I’M WATCHING THE New York City Marathon in Central Park, dizzy from scanning the face of every person jogging by, concerned that I’ve missed my friend Larry. It’s an unusually warm November day in Manhattan—perfect for the spectators, dangerous for the runners.

“Go Smitty. Almost there!” a woman yells from behind me in an Irish accent. The lanky man with “Smitty” scrawled on his shirt grins in our direction. I ask the two tall women in front of me—both wearing high heels—to let me know if they see a guy whose shirt says “Larry” or “Team Donkey.” I picture the boost that Larry will get from hearing “Wunky!” mixed in with the crowd noise—we’ve been exclaiming “Wunky!” to each other for almost 20 years now, though neither of us knows why—and I criticize myself for not arriving earlier.  

A middle-aged man to my right tells me that he ran the marathon years ago and explains his favorite part of the race: Reaching the downward arc of the 59th Street Bridge and hearing the first semblances of a distant roar. When you hit First Avenue, you feel like you’re running on stage for an encore.  

One of the high-heeled women leans forward and yells “Thank you” at the stream of runners, and I understand—it feels like their sacrifice is for us.

I flip open my cell phone and start punching numbers. The applause swells: A one-legged black man with metal crutches attached to his arms plods by. I only catch his face for an instant, but the one glimpse tells me that this man is going to finish the race or die trying.

“Hello?” my brother asks in my voice.  

“Mitch?”

“Hey Scoots.”

I don’t say anything, waiting to see how he’ll react to the crowd noise.

“What are you, at some kind of poetry reading?”

“It’s the New York Marathon. I’ve never seen this kind of energy.”

“Yeah?”

“We need to do this.”

“What?” 

I say it louder.

“Really?”

I call Larry that night to see how he did and to apologize for missing him. He tells me that he was on pace to beat four hours, then awoke on a stretcher by the side of the road and ended up walking to the finish line. He has no idea what happened but assumes that he passed out mid-step.

Mitch emails me the next morning explaining that we’ll have to finish nine races over the next year to gain admittance to the 2006 marathon. I browse the training schedule he sent and wonder how my body will react to an eighteen-mile run. I get a stiff neck if I don’t sit in the center of a movie theater, but I remind myself that I’ve already committed to doing this.

I click open the next email—it’s from Larry announcing to my friends that Mitch and I have joined Team Donkey. Someone offers eight-to-one odds that I finish the marathon, but there are no takers.

At 34 years old, four years younger than my brother, the only sports I’ve played in recent memory are softball and volleyball, which aren’t exactly cardiovascular intensive. Still, I ignore the one-mile runs on Mitch’s training schedule because the first race is a month away; and, after all, training for a marathon isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.

A month later, I meet Mitch in Central Park on a cold Saturday morning. The street is congested with maniacs in shorts jumping in place. We push our way to the front, looking for Larry. “Hey, there’s John,” Mitch says. “Johnny!”

John, the slender centerfielder on our softball team, squints at us. He’s wearing shorts. “What are you guys doing here? I mean, are you runners?”

“You’re underdressed like the rest of them,” I reply.  

He takes in my layered outfit and smiles.  

The people in front of us stutter-step forward—the race is beginning. “See you at the finish line,” John says and is gone.

This is great, I think, picking up speed. I’m amazed by the energy stored in my legs and by how graceful—even doe-like—my steps feel. I am nearly sprinting now, running with the best of them. I am reconnecting with a part of myself that’s been far too long neglected. I am an athlete.

There is no way you can keep up this pace, a voice pops into my head. I hate that voice, so I ignore it. The voice reappears: You don’t seem to understand. You’re unable to keep up this pace. I slow down because running isn’t about ego gratification, it’s about physical health and spiritual growth. Mitch gives me a look, smoke seeping from his mouth, and I nod, implying, Go on without me. His hunched shoulders vanish into the masses ahead. I should have trained more consistently (i.e. more than once), but training for a marathon isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.  

Everyone’s passing me. I curve to my right but people still pass me on the right. I wonder to what extent traffic rules relate to running.

“Runners to the left,” a lady in a scarf announces through a megaphone from the side of the road. Thinking that I’m everything but a runner, I cut sharply to my right, veering onto the grass toward her. “Runners to the left, bikers to the right!” she blares in my face. I scurry back into the street and resume clogging the passing lane. Being passed by humans is far more demeaning than being passed by cars.

The crowd thins out quickly, to my relief. Nothing is as simultaneously grueling and serene as running. I marvel at how tranquil Central Park is at nine in the morning—bare branches turn the sun into a strobe light—and decide to start going to bed earlier. My lower back is damp; next time I’ll only wear four layers. 

Gangsta rap bleats from some guy’s waist as he rushes by me. He rips his cell phone from his hip and starts yapping away about Fantasy Football. I fantasize about tackling him, but doubt I can catch up to him.

We reach the first incline. I distract myself by focusing on the conversation of the two women in front of me. “I can’t believe I used to make myself sprint up the hills,” one of them says between gasps of breath. The skin on her neck, where her pigtails keep tapping, shines like a glossy magazine cover. The problem with women is that they have too many body parts: Something’s usually going to attract you.  

I contemplate how to pickup women while jogging. I can say, “This sure beats running from the law,” but that might scare them away given the number of layers I’m wearing.  

I reach the first-mile marker and realize that there’s no way I’m going to be able to run the full three miles. I’ll walk the last mile.

A few minutes later we begin another incline, this one steeper than the last. I feel like a magnet running up a metal road. The only thing tempering my hatred of gravity is the infinitesimal chance that the glossy-necked woman steps on a stick and stumbles into my warm arms.

My left ankle hurts and I’m tempted to start walking now, but I promised myself that I’d run to the second mile marker. The heat surrounding my chest is unbearable. I pull off my jacket and drape it over my forearm.  

The third mile is a delightful walk. A woman who is probably twice my age and has four times my endurance, calls out from under a tree, having finished the race, “Come on, you can run it!”

“I only look fit,” I say but start jogging because I don’t want to let her down. Pain flickers through my ankle so I walk again. I wonder if Mitch has finished yet. A pigeon-toed man, probably 70 years old, waddles past me. Two plump Hispanic teenage boys wearing “Fitness is Fun!” T-shirts pass me, laughing.  

People who finished eons ago cheer me on from the sidelines; I find it touching. I’m suddenly aware of how hardened living in New York City for 11 years has made me. A woman with pink, tree-stump calves, who has been walking near me for awhile, looks at me and says, “Final turn. Let’s run it.”  

I cross the finish line barely running, flailing my arms semi-jokingly.  

Mitch and John wave at me from the hot chocolate area. They mercifully avoid commenting about the wet jacket draped over my shoulder.

Mitch comes back to my apartment and, thanks to the wonders of technology, goes online and announces our results. He came in 783rd place out of 2,686 people. He laughs.  “You might have come in last out of the men.” 

“Impossible.” 

“Oh, you’re right. Two men finished behind you … and one of them was 7 years old.”

“I saw that kid. He was at least 9.”

I limp on my left foot the next day. I see my podiatrist and psychologist, and they both agree that I should have trained for the race, though they also agree that training for a marathon isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. My podiatrist gives me a prescription for anti-inflammatory pills and tells me to take a week off.

A week later, I awake early and run in the cold. The city is silent, save for its dull drone that never wanes. I time each breath to the patter of my heart and steps. A young guy runs by, giving me a nod like a secret handshake. I combat the discomfort of my tightening thighs with the knowledge that there is a reward for all of this work: A big endorphin rush to start my day.

I run every morning for six days straight, pleased that my ankle is holding up. My goal is to run the entire 5-mile race that Mitch and I have in a few weeks, but my neck is stiffening.  

The next morning, as I run, I feel the tension in my neck every time I pump my arms.  I keep my arms at my side to reduce the strain on my neck, hoping that I don’t look as foolish as I feel. I finish my eight laps around Gramercy Park.

That night, my neck feels like it’s made of string. I hold the back of my head with my hand while getting into bed. Over the next few weeks I try acupuncture and massage therapy, but each time I run, my neck tightens almost immediately.  

The night before our 5-mile race, I call Mitch and tell him that I have to stop running. He encourages me to try physical therapy. I promise to, but he realizes that I’ve quit. He says he’ll run the marathon for both of us. He sends an email to my friends and I stating, Sadly, Scott has stopped training for the marathon due to runner’s neck. 

Over the next week, my friends diagnose me with “talker’s throat,” “eater’s stomach,” “sitting man’s hip,” and “S.S.A.D. (sudden smell anxiety disorder).”

***

Seven months later it’s August, and I meet Mitch for brunch after his ten-mile race. The marathon is less than three months away. I picture myself, as our egg-white omelets arrive, leaning on a metal barricade in Central Park with no one in front of me to impede my view. The runners’ faces exude focus, joy and pain. When Mitch notices me, he’ll probably veer towards me and push my head playfully as he runs by.

He smears a thin layer of butter over multigrain toast. Even his wrists look leaner from training. He’s telling me about the race he just ran—something about a guy who kept passing him—but I’m barely listening. I’m leaning on the metal barricade again. I spot Mitch and Larry. Their shirts say, “End Runner’s Neck,” but I don’t laugh: Mitch’s cheeks are hollowed, his eyes vacant. I’m suddenly aware of his mortality. “Go Mitch!  Go Larry!” my voice cracks. “Wunky!” 

“Scoots,” Mitch mouths, hobbling forward, a half-mile from the finish line.