I’ve been channeling Constantina Tomescu-Dita as I head out the door for my early morning runs. In my head I think of her as “Dita” and her name is a chant moving me forward when I get tired and want to slow down. At 38, this Romanian mother has become the oldest Olympic marathon champion in history. She wasn’t expected to win. The night she won, my husband and I watched her run. Pumping her arms, her mouth set, she was determined and it looked like she was barely breathing. With more than 10 miles to go, she broke away from the chase pack of women runners and left them grimacing in her shadow.
The morning after Dita’s win was muggy. I left the house and told my family I’d be back soon. “Just going for a quick run,” I always said. I’d run longer if I felt good and strong, but if I wanted to cut it short, no one would notice. It had rained the night before, and there were mud puddles along the greenway that I had to jump over so I wouldn’t ruin my running shoes. The sun was coming through the clouds and breaking them apart, making the sky a Lilly Pulitzer kind of pinky orange. I ran slowly because of the thick, wet air, and when I began to lag and wanted to walk, I thought of Dita and kept going. I’d watched her run past Tiananmen Square and instead of the marsh grass and pluff mud, I visualized foreign faces and brightly colored buildings. Like Dita, I pushed my legs harder and swung my arms faster. As I came around my last corner, I heard the crowds cheering inside the Bird’s Nest and felt the desperation of the chase group behind me.
I started running when I was 15 years old because it was something I could do on my own, and all I needed was a pair of shoes. I preferred running alone because I didn’t want to go with someone who might be faster or want to go farther; I liked my own steady pace. I didn’t enjoy competition, and as a runner I didn’t have to worry about missing the ball or sitting on the bench. There was no crowd watching, no one to cheer me on, and so I ran to the beat of my own steady breathing. I didn’t look like a runner, I was not small or wiry, but slowly, tentatively, I began to call myself “a runner.” Instead of picking up a pair of shoes at the mall, I took a deep breath and opened the door of an exclusive running store. The owners were married triathletes who were tall and lean and looked as if they might head out the door for a run any minute. On a shelf by the register was a collection of brightly colored race forms and I grabbed a few as I slipped out the door, cradling the big plastic bag that held my expensive new shoes. At home I spread the forms out on the kitchen counter and wondered if I was ready for a crowd.
By then I was a college graduate working in retail. I spent my days folding sweaters and cleaning out dressing rooms, and I was desperate for inspiration. I remember a young woman coming into the store looking for an outfit, and out of boredom we started talking and discovered we were both runners. I’d begun to run in a few 5Ks and 10Ks by that time, slowly collecting race tee-shirts that I wore as proof of my accomplishments. Mary convinced me to come with her to a Team in Training meeting that night, and by the next weekend, I found myself awake at six in the morning, standing at the edge of a downtown lake with a group of strangers. Our plan was to run eight miles. I remember panicking as the group set off at a fast pace and thinking that I was not ready for this. I couldn’t imagine myself completing a marathon. Mary moved ambitiously to the head of the pack, and I found myself in the back. I didn’t want to be in the back, so I kept my eyes on Mary and ran a little faster. By the time we reached our first water stop, I was solidly in the middle of the pack, breathing hard, legs burning, and it felt good.
Team in Training required me to raise funds for leukemia research, and so for the first time in my running life I was forced to be out in the open about my goal. I had to write and call everyone I knew to raise money, and was surprised to discover that no one thought I was crazy. As the checks trickled in, I racked up miles in my running journal. Every week I left work early and drove to Mary’s house where we ran from one end of the island to the other and back. Mary was small and strong like Dita and I followed her lead. When I was tired and wanted to stop and walk, I looked for Mary’s legs tapping steadily along the trail in front of me, and that kept me going. We spent hours running across the city’s bridges talking about break-ups, jealousies and work frustrations to distract ourselves from fatigue, pain and thirst. Every Sunday from September to December, our group met at the lake and ran farther than the week before in preparation for the Walt Disney Marathon. On the mornings when it was cold and dark and I wanted to sleep, thinking about the group meeting at the lake pulled me out of bed.
By the time the Disney marathon finally arrived, I stepped across the starting line confident that I could finish. Mary ran ahead of me, and I worked to maintain a steady pace alongside my Aunt Sue, a veteran marathoner, who flew to Florida to run with me. With Sue and cheers from the crowd, I ran for four and a half hours...all the way to the finish line. I wore the medal around my neck all day, and when we flew home, I hobbled, down the narrow aisle toward my seat on the airplane, surrounded by my family.
It’s been 11 years since that day, and now I’m back to running alone. Every morning, while my family sleeps, I run the same familiar three-mile route. I stopped running long distances when I fell in love with my husband, because there were other things I wanted to do on Sunday mornings. Now as a 37-year old mother (one year younger than Dita), I can’t imagine running a marathon; it seems like a memory from another life. I boxed up my running shirts and gave them to Goodwill. I’m not sure where I left my medal. I tell myself I don’t have three free hours to spend running on Sunday mornings, and if I did, I would spend that time in other ways: Wandering through the aisles of a bookstore, writing on my laptop in a coffee shop, or driving out to the beach and going for a short run along the sand.
But then I watched Dita run through the city of Beijing and something woke up inside of me. Something told me it was time to race again. Dita’s gritty, hard won ambition reminded me of how good it felt to declare a goal, and that being a mother didn’t mean you couldn’t compete. Maybe I will enter another race, pin a bib on my shirt and run a little bit faster. Maybe when I leave for my run in the morning, I will tell my family not to wait for me. The voices of Mary, Sue and Dita will cheer me on.
Amy S. Mercer is a freelance writer living in Charleston, SC, with her husband and two sons. Lately, thanks to Dita, she has been thinking about signing up for the local 5K. Race for the Cure. You can send her encouragement at www.alsmercer.wordpress.com.