Ready to race
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2016
A-N-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-I-O-N. That may remind you of the Heinz commercial, with the long wait for the ketchup to drip from the bottle. When I think about anticipation, I see these scenes:
I sat in the sun with the crowd of marathoners on the school field in Hopkinton, MA, and then with like-paced runners on the road leading to the start. F-16s flashed overhead and a murmur rose from our start pen, knowing the Star Spangled Banner would be sung and ropes separating the pens would be dropped. We would shuffle and trot, then run across the start line. We would push up and fly down hills to Auburn and beyond, struggle over Heartbreak Hill and suffer through Brookline, racing 26.2 miles through cheering crowds, crazed Wellesley coeds and Boston College celebrants, spent but grinning, running under the famed finish banner in Boston's Back Bay.
I milled with thousands of runners on the Piazzale Michelangiolo, a stunning overlook in Florence. Runners flowed up the hillside from the Arno and out of buses. An excited string of Italian enveloped us from loud speakers. Masses of club-jersey clad marathoners carried me into the start pen, the rapid-fire Italian rising in pitch and volume. How would it be to race in this Euro herd, to run into the heart of the Renaissance, across cobblestones and past palaces and cheering Florentines? "Bang!" Downhill we fled, on our race to Piazza Santa Croce, the finish line flanked by the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini and Michelangelo.
Soon after dawn, I waded into the shallow water in the basin at the foot of Okanagon Lake in Penticton, B.C., amidst 2,500 other wet-suit clad triathletes. We swam a bit and spoke to one another in friendly ways, trying to tamp down our emotions and save adrenaline. For many, smiles and high fives told the story that the race was a huge reward from a long quest of training and preparation. Others were quiet, like me, trying to get their minds around the 140.6 miles of swimming, biking and running ahead. Then the bag pipes played, "Oh Canada" was sung, we pressed forward against the start cable and the cannon retorted. Like a crazed school of fish, we swam together and over and around one another toward the first houseboat turn a mile away and began a day-long epic that would bring us back to this shore and a celebratory finish in the fading light.
I savor the moments before the start of a big race. Senses are heightened. Color and sound are vivid. Time crawls. My mind is both in the grand present and deep into the race ahead. Confidence flows from the training, planning and envisioning that preceded this bright point in time. The athletes around me are focused, fellow warriors ready to go. Tension awaits release with the retort of the start gun. Then, suddenly, it's "Go! Go! Go!", a joyous release that completely engages mind and body.
