The energy moved through the crowd like a current. I checked my watch. Too fast. I slowed. Three people passed me immediately. Then seven. Then a woman pushing a stroller decorated with silver streamers. The competitive part of my brain objected. The part Dani had helped train answered. Not your race. I let the stroller go. At the first walk interval, runners flowed around me. A man in a yellow singlet looked concerned.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He glanced at my feet as though expecting blood.
“I am following a run-walk plan.”
“Oh.”
He blinked as if this had not occurred to him as a legitimate choice. He continued running. I walked for one minute. Then I began again. The plan worked. Not because it made the marathon easy. Because it made the next three minutes understandable.
Mile six arrived near the river. The morning had warmed, though shade still covered most of the course. My body felt controlled. Breathing steady. Knee quiet. Fuel on schedule. I opened the first packet from Dani. A black hair tie fell into my palm. The note read:
Shoulders down. You know how to begin.
I checked my shoulders. Too high. Annoying. I adjusted them. Then I replaced the hair tie holding my ponytail, though the original remained functional. The new one felt tighter. Safer. I told myself that was why. Tessa waited beside the mile-six banner with my parents. My mother held a sign that read:
AMY PRICE: VERY PREPARED, SURPRISINGLY FAST
My father’s sign was a printed map of nearby medical stations. Of course. Tessa’s said:
ONLY TWENTY POINT TWO TO GO
“That is not helpful,” I called.
“It is mathematically accurate!”
I smiled despite myself. My parents shouted. Tessa ran several steps beside the barrier.
“How do you feel?”
“Six.”
“Be honest.”
“Six.”
“Knee?”
“Fine.”
“Emotions?”
“Not relevant.”
“That means bad.”
“It means running.”
She accepted this as if it answered something.
“See you at twelve.”
I continued. For the next mile, I thought about Dani. Not because of the packet. Not only. She had started twelve minutes before me. Miguel’s estimates put my planned average forty to forty-five seconds per mile faster than hers, enough to erase the gap around miles seventeen through nineteen if neither race changed. Marathons changed. Walk intervals drifted. Aid stations consumed time. Her mandatory checkpoint waited at twenty-one. The arithmetic explained how we might converge without making it inevitable. I did not search the runners around me. I also noticed every red charity singlet. Both things were true.
The city changed around mile eight. Downtown streets replaced the river. Tall buildings held sound between them. Spectators crowded the corners with cowbells and signs. A band played beneath an overpass. The bass moved through my body. Strength arrived. That was dangerous. I knew enough now to distrust strength when the race remained long. I kept the planned pace. At mile nine, the woman with the silver stroller reappeared ahead.
