Over the past few months, folks out there may have seen me, and likely a lot of other folks in the area, running at various speeds for various reasons on the streets of Whitman. Me? I’m in the final days of training to run my fourth Boston Marathon, to raise money for Mass General Hospital’s Pediatric Cancer Center. I’m a “charity runner,” which means I earn my place on the course not by speed, but by raising funds. Yesterday, someone on one of the runner’s internet boards asked whether anyone was experiencing derision for being a “charity” runner, as opposed to someone who “qualified” by running.
Well, yeah. I get negative messages about not being qualified… about not being a real runner… about being too fat to do this, and a few folks have gone so far as to say that my, and others of my ilk, running marathons is diminishing the value of the accomplishment for the “real” runners. I brush it off; it happens often enough that I kind of expect it… but I also censor myself a lot, because the underlying feeling with a good number of folks in the running community is, well, I don’t belong.
I’m not saying this comes from the elite runners. It’s more from the “everyday” folks, who have somehow taken it upon themselves to gatekeep the roads as somewhere that a person like me will never belong, regardless of what I do to get there.
Look, I know who I am. I DO own a mirror. I know that I’m likely never going to be a person who finishes a marathon in 2.5 hours, or 3, or even 4 or 5. I know that I’m “buying my way in” to marathon courses by raising money, as opposed to “earning” my way. I’m good with that.
I know some folks who have the financial means to stroke a check for the $7500.00 Boston Athletic Association charity fundraising requirement to get a bib for the run. I know folks who bust their [butt] and struggle and qualify to run because of their sheer physical and mental ability. Every single one of these runners counts, though, and here’s why: Whether you complete a mile in 6 minutes, or 10 minutes, or 14 minutes, it’s the exact same 5,280 feet.
So, sure, the hateful exclusionary stuff bothers me, but I eat it (see what I did there?). It’s exhausting, but when I’m exhausted, physically or mentally or emotionally, in the quiet and solitude of my runs, I call to mind the reason why I will keep showing up:
- My fat old body can still move, and it can do hard things.
- Not every athlete has to fit the mold of looking “athletic” or like a “runner.”
- Even if I finish last, my medal is the same as the folks who are already having a drink at the bar when they drape it around my neck.
And most importantly, every single step I take, in training or on race day, is done to help kids and families who could give a tinker’s damn about how old, or fat, or slow, or old fat and slow, the guy is who helped them out.
I’m old. I’m fat. I’m slow. I run for charity.