Beguiled

Mile 21, Boston Marathon

Nearly a month ago, I wrote about where my Boston Marathon training stood– a combination of strengths and weaknesses, successes and setbacks. Over the past few weeks, thanks to patience, perseverance, and some slightly torturous sessions of physical therapy involving a long metal bar dragged across my iliotibial band, I got back on the road, built my endurance back to 18 miles, and regained a sense of confidence that I can make it from Hopkinton to Boston on Monday.

Yet I've not been deceived into thinking that it will be an easy effort on Patriots' Day, even with a favorable weather forecast: upper 40s to low 50s, partly cloudy, and a 20mph tailwind. Having run the course the last year, I know many of its secrets. The first four miles are almost all downhill– so don't go out too fast. The large crowd filling the common in Natick at mile 10– the first undeniable sign that this race is a big deal for spectators– is a few miles short of the halfway mark. The sharp descent through Newton Lower Falls just past mile 15 is soon followed by Hell's Alley, the long, slow, barren climb over I-95 that will surely be a swirl of wind, highway noise, and loneliness. Then, the famous firehouse turn at 17 miles, and the legendary Newton Hills. If they're run well, cresting Heartbreak Hill and passing Boston College at mile 21 can feel like a triumphant conquest– but it's still five miles to Copley Square, and the first of those miles is haunted. Last year, I stared down those ghosts and ran a 6:35 from BC to Cleveland Circle, but then Beacon Street grabbed my ankles, slowing me to a 6:54 pace. There's a nasty underpass at Mass. Ave. with half a mile to go (St. Louisans: remember running under Grand and then climbing the Death Hill past Chaifetz and Harris-Stowe?), and for all the hoopla and energy on Boylston Street for the final straightaway, it's still a long five blocks.

Where I have been deceived, though, is at school. In the past four weeks, as my marathon training has regained steam, it seems like my teaching has fallen apart. Some of my 8th grade students are, quite understandably and appropriately, ready to move on to high school. Yet when that anticipation is expressed in ways that frustrate me– sluggishness to follow instructions, deliberately working below potential on assignments, rude reactions to gentle reminders– I begin to wonder where I'm going wrong. My enthusiasm for teaching material I know and enjoy– from Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War, to methods of prayer and discernment from Ignatian spirituality– wavers in the face of anxiety about getting pushed around in the classroom, and roughed up by my own self-criticism afterwards. And whereas I've find comfort in the solitude of long Saturday morning training runs for the past few months, at school I've been trapped in the negativity of the other side of that coin– isolation from my colleagues over my fears that I'm not skilled, talented, or successful enough to teach alongside them. Though I've only run Boston once, I can still clearly recall many of the details and quirks of that 26.2-mile course. This closed loop of fear, anxiety, and cynicism that I've traced at work, though well worn, remains a mysterious course bereft of landmarks, progress, and a clear way out. I know that I've gone off course, having misread, or failed to follow, some important signs.

Perhaps the greatest secret of Marathon Monday, one especially difficult to explain to first-timers, is the power of the spectators. Little kids holding out their gloved hands for a high five. The auto glass shop in Framingham that puts dark reflective shades in its plate-glass storefront and proudly advertises: "Check yourself out in our windows!" The house just past Lake Cochituate, right before mile 10 in Natick, with a huge banner and an arrow pointing to the front door labeled "Shortcut!" The rolling screams of the Wellesley students at mile 12. The way that a wall of cheers, drumbeats, horns, whistles, and even costumes (last year I saw Captain America at mile 20) from a crowd at least six deep, on both sides of Commonwealth Avenue, for the four grueling uphill miles from the Newton Firehouse to Boston College carries the wicked strong and the seriously wavering alike through the Newtown Hills. The transformation of Kenmore Square, heralded by the looming and immovable CITGO sign, from a snarl of traffic to a sea of spectators, with runners funneled through a narrow ribbon of pavement, in a parade of glory and exuberance that transcends the pain flooding tired legs, spent muscles, and a mind weary from a duel of wills between perseverance and fatigue.

Ultimately, come Monday, I just want to run and have a great time– in both the experiential and the chronological sense of the word. My friend and longtime training partner Matt, with whom I've prepared for three marathons and run two (he did an extra while I did a two-day cycling fundraiser), will be running his first Boston. Some colleagues from school– the same whose good opinions of me I often struggle to believe– will be scattered along the course. My parents will be at the finish, as they have been for three of my previous five marathons. When I return to school after Easter break, I just want to teach and do well, and perhaps more importantly, to finally believe that I have been doing so for longer than I think. It's time to vanquish some uncertainties, illusions, and deceptions. A marathon does that so well. And this one may just get me back on course.

Boylston Street, Boston Marathon