Embracing Marathon
Doing something you have never tried can be a very scary experience; however, with the accompaniment of your best friends, it seems to be accessible. One of the hardest challenges I’ve met was to enter Marathon in 2012. I made a hard decision to take part in this big match. Starr and Kiki, who understood me very well, decided to join me. We were not well-trained runners, with almost no experience of long-distance running. Everything appeared to be a dream; we did not imagine that we could overcome it. All in all, this special experience made me more perseverant.
It is true that you have trillions of choice to attend one sport event, and the reason why I choose the Marathon was kind of special. Not only simply because it was challenging but also because it was set in my lovely hometown, Chongqing. Chongqing, which has a meaning of “double celebrations” in Chinese, is in the south of China and has a population of 31 million. I was born there, and I lived in Chongqing for nearly 20 years. For me, Chongqing is like a lovely mother with whom I am emotionally involved. I could not think of anyone more appropriate than her to witness this challenge for me.
Like mellow wine, friendship has a magical fragrance that is addicting, and the friendship between Starr, Kiki and me was no exception. They are the best people I’ve ever met. Starr was talkative and she had a good sense of humor. Every time I got in trouble, she talked with me and did whatever she could think of to make me laugh. In comparison to Starr, Kiki was more of a good listener. Kiki was a big fan of art and literature. She sent her favorite poem collection, the Birds, written by Tagore, to me as a birthday gift. Both of them were important to me. I could not imagine completing this match on my own without them.
In early January of 2012, I started my preparation by learning more about the Marathon as well as doing pre-training. First of all, I noticed the 2012 Marathon had quite a long title of “2012 Chongqing International Marathon and the Nation Marathon Championships (for Olympic Trail)”. This link of the title really intimidated me. The origin was set in the middle of Nanbin Road, where Nanbin Park is located, which was wide enough to hold participants. In addition, we were only able to sign up for a quarter-distance race with an age limit of 20. However, a 10-kilometer quarter race still meant a lot since we had never run for more than 1000 meters at a single time. So we began our training immediately. As time passed by, and the day of Marathon became closer, I got more nervous.
Last year on March 17th, it was an extremely warm, spring day that was over 20 degrees Celsius. I could not feel more excited when I approached the start point as an athlete at 7’oclock in the morning. Spectacularly, a sea of people had occupied the track, even the white marble on a nearby fountain. Although people uniformly wore bright red T-shirts, it was still easy to recognize their occupations. Without surprise, I found a great number of young teenagers as me, and also office worker in their early twenties. Shockingly, we even saw groups of retired elders in their late fifties stretching their bodies, smiling and cheering each other. Their positive sport spirit had deeply changed my impression on elders, and I even felt more spurred about the game.
Like a regular long-distance race, Marathon had little tension at the very beginning. We were sandwiched by the crowd like an ugly Octopus, moving along the road in the speed of 5 meters per minute, very slowly. We even did not hear the gunshot since all people were excitedly screaming. Another distinguished voice that impressed me is from the cheerleading. A young dancer in white vest kept flexibly swinging his head and the ribbons on his hand along with the defeating music. Other cheerleaders were standing close the track side, shouting and cheering for everyone that passed by. We were just moved by the crowed, watching this young man, and did not worry about the race at all.
However, a Marathon was not that simple to overcome as we can imagine. After 40 minutes of marching, people began to disperse, keeping 100 to 500 meter distance from each other. We were sweating but kept jogging until we met an uphill. Because we did not want to be left behind, Starr, Kiki and me decided to rush. By the time I reached the top of the hill, I felt a pain on my back and my leg felt like it was on fire. Since it was the first time, we did not consider that running up the hill could waste lot of energy. I nearly lost half of my strength in less than one third of the whole way.
Things seemed to be getting worse as time goes by. After running for another hour, miserably, I became wheezing and my lungs were bursting out from my throat. Even the image of the underfoot track and other participants in front of me started to blur like they were in a thick fog.
“I have no strength at all to continue, and all I can think of is to end up this pain right now,” I spoke quietly to Starr and Kiki. However, they exchanged a quick eye contact in silence, and then put their hands on my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t give up that easily. Look, there are only few steps away to our destination,” said Starr.
And Kiki nodded to agree with her, “That’s right, I could even see the contour of the taximeter board written with 9 kilometers. Hold on, Wei! We are together with you.” Left with little energy, Starr and Kiki still dragged me to move on for a while. Although our rate of progress may not be as quick as others, I could feel the warmth of their concern pass through their shoulder to a corner of my heart. Meanwhile, the street crowd was gathering and loudly shouting "come on everyone, you can do it!” Looking at the back of the elderly and children who were moving toward the sunlight from beginning, I can’t help but get affected by their insistency. I began to walk as fast as I could until the end.
When I finally reached the endpoint of a quarter race, I could feel nothing but fulfillment. Starr, Kiki and me hugged each other tightly. And the Certificate of Participation awarded by the Marathon Official still hangs in the wall of my bedroom, offering endless confidence and pride in my life.The race not only led me to experience the positive, healthy sports atmosphere, but also challenge my limit mentally and physically. The courage and effort gained from Starr and Kiki, my fellow girls, gave me a chance to embrace the harmony among friendship as well as accompany me to finish the race.