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Last weekend I had the privilege of running in the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. I refer to it as a blessing from God for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, I was running in honor of my father, who is a Marine veteran of World War II, specifically the Iwo Jima campaign. I am 62, and to be able to run in honor of, instead of in memory of, my father is a genuine blessing. Yet there were so many reasons why the experience was so meaningful.
A distance of 26.2 miles is no game, and people who run marathons take them seriously. It becomes a microcosm of the human experience. You encounter some of the most determined and goal-oriented people you will ever meet. Many of them run under circumstances that are incredibly challenging. I came away from last week's run with a head and heart full of images and snapshots of some of the most impressive people I have ever encountered.
I remember one moment at about 14 miles out. About that point in a race your left brain is sending all kinds of messages like, "This is crazy. Just walk the rest of the way!" You begin to have doubts. It was at that moment when a man with a Marine cap blew by me like I was standing still.
He was running on a prosthetic leg!
Walking was no longer an option for me after witnessing that man. Another man was using crutches because parts of both legs were missing, apparently due to some type of explosion.
At about 20 miles out I noticed a middle-aged man and teenage boy running together, apparently a father and son, because they favored each other. At that moment the father evidently just completely gave out and slowed to a walk. The son then turned and began to run backward to stay with his dad. I saw them on two other occasions, the son still running backward but staying alongside his father.
Yet, the most moving experience occurred with a man who was paralyzed from the waist down.
He had built a unique wheelchair that had front wheels extended out so he could sit back as if riding a cart. He propelled the cart by pumping handlebars back and forth.
By coincidence I noticed that at the beginning of the race he was having some kind of mechanical problem and several runners were trying to help him so he could begin with others in the wheelchair event. He missed that start but managed to get the repair done in time to start with the rest of the 25,000 runners.
On several occasions I was in sight of this man pumping his cart. Runners always assisted him by shouting to those ahead, "Wheelchair coming through!" He made the entire 26.2 miles in that cart, but the final mile is the one that will always stick in my brain.
The last mile of the Marine Corps Marathon is a long uphill climb past Arlington Cemetery to the finish line in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial.
The hill is a beast after running 25 miles, and runners usually try to muster the last of their energy not to be whipped by that last hill. The man in the cart could not make it. At that moment several runners stopped their stride and concern for their personal times and began pushing the man up the hill to the finish line so he could claim his finisher's medal.
The image of that man, his cart, the hill and the runners pushing him is an image of humanity at its best. Whenever I begin to stereotype people as lazy and self-concerned, I will pull up that image of the man in the cart trying to cross the finish line.
