, into the snow. He laughed as I got up and dusted the snowflakes away. He cracked a half smile and said “Cold out”. Try as I might, as a 14-year-old kid full of energy, I could not topple my 21-year-old brother that night or in any other athletic competition we engaged in growing up. He still brags to this day about me never beating him, never winning any wrestling match or game of basketball. What my brother often leaves out is that I never wanted to quit. He would beat me and I would say "let's play it again." So we would go at it again and again, until our parents stepped in and told us to knock it off. Even that night of our January game, shivering because I was shoved into the snow a couple of times, I only lost our quick game five to four. My brother again bragged about beating me, and I demanded another game. My best trait, the trait that makes me successful, was born -- my perseverance, tenacity, whatever you want to call it. All those beatings by my older brother taught me to just keep going. You may lose. Time may run out. You may get injured.  But you do not ever stop.

So as I ran through a lively course in Fargo and Moorhead, I pushed myself to try to make the original goal happen.  The bad weather stayed at bay and through 20 miles I had given myself a chance to still hit my goal time. I had the help of a cheering section that followed me around on bikes, catching me at miles 3, 14, 16, and 18. Their energy picked me up. But, at mile 24, the hip started to give out and I was grimacing as I ran. I couldn’t sustain a good pace as my stride turned into more of a giddy-up with a hitch. I crossed the finish line of my second marathon at four hours, five minutes, and nine seconds. I improved from my last Marathon time by 30 minutes. That fact would not have swayed my brother. He would tell me I had lost again, but I would respond to him, "let’s do another marathon". That’s the thing about life. You can lose, and I have lost a lot through my life--love ones, people, races, games, jobs and countless other things. However, the beauty of life is the ability to find a way to get up and try again, over and over and over. I have my brother to thank for that, and in the end, as cheesy as it is, that makes me a winner and a two time marathon finisher.