Marathon #11: The One That Didn’t Go to Plan (And Gave Me Everything Anyway)

I’ve run eleven marathons now, and you’d think somewhere around double digits I’d have this whole thing figured out.

Spoiler: I do not.

READ MORE: The Supershoes Lied to Me (And Other Things I Learned Running a Marathon with Toddlers)

I came into Grandma’s this year fit. Like, actually fit. I’d spent the entire training cycle chasing a fast time, running workouts at paces that scared me a little, fitting long runs in around two little kids and a lot of solo-parenting weeks. I’d just run a tune-up half that made me think… okay. Maybe this is the year post-babies I can actually get into Boston. I had a number in my head. I had a plan. I had the shoes.

And then, somewhere in those early miles, my body just said no.

I felt off almost from the start. Not the normal “marathons are hard” kind of off. Something with my breathing that I still can’t fully explain, even a week out. (If you’re a fellow runner with Theories, my DMs are open.) I kept waiting for it to pass the way a side stitch passes. It didn’t.

I ended up in a medical tent at mile 13 after walking for a mile and hoping my wheezing would stop.

Here’s the part I keep coming back to. When you train for months for one specific day, the medical tent is kind of the nightmare scenario. The thing you don’t let yourself picture. And yet what I remember most isn’t the fear. It’s the people.

The volunteers who took care of me (and gave me an inhaler) were so kind and so steady, and in a moment where I felt scared and frustrated and a little bit like my whole season was unraveling, they were exactly what I needed. I will never not be grateful for the humans who give up their Saturday to stand on a course and catch the runners who fall apart. You are the reason this race feels the way it feels.

And then I had a choice to make. The one nobody really prepares you for. Stop, which would have been completely reasonable. Or keep going, slower and humbler than I planned, and just… finish the thing.

I kept going.

The miracle of that day didn’t come at the finish line the way I’d imagined it back in February. It came when I spotted my kids on the course near the end, completely surprised, not expecting them there, and something in my chest just cracked wide open. There is nothing like running toward your babies when you’ve spent the last few hours wondering if you even still had it in you.

I crossed in 3:44:30. My sixth-fastest marathon out of eleven, right in the middle of my pack. Not the day I trained for. Not the number I wanted.

And I’ll be honest with you: I was beating myself up about it. Replaying the miles. Doing the math on what could have been. Doing that thing we all do where we let one hard day quietly erase a whole season of work.

And then my dad texted me.

“You finished in the top 20.3% of all runners and the top 12.7% of women. Nice job, Bekah!! Top 20% of all runners is pretty amazing.”

#perspective.

Leave it to a dad to pull you right out of your own head with a stat. But he was right. On a day my body fought me from mile one, on a day I spent time in a medical tent, I still finished ahead of most of the field. That’s not the story I’d been telling myself. But it was the true one.

Because here’s the thing I’ve learned eleven marathons deep: the race is never actually the win.

The win was every 6am alarm I didn’t want to answer. The win was finding (and paying for) childcare so I could get my long runs in, which sounds small and is actually huge when you’re parenting solo half the week. The win was choosing to take myself and this goal seriously even when it would’ve been so much easier to let it slide. By the time I stood on that start line, I had already done the hard part. The race was just the celebration of it.

READ MORE: Training Through the Chaos: How I Prepped for Grandma’s Marathon with Toddlers in Tow

Some of my best training runs this cycle were the ones that fell apart. The ones where I walked, or cried a little, or texted my husband “why do I do this.” Those imperfect miles still built endurance. They always do. Bad runs aren’t the enemy. They’re often the most important ones.

READ MORE: Marathon Must Haves: What 10 Races Taught Me to Pack

So no, Grandma’s didn’t go to plan this year. But it gave me a tent full of people who cared for a stranger, two kids cheering on the side of the road, a dad who knows exactly when to send the text, and one more finish line in a life that’s busier and fuller than the version of me who ran her first marathon could have imagined.

I’ll be back. Because eleven was never going to be the end of the story.

See you on the North Shore. ◡̈