My first marathon, 15 years ago, was a cry for help. A silent cry, it turned out, because I told almost no one. I signed up for the race in Fresno, Calif., to try to erase a bad year. I figured if I pushed my body hard enough, it would somehow clean my slate and absolve my sins.
I chose Fresno because that’s where my bad year had started. My sister had been going through a divorce and living alone with her 2-year-old. She was also using drugs and struggling with that.
Twenty-three and footloose, I had gone to help her with her daughter. But I didn’t last long, because my sister’s drug addiction was too hard for me to be around. I wish I had been mature enough to stay, but when you’re young and your loved ones don’t want your help, it’s easy to leave.
I went about as far as I could, to Sydney, Australia, where I had lined up a job as an au pair.
Being an au pair in a foreign country was the loneliest job I had ever had. One night I met a man at a climbing gym. He was 39, a teacher, married. We became friends. When he brought me home and introduced me to his wife and children, we noted how our bookshelves mirrored each other. So did our favorite movies.
Soon our friendship turned into an affair. He told me he loved me. And I wanted so badly to be loved. To be seen, at least.
It wasn’t long before we were caught by his wife. In our hurried goodbye, I was distraught — not about losing this relationship, but about the gravity of what we had done.
“These things happen,” he said. “So many of my friends have done this.”
“None of my friends have done anything like this,” I said.
“They will,” he said.
I felt such deep shame. There were a few nights after being caught and before flying back to the States when I walked the city alone, smoking clove cigarettes, looking up at the Sydney Harbor Bridge, feeling down and desperate and wondering if there was any coming back from adultery.
It didn’t seem possible to go forward, but I did. Back in Jackson, Wyo., I began training for the marathon.
I spent cold evenings out on the National Elk Refuge, logging 18-mile training runs in the dark. No one knew where I was or what I was doing, and I didn’t care — I didn’t believe I was worth the safety checks of friendships. I was punishing myself. I avoided any romantic entanglements and thought about my affair constantly, but I never told any of my friends or family about it. I thought if they knew they would agree that it was unforgivable.
My mother, niece, sister and sister’s new boyfriend saw me off at the start line in Fresno. My sister and her boyfriend were still in active addiction then, but I tried not to see it. Race day started early and bright. I was as ready as I would ever be. Only my family knew I was out there.
The race made me feel lonelier. I saw my family a couple times, cheering me on, but I still felt invisible. At mile 20, my ankle started failing me. I wanted to cry, but crying took too much energy. Men older than my dead grandfather were passing me. Women in metallic wigs were passing me. I was ready for it to be over.
I crossed the finish line and stopped in my tracks. I was done. My mother hugged me, and my sister yelled, “You did it!” My time was 4:57.
The marathon was supposed to put an end to my bad year, but my bad year continued. A few weeks later, I tore a tendon in my thumb. But as luck would have it, that bad thing led to a good thing when, at disco night at a local bar, a guy named Evan would notice the dance moves of a woman with a small pink cast and think (as I would later learn), “I want to end up with a woman like that.”
Evan and I started dating, despite my best efforts to deter him. I told Evan about my affair and braced myself for his rejection, but he stayed and drew me nearer. When I tried to tell him how horrible I was, he insisted I go to therapy to find out how OK I was.
We left Jackson together in 2011 and built a life in Montana and then Seattle that included grad school, a wedding, huge career changes and a daughter.
Earlier this year, in Seattle, I was searching for purpose. I was marginally employed and wanted an excuse to get fit and visit New York. On a whim, I signed up for a charity bib for the New York City Marathon and got one. I was running another marathon! Just weeks later, the general manager of the community radio station in Jackson called me and said she had a job she thought I would be interested in — if I was willing to return to Wyoming?
Fifteen years later, I was back in Jackson, again running long miles in the National Elk Refuge. I would tell Evan where I was going, and he would make sure I had enough fuel and water for my long training runs. I chipped away at marathon training and fund-raising while starting a new job, moving to a new state and navigating the emotions of a 4-year-old. I don’t know how I did it. Last time I had been responsible for no one and nothing else, and it was still so hard. But somehow the problems of my life felt reframed.
When I needed one last donation to qualify, my sister suddenly appeared to put me over the top. Recently she celebrated a year of being clean, which is the longest she has been clean in two decades.
The New York City Marathon, my second marathon ever, was the opposite of the one in Fresno in almost every way. This race was not motivated by shame. I’m 39 now — the same age the Australian was when we had our affair. I don’t condone what he did — or what I did — but I now see that life is long, complicated, painful and lonely. I am grateful for my marriage and daughter and can’t imagine ever cheating on Evan or him cheating on me, but I can see how those things happen. I can see that clearer now than when I was 24 (and I was one of “those things”).
In early November, I stood looking at the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn, ready to start. I thought about the Sydney Harbor Bridge and about all the bridges I would cross in this marathon. All the hard things I had overcome to run another.
The race started and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” played, and I ran across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge feeling so grateful for being alive.
Someone on Reddit had suggested I wear my name across my chest during the race. When the first few people in Brooklyn yelled out “Go Rachel, you’re doing it!” I turned around to see if I knew who was cheering me on. But I realized then that this was just part of running the marathon with your name on your chest.
Of the two million spectators, I believe approximately one million cheered me on by name. I almost cried tears of joy many times from hearing people shout “Rachel, I’m so proud of you!” and “You look amazing, Rachel!” I felt the opposite of alone.
Three times during the 26.2 miles I saw Evan and our daughter cheering me on in their matching sweatshirts that said “Rachel’s New York Run Crew.” I got to kiss them both and tell them I was feeling good.
At mile 20, I geared up to cross the last bridge of the marathon, which would take me from the Bronx to Manhattan. I thought about Australia and my affair, about my sister and her struggles, and about Evan and our life together. I thought about my first marathon and looked down at my watch to do some quick math. If I kept the same pace, I would have a chance to beat my time from 15 years earlier.
At 4:49, I crossed the finish line, a full eight minutes faster than 24-year-old me. When I put the medal on, I started crying, overwhelmed. This time, I hadn’t run to erase my year or punish myself. And yet, unlike the previous race, this one had healed something in me. I should have known all along that the road to self-love is a marathon, not a sprint.
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