AMERICANWAY

VERRAZANO-NARROWS BRIDGE: MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES so by doctors, given the wear running does to the body. I was fine with this, as I'd recently lost nearly 50 pounds doing sprints and weight work. My knees hurt when I ran distances more than a mile. As doctors gave her clearance for greater distances, Red took on each new running allowance with great joy. She, like most runners, is a goal-setter. The idea of a months-long training program to run a certain distance in a certain time, and maybe even set a "PR," or personal record, provided her with a rush beyond the physical. More than that, running is intensely personal to her and her fam- ily. Her father and sisters are runners. That she could never run with her father on his early-morning jogs across the Golden Gate Bridge haunted her. Now, every time her father sees her, he first asks, "How far did you run today?" It fills her heart. I was fine with this, and once I accepted that we were going to work together to get her to New York, I wanted to do anything I could to make it happen. Supportive boyfriend = me. Training for a half-marathon is, through some cruel quirk of running math, only one-eighth as time-consuming and stressful as training for a marathon. More to the point, runners self-select their friends the more they train, meaning I was often the only person in the group not training for a marathon. Hence another lesson: The first rule of runners club is that you must talk about runners club. I n t h e 2007 movie Spirit of the Marathon (which Red and I watched for one of our movie-night dates), one of the marathoners says that she and her friends spend all their free time talking about running and all their running time talking about everything else. This led me to believe I should perhaps take up running just so we could talk about the "everything else." Runners surround them- selves with other runners in part so they can talk about running, I'm convinced. I'm amazed at the number of running topics that can be discussed: weather; shoes; training methods; gadgets and software; That is clearly not impossible. It is difficult — extraordinary, even. Sure, 541,000 people crossed the finish line in 1,100 U.S. marathons last year, but I'm telling you, finishing a marathon is extraordinary. I'm telling you that because I know there is no way I could ever run one. I'm telling you that because people who run marathons like to be reminded how tough it is. I'm reminding you of that because my girlfriend of five years is running her first marathon in New York City on Nov. 2. And she likes it when I remind her how extraordinary that is. And it is extraordinary. I truly believe that. But I'm going to attempt to do the impossible. I'm going to try, with love and respect, to explain why people who run marathons are a wonderful challenge to those of us who don't. And I'm going to try to do so in a way that doesn't augur the end of my relationship. Let's begin. W h e n R e d — my girlfriend has red hair — crossed the finish line, I was crying. It was spring of this year, and she had just completed her first half-marathon. I was proud of her and thankful her journey was complete. (Note: Runners talk a lot about journeys. It is not a work- out or a race. It's part of the journey. I am not making light of this. Journeys are wonderful. I support journeys. Of journeys, count me a fan. Just so we're clear.) "Red! Over here!" I had pushed my way through to the front of the bystander section so she could see me. As the social-media director of our life's moments, I envisioned capturing the big moment on my phone: that point when she crossed the finish line, hugged her boyfriend and wept in realization at how much I'd helped navigate her through this journey. Perhaps I would later add an orchestral score. I yelled for her again. She saw me! I waved her over — and she dis- missed me with a hand gesture, then walked toward the tent that offered bananas. I was hurt. Wait, hadn't I rearranged my schedule to accommodate her training? Hadn't I been there for every prerace freak-out? Tish Hamilton, executive editor at Runner's World magazine, laughed when I told her this story. "We are always at our worst as soon as we finish a race," she says. "It's a terribly low moment. We're hungry, angry and grumpy." This was my first lesson: At the end of the run, don't expect thanks for just standing there. In retrospect, that seems fair. I asked Red what comes next, now that the half-marathon goal was over. I was thinking a long vacation. Or maybe joining a book club. "I'm going to run New York," Red said, smiling big and bright. R e d w a s born with scoliosis, and it worsened with age. By her mid- 20s, her spine was S-shaped. At 26, she under went spinal-fusion surgery, in which titanium bolts are placed between her vertebrae and cranked until the spine straightens. It is unspeakably painful. I met her shortly thereafter. For the first time, she could exercise regularly, and she was hooked, sometimes doing so twice a day. She wasn't running long distances because she was not yet cleared to do I ' m t r y i n g t o d o t h e i m p o s s i b l e . N o t " r u n 2 6 . 2 m i l e s . " ABOVE: Runners cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the start of the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 3, 2013. LEFT: The author's girlfriend, Red 8 2 O C TO B E R 2 01 4 A A .CO M/A M E R I C A NWAY

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