PS Rough Draft! Please Critique
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 11:44 am
Very rough draft, just wrote it last night and would love any feedback! Thanks!
I was at mile 15, the wall began to hit – I looked down and there it was the black slow moving treadmill of highway that was highway 101. My legs were trembling; my head was inside out running various scenarios through my head – attempting to find the one that would cause my body the least stress with the most amount of personal gain. I focused my attention on a distant noise that seemed juxtaposed mid marathon in Duluth, Minnesota – it was the triumphant sound of a bagpipe, the song was Amazing Grace and suddenly my body went numb. My head started pounding and I began to sob, mid way to mile 26.2 and I was sobbing uncontrollably.
3 years 4 months 18 days and approximately 2 hours before that moment in time I was listening to that beautiful sound through a small black radio my grandmother had purchased at the local drug store. The occasion was my mother’s funeral; she was 48 years young and had a lifetime of love left in her. I’ll never forget that bitterly cold Minnesotan winter day, the bagpipes playing as her coffin was unevenly lowered into the half frozen ground – that sound and those images will forever be in my mind.
After a few minutes of crying, I felt a renewed sense of feeling throughout my body – my tears were not of sorrow but of joy. I had a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging in that moment that has often been vacant in my life. With a renewed vision I pressed onward, mile 16, 17, 18 breezed by as though I was beginning it all again.
After mile 18, I was in uncharted territory – my training had included many long days of running, swimming, biking, lifting but I had only been past 18 miles one time before this – the familiar sense of uncertainty began slowly creeping into my mind. I had been working for this moment for the last 8 months, pushing my body to its limits with the ultimate goal in mind: the Boston Marathon. The Boston is widely known as the pinnacle of success in the marathon world and getting a coveted spot is no easy task – for my age group I needed under a 3 hour and 10 minute finishing time, that’s roughly a 7.25 mile pace. Daunting as it was, I knew that I could persevere - pushing my body to its’ physical limits created much more than a mental hiatus, it created a vacuum of thought – memories coursing through my veins as unfamiliar faces stared my worn body down.
Unchartered territory has been as much a part of my life as running has been, since I can remember my mother reiterated two things: one: running is the only medicine you’ll ever need in life and two: always, above all, stay positive. Applying these principles to my life has been incredibly difficult but through it all, they have never left me astray. At 12, when I gave a speech on “How Luann’s drinking had impacted me” – part of my mother’s rehabilitation was to listen and confront our feelings of pain directly that day. Or at 16, when I moved out of my mother’s apartment after her having been so intoxicated that she couldn’t form sentences. At 20, when I finally decided to come clean with myself, profess my homosexuality to my sister and close friends – it became abundantly clear that positivity would be key to overcoming these obstacles. Staring anyone in the eye and telling them your sexual preferences is not exactly ideal; neither is telling your mother at age 12 that you lay awake at night thinking about suicide. The truth is I can’t change it; I never could – just like I couldn’t change my mother dying or my teeth being a slightly darker shade of white. But it is through these unchartered territories that our true colors come through: our years, weeks, days, hours of training and sweat finally come to good use. Laying down those miles week by week, keeping that head held high when against all odds you were outnumbered and outwitted.
By mile 25, I had replayed all of the pent up emotions and major events in my life – the last 5 miles quickly had become a spiritual awakening, purging my body of any doubts I had. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines resilience as the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress. I like to think that by the time mile 26.2 came around, I had come full circle mentally and physically – I was truly resilient in every sense of the word. Coming through that finish line I could feel my body going numb again, I looked up and saw the large red numbers directly above me – 3.04.
I was at mile 15, the wall began to hit – I looked down and there it was the black slow moving treadmill of highway that was highway 101. My legs were trembling; my head was inside out running various scenarios through my head – attempting to find the one that would cause my body the least stress with the most amount of personal gain. I focused my attention on a distant noise that seemed juxtaposed mid marathon in Duluth, Minnesota – it was the triumphant sound of a bagpipe, the song was Amazing Grace and suddenly my body went numb. My head started pounding and I began to sob, mid way to mile 26.2 and I was sobbing uncontrollably.
3 years 4 months 18 days and approximately 2 hours before that moment in time I was listening to that beautiful sound through a small black radio my grandmother had purchased at the local drug store. The occasion was my mother’s funeral; she was 48 years young and had a lifetime of love left in her. I’ll never forget that bitterly cold Minnesotan winter day, the bagpipes playing as her coffin was unevenly lowered into the half frozen ground – that sound and those images will forever be in my mind.
After a few minutes of crying, I felt a renewed sense of feeling throughout my body – my tears were not of sorrow but of joy. I had a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging in that moment that has often been vacant in my life. With a renewed vision I pressed onward, mile 16, 17, 18 breezed by as though I was beginning it all again.
After mile 18, I was in uncharted territory – my training had included many long days of running, swimming, biking, lifting but I had only been past 18 miles one time before this – the familiar sense of uncertainty began slowly creeping into my mind. I had been working for this moment for the last 8 months, pushing my body to its limits with the ultimate goal in mind: the Boston Marathon. The Boston is widely known as the pinnacle of success in the marathon world and getting a coveted spot is no easy task – for my age group I needed under a 3 hour and 10 minute finishing time, that’s roughly a 7.25 mile pace. Daunting as it was, I knew that I could persevere - pushing my body to its’ physical limits created much more than a mental hiatus, it created a vacuum of thought – memories coursing through my veins as unfamiliar faces stared my worn body down.
Unchartered territory has been as much a part of my life as running has been, since I can remember my mother reiterated two things: one: running is the only medicine you’ll ever need in life and two: always, above all, stay positive. Applying these principles to my life has been incredibly difficult but through it all, they have never left me astray. At 12, when I gave a speech on “How Luann’s drinking had impacted me” – part of my mother’s rehabilitation was to listen and confront our feelings of pain directly that day. Or at 16, when I moved out of my mother’s apartment after her having been so intoxicated that she couldn’t form sentences. At 20, when I finally decided to come clean with myself, profess my homosexuality to my sister and close friends – it became abundantly clear that positivity would be key to overcoming these obstacles. Staring anyone in the eye and telling them your sexual preferences is not exactly ideal; neither is telling your mother at age 12 that you lay awake at night thinking about suicide. The truth is I can’t change it; I never could – just like I couldn’t change my mother dying or my teeth being a slightly darker shade of white. But it is through these unchartered territories that our true colors come through: our years, weeks, days, hours of training and sweat finally come to good use. Laying down those miles week by week, keeping that head held high when against all odds you were outnumbered and outwitted.
By mile 25, I had replayed all of the pent up emotions and major events in my life – the last 5 miles quickly had become a spiritual awakening, purging my body of any doubts I had. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines resilience as the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress. I like to think that by the time mile 26.2 came around, I had come full circle mentally and physically – I was truly resilient in every sense of the word. Coming through that finish line I could feel my body going numb again, I looked up and saw the large red numbers directly above me – 3.04.
