For the first time in who-knows-how-long, the endless song chorus in my head finally ends. A simple refrain takes its place: Last mile, fast mile.
Say it again.
Last mile, fast mile.
Gold Singlet is coming back to me.
No. That’s too passive. I am chasing him down.
Since Heartbreak Hill, my legs have been dictating my race while my head hangs on to the ragged edge of sanity. They have just kept churning, churning, programmed by hundreds of miles per week and thousands of miles per year. They move on muscle memory alone, independent of conscious control.
But now, I need them to go faster and they don’t want to comply. Any change of pace, either faster or slower, is difficult. They are numb; they don’t listen to the central governor.
Last mile, fast mile.
Passing under the shadow of Fenway Park, baseball fans on top of the Green Monster cheer for us runners. At this point, soaked in an unholy combination of water and sweat and Gatorade and blood, most of my right shoe is a varying shade of red. They stop cheering as I pass by. I’m not sure exactly what that means.
Gold Singlet’s lead is down to a handful of strides. Be patient, you don’t have to get it all at once.
No. Screw that. This is the race. Make your move and commit to it.
I pump my arms slightly faster, and my legs shudder to respond. A steam locomotive slowly accelerating. Let’s just say I won’t be starting out of the blocks any time soon.
I pull up to his shoulder. Then we’re even. Finally, I’m ahead. Don’t look back, don’t hesitate, keep charging.
But Gold Singlet charges with me. I don’t-- I don’t have another gear. This is it. Who can sustain it for longer?
Last mile, fast mile.
He pulls even with me, and then a half-step ahead. I fucking hate half-steppers.
Here we are, two runners duking it out down Commonwealth Ave, one a millionaire world champion sponsored by a mega-multinational corporation, who is being paid by the race itself just for being in it. And me, a substitute teacher from Nowhere, Kansas, who had to pay his way to Massachusetts and even then didn’t even get to start on the same starting line -- not really, not when I was corralled behind the professionals. Out of sight and out of mind.
Boston was one of the last major races to fully adopt professionalization in the 1980s. For most of its history, it was a race for amateurs. Firefighters, schoolteachers, college students; all testing themselves on the purifying roads of eastern Massachusetts.
I know I said earlier not to look down when racing, but I do anyway.
“FLINT HILL
“KANSAS,” my singlet reads; hand-lettered, a gift from the students and Amelia. I am not racing for myself or my own ambitions. I am racing for them. I am racing for the rest of the amateur wannabe distance runners. For everyone who has passed the miles of their runs with visions of glory, breaking the tape first and turning around to shake hands with your vanquished competitors.
Dammit, Bill Rodgers won his first Boston in a jersey as ratty as mine. Why can’t I be next next?
The course dips under a street and the race goes quiet. All that are left are the staccato strides and labored breaths of two competitors going after it. Just like the early miles.
The calm before the storm.
Coming up the small rise back to street level -- a near-mountain, at this point, I make the sad attempt at shifting gears and driving my knees in a desperate attempt to break Gold Singlet.
He falls a half-stride behind. Then a full stride. Then three.
I turn my focus forward, through the rows of famous brownstones. There’s the media van again! And the final two athletes I have yet to chase down, still running virtually side-by-side.
“Last mile, fast mile.” I involuntarily say it out loud this time, surprising myself.
This is it, the final push. Grit your teeth and press, press, press.
A long jumper on old college team always expressed his confusion about the tactics of distance races. “Why do you all run so far just to sprint at the end? If your going to decide the race by a sprint, why not just do a sprint event instead?”
Such a fundamental question, and I never had a good answer for him. What was the purpose of the last 25 miles of running? To weed out all the non-contenders?
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the thrill of the chase.
I must have visualized this part of the race hundreds of times throughout training this winter. Right onto Hereford, left onto Boylston. These are the fever dreams that get you through the long, cold, dark, depressing months.
Right onto Hereford, left onto Boylston.
The most famous two turns in distance running. In all of my daydreams, all of the times I ran the race in my head, all of the times I kicked down imaginary foes, it never turned out quite like this. I was never this close to the front.
But immortality is within reach, one 4:56 mile at a time. Last mile, fast(est) mile.
Right onto Hereford...
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