What unfolded behind her was a surprise as well. Edna was Edna, and the fact that she landed on the top step of the podium wasn’t a shock-the shock came from the way she demolished the rest of us. She split 4:50 at Mile 20 and won by a full minute. Edna Kiplagat, running Boston for the first time and looking to add one more accolade to her already brilliant résumé, accelerated at Mile 18 and torched the field. I felt due for a payoff.Īnd then it wasn’t even close. I was ready to validate the work of the last 10 years. I had slowly worked my way back and finally surpassed my fitness level from the near-win in 2011. Otherwise, I hadn’t run a single bad marathon. I’d dealt with only one major injury-a fractured femur-and failed to finish a marathon just once in my entire career. It was about maintaining relentless forward progress, and I had done that. My concept of endurance included more than lean muscle mass, high cardiovascular capacity, mental toughness, and a finishing kick.
At least I’m feeling something.Īs I fought sleep, knowing I would lose, I made a decision. There was room for only one train of thought in my head. I didn’t review the tailspin that had led to this night, how I had spiraled in a matter of months from one of the fittest people in the world to someone who struggled to climb a flight of stairs, my senses dulled, barely functioning. Finally, I detected it, shallow and faint, alarmingly slow. Had I woken up because I’d stopped breathing? I held completely still and listened for the reverb in my chest. There was no fragment of a nightmare floating in my mind, no pounding heart.įear surged through me. I lay on my back and tried to process why I was awake when I had done nothing but sleep for weeks. It was the summer of 2017, a couple months after the Boston Marathon. The wind off Lake Michigan was absent, for once, and I didn’t hear the usual rhythm of waves lapping at our shoreline.
I woke myself with a gasp: one big, sharp inhale.
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