“You feel weak. You feel like you wanna just give up, but you gotta search with you. Try to find that inner strength.…
I am not exactly sure what made me realize that if I dropped my hands and stopped pumping my legs I would be going the same pace as someone pretending to hurry across the street while cars are waiting, but once I did. Pain. Pain. Pain. Each step made me feel pain.
It was at this moment in the Los Angeles Marathon on March 2, 2008 that I thought, “I’m done. I’m weak……I’m stupid…frail… stupid…weak. I can not do this” I thought all the thoughts that I had been thinking about myself that year leading up to this moment. I thought of every fear, every pain, every hurt, every chink in my armor, and every time I had failed. It seized my bones. It took control of my head. A knot formed in my throat as I fought back the urge to crumble into the asphalt. This wasn’t just any run to me. This was the longest run of my life. This wasn’t just any moment. It was the culmination of many moments that got me here. I needed to finish. I needed to make it. I needed to.
“….you’re … tired…you feel weak,” Eminem spit his rap song in my ear. The beat beat beat beat straight into my soul. “Yes,” I thought. “I am tired. I am weak.” My feet picked up the pace. “till the roof comes off… till the lights go out… till my legs give out…till the smoke clears out and my high wears outs, I’m gonna rip this…till my bones collapse.”
I hit repeat on my IPod.
My mind drifted back to the day I started training for this run. Stress, discontentment, pain, and mounting frustration were getting the best of me. My husband, my family, my friends were getting the worst. Nothing and no one was making peace in my life and all I could think to do was run. Run away. Run far far away. Run as far as I can physically get… away. I laced up my shoes and took off. It wasn’t much, but for a few miles, I was free.
ment...
pain..."
I took a long deep breath remembering that run. The cool air began to caress my skin again. My throat unclenched and my lungs opened up. My body hit its rhythm. With each step, I moved forward. With each step, I conquered the stress. I conquered the discontentment. I conquered the pain…With each step, came peace.
Three months into my training, I decided to run my first half marathon to celebrated mid-way mark, the Half. It was special because it was held in
My husband and family were waiting on mile 7 to cheer me on. “Mile 6.” I sent a message to my husband as I slowed down on one of my intervals. “Wow,” Tim said as he glanced at his watch, “She is making better time than she thought she would.”
“Where is she?” my mother asked.
“Mile 6,” Tim answered.
“Ooooh! She should be here any minute!” my mother said as she eagerly began to looking for my face in each runner as they passed by.
Tim furrowed his brow and replied, “Sure. If Rachel was a Ferrari and this was a straight road… she would be here in a minute.” My mom paid him no attention. She kept looking for me anyway.
“My mom thinks I am a Ferrari,” I laughed to myself as I remembered the way Tim had recounted the story at lunch later that afternoon. Returning to my roots enabled me to go beyond my limits. “I am not a quitter,” I told myself. I looked up and saw the 
Tubthumping along the road, I pressed toward my goal. It reminded me of the “Student’s Run LA” 18-mile Friendship Run at the Hoover Dam a month before. I woke up that morning to the sound of rain and thought, “Ugh. I am NOT running in the rain.” I hit my alarm clock and tried to fall back asleep, but the commitment I had made was not letting me rest. I got up, put on my running clothes and sweats. “I am not going to run. I am just going to drive to the school and tell the students that I am not going to run in the rain.” I whispered this fact to my husband in his sleep, kissed his forehead, and bolted out the door. I got to the middle school where we all were meeting and thought. “I am definitely not going to run in the rain. I am just going to drive to the course and pick up my t-shirt. Maybe I will cheer the students on as they run, but I am not going to run. I got to the course, but they decided not to give us our t-shirts until the end of the race. It stopped raining. “Ugh. Okay. Maybe I will start the race and only run half,” I thought, “then at least I can get my shirt…”
At first, the course moved at a slight percent upgrade which made my progress slow and arduous; much more slow and arduous then I had planned on. I just wanted to get to mile 9. There was no fan club for me at this race. It was just me and the course. As I ran along, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be much downhill time even as I approached mile 9. “Ugh….” Everything in me wanted to stop at mile 9. Everything. As hard as it was, I realized that I had to finish. I could not start and then quit midway. No sooner then I had made that decision; the freezing rain began to pour in sheets. I became too distracted by my shivers and the numbness in my legs to notice the uphill battle in which I was engaged. Soaking wet, frozen to my core, and running almost entirely uphill for eighteen long miles with no fan club and no familiar hometown to support me, I made it to the end.
“I CAN DO THIS!!!!.” I yelled out loud. Dozens of people cheered back at me, “YOU CAN DO IT!” I backstepped my IPod to Eminem and fell into a trance. All I could hear was, "..until my legs give out from underneath me, I will not fall. I will stand tall. It feels like no one can defeat me," and beat beat beat. My feet fell to the beat beat beat.
Mile 23, 24, 25, and 26 passed without my attention. I was lost in thought and rhythm when Snap! I turned the corner and suddenly saw the finish line. “Oh my…” The world moved slowly around me. My earphones fell from my ears and the sound of beat was replaced by cheers and screams. "THIS IS IT!” they yelled. “YOU MADE IT!!!!!" The tears came freely. The cheers came louder. I did not give up. I did not fall down. I did not collapse. I finished the race.
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