38. Best Race I’ve Ever Run
best race i’ve ever run
julian
“Stop pacing. You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
“I’m not pacing. I’m walking with purpose.”
“You’re pacing.” I pulled the pasta off the heat. “Your training’s done. Your legs are ready. Your gear’s laid out upstairs. There’s nothing left to do but show up.”
Alyssa dropped onto the couch with a sigh. “What if I hit the wall at mile twenty and can’t finish?”
“Then you walk. Or we slow down together.”
“What if I hold you back?”
I turned around. “I’ve run this distance six times. Tomorrow I have one goal only, and it’s getting you across that line. I don’t care about my time.”
“You could PR—”
“I don’t care about a PR.” I sat next to her and pulled her legs across my lap. “This is your race. I’m along for the ride.”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of not being able to do it. Your whole family’s coming.”
“Four months ago your longest run was thirteen miles. Last weekend you ran twenty like it was a warm-up.” I worked my thumb into the arch of her foot.
“I’ve watched you train. I’ve watched you get up at dawn when you were exhausted.
You’ve run through rain you could’ve skipped, pushed past the point where most people fold. You’re the toughest person I know.”
“Tougher than you?” She grinned.
“Easily.”
That got me a real smile. The timer went off and I moved her legs to get up. “Time to eat, then bed. We’re up at four-thirty.”
She groaned. “Remind me why I’m doing this.”
“Because many months ago you said you wanted to. And you don’t quit on things you want.”
alyssa
The first few miles, I thought about all the help I’d pushed back on. The car I’d fought him over. My condo. The job he’d tried to network me into. The countless day-to-day gestures.
And then there was this. I’d never fought him on this.
Months of it. It was the only help that ever got past my guard without a battle, and it got past because there was nothing to refuse.
You can hand a person back car keys. You can’t hand back somebody’s time.
He’d given me the one thing I didn’t want to say no to. Him.
Julian ran on my left, a half step back, where he’d run every morning since the day we started.
“Shoulders, Lyss. You’re wearing them like earrings.”
I dropped them.
At ten miles, we spotted Simone, Taryn, Zion, Raschad, Tre, and the boys, all of them cheering and shouting at us. Micah jumping up and down with a sign bigger than his head.
“THAT’S MY MOM! SHE’S RUNNING TWENTY-SIX MILES!”
It was the best thing I’d ever heard. I waved and blew them all kisses and my speed picked up, like seeing them all gave me more gas.
The wall came up out of the road at me when we got to twenty-two miles, exactly where Julian had told me it would hit. It put concrete in my legs and plastic over my lungs.
“Julian.” My voice came out small and labored and I slowed to a pained walk.
He was already looking. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t. This was stupid. I’m not a marathon runner, I need to—”
“Look at me. Not the ground, not the other runners. Me.” I did. “You’ve been training for months for this exact moment. We knew it was coming.”
“I feel terrible.”
“You’re supposed to. That’s what the wall is.” He kept pace with my granny shuffle. “Remember the twenty-miler in the rain? Mile seventeen, when you wanted to quit?”
I remembered. Cold, soaked, and done, but I’d kept going.
“This is just another mile seventeen. Another minute where you get to decide.”
I straightened my back, still walking, but a little faster.
“One foot in front of the other, Lyss,” he said. “Don’t think about the finish. Don’t think about miles left. Just the next step.”
We passed twenty-three. Then twenty-four. And then we spotted the family again, louder. Micah was on Raschad’s shoulders, arms up in the air screaming mine and Julian’s names with glee. The sight put something back into my legs that the wall had taken.
When we rounded the last turn and the line came into view, I started crying, which is a bad idea when you already can’t breathe.
“I can see it.”
“Quarter mile. How do you want to finish?”
“Together.”
We crossed it side by side, hand in hand. Somebody hung a medal on me and wrapped me in foil. My legs informed me they were finished, and Julian’s hands came around my waist. I leaned on him. I’d earned it. I ran every mile to get to it.
“You did it,” he said in my ear.
“We did it.”
“No.” He pulled back and looked at me. “This was you. I just ran next to you.”
The family swarmed past the finisher’s chute. Micah crashed into me, foil blanket and all. Everyone gave us hugs and congratulations one by one, telling us how proud they were.
“I gotta say, y’all looked too damn cute running together. I was like awww,” Taryn gushed. “Almost shed a tear.”
“Right? Adorable. I loved it!” Simone agreed.
Zion turned up with two bottles of chocolate milk, as Tre read his phone. “Four thirty-seven. That’s pretty good for a first marathon, Alyssa!” Then he grinned at Julian. “What about your time, though? That’s gotta be your worst one ever.”
Everybody looked at Julian.
“Best race I’ve ever run,” he said.
“How you figure that?”
“It wasn’t about my time.” He had an arm around me. “It was about hers.”
The adrenaline was already going out of me and my legs were starting to seize where I stood. We made it halfway to the car when Julian noticed and picked me up, foil and all.
“Put me down, I’m disgusting!”
“You ran twenty-six point two miles. You’re not walking another foot.”
I stopped arguing and put my arms around his neck and let him carry me. A year ago I probably would have insisted I was fine, and crawled to the car. I nuzzled my head into his neck and exhaled, then kissed the side of his neck.
“Julian. I’ll never forget this day.”
“Me neither,” he said as he lowered me into the passenger seat and buckled me in.