an atmospheric discharge of electricity...

i woke up at 4:30 last Sunday morning to a nervous jittering in my chest. At first, i thought i couldn't hit the snooze button on my iphone. Then i realized that i was just nervous. As i shuffled into the shower, i groaned at the thought of today's ridiculous task. 13.1 miles loomed in the dark. Needles to say, our training had been piss poor. i had run about 7 miles the week before (the longest run of my life to date) and Deepti had cleared the 9 mile marker about the same time. The prospect of running nearly twice that distance was disconcerting, to say the least. Left to our own devices, we had gotten a late start in to our training routine. Completion of the race seemed an aggressive goal at best, and a horribly foolish & irresponsible endeavor at worst. Still though, we had paid our dues, gotten our race packets, and committed to finishing even if we found ourselves crawling over the finish line and gasping for breath. In addition, Deepti's unflinching passion for the run fueled me through the morning. Really, she was stronger than I was when it came to these things. We chomped down a few homemade Lara bars, carefully counted out the change we needed for MARTA, and headed down to the station to catch the train to Centennial Park. As we walked down the street, people seemed to emerge from every Midtown street corner and descend upon the station. Inside, we found a swirling mass, studded with Nike swooshes & water bottles, seeming to stretch forever along the MARTA platform. It took me a few minutes to overcome the irony of a crowd of runners waiting on a train, to begin a collective run...

When we got off at downtown, we found ourselves floating in a crowd that poured out of the station. At 6:30am the sky was still dark, angry about the commotion on a sleepy Sunday morning. The air was charged, as a mass of thin, young runners in shorts, polyester shirts, and hydration packs descended on the park. I remember imagining that this was the stratosphere before a storm... a blistering group of positive & negative charges ready to erupt in a miracle of physics.

As the fog of the morning burned away, we made our way to our starting corral. We were in O, the next to last group due to our lackluster projected finish times. We passed through throngs of limber runners stretching, breathing, hopping and jumping to prepare themselves for the race. When the race began, we jogged in staccato fashion for a long time before we finally arrived at the start line. As we ran over the threshold to start the race, a weight lifted from my shoulders. We had made it here. Now all we had to do was run...

The race wound through the city - a rainy-day urban tour of Five Points, Midtown, the 4th Ward, Little Five, the Virginia Highlands, Piedmont Park, the Georgia Tech campus, finally circling back to Centennial Park. People came out from their respective neighborhoods... A deep thanks to all who stood on their street corners and stoops to cheer us on in the rain. In retrospect I'd say the first 9 miles flew by as we ran - A team of 10,000 strong running down the city's rainy streets seemed like more than enough motivation for a race. But then you start to get tired. I tried a flurry of mental gymnastics to distract myself from the mounting fatigue. I imagined running with the bulls in Spain. I imagined the breath of the six angry bulls on my neck. I imagined running from police, framed for a murder I didn't commit. I flashed back to Tom Hanks running with a smiley-faced hand towel tucked in his shorts. At first, these thoughts were enough to push through fleeting moments of fatigue. But, as the race wore on, my poor conditioning bled through. After the adrenaline was all spent, all you had left were the fumes of motivation and the wavering commitment to yourself to finish what you set out to do. Perhaps we could walk a mile or two? I splashed Gatorade across my face at each stop and pushed forward. My knees felt like I had driven rusty nails into the joints. I felt the tetanus spreading through the joint and then into my body. My hand spasmed as I tried to find a better song on my iPod. During the 11th mile, I remember thinking that my shins were shattering with every step. I wondered how long I would have to take off from work if I sustained bilateral tibial plateau fractures. Would my disability kick in? I chuckled. Of course it wouldn't... So I ran harder...

The last mile was an endless stretch of asphalt that seemed to go on forever. The half marathon and full marathon courses had come together at this point, but remain separated by a thin barrier. I still couldn't make out the finish line. As I pressed on, a thin black shadow of a man raced past me along the other side of the barrier. He had run the full marathon and in these final moments, he effortlessly passed me, eyes focused on an imaginary horizon. I pushed harder. When I crossed the line I looked up and saw the green glow of numbers. 2:22:05. Deepti ran into my arms a few second later. For a few brief seconds, there was no pain, no emotion, only a tremendous relief. We had finished this crazy adventure together. As I took my first steps after the race, my joints screamed in agony. I hobbled along as we ran into friends that had already finished. I grabbed a water, a banana, a bagel and a gogurt. I took a deep drag on the crisp, clean air. Thanks to Mr Jynocel Basweti who sped past me to finish the full marathon in 2:20:49. Yeah. Pretty ridiculous. But thanks most of all to my wife... we really are just two crazy souls tumbling together through this thing called life...

We came home, showered, slept for an hour, and ate at Chipotle. Then, I put on my scrubs, grabbed a bottle of water, took 800mg of ibuprofen, and drove to the ER for another 10 hours of guts and glory... rain or shine...