The Qualifier

     The sign said “Mile 24”. A short blonde with a Texas Rangers ball cap was standing directly underneath the sign, cheering the runners. A large LED display was about 20 yards away, it had large numbers proclaiming “3:22:40”. 

     Tracey did the math in her head. Two and two tenths’ miles to go. Twenty-two minutes? That would give her a 3:44 and change, just short of a Boston qualifier. That would take a 3:40 to get to the granddaddy of marathons. She would have to pick up the pace. She needed to finish the remaining distance in 17 minutes. It seemed impossible, she would have to pick up the pace. A lean man was passing her, dripping sweat like breadcrumbs behind him. Tracey moved her legs faster, trying to match his pace. She listened for his feet to hit the pavement, trying to feel the rhythm, making it her rhythm. It was getting harder to breathe, the air seemed to be rushing away from her lungs rather than filling them. Her legs were beginning to feel like lead pipes; it took more energy to move them with each step.

     Don’t panic, she thought, you’re thinking too much about the running. Change the channel. A theme song, that’s what I need. Different songs began flooding her mind. “Running on Empty”, No, all wrong, “Against the Wind”, No, No, NO! Tracey then thought of the ending of a favorite movie, “The Man from Snowy River”. She pictured herself as one of the horses, running effortlessly. Her legs weren’t tired anymore; they were strong and powerful. Her ponytail was whipping in the wind. The music from the scene thundered though her head and she concentrated only on making her body conform to the beat of the music. Her breathing slowed down and deepened, as if she were breathing to play the French horn rather than running at a 8 minute per mile pace. The sounds around her, the grunts of other runners, the cheers of encouragement from the crowd, the pounding of feet, all faded into the background, forced out of her consciousness by the movie scene. The humidity and heat of the San Antonio asphalt became the cool grasses of an Australian mountainside. She saw the runners around her and they became other members of the herd of wild Brumbies, running down the mountains into the corrals. In her mind she could hear the French horns announcing the arrival of the hero at the end of his quest. Tracey realized that the crowd around the corral was the crowd around the Alamodome Plaza. She could see the end, the finish line in the distance, the large towers with the banner “FINISH – 2002 Marathon of the Americas” strung across. The lane was lined with those metal temporary fences used at fairs and rodeos. Children stood on the fences, high-fiving runners and hollering for their daddies and mommies. The clock beyond the finish line looked as if it was picking up speed, the seconds were ticking away at a two second per second speed. A radio disc jockey was announcing the finishers, calling out their names and hometowns as they went under the banner. Tracey watched only the clock, ticking seconds faster and faster. 

She looked to the right of the finish line. There they were, her husband Dan and her two daughters, 4 and 6, yelling “Go, Mommy!” Dan beamed, there were tears in his eyes. For once they weren’t the tears of laughter.

     Two more minutes, I have two minutes to finish and I’m Boston Bound! she held on to the thought like a life preserver.

     Her watch began chirping. The three minutes were up. Tracey slowed to a walk and tried to catch her breath. She knew her neighbors thought she was crazy. Here she was, a two hundred-fifty-pound mother of two, spending an hour each evening, regardless of weather, jogging three minutes and walking five. The book said, though, that if she just did this, jog three, run five, that one day she could jog a whole mile, and if one, then why not twenty-six? She hung on to the dream like a life preserver.