race recap -- by abby

it's hard to figure out what to say when you know you are supposed to have something to say. you want a beginning, a middle, an end, and a thread or two hope will tie it all together. you want a neat, tidy package, something with imbued beauty and meaning: dulce et util.

you find yourself staring at a blank screen, cursor winking teasingly. and you realize that there are no words to adequately represent what it is that you want to say, just like there are no words to describe why you do what you do, what you're searching for, what nuggets of wisdom you hope you will glean ...

gerlinda and i spent saturday night arranging and rearranging our marathon stuff. the hotel beds were littered with gels, clif shot bloks, protein bars, sports beans, race numbers, race maps, tie thingies for our championchips. the air in the hotel room was heavy with our nervousness, which we tried to laugh off, and with the humidity of mid-florida, which i tried not to let drown me. my skin prickled with every breeze and my stomach lurched with each new minute, until i finally fell asleep trying to remind myself not to forget the Gu gels i'd stuck under my running pack.

at 4:45 sunday morning, we made our way down to the monorail, hoping we were in the right spot, hoping we had enough time, and well, just generally hoping. gerlinda worried about her championchip and ate a bagel while i sat on the train trying to think of encouraging things to say, trying to not to let the banana i'd eaten make its way back up and out.

at epcot, we followed a trickle of other runners who were winding toward the start. the lights were bright and the portapotties plentiful, and we stopped to pee and get our bearings. as we moved into the big parking lot full of sponsor tents and throngs of people, we got the overhead instructions to begin the 1/2 mile walk to the start area. in front of us, bodies parted the heavy mists like the opposites of ghosts -- alive, solid, breathing. strangers bound in the strangeness of this moment.

the road to the start led us along lush vegetation, and bright lights shown in our eyes. the starting corrals began to take shape in front of us, and we found, to our dismay, that there were only a few portapotties available, and those had long lines already. after a quick detour to take care of business in the woods, we trudged forward looking for corral G, and i was struck by a worst-case scenario moment: i leaned over to gerlinda and said, "what if this is, like, a death march or something? i mean, what if they are just lining us all up to shoot us?" which, roughly translated, means the worst thing that could happen would be that we die. but we aren't going to die. it's only a marathon. only.

and then, just in case, i sent up the last gasp of a prayer -- a misshapen pearl of a breath that wavered, floated, then disappeared into the heavy air of exterior disney world.

we stood in those corrals for a while, shifting and twitching as someone sang the star-spangled banner, tearing up as the wheelchair start when off with a bang. then, we began shuffling forward collectively -- a mass of likely and unlikely runners telling each other we'd be okay and messing with the chrono features our our watches. and finally, we crossed the start line, the electronics of our championchips beeping. i felt gerlinda trotting behind me. "have a good race," she said, as i turned around and shrugged, a grin of relief spreading over my face. the race isn't really all that bad; it's the anticipation that will kill a girl dead.

i don't really remember much about the race itself. i plowed forward, passing folks and trying not to think about how many miles were left. by mile 5 or so, i'd found my groove. i sent a little mental message to gerlinda, imagined the words flying back to her. around mile 10 we entered the magic kingdom and it was cool to see the crowds cheering. i took some energy from that and made a mad dash for the halfway point, where i ate a gu and took a quick walk break. by mile 18 i was feeling the fatigue of heat and sun, and 8 miles still felt like a really long way to go.

by mile 20 though, i noticed that a breeze was breaking the heat. i ate another gu and a banana and felt good enough to kick it up a little. by mile 23 i knew i was going faster than i should, but i didn't really feel like slowing down. i skipped through a water stop and just kept running. by mile 25, i could feel the finish, and when i finally rounded the last curve and entered the finish "chute," my heart was pounding with exhilaration instead of exhaustion. i threw my hands over my head as the announcer called out my name. someone cut off my championchip and steered me to the right. as i received my finisher's medal, i choked back a few tears, and sent the rest of my energy gerlinda's way ....

when i saw gerlinda a few minutes later, i gave her a sweaty hug and we stood there dripping and smiling for photos, looking slightly dazed but feeling pretty good, our sweat turning into tiny salt crystals. what else can i say? i'm proud of gerlinda -- for finishing, for training well, for starting this whole process in the first place. i'm proud of myself too, for staying on task and remembering to have a good time.

in the end, it's hard to say why we do the things we do. marathons? crazy. testing our bodies physically is bound to bleed some emotional result ... but what is it that we really crave?

i suppose we will always be seekers. answers might come to us as races or feathers or the way the light glances off a morning peak at sunhit or the way a wave curves itself into the shore ... but we'll never quit looking for whatever it is we're looking for. as for me, i can only keep hoping and believing. i can only keep culling from the stories and poems and songs and people that i love. their wisdoms become my wisdoms, grains of sand lighting up the darkest parts of me. to do my best is to continue to praise the mutilated world, to listen to the wild geese telling me that the world is open to my imagination, to reach out to my misfit and accomplish -- for the hushed breath of a moment -- some semblance of wholeness.