I Run To Be

I'm alive. My venture into the world of athletics, where drinking Gatorade has a legitimate purpose and doesn't make me feel like a complete douche, started and ended yesterday. I'm alive, but I might never walk again. It's not because I can't (the "walk" is now a "limp") since I'm not completely immobilized. I would prefer not to. Status is indefinite.

The Nike Women's Marathon was a whirlwind of emotions for me. You might attribute that to my inability to stop assessing everything with my heart or the wide range of "things" unfit me will feel while doing a half marathon. Let's start at the beginning--and alas, this story won't have much of a picture essay-esque feeling to it because someone's fingers were too cold and legs too gummy to stop and document.

After arriving in Berkeley (lovelove Eddie for housing me), eating a horrible pasta meal, and falling asleep at 2 AM due to my surmounting excitement for the next day, I managed to drive myself to San Francisco at 4:30 AM in a car I borrowed from my friend. I cannot thank and love him enough. (However, later I find out gas, toll, parking garage will cost more than a taxi. Again, life takes a shot at me. DING.) I get to San Francisco and it takes me 5 tries to enter a parking garage. I still don't understand this sequence of events or my sense of directions or my apparent illiteracy since I can't read maps. I missed the entrance three times, had to re-circle, got caught behind a muni, blocked off by a taxi, swore on by a hobo, and frowned upon by God. I just don't understand. When I'm finally parked, I run downstairs towards Union Square, not because I'm late for the race--it doesn't start until 7--but because I did not have up my runner's packet. Pick-up was required in the 3-day expo prior to race day. If you're wondering WHY MALEE, you're wasting your time. I won't be able to explain a lot of things that happened on this run. I honestly thought everyone would arrive that morning and get their bib number within an hour and everything would be perfect. I also thought a unicorn would greet me halfway at a cheering station. Okay, the unicorn thing might have happened for real due to my hallucinations.

I finally get situated. Timer tag on shoe, bib pinned askew on my shirt, legitimate cup of Gatorade in hand. Ahhhh, feeling good. Life is great! Adrienne is calling me to meet up with the girls. I know people here! People who know people who know a number to reach my parents in case I fall off a cliff. My checklist is almost complete. Now I just have one tiny thing to do--the 13.1 miles.


Adrienne, Katy, and Natalie are waiting near Macy's and we slowly make our way up to the START line since we're behind a massive crowd. We spot a few people with Snuggies and make a note to one day buy animal printed ones, meet up at a race, and be some sort of herd galloping down the street. Sadly though, these Snuggies are later seen strewn on the side of the street as people are stripping off layers due to increasing body temperatures. I had to Google this--I don't know what I'm talking about. The girls and I officially start the race at 7:20. I'm running and my body is feeling amazing. There is this rush--you feel like you're part of this enormous organism filling up the streets of San Francisco with your fluid, joyful, determined limbs and spirit. It is all-encompassing--this feeling. It reaches out to strangers and you share a brief but knowing smile as you try to make it up a hill. A man tells you you're doing great and gives you a high-five. Another girl is hunched over with her head between her legs and you can't help but want the best for her. It feels like everyone is in on this secret and you can't believe you're part of it, too.

Immediately, the girls and I go our separate ways. I'm running along and after a couple miles, am struck by this horrible need to pee. Okay, in anticipation for GREAT MOMENTS, I might have developed the tendency to unnecessarily drink way too much. Hmm, anyone know where this habit might have taken root? I wait almost 15 minutes for my turn and am startled as I try to exit and see "liquid" running out of the porta-potty. Whatever. I open the door to leave and JUDGEMENT. Well, I'm sure from my fellow runners in line, but more from God 'cause you know with 10 more miles it was the equivalent of Judgement Day for me! Go pseudo-Christian analogies!

I encounter my first hill as Embarcadero starts to curve. I think it's a piece of cake and Lil Wayne is going, Now tell me how you love it and I'm loving it. I feel the burn. A stranger comes into view and we make eye contact and he's clapping. And I'm like, This is SWELL. I'm singing to Lil Wayne and I momentarily have a cheering squad. You know you at the top when only heaven's right above it. Me, mostly to hill, CUZ IT'S YOUNG MONEY MOTHERFUCKER. AND IF YOU AIN'T RUNNING WITH IT, RUN FROM IT MOTHERFUCKER ALRIGHT?

I make it past all the restaurants on the pier, the Safeway, the homes with large windows and beautiful children in them waving to you. My breath catches in my throat from all the encouragement and the kindess of strangers. It is an easy jog to the Golden Gate Bridge. However, this is when things started wobbling. It felt like a real ninja kicked my shins. After climbing Mount Doom, I stop my jog and walk slowly in order to regain control of my legs. My goodness, it is unsettling to feel muscles involuntarily spasming. Muscles I didn't even know I had! It's like--I don't know. It's like puberty. I HAVE THIS. WHAT IT HURTS. UGH. STOP THROBBING. SHOULD I TOUCH IT? OMG, WHEN I RUB IT, IT FEELS BETTER. Yea, I went there.

So, I'm doing this weird salute by now. My arms are turning dark red and reaching and stretching them helps with the circulation. BUT, the strangeness does not stop there. I have also developed a march. Same for the legs--I had to keep moving but stretch out my muscles at the same time. If I had stopped, I would not have wanted to continue. Trust. The leg lifts from the march help relieve some of the pain in my butt and the front of my calves. I am almost a high-ranking Nazi. I'm passing mile 7 and it's beginning to get better. Or maybe it's worse. The elevation jumps to 300 feet in that mile alone. However, as I'm going on to mile 8, it starts moving downhill. This is such a TRICK. You're going to be climbing up again and I don't appreciate this easy descension because I know I'll be paying for it later. As I have guessed, the elevation goes back to 300 as we're finishing mile 10. I look down and see the beach, busses, another cheering station, and the ENTRANCE TO GOLDEN GATE PARK. The last 2-3 miles are here and I'm thinking, This is doable. If the terrain remains flat.

The park is not as bad as the mountains along the coast, but I'm  trying so hard to walk as fast I can. My legs are giving out. I could no longer feel the rain or cold on them, but there was no time to stop and ponder my imminent death. I need to keep believing SINCE IT'S ALL MENTAL RIGHT? I just need to cross the finish line. However, this is not before another cruel elevation change that gradually builds up so I am never rid of it. But there is chocolate on mile 12. I can't open mine! AHHH, my fingers are weird. WERE THEY ALWAYS BENT LIKE THIS? I open up my fanny pack and place my piece of chocolate inside to blow on my hands. They're almost claw-like and won't conform to my face. This is what I would like to call my velociraptor phase. I'm in the wooded Golden Gate Park, with a limp built into my walk, side steps that are haphazardly thrown in there to stretch out my legs, and my arms pushed to the side of my body for maximum warmth while my claw hands extend out in front of me. I'm a human velociraptor and I start giggling because it's one of my dreams almost realized.

I'm out of energy by now. There is probably 1.5 miles left and I'm thinking the finish line is not real. I'll never get to see that last stretch of crowd cheering me on because, yes, I'm going to nap right there. As I'm musing this thought I swerve on the path like some drunk driver and realize that I need to eat something. The Luna bars we were given are inside my fanny pack and I have to bite the wrapper off since my fingers aren't working. Inhale food. Start walking. Okay, I'm not dying. This is working!

I finally round the last corner and see people! I SEE CROWDS OF PEOPLE! ALL WARM AND TOASTY. IT'S THE LAST MILE. The time is ticking on this pink arch with the word FINISH on it. I drool a bit and start limping down this semi-carpeted stretch that has crowds cheering on both sides. I want to go to there. I have this sudden urge to start jogging again. I do it for 10 seconds. Ehhh legs aren't working. Okay, again! Try to propel myself to move faster, but my fantasy of a slow-mo fierce run, sprinkled with fist pumping is more of a exaggerated limp-walk. I just end up galloping until the last 10 feet and velocirapter-ed into the finishing line. I wobble near the front realizing my legs can finally stop moving. Thaaanks, I shrilly replied to someone as they thrust a Tiffany's box in front of me. I automatically drop it into a puddle. Slowly pick it up. Walk. Heat blanket. Walk. Aisle of food/drinks. How did this bagel get into my hand? I think about throwing it into the bag they just handed me, but that's kind of weird. I should eat it. Get my t-shirt. They're trying to mark my bib to signal that I've picked up my finishing gifts, but my body is drenched from the rain. I hear someone call my name and Adrienne, Katy, and Natalie are standing there beaming at me. And it feels so good to finish.

For our little own Nike statements, we had to finished the tagline: I run to be... I put LOST. This inspiration might have stemmed from a period where I was engrossed with the show Lost--trying to catch up with the entire series, in my last month of school, when I signed up for this half marathon. However, it totally applies. I totally lost my mind, some control of my legs, feelings in some parts of my body, and myself at that event. The last part is not in that awful sense of an identity crisis. It is a feeling of being so in the moment--enveloped in everything you feel that you almost explode from it alone. I lost myself in a crowd of wonderful people all fighting for the same thing. Be it a promise they made to themselves, to someone they lost, to a best friend, or to an organization, it was amazing to witness so much strength within that 13.1 mile stretch of space, which is quite small compared to the outpour of love, support, and sheer human will-power it was trying to contain. I sincerely appreciate all the encouragement and unconditional praise from my family and friends, especially from two of my biggest supporters right here on this blog.

Love,
Malee