When the real race begins
Tips, tricks, inspiration, and encouragement for storytellers of all stripes
Greetings from Detroit—
I’m back up north because my beloved Rebecca, her two sisters, her cousin, and I are all running the Detroit Free Press International Marathon and Half-Marathon early Sunday morning.
The cousin is doing the full. The rest of us are going halvsies.
We had to sign up with our passports because the route starts in Detroit, takes us over the Ambassador Bridge into Windsor, Canada, and then back through a tunnel—the only underwater marathon mile in the world, apparently.
Wish us luck!
Back in January of 2023, I did my first full marathon, out in Phoenix/Scottsdale.
It was a rock’n’roll race, with killer bands scattered along the route, including a fantastic close-your-eyes-and-you’d-swear-it-was-1980 AC/DC cover band.
The first seven miles, all the full-marathoners and half-marathoners ran together, a massive party bobbing along at six or so miles per hour. The air was cool and misty. It was racously fun. My training had gone smoothly. I was feeling great. This was gonna be easy-peasy.
Then the routes split. I had run side-by-side with Rebecca those first 7 miles (she was doing the half). We exchanged a quick, sweaty kiss, she peeled off to the left, I turned right…
And the party disappeared. There were far more halfers than fullers, and the herd thinned quick.
In an instant, I went from being surrounded by a couple hundred of my newest and closest friends to being utterly alone. The nearest runners—those other brave and foolish souls who had decided to test their endurance—were some 40 or 50 yards ahead of and behind me.
I gulped. Without the camaraderie of the collective, the entire experience fundamentally altered.
I remember thinking… My real race just started.
26.2 hadn’t seemed so bad shoulder to shoulder with other racers. But now… the 19 remaining miles loomed like thunderstruck clouds.
That first hour had been a bouncing joy. But now… the next 3-4 hours stretched ahead, elastic and taunting.
The physical obstacles faded. But now… the mental obstacles rose from their pits, shrugged off their slumber, and wrapped their tentacles around my vision, my hearing, my slowly swelling feet, my constantly dry mouth.
When would this ever end?
Around mile 16, I crested a bridge that happened to cross over the half-marathon route. There was a volunteer down below, hollering to those damn halfers, “You’re almost there! Just one mile left!”
An exquisite rage at this generous volunteer burbled in my throat. One mile left?? I’ve got TEN to go, you torturous monster! I tried to laugh at the irony, thinking how I’d share this little story with Rebecca when I finished. If I ever finished. My gnashing teeth shredded my laugh into tattered hisses.
I ran the whole thing. I had trained that way, and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses I was going to race that way. Every bridge, every hill, every valley, I did… not… walk.
But then, as I began the final mile—and I don’t know which kilted rock’n’roll demon foisted this idea upon the organizers—the route dog-legged left and up a cursed on-ramp! The steepest incline of the entire race had been held back until the very end.
My body revolted. I walked. I trudged. I climbed. This mini-Everest had slowed everyone, so a loose knot of bedraggled marathoners coalesced into a shuddering, whimpering amoeba of dehydrated humanity.
I summited. I hairpinned right. A jolly sign read “Mile 26.” Only point two to go! And it was ever so slightly downhill.
Oh baby. I took off at a sprint. I flew that final fifth of a mile. I felt like Usain Bolt, though he probably could have smoked me walking backward. Didn’t matter. The finish line came into view. I recorded that final 30-second stretch on my phone. It’s jittery as all get out, but it’s video PROOF.
There’s a kooky coda to this story. As I stagger-hobbled to the medals and the water and the bananas and the beer, I found Rebecca and our friends Steve and Amanda. Amanda had knocked out the 5K the day before, so she was loose and limber. Steve had done the full. He and Rebecca and I were sore and puffy-footed. And now we faced a mile walk back to where our rental car was parked.
My legs trembling and my back barking, I said, “If someone had a rickshaw here, they would make a KILLING.”
Two seconds later, what should appear but a dude in his homemade, motorized rickshaw, complete with bluetooth speakers blasting.
“I don’t care what it costs,” I said. “It’s on me.”
We clambered in, took selfies, and sang along to “Baby Got Back.” We felt no pain, surfing the quintessential runner’s high. We didn’t want that ride to end.
Endings and beginnings.
The euphoria of that last quarter mile, the joyous relief of crossing the finish line, and the elation of manifesting a rickshaw… those scenes ring and sing only because of the months of training, the shocking isolation of the moment my real race began, and the abject agony of that final, uphill slog.
There’s an algebra to the climax of a story. The struggle is the variable in the equation.
The more awesome the struggle, the more potent the payoff. Direct, inverse, proportional relationship.
Don’t shortchange yourself, your characters, or your story. Embrace the struggle.
Love the moment your real race begins.
BOOK EVENT NEXT THURSDAY
Next Thursday, October 23, at 5pm, join me and seven amazing first-time memoirists at the Senior Friendship Center for the next installment of the Joyful Journeys Author Series!
The flyer below has all the info, and a QR code you can scan to reserve a spot, or just mash the purple button and it’ll take you to the sign-up page.
I’ll be there hosting and selling copies of this memoir anthology, along with my own books.
Be sure to comment or hit me up with any questions/comments/complaints, thanks as always for reading, and have a great weekend—
Jason “Highway to Hell” Cannon