I conserve my energy; I focus on the impending start, on my belly breathing, on the plan: don’t start too fast, stay on pace, drink every three kilometres, take an energy gel every forty-five minutes, finish the race with a smile and, above all, think about my mother with each passing kilometre. I close my eyes, take a deep breath. The Valencian air flows down my throat; my ribs lift, my belly expands, then I slowly release the warm air through my nostrils.
I’m all keyed up. I’m thirsty, even though I just drank, and I need to pee. I just want to get started already.
I’m in the middle of the pack, two hundred metres behind the leaders, in corral 9, with the runners who expect to finish in four hours. On my left, there’s a man wearing a baseball cap with bunny ears. He’s holding a sign above his head that says “00:04:00.” Runners gather around him and will do their best not to lose sight of him for the whole 42.2 kilometres.
Four hours—the barrier many amateur runners aim to break. It was also my mother’s goal for her first marathon. She didn’t make it. She finished the race in four hours three minutes, after fading in the last two kilometres and almost passing out from dehydration at the finish line. My brother and I went to find her with a bottle of water and chocolate milk. We’d imagined her standing triumphantly near the podium. Instead, we’d found her sprawled out on the concrete floor of the stadium, arms flung wide open, her face a sickly shade of green and her mouth ringed with vomit. Her legs were jerking with the force of an epileptic seizure. She’d grabbed on to us so tightly. A desperate embrace, fuelled, I imagine, by the fear of dying, by the terrifying feeling of her body giving out on her. My father had had to pull her to her feet. And yet, after all that, she did it again. Dozens of times more, she faced the marathon head-on, without ever again letting it get the best of her. A few years later, after losing weight and building up her endurance, she was running all her marathons in under three hours thirty minutes. She’d even speed up in the last kilometre, in a final sprint, triumphant in the face of pain. She’d clocked her best time in Berlin, in 2013: three hours eight minutes. Four minutes twenty-seven seconds per kilometre over 42.2 kilometres. I worked it out. I don’t know how she managed to be that fast. I can’t even keep up that pace over five kilometres.
The announcer’s voice booms out excitedly over the loudspeakers, bringing me back to my own marathon.
“Quinze segons. Fifteen seconds to go!”
I’m ready. I’ve trained for sixteen weeks, four times a week: long endurance runs to train my body for fatigue, interval workouts to increase my speed, tempo runs, fartleks, hills, stretching, rest, and carb loading in the days leading up to the marathon. I followed the training program to a tee. My body took it all in, slimmed down, pumped up, adapted. Became accustomed to the constant abuse.
Suddenly, the excitement ratchets up around me.
“Cinc! Quatre! Tres! Dos! Un!”
A shot rings out, and the human tide surges forward, trotting at first, docile and impatient.
My heart swells as everyone begins to pick up the pace and move as one toward the starting gate.
KILOMETRE 1
I’m no longer jogging, I’m running, heading toward the Montolivet Bridge, I’m hanging back slightly, on the very edge of the crowd, five minutes fifty seconds per kilometre, the slow start I’d planned, I let the herd shadowing the pace bunny cross the starting line in one tight group, when it’s my turn to pass over the electronic mat, I press the button on my stopwatch, and with a tender smile, as though my mother were there with me, I murmur: Happy fiftieth, Mama… C’mon, let’s do it, let’s run this marathon…
Go, go! You can do it, sweetheart!
… my pulse quickens, it’s intoxicating, the excitement at the starting line, I run over the bridge, repeating don’t push it, don’t start too fast over and over, for hundreds of metres, the air pulsates with the sounds of people shouting, rattles shaking, whistles blowing, spectators lean up against the metal barriers, waving signs in the air, and down below, there’s el Río, the dried-up bed of an erstwhile river, lush gardens, I look straight ahead, breathe calmly, focus inward, I move forward easily, as though the wind were at my back, but it’s actually within me, and it’s not howling, it’s blowing gently, into the farthest reaches of my lungs, it carried my mother along, I know it won’t let me down…
KILOMETRE 2
… I’m moving forward, through the roundabout, I spot the “1 KM” marker, the crowd has thinned out, no need to zigzag around the slower runners anymore,
I look down at my watch: five minutes thirty-nine seconds per kilometre, bang on, so far, so good, my legs are strong, my shoulders relaxed, I’m smiling, I’m exactly where I want to be,
making my way through the streets of Valencia, a shiver of excitement like an electric shock sets the hair on the back of my neck on end, stray strands frizz wildly, a thin sheen of sweat forms at the roots, my heart beats steadily, the sky is overcast, ideal,
you used to worry about passing out in the sun, but it makes no difference to me, I like the sun and the
