Stephen faced toward the car. Resisting the punishing force of the resistant wind a soft smile broke over his face and he waved into the darkened rear window. He watched the red halo of brake lights disappear and the car slowly pressed deeper into the gray wall of morning.
Fighting onward through the frigid air which gave strength to his hesitation and nervousness, Stephen saw a large crowd standing in a series of long but well organized rows. The lines seemed to be single file as if the crowd was ready for a relay race. It looked odd and unlike the way he thought a marathon race would be structured. He gradually shuffled into a relatively short line behind a man wearing a bright yellow singlet shirt, hip-high running shorts and shoes that looked like they had been stolen from a circus clown. The shoes were unlike anything Stephen had seen before, appearing to have been made from rubber and providing spaces for each of the man’s toes. He suspected that anyone purposely dressed this way in forty degree weather had to know what he was doing; either that or Stephen was about to find himself following the village idiot.
Still not completely certain he was in the correct area; he quickly became reassured by the mass of people purposefully standing in solemn silence. They clearly had a purpose and knew what was going on. He could see no stage or any of the great fuss he had anticipated for the event. After receiving what seemed like weekly emails for three straight months from the sponsoring organization, he had assumed there would be a lot more excitement and instruction present at the start of the race. He wanted to ask the man in front of him if this was where the marathon race was being held. Giving it a second thought, he considered the guy’s shoes. The last thing he wanted to do was give this guy an open door to make a joke. As if hundreds of people in running clothes casually gathered together on near freezing mornings before 6am for any other reason. He felt confident he was in the right place and gained reassurance from the assumption that this many people standing around wouldn’t risk of missing the race start. Stephen had never been accused of being a shy guy but to begin asking questions of strangers half an hour before daybreak seemed a bit too presumptive. Furthermore, he reasoned with quite a bit of certainty that any conversation with the man in front of him would bring about an internal obligation to ask about the clown shoes. Stephen opted for silence.
It wasn’t until the line progressed and he came around the bend that Stephen realized he wasn’t standing at the starting line of a marathon race. He felt dumb and privately let out a small chuckle as he stared at his own shoes, which he now realized held the feet of a clown. Secretly embarrassed, he leaned down and pretended to double check the tie of his laces. He truly felt like a rookie. But in one sense he was correct; it was a line for a relay race. Despite his mistake, Stephen decided to maintain his position in the line and wait his turn to use one of the several blue and white port-a-potties.
Making his way to what he was certain had to be the starting line, the wind began to pick up again. Stephen clinched against the blades of a particularly strong gust and saw a much larger crowd fashioning a mob huddle in the middle of the street. Surveying the crowd, Stephen quickly assessed the range of emotions being expressed by the participants. He was well aware of how people responded differently to anxiety and the current environment was no exception. The pre-race jitters he had heard so much about were clearly evident among the groups of the runners which seemed to organically form around him. While some fought the frigid air with the stilled poise of an ancient statue, other people bounced up and down, not quite sure whether they were shaking off the cold or trying to get a look at the starting line a couple hundred feet ahead. Many in the crowd bent their back and head to-and-fro to perform some awkward and certainly ill-advised stretch that was sure to result in a new car for their chiropractor. The array of outstretched and gyrating necks created a never ending sea of bobble-head dolls. Several runners stood in place, stretching their arms and legs, while a few sprawled out across the concrete as though they were about to engage in an Olympic speed trial. There were several who looked like they had been too worried about missing an alarm clock and consequently spent the entire night waking every twenty minutes until it was finally time to leave for the race. These sleep-deprived runners shuffled around like the undead in short misguided steps as if aimlessly looking for some predetermined starting marker among the sea of bodies.
There was a constant buzz from the crowd. Stephen couldn’t figure out if it was the energy of the crowd or a band of bright-eyed, energetic talkers who clearly had no intention of pausing their gossip session for something as trivial as a marathon. Stephen immediately noted that this small and self-absorbed group had extensive training in the sport of endurance-gabbing; their already increasing rate suggested the chatter was bound to intensify over the next several hours. Though he was pretty sure criminal aggression conducted for the civil purpose of eliminating a “chatty-Kathy” during a marathon event was a satisfactory legal defense, he had come here for other purposes. Stephen made a mental note to try to avoid the group and casually made his way towards a concentration of caffeine-deprived zombies where he could be alone with his doubts.
Not wanting to stand out and having convinced himself that of the ten thousand people running on this blistering morning he could not possibly be the only first-timer, Stephen reluctantly joined the bobble-head dance. He found it did absolutely nothing to ease the weather’s persistent discomfort and on the third stretch he was almost certain that he had twisted something of vital importance.
He saw the yellow-shirted man with the clown shoes again. This time the man was positioning himself among a dozen others; many also in yellow singlet shirts. They leaned in to pose for a picture when Stephen noticed their minimalist clothing, several also wore gloves. Stephen stared for a moment just trying to get his mind around the idea of dying of frostbite but having warm fingers. The group was a mix of ages but seemed to mostly know each other. Clearly, the entry ticket for this club was the right blend of yellow shirt and flat out lunacy. Continuing his stare, Stephen saw that several of their shirts had the word “Maniac” written on the back.
“Yeah,” he reasoned under his breath, “now that makes sense.”
Stephen bent forward to stretch his back and adjusted the flimsy race bib he had pinned to his shorts earlier that morning. Looking around he realized that pretty much everyone else wore their bib on their chest. Feeling insecure and convinced that the crowd knew something he didn’t; he gave in to unannounced peer pressure and began the process of relocating the bib from his leg to his chest. He fumbled his half-frozen fingers together and squeezed the safety pin. The unresponsive fingers lost their nimble grip and popped the exposed pin directly into the flesh of his thigh. For the first time since he had arrived, feeling came back into his leg, regrettably in a less than desirable fashion. Undaunted and unlearned, Stephen attempted the exact same repositioning with the second safety pin with surprisingly, the exact same result.
“Hello. Yes, Mrs. Lantz? This is the race director. Yes, your husband would have finished the marathon today had he not stabbed himself fifty times before the race with an unsterile safety pin. Instead of completing the run, the loss of blood combined with an adrenaline-induced spread of gangrene caused him to drop dead at mile ten.”