Marathon Gift

Among other things, the Chicago Marathon last week gave me the most powerful, inspirational image I know. Because I'm generous, I'm going to attempt to give this image to you—if you can use your imagination a bit. It may serve you well.

Picture yourself in downtown Chicago. It's just broken dawn—the field of light that rises before the sun itself is beginning to illuminate the world around you—and you look up at the skyscrapers that surround Grant Park. You're on the street with thousands of other people, each of you not quite sure what is going on. You only have a vague idea of what you're doing, and you have no idea what's about to happen—but you know it's going to involve some extraordinary fun and perhaps some extraordinary pain. There's a 40 percent chance that you're aiming to do something you've never done before—something only one percent of the human population does. It's cool—not cold or warm—the temperature is perfect—but, even so, you might find yourself with chills. You settle, maybe sit down, among thousands of like-minded people in this New Era dawn, and you become convinced that it's the first day of your life—the first day of your existence that you've really lived. And you hear this song (close your eyes):

(Btw, today's run was 11 miles. Pace: 9:05)