I'm standing with my two brothers and the Livermore Half Marathon starts in three minutes. It's my seventh half, but the first since my MS diagnosis. When I was first diagnosed in November, I wasn't sure I'd even be able to report to my desk job following Monday. Four months later, here I was, about to run 13 miles. I was thankful beyond words to be there, part of the crowd and not missing the biggest event in my city. I needed to be here.
I wanted to beat the hour and forty five minute race goal I've been chasing for four years, but what I really needed was to beat prior best of 1:47:31. I needed to prove that my life wouldn't just be a slow and steady decline from November 10th onward.
Here's how it went.
6:58: The national anthem has just finished, and I've just managed to spot my wife in the crowd to give a thumbs up before the race starts in two minutes. Usually I have a little more time to pump myself up beforehand, but today is an early start time and I'm operating on three hours sleep, having been unable to turn my brain off the night before what might be my last race. My brother says a quick prayer for the three of us and we inch toward the start line. We're all wearing orange, the official color of the fight against MS, with wristbands to match.
I look down at my race bib, which has the words "MS can't stop me" printed across the front. As I think of all the people who told me not to do this race, I sure hope my bib is right.
7:01: We're off and I'm feeling good. It's the first day in two weeks I haven't felt nerve pain on my left side. I try to go slowly and conserve some energy, but I feel my confidence growing with each step. This might be the race I finally hit 1:45 and move on to something new.
7:09: One of the best parts of race day are the signs of the spectators. "You are beating all the people behind you," one reads. "Your feet hurt because you're kicking butt" says another. I smile.
7:12: The sun just rose on a gloomy morning, but I'm wearing sunglasses. My MS-related nerve damage causes me to go blind in my left eye when I get overheated, and it gets really distracting when I run more than a mile or two. Sunglasses help me notice it less. Although I'm sure the spectators just think I'm being Mr. Cool. Which is also true.
7:16: I'm two miles in and going way too fast, I learn when I my watch beeps my time. I'm so excited to be here that I've made a rookie mistake, letting my adrenaline take over when I should be hanging back. I try to slow down and hope the damage isn't already done.
7:17: A sign reads, "You're beating all the people who didn't run." Good point.
7:21: A kid who couldn't have been more than two is standing on the opposite edge of the course with a hand held out to give High-Fives. It breaks my heart not to go help him out, but he's all the way on the other side. I smile when two closer runners go over to play along.
7:24: My legs are feeling tired. This shouldn't be happening already. I take an energy gel and hope it's just a phase.
7:28: Four miles in, and I'm slightly ahead of my goal pace but already feeling drained. I've pushed through six miles before after I stopped feeling good, but today I still have 9.1 to go. I tell myself I just have to do it. I'm wearing two rubber wristbands: a blue one symbolizing my brother's successful battle against colon cancer, and an orange one symbolizing the fight against MS. If he can do 12 rounds of chemo, I tell myself, I can do 9 more miles. And this might be my last shot.
7:37: My mp3 player just turned itself off. I dig it out of my pocket and press all the buttons to get going again. It's aggravating, but I have too far to go to be without it.
7:42: The same thing happens again. I want to throw the stupid thing into the vineyards beside me, but I know I need to musical motivation.
7:43: I flip to another song to see if that fixes the problem. Success.
7:57: Eight miles in, and I'm hurting but still on pace. I just climbed a mile-long incline without slowing down, and the course gets easier after one more uphill mile. The aid station is giving out water, an energy drink, and energy gels. I would like one of each, but only have two hands. It seems like someone should have maybe considered this problem before putting all three at the same stop.
8:00: Mile 9 is a 150 foot climb, and about a third of the way through I suddenly lose my energy, motivation and will to live. I trudge through, hoping I can recover on the downhill next mile. And most annoyingly, I spend what seems like an eternity fighting with the packaging on my last chewable energy tablet. I can't get it out of the plastic and literally have to use all my strength to tear it open. The race is no longer going my way.
8:07: I see a four-year old running against traffic by himself alongside the edge of the course. I wonder if I'm starting to hallucinate. Seconds later, a parent emerges jogging after him, grinning widely and in no particular hurry. I want to scream at him for being the World's Worst Parent, but I don't have the energy.
8: 14: I lost a ton of time on the uphill climb. I toss the plastic packaging out of my pocket, convincing myself that getting rid of that ounce of extra packaging might make a difference. The course marker indicating Mile 9 registers at 9.09 miles on my GPS watch, so I start looking for ways to cut corners to make up the distance. I'm fading.
8:22: Mile 10 was the downhill on the backside of the brutal uphill Mile 9. I ran it exactly on pace, but I didn't make up any of the time I had lost. I'm starting to lose hope I can hit my mark. There's one more downhill mile to make up some time, but I'm becoming weak and incoherent.
8:31: Mile 11 was downhill and I still couldn't keep up my goal pace. I realize I won't get the 1:45 I was hoping for and want to quit. My brain is a wet noodle, but I suddenly remember that I'm still way ahead of pace for a new personal record, if I can just keep up what I'm doing for two more miles. That's just enough motivation to keep me from quitting.
8:32: My left leg suddenly reminds me I have MS. I get shooting nerve pains, and there's a hitch in my motion because my leg won't move as quickly as I tell it to. At Mile 11.1, I have 16:50 to run two more miles. I've been running at about an 8:10 pace, so I think I can do it.
8:32: Sign: "Go Runners! Don't poop yourself!"
There were a bunch of other signs too, and I'm sure some of them must have been good. I didn't have the energy to read anything that wasn't directly in front of me. And there was a slow song on my mp3 player, but the idea of using energy to dig in my pocket to get it out and skip to the next one would have been laughable if I had the energy to laugh.
8:39: Mile 12 took 8:23, which means that I'm fading from my 8:10 pace, and that I have 8:27 to run one more mile. I just need to repeat the mile I just did, but my hips and hamstrings are stiff, and my left leg is rebelling against me. I know that with one final push I can validate my post-diagnosis identity, but it hurts too badly to go any faster. At Mile 12.85, I check my watch and see that I'm no longer on pace to break my personal record, which finally gives me enough panic to go a little faster. Otherwise, all this pain will be in vain.
8:47: I turn the final corner and see my niece standing along the railing. I weakly give a peace sign, as I notice I have twenty seconds to get across the finish line. I sprint as fast as I can go down the home stretch, passing another runner along the way, who looks at me like I'm an ultra competitive jerk for showing him up at the finish line. But I don't care about him, I'm just trying to beat my prior, healthier self.
8:48: There are three mats on the course, each covering a device that reads the timing chip on runners' bibs. The idea is that if one device misses you crossing it, there are others to make up for it and give you an official time. Depending on which mat read my chip as I crossed over the line, I was either six seconds ahead of my record, one second ahead of it, or one second behind.
8:49: I finish and hold on to a barricade railing at the finish line for dear life. A race staffer comes over and asks if I need help. I said no, I just need to stand still. Before long a second staffer joins her, and they offer me a wheelchair to move me away from the finish line. I decline, but a wheelchair magically appears moments later nonetheless. The workers try to get me to sit in it, so they can wheel me away.
8:51: I came close to taking the wheelchair. It would have been an easier way to get to the water station, and I really did not want to spend any more energy. But that would have defeated the whole purpose of running this race. I just ran 13.12 miles to prove I didn't need that wheelchair they were trying to give me. I wanted to scream that message at the race workers, but at that moment, all I had the energy to do was not to sit down.
After having beaten MS for more than 13 miles, I wasn't about to let it beat me at the finish line.
The event staff gave up on the wheelchair and began walking me over to get water. My wife crossed the barrier and they transferred me into her custody, where I felt fine ten minutes later (after drinking some chocolate milk, which in my post-race brain fog, I totally forgot is forbidden by the MS diet).
My brothers would finish the race a few minutes later, and my sister-in-law and niece (two different people), who were also in town for the race, tended to their runners while I tried to explain my uncertain finishing result to my wife.
Later in the afternoon, the official results published said that after two hours of running, I missed my record time by exactly one second. I immediately considered the amount of time I spent on the plastic wrapping of my energy pack and silently screamed.
But not for long. Judging from either of the other two finish lines that somehow missed my crossing them (and I absolutely am), I set a personal record by either one or six seconds. Regardless, my prior best time came in this race two years ago, when they measured the course too short by .06 of a mile, so this was absolutely a better run by any objective measure than I had run before I was disabled.
That was all I had really wanted to prove.
When I was diagnosed with MS, I immediately gave up a lot of my wildest dreams and become more concerned with stuff like how I would pay the bills, walk up stairs, and not pee on myself. Life is harder now, in a million ways I can't quickly describe, even with my disease in remission. But if I can still run faster than I could before, even if it takes a lot more effort, maybe, just maybe, I can still accomplish some other things too.
In my former life, when I felt down, I used to listen to a Chris Tomlin song that included the lyrics "greater things are yet to come." I remember thinking in November that I'd have to find a new song now, because my progressive disability would mean that that sentiment couldn't possibly be true for me anymore. Maybe I'd still find moments of joy, but life would never be what it was.
And maybe it won't be exactly what it was.
But maybe that's ok.
Maybe those moments of success feel just a little bit sweeter now that they are harder to earn.
Maybe accomplishment and meaning don't require a fully functional left eye or leg.
Maybe joy doesn't either.
Maybe life's obstacles are detours and not dead ends.
Maybe I was too quick to draw a conclusion about my own limitations.
And maybe I've never been happier to have been wrong.
Because maybe MS can't stop me. And maybe I just proved it.
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