The Wantagh Parkway cuts an almost straight north/south path through Nassau County of Long Island. Its two lanes in each direction are separated by a waist-high concrete median. On weekdays, thousands of commuters ride over the ten-mile road to reach the highways in and out of New York City. The parkway rises about ninety feet from south to north. The slight increase in elevation is not noticeable unless you're running a marathon. This Sunday morning the road was closed to motorists. It was hosting a stretch of the Long Island Marathon. One lanky veteran marathoner, Norm, was in mile twenty heading north. He wasn't having a good day.
Norm wasn't a top-tier runner. He was what they call in running circles a "grinder." You could hear his heavy footsteps like horses' hooves on cobblestone. He liked to call himself a "Ham and Egger." He borrowed the term from Rocky Balboa's self-deprecating description to a racing promoter in the film Rocky. Norm trained hard and didn't have a problem finishing in the middle of the pack. No trophies collected dust on his dresser.
This morning Norm was paying the price for the fast first ten miles he ran in the early stage of the marathon. He hit the halfway mark at a near personal best pace, but he knew it wasn't going to last. He'd made the same mistake many times before. Starting fast was a temptation he couldn't resist. It seemed so easy breezing through the early miles. It was like his body was pulled along by an eager dog on a leash.
Now, each step jarred his weakening body. He lifted his racing cap and wiped his brow and looked ahead. Squinting, he could see the yellow twenty-mile marker along the side of the road about a quarter mile away. His shirt, a blue singlet, was wet with perspiration that covered dried sweat; his gray racing cap was soaked. White crystals of salt were forming on his arms as his body drained away water and minerals. His stride had shortened as he tried coping with muscle fatigue and the heat. He could see the reflection of the sun glistening off his sweat-covered shoulder. He welcomed a cloud that brought shade for a few seconds, blocking the baking rays of sunshine. The long road ahead appeared wet, like a mirage in the Sahara.
A young woman standing along the shoulder with a German shepherd for company shouted encouragement. "Looking good. You're almost there." The dog knew better and kept silent. Norm turned his head and raised his hand in a half-hearted gesture of acknowledgement.
He reached for a two-ounce packet of energy gel pinned to his racing shorts. Pulling it away from his shorts, he put it up to his mouth. With his teeth he tore at the plastic strip, squeezed the packet and tasted the chocolate pudding-like substance. Enhanced with caffeine, it promised to supply a few carbohydrates to his depleted body. In Norm's dry mouth, it was like trying to swallow glue. I should have waited until after the water stop, he thought. Water was a quarter mile away. Damn it.
A little more than an hour ago, running south on the Wantagh, Norm admired the elite runners heading north on the other side of the road. Miles ahead of him, they held their heads high, their long strides gliding them northward. They were like sleek jets at cruising altitude. Norm, in contrast, now looked like one of the early Wright Brothers-era bi-planes. People along a grassy field were holding their breath as it sputtered and bounced along, perhaps moments from a graceless nose-first splat into the ground.
Turning back to the highway, the twenty-mile marker inched closer. Up ahead he could see a string of runners pushing forward. Their ranks had thinned, as the faster, more talented runners were already finished. He glanced at his watch. It was a black Timex Ironman that he wore all through the training for the marathon. It was his coach and critic. In the first few miles, it cautioned him when he hit the mile splits thirty seconds faster than a reasonable pace. He ignored it. Now, as he approached the twenty-mile marker, he looked down as the seconds ticked past the three-hour mark. The watch told him he'd blown any chance of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. His jumbled thoughts turned to minimizing his current agony while finishing with his runner's dignity intact. He mulled it over. Why punish myself? What's the point? Walk. No, I'm not wasting six months of training. Screw it. Just keep going.keep going.
Walking would be like putting up the white flag and surrendering. Norm plodded by the twenty-mile marker and kept going.kept going, each step forward a shock to his fatigued body and thousands of steps to go.
"Water, Gatorade," the young boy said, holding two green cups out to the passing runners.
Norm steered over to the smiling boy who had his arms extended. His legs wobbled as he slowed to grab the water cup from the kid. Spilling half of it on his singlet, he gulped down the rest. He dropped the empty cup and staggered forward on the Gatorade-slick highway, kicking the empty green cups left behind by the faster runners. Dozens of shouting spectators, some holding signs, lined the roadway. He looked at their smiling faces and wondered what they thought as his struggling, beaten body passed by them.
"Go Joe, go!" a girl screamed as Joe somebody ran past Norm, who shuffled forward.
Joe looked thirty years younger than Norm and pumped his fist triumphantly as he passed. Norm looked on with a mixture of envy and resentment.
It was approaching noon and the early morning cool was turning to a balmy, sunny afternoon. It was the perfect kind of day for a picnic or walk in the park. Norm woke up before dawn and checked the weather forecast. He groaned as the guy on TV with a 'jumping for joy' voice announced it would be sunny and seventy-five this afternoon. Doom to the average runner hoping to score a personal best in a long-distance race.
Today while waiting at the starting line with his running buddy Felix, they both agreed to pace each other. Felix was a better runner, but injury prone. The hamstring problem he had over the winter was acting up again this morning. They were both past sixty and had reached the age where the inevitable decline of athletic performance would accelerate. However, age was one metric Norm had learned to ignore.
In the early miles they both ran together. Felix always pushed the pace and Norm trailed behind him. At mile six, Norm heard Felix yelp in pain and saw him start limping before moving off to the side of the road like a car with a flat tire.
"What happened?" Norm shouted, looking back as he continued running.
"It's the hammy again, damn it! I'm out. I'm out, damn it.You go. I'll see you at the finish.Shit." Felix cursed in disgust as Norm continued along Jericho Turnpike.
Norm shared the running culture's view of looking the other way when frustrated runners swore or others peed on the side of the road. The general public's view of runners was less tolerant. Many a runner felt the scorn of a driver trying to make a right turn only to be surprised by a runner coming along. A pedestrian was to be respected; a runner was often reviled. Even Norm lost patience with the runners in a race that held him up in traffic last month. He felt guilty, but cursed under his breath anyway. It didn't help, either, that many runners displayed a false sense of superiority. Their bumper stickers bragged, I DO 26.2. The public's response: "Run twenty-six miles? That's crazy." Their points-of-view were miles apart.
At mile twenty-one Norm had no reason to feel superior. His umpteenth marathon was following the pattern of many others and his quest to break the four-hour mark would fall short again. He longed for shade. The sun, high overhead, burned his shoulders. He doused his head with water as he approached the underpass at Exit 3 of the Wantagh. Reaching the shade he felt a gust of cool air which sent a chill through his soaked torso, raising goose bumps on his forearms. He could hear a runner on his right mumbling.
"Let's go.Keep going .You can do it," the mumbler said out loud to encourage himself.
His words sounded as flat as his footsteps on the pavement, echoing in the underpass. Norm thought this must be his first marathon as the mumbler inched by him. Sometimes runners became delirious like people lost in the desert; others used so-called tools from self-help books in the vain effort to overcome defeat. He figured he'd see the mumbler again before the race was over.
Norm's last ounce of pride rested in finishing the race without walking. A little over five miles remained. He could see the peppy crowd around the water stop at mile twenty-two. He was off the Wantagh on a main road leading to the park and the finish line. Norm was now among the exhausted marathon stragglers trying to summon enough determination to finish. They were like a battered army retreating from a lost battle. He passed an older man in a red singlet walking downcast with his head hung low. Another runner, a young guy, was sitting on the curb massaging a cramped calf. He could see his face tighten in pain. In front of him, the crowd urged the race weary onward.
"You can do it! Only four more miles to go, three-sixty-five! Keep going!" a young woman shouted to another beaten runner in front of him.
At this stage of the race, encouragement of this kind was akin to the crowd yelling to the man on the tenth floor ledge, "Jump, Jump!" Norm...
