Deacon Rie
26 & CHANGE
For
Chaz, Dominic and Audrey Kate
The dream of inspiration is God’s gift to the dreamer and you are the gifts which inspire me to dream.
“I don’t care if you go left. I don’t care if you go right. But dammit, you’d better go right now.”
The Starting Line
Beloved tales shared by generations have touted the durability of castles built on stone. Sacred parables repeatedly lift up the wise man who builds his home upon a rock. And timeless fables teach that storms are best weathered upon a solid foundation. And so it is true that since the time of antiquity, solid ground has held a firm reputation as the venue of choice for facing hardship. As Stephen Lantz pressed the toe of his shoe into the resistance of the road’s surface, he couldn’t have disagreed more.
He hesitated. It was as if too much pressure would awaken some unseen monster beneath him. Speckled blemishes marked the jagged asphalt. It drew his attention to the apparent scarring of daily wear that had been mixed with a constant exposure to the natural elements. The battle-hardened appearance only intensified the road’s seeming brutality. Breaks of loose gravel gave a false sense of weakness, but not a hint of brokenness as the road defiantly challenged him. Stephen swallowed deeply, attempting to wash away the fluttering doubts of his own readiness.
He had made it to the marathon race location with time to spare and was now ready to begin the adventure. He tried to focus on the excitement and joy of a long awaited day’s arrival. All the training, preparation and difficulty had been building up to a single event and now he was here standing in its presence. Enthusiasm and anticipation were the appropriate words for the day’s planned festivities, but Stephen Lantz knew intimidation, anxiety, and self-doubt were also ready to quietly accompany him. Lost in momentary ponder, Stephen stared at the pothole to consider the subtle similarities between crumbled pavement and coarse sand. Perhaps the most monumental moments of a man’s life could be recognized by the ground on which he stood.
The draw of a deep breath drew in awareness that the pre-dawn air was cooler than normal for a February morning. A crescent moon held the darkness with a surrounding haze of clouds as if someone had taken an eraser to the rim of its illumination. A whipping breeze caused a shrug that made him erratically shake his shoulders and head, snapping him out of the mental drift.
He tried in vain to walk off the uncontrollable shiver that seemed to grip him tighter with each step. Feeling every gust of wind along the hair fibers of his bare legs, he questioned why he had given in to wearing shorts with only a long-sleeved shirt. He had been told on numerous occasions that these marathon races always warmed up along the way. People told him he’d be glad to be in shorts. It was humorous, the number of encouraging friends who had reminded him about rapidly changing weather conditions countless times over the prior months. He found it surprising to learn just how many of his acquaintances seemed to hobby in meteorology when it came to conversations about marathon preparation. Stephen had come to learn that letting people know you were preparing to run your first marathon was a magnet for unsolicited advice. Now he reasoned that warming up along the way wasn’t going to help much if hypothermia settled in well before reaching the first aid station.
He faintly noticed the presence of other people trickling by him in the dim light. They were huddled in their own desperate attempts to cocoon themselves from the wind. Images of frozen corpses entered his mind. They were reflections of the ill prepared and ill fortuned mountaineers in a climbing documentary he had watch last week. Dismissing the mental imagery proved to be a challenge.
You’re on a beach. You’re on a beach. Blistering sand burning my feet. Blazing sun scorching my skin… You’re on a hot, hot beach… in the summer… at the equator… ahhh, this beach sucks. Just move, Stephen.
Feelings of rust ground within his knees as he plodded over each step, making the concept of a 26.2 journey seem nearly incomprehensible. Doubt and hesitation tightened their grip. Attempting to settle the rising anxiety he drew in another deep breath but the bitter air only made him more aware of his increased heart rate. He violently shook his shoulders to knock off layers of imaginary ice and forced his mind to shift its focus toward that task of finding the area for the race start.
Stephen had expected to be better prepared for the morning. Was it those missed training runs? Perhaps he had made a mistake in the training plan and hadn’t really properly prepared after all. Or maybe, it was something deeper. Something inside which told him he had no business being here in the first place. He concealed his fears from himself and pretended it was just the cold causing him to shiver. He reassured himself that he had all the signs of a well-prepared runner. He had arrived on time and seemingly at the right location. He already picked up his race packet, which included his race number on a paper bib, some pre-race instructions, a pile of random advertisements, plus samples for oddly packaged liquids he wasn’t even sure how to go about using. He had done well to ensure there was plenty of time to get settled in before the start. Still, he felt uneasy and a flutter of anxious nausea began to swell.
He subtly looked over his shoulder one last time to see the tail lights of his family’s car rest at a stop sign. Even with the soft red glow breaking the dense mist it did little more than illuminate the rear fender. He took pride seeing the newly applied silver paint which dressed the aged car. Though not by any stretch new, it was new to them and something he believed to be worth taking care of. He knew that giving attention to the car’s exterior would motivate him to take better care of the vehicle’s maintenance. “Besides,” he had told Sarah with great determination, “a high mileage car is like taking in a rescue dog. It knows when it’s being cared for and it’ll take just as good care of you in return.” The associated enthusiasm had done more to reassure him than convince his patient wife. Stephen and Sarah knew a thing or two about making old things new again; enough to make sure the car was in the best condition possible to see them through whatever new difficulties lay ahead.
The metallic-silver sedan lingered at the stop sign. Considering his wife had extensive experience in successfully arguing with police officers at stop signs over the permissive use of the “California Roll”, he knew she was not so much adhering to the law, but instead staring at him through the slim rearview mirror.
He knew her concerns. He wasn’t the first man in his late thirty’s to get a wild hair and sign up for adventures like marathons. But Sarah knew her husband was not the impulsive type. So it wasn’t a complete shock when she had expressed in great detail, just how incredibly insane she felt he was to throw marathon training on top of a series of years filled with personal hardships. But Sarah had followed him down the path of unreason before and she promised to do everything she could to help him make it to that starting line. At the time of that conversation, he hadn’t mentioned the 5:00 am wake up which would be required in order to drop him off before dawn on race day. But Sarah excelled in her role as his crew chief all the way until the last possible moment.
Unfortunately, fretting about preparations and her own nervousness about Stephen’s attempt kept her from getting even a part night’s sleep. He now realized she had been more stressed than him about getting him to the race start. But under his own tensions, he woke up half an hour before the alarm with no hope of returning to sleep. Besides, he loved the way she smiled coyly before actually waking up completely. Serving as her alarm clock by bringing in a strong brew of steaming coffee, with a touch of cream and a triple-touch of chocolate syrup, he won back some points for the early wake-up.