a tale of one marathon (and two crutches)

Last Sunday morning, we Charltons were up even earlier than we usually are. The day was finally here: October 19. The Detroit Marathon. The day we trained for. The past five months all came down to just one day.

We gave it our best shot, and the marathon gave back. And then it just kept giving. But not in a nice way.

My husband, David, trained for the whole 26.2, while my son, Cameron, and I had much smaller goals of being two runners in a team of five to cover the miles, relay-style.

David’s journey started with a simple wish to complete a marathon. He’s a regular guy who has been running since he was a college student, competing in whatever 5K and 10K races came his way. He’d even run two half-marathons. And now, in his mid-40s, his goal became larger: run the whole thing. And finish it. Before they closed the course. In under six hours.

Seems fair enough.

So he trained and trained, stretching a 16-week program to 18- or 20- weeks, so he’d be extra ready. He ran the final 20-mile leg of his training, tapered off his training, carbo-loaded.

And you know what? “The marathon was EASY,” he says. For the first 20 miles. Then, at mile 21, right about the time he exited the famed Belle Isle stretch, it got hard. Really hard. “I just couldn’t go any further,” he remembers, and not because he hit “the wall” (known to runners as the point when the body uses all stored energy and has nothing to feed from.)

David’s pain was in his lower right leg, deeper than a shin splint and so intense he couldn’t continue running. He says he considered stopping and waiting for the Weary Wagon to pick him up, but the DNF (Did Not Finish) loomed too large in his mind to consider it. If he had to walk, he was going to make it on his own to the finish line.

And that’s what he did, for the final three miles.

We waited at the finish, all of us gathered together to witness the glory that crossing a marathon finish line must be. Son Kit said a few times “What’s keeping Dad? Why is it taking him soooooo long?”

I wondered the same myself, too afraid to voice my concern. What if he was hurt, or worse, had collapsed? When the time ticks on and it seems like everyone who is going to finish has already done so, the streets of Detroit become a desolate place (even more so than they tend to be in the full throng of the average day.) I worried that David was lying in an exhausted heap in a gutter somewhere.

A couple minutes before the six-hour mark, I climbed on top of a street side planter to get a better view. And there in the distance, I eventually saw him. Hobbling for sure, but moving at a pace somewhere between walking and very, very slow jogging.

I shouted and screamed. Kit echoed at my elbow. He did it! He finished the marathon! All in his own good time.

Of course, a few days, one ER visit, and in full use of two crutches later, we worry that a stress fracture is keeping David from putting any weight on his right leg.

That’s just a small gift from 26.2 miles of the streets of Detroit.

But we are proud of him, even if the fun of fetching his books, his water, his Motrin and his ice packs is wearing a little thin.

People see David coming on his ever-so-slow crutches and joke “Well, he doesn’t look ready to run a marathon any time soon!” Little do they know that’s exactly what put him in this condition in the first place.

Which brings us to next year. Another marathon? It’s too soon to tell, but the fact that David can reminisce about the race already makes me think this won’t be his last marathon, which is fine.

Any time you can set a goal, even a lofty one, and achieve it, I say you deserve to do it again. And again and again and again. Even if you have to do it on crutches.

In fact, THAT’S a sight I’d like to see.