ESSAY: 'An hour after the elite runners crossed the finish line, I passed under the same banner,' said Tova Mirvis. 'It was a victory of perseverance and the ability to run from fixed notions of what I could do, toward an alternate idea of who I might be.'
The first time I watched the Boston Marathon, the runners passing by my spot at the foot of Heartbreak Hill seemed superhuman, engaged in an otherworldly feat. With two young kids in a stroller, I could no more imagine running 26.2 miles than I could envision flying.
The hardest part was traversing my certainty that I could never be a runner. But the first time I jogged/walked around Crystal Lake in Newton, I realized that there was no special skill to learn. I didn’t have to be fast or particularly coordinated. I just had to withstand the discomfort. It reminded me of something a writing teacher once told me: If you’re a writer, then you write. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a runner. What matters is that you keep running.
With my 50th birthday approaching, my son and I signed up for the BAA Boston Half Marathon. I trained during the pandemic, when running gained newfound popularity. It made sense — running could be done from nearly anywhere, it offered an excuse to go outside and didn’t require the participation of other people. But even more, as so much of life halted, running created the sensation of movement. Running is a powerful antidote to the feeling of being hopelessly grounded.
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