Lately I have had a…

…major ‘tude. This is partly an exercise in ego boosting after having my rib cage punched through and my heart torn out and stuffed in a fax machine. But as the days tick by and the weather gets warmer, I think this mental paradigm shift has less to do with crazy dudes who won’t matter in the long run and more to do with the fact that I’m finally realizing how fantastic I am. I am finally “owning” all the awesomeness that radiates from my corporeal being. You see, I am a runner. First and foremost. I work in ad sales, I drink a lot, I prefer plain silver paper clips, but at the end of the day my entire identity is wound up in this sport that I love so much. And if there’s anything that allows this girl to puff out her chest peacock-style, it’s the knowledge that if called upon to run a marathon with twenty-four hours’ notice, I could do it.

This brings me to my next point. A marathon is easy. You think I’m being an asshole here? Think about it. The gun goes off, and I become swept up into a crush of runners. What am I going to do, stop? Pull over? No. With thousands of people bearing witness to this moment I’ve spent months preparing for, the last thing I can imagine is giving up. And when I get passed by an eighty-year-old amputee with tatts all over his arms (because you better believe he’s sleeveless in the morning chill), when I get water cups thrust at me from all directions, when nothing separates me from a medal and a free bagel but miles and miles of glorious pavement, I start to realize how easy 26.2 really is.

The marathon itself does not give me license to strut. The training, people! The training! There are no cheering crowds or finish lines on my twenty-mile pre-taper runs. No friends holding posters, no water stations, no Gatorade but that which I bring myself. Think you’re tough shit? Think you could survive a hurricane while balancing on a popsicle stick? Well most people could not survive three and a half hours of lonely, solitary, monotonous running, up and down the highway, around and around the track, across bridges, across towns, across Interstates. But thousands can. And it’s a wacky, weird community of loons and cancer survivors and Nam vets, sorority girls and ex-cons and vice president of global corporations, who screw up the gumption, somehow, some way, and lace their sneaks extra-tight and brave the elements with nothing but an iPod (maybe) and their thoughts for company for hours on end just so they can say, like me, over a tall glass of Jack Daniels, “Yeah, I ran a marathon. So what?” OWN IT.

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10. halfwaynowhere reblogged this from caryrandolph and added:

    long run suuuuuuuucked.

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14. herheadhurts reblogged this from caryrandolph and added:

    major ‘tude) Amen.

15. idontgetrunnershigh reblogged this from caryrandolph and added:

    summed up… wow..

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