There were people all around me. This was just Virginia Beach and it was a smallish marathon and I still felt like the entire population of America had shown up to watch me try this. The noise suddenly stopped as the National Anthem was played. A man running with a full sized American Flag raised it above his head for us all to look at. The silence left me alone to think for a second. That second went on for hours. All I kept thinking to myself was: "A man can change…"
To make any sense of how I had gotten to Virginia Beach I had to go back a little over a year, to that one fateful day. It was that morning on Valentines Day about a year ago that keeps playing in my head. Where I woke up and saw myself looking at my 215 pound frame body and seeing not a single ounce of muscle. I was such a slob I got winded rolling from the bed to my couch. I ate fast food four days a week and pizza the other three. I was also in a relationship with a girl that was driving me nuts. It was not her fault, I was just the wrong person and it was definitely the wrong time. After a war of insults back and forth on the phone I just snapped. I broke up with her that day on the phone! (I know, on that particular day I was about as crummy as I had ever gotten) I can still remember putting the phone down after being shouted at very justifiably for the last hour and thinking to myself that this all ends….. NOW!
With that thought of NOW I was brought back to reality. Where the air horn blared and suddenly everyone started rolling forward. I waited there, stuck between hundreds of people who all seemed way more energized than I was with shouts and hoots going up all around me. I honestly couldn't tell how I felt. Did I feel amazing? Did I need to throw up? My legs impatiently waited for their turn to start moving. Again I couldn't tell if they would make it a hundred yards or would run till I hit the edge of the earth. I was so lost in my thoughts, they just went on and on. I thought again to myself: "a man can change."
Suddenly the pacers in front of me got some momentum. I took my first step and hit the starter on my watch. My trial by fire was finally here! I was running a marathon!!! The first mile is lost to me. I remember seeing my mother, who had egged me to be an athlete my entire life wave me on as I passed the starting line. Of course my mom thought I could make it… so certain she was of her baby boy. Still, I knew the other reason she had come. If I didn't…. well if I hadn't "changed" enough she wanted to be sure that I would have someone I knew with me. You see, in my life I had made many declarations about getting myself into shape, 20 failed diets and a million 1 time shots of exercises at the gym later I had presented my family with the quite conceivable possibility that I might have been exaggerating all those times I had told them I was running 20 miles a weekend. All that vanished though as it was sink or swim time for me. I gave her a final wave goodbye and then put my state of mind on the runners in front of me. "A man can change…"
Back to that fateful Valentines Day a year ago. After that phone call from hell I strapped on my shoes (my two year old run of the mill sneakers) and the closest thing to work out clothes that I had. I left my dorm room and started to run around the 1.7 mile circumference of my college campus. I didn't make it 2 minutes before I needed to walk. By 6 minutes I was puking last nights pizza into the trees to the side of the walkway. Exhausted, and only a fourth of the way around the campus I tried to cut back and just run half of the campus. Barley able to finish the walk I crawled the final few feet to the dorm and just leaned against the building, too tired to brave the 15 steps up to my room… I must have just sat there with my puke drawn breath for half an hour…
…I just passed the five mile marker. The pace setters I had initially started out with were about a hundred yards ahead of me. That was alright, I hadn't made any definite plans to run with anyone anyways. I ran alone, even when surrounded by hundreds of others. The path I had chosen I had braved myself, so I guess it was fitting I saw it through on my on. It felt right, and I felt right too. The people who had scooted ahead of me now saw me continue my pace beyond them. A pack of four girls in Green leprechaun hats (It's a St. Partricks Day Marathon) drop to a walk to keep at their Galloway pace to my left. I take a quick shot of water and goo, it all feels like its going well. The sixth mile marker passes me and I realize I am now running in the crowd of pacers I had started with initially. They invite me into their conversations, a woman hands me the rest of her skittles which was exactly what I realized I was craving. It all feels so good to be running this. I now grin slightly as I wonder again if it all is true? "A man can change…"
After puking a second time into a garbage can outside my room I dragged the can into the room with me and opened my fridge and food bins. I threw it all away, ALL of it. The leftover pizza, the potato chips, the cookies, the chocolates, more cookies, the endless amounts of soda and beer, the tubes of Pixy Stix, the week old burgers, I threw probably forty dollars in food out that day. All I left was the apples and the water in my fridge and a packet of fat free fig newtons that I think my mom had bought me as part of some subtle hint I was supposed to be picking up on. I took a bite of an apple and went to shower, that had been one of my most productive days in a long time…
"Mile 13…ah good ole 13…. wait a second… 13??! Thirteen's HALF!" I kid you not, I said this aloud to the group I was in with a dumbfounded sound in my voice. The miles had ticked by, one by one. Now I was half done, my legs felt amazing. A second wind approached and I did not even feel fatigued! On and on I went… A mullet haired pacer next to me laughs as I make this declaration and I keep with the remainder of the group who all grab a quick drink of water from a station. I splash some water across my face. I feel so good. Suddenly my watch alarm goes off. Its only 9:45am (that's when I usually wake up.) It was not a dream, I really was here. I am having such a blast I don't seem to notice that my breathing seems to be getting a little bit faster than before. I am too busy mumbling to myself: "A man can change…"
That summer was one of the best summers of my life. It was a summer of accomplishment and reflection. I graduated college (I was going on to Graduate School) my running had not stopped. In fact I ran every day now. A mile, two miles, some weekends I even ran three! I still ran in the ordinary sneakers I had back in February. I slept like a baby, I was eating healthy for the first time ever. I ate hard boiled eggs, yogurt, fruits, and salads! I hadn't eaten vegetables in so long I almost forgot that I actually enjoyed many of them! I spent that entire summer working an easy job, reading some books, and running around my college campus (yes I could make it all the way around) I looked down at my gut and while it still sat there below me my toes could be seen wiggling about in sight. It was a war of attrition, and I was winning it day by day! I wondered where all this running was going to take me…
Mile 17 just passed, I could tell now that I was starting to feel the burden, my legs didn't hurt but by now they wouldn't have minded a break. I knew I was supposed to keep eating, but I was sick of goo and my water bottle was empty. The pack of runners is getting a little bit more aggressive too, my energy sapping away little by little. Plus the hill was coming up. The one hill that I new was on this course. After it the whole course was flat but it was right there at mile 18, ready to stop us all. The pack got too far ahead, I was back to my solo mission. I probably should have walked the hill, saved my energy for the long jogging part ahead, but I just couldn't bring myself to slow down. I kept my pace up the hill, my legs shouting in protest as I tried desperately not to look up that much. One foot after another, again and again and again. Music emanates from the top of the hill, where a DJ has set up camp and is cheering us on. I reach the peak and start to run the slight downhill part. The wall hits me as the music drops out of range. Mile 19 and I hit the wall. I hit it hard. I do my best not to think about it, no stopping! I didn't come this far to be one of those people cramped up on the side of the road. My legs knot up, tired of being happy for me and demanding a stop. I keep them moving, but now the pains starting to show. I need to think of something else, something to get me through this: "…A man can change"
By the coming of fall I had officially told my family that I was a vegetarian, they just shrugged their shoulders and said okay. I guess by the fall I finally started looking different. I was 50 pounds lighter and my waist size had dropped over six inches at this point and there were these strange large bumps showing up on my stomach. They appeared to be…ABS!!!!!! I ran my first ever official race that fall in a 5K Turkey Trot in my city. My mom demanded that I finally go buy some official running shoes if I was going to keep running so much. Then when talking about some coworkers at the place she works my mom brings up Marathons. "Marathons…" I think to myself. Yea lets do that. I never looked back, and that 5K is the only other race I had ever done!
Mile 21, five to go! My mom waves at me from a hundred yards away. She's almost frantic looking as I pass. I think it's the first time she let herself believe that I was actually going to make it to the end of this thing! She gives me bottled water and I gulp it down in under a hundred yards. My legs still protest, but I haven't let them stop. There still going… albeit under heavy force but I keep them going. To keep my mind functional I try and remember all the times in the past year I thought I couldn't go any further. That time I had lapped the campus for the tenth time and I still fought to keep going until I went around twice more. Its not working, the madness in my head is picking up on random memories. Old recollections that I do all I can to forget. I try singing to myself, (in a year of running I had never bothered to get an Mp3 player!!!) but I cant remember a single song, not one! Mile 22….23…I need to puke… I need to pee…. I need to cry… I need to collapse… I need to STOP! Mile 24 passes, I make the final turn onto the boardwalk. The ocean is on my right and I think one final time. "A man can change…"
A week before the marathon I went on a vacation. Its not the ideal thing to do probably before a marathon but its what I did. I did it because this was the last trip me and my two closest friends David and Martha would ever get to go on in a very long time. We drove down for 12 hours in the middle of the night to Daytona Beach in Florida. I spent the week sipping Sangria and sitting on a beach with the two of them. Those two friends are bar none the best thing that ever happened to me. They've been with me through the good the bad and a lot of the ugly. The two of them are getting married eventually and I have always enjoyed being their ever trusty 3rd wheel. They told me that I had changed a lot this past year. They told me this on the last day as we walked along the beach…
I gulp down a final cup from the water station. Faster…faster….faster, I tell myself. Mile 25…FASTER! I think it so loudly I almost cover my ears. The finish line…I can hear the music…then I see the beach tent next to the line itself. Mile 26. RUN! I run the distance and cross the finish line. Its almost surreal as I do it, I just ran a marathon! Suddenly everyone around me is helping me. A woman gives me water and asks me if I need to fall down, a kid puts a medal around my neck, a man ties a towel over my shoulders, someone Is fiddling with the timer on my leg. Everything going on is a blur. My head feels like its full of helium. Suddenly I am walking down to the beach. Everything aches, but nothing hurts. My mom finally gets down to the beach. I am the one that just ran over 26 miles and for some reason she's the one crying of the two of us! I grab us some beers while she gets me some food, and I sit down on the beach. I just ran a marathon, it all finally catches up to me… Everything feels different about me. The rest of the day I walked (or limped) about like I could do anything. Everything felt possible, and I wanted to do it all as well.
Can a man change? I suppose so. I'm not done yet, I want more. A lot more. Come October I will go visit my sister in Chicago to run the Chicago Marathon. After that I am going to see just how much I really can take and start training to run the JFK50miler. I don't know if I will make it or not, all I do know is I have changed. A man truly can change…
William Jacobs 2004
