Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, when I was in my early 40s, after watching the running of the New York Marathon on television and witnessing the agony and ecstasy of those crossing the finish line, I was so moved that I promised myself I would run this fantastic thing someday before I was 60 years old. Years went by until one day in mid-December of 1999 when I was 58 years old, I realized that since I would be 59 the following October, if I was going to keep that promise to myself, I had to run the New York 2000 Marathon.  I felt then that this was something I absolutely had to do if only to prove to myself that I could.  

Truth be told, except for the 50-yard dash when I was a nine-year-old in Brownie Scouts, I had never run anything in my life.  As a grown woman, the greatest distance I had ever run was from the living room to the kitchen when I accidently left eggs boiling on the stove and set my kitchen on fire. But, on January 6, 2000, after surviving Y2K, I contacted the New York Road Runners Club for information and some guidelines for training, and set myself a 10-month training program to run the 26.2 miles through the five boroughs of New York City in November of 2000.    

I was determined.  I longed to feel what it felt like to run that distance.   I had seen joy and pain on the faces of those runners so long ago, and I wanted to experience that.  In the years between my 40s and age 58, my life had taken some uncomfortable turns and most of the time I wavered between desperation and despair.  Somehow I thought that conquering the Marathon would help me to believe in life in a new way. If I were to feel that agony and ecstasy, I could be renewed.  

I bought proper running shoes and enlisted a plan to set out each day in the wee small hours and run.  One mile the first week (mostly walking really), two miles the next week (less walking), and so on until I was actually running. It was very difficult. In reality it was grueling and painful, and I couldn’t seem to get the breathing right, but I stuck to it and by the beginning of March, I was well on my way.  

On March 27th, I had for the first time successfully conquered my breathing problem and was close to finishing my first five-mile run when, as I was crossing a main thoroughfare at the traffic light at 6 am, a Public Service Bus ran the red light and ran me down.  The bus smashed into my left knee with its front headlight and, as I fell backward sustaining a concussion, the wheels ran over my right foot crushing all the bones in my toes. 

And then followed a nightmare of police and insurance reports, several trips to the hospital, a series of operations on my knee, many x-rays, plaster casts and crutches and walkers followed by hours and hours and hours of physical therapy, first to determine if I would be able to walk again and then to teach me to walk again.  Sven, my unbelievably dedicated physical therapist, was a runner himself and assured me that not only would I be able to walk again but that one day in the not-too-distant future, I would run that dammed marathon.  

And I did. 

Four years later, in the fall of 2004, dressed in a tee shirt with my name emblazoned in Day-Glo paint, I started the journey in Staten Island, ran the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, danced into Brooklyn, breathlessly asking everyone, "Are we still in Brooklyn?", fast walked across the First Avenue bridge, gratefully sauntered up First Avenue to spectators calling out my name and encouragement, "Lookin' good Betsy!"  (although I probably wasn't), limped into the Bronx, cried trotting into Central Park in Manhattan, and valiantly crossed the finish line in a little under 6 hours! 26.2 miles of agony and ecstasy.  I got it now.  

I discovered parts of my body I didn’t know existed.  Although I had taken a four-year detour through a maze of broken bones and doctors and nurses and helpmates and paperwork, and physical therapy, and hopelessness all along the way, I actually ran the granddaddy of them all, the New York Marathon!  I had been arrogant enough to think it would be easy.  And I was humbled.    

At the finish line, I was met by a reporter from my local newspaper who had heard about my experience with a four-ton bus and had waited all that time to interview me.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My story of recovery and determination made the front page in my local newspaper. I completed a journey I had started four years earlier, and I was a celebrity for a while. 

I had thought that running the marathon would be the end all of everything and I would find my way out of desperation and despair,  but the end all of everything was really getting hit by the bus and the aftermath and all of the strangers I met along the way who offered me sympathy, assurances, and faith, and held out their hands when I couldn't, and taught me to walk on my own and who believed in me when I wasn't so sure and who told my story to the newspaper and who waited for me four years later and who cheered me in at the finish line.  

All I had ever wanted to do was run the New York Marathon, but events took me in a direction I could never have imagined and taught me gratitude, acceptance, and humility.  I had to learn 10,000 ways to persevere and overcome pain and accept help and appreciate the great gift that life is.  I finished those 26.2 miles in a blaze of glory when I was 59 years old in November of 2004, and today I am an 83-year-old woman who has carried those lessons all my days and been ever so thankful for the New York Marathon experience that has given me the gift of enriching my life and has provided me the mantra that even if it's a bad day, it's a great life.