I've always wanted to live in a world where I was like, a Greek hero, but I'm from Philadelphia, and I've never had, like, the body type for it and sandwiches. But my twin brother has, like, he's felt and doesn't have asthma. Like, when we were in high school, he played varsity basketball, and I played varsity model United Nations. But he's always been really helpful about this, and I've always looked up to it. Looked up to him about it. Like, I think when we were sperm, like, there's no way I was gonna beat him to the egg. So I think I must have kind of latched onto one of his flagella and rode him to victory. He was totally cool with it. So we got to. We got older. And in college, my brother ran several marathons, and I was always so impressed by this. And his best marathon, he ran not knowing that he also had mono. And I can't even run a mile. And. Yeah. So last year I turned 31, and I was like, my time with this awkward body is running out. So I signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon in the summer. But I'm a Catholic school teacher, and I couldn't really afford it, so my mom paid for me. Still really inspiring. And, like, I put this on Facebook, and a lot of people were really like, steve, that's awesome. That's so cool. You're gonna be great. And people who really knew me were like, steve, are you sure? In the summer, I was training, and it was great. But then the school year started, and I teach sixth grade and to deal with stress sandwiches. And I'm not making excuses, but I have asthma. And the marathon day came in November, late November 2015. And I didn't know if I was going to be able to make it. But I started with one of my friends, and she said, you should have, like, a mantra. And hers was, my mind is strong, my body is strong, my heart is strong, and I'm Catholic. So I was like, dear God, please don't let me die. Amen. And so we started to race, and we're running, and it's going great for, like, a mile and a half. And at that point, I see this guy with a sign on his back that says two knee replacements, and he's passing me, But I get to mile six, and my brother comes out, and he joins me. He lives in Center City, and he comes out, he joins me, and he's got a coffee cup in his hand, and I'm running and he's walking. And after about three hours, we get to mile 13.1, and we pass Rocky for the first time. And he's like, do you want to keep going? And there's all these people that are really excited, and I'm like, yeah, I want to keep going. So I keep going. And then at mile 13.2, there's no one else with me. I am by myself. Everyone else was just finishing the half marathon, so I decided I'm going to keep going and do my best. And it's touch and go for a while. And at mile 17, I see this thing that's about a mile behind me, and I ask someone near me what it is, and they say, that's called the lag bus. If you don't know what that is. The lag bus picks people up who are not on pace to finish the marathon in under seven hours. So I keep moving, and I get to Manayunk, mile 19, and a guy offers me a beer, and I'm like, no, I'm dying. And so I keep moving, and, like, they're starting to break the water stations down. And at mile 21, I'm at the home stretch. I'm on Kelly Drive, going towards the art museum, and a guy on a tricycle pulls up next to me, and he says, steve, right? You are now officially the last person in the Philadelphia Marathon. And so I think about quitting, because there's five miles left, and I've got, like, 40 minutes to get to seven hours. And I go to the guy in the van and I say, I've got seven hours, right? And he says, yeah. So I just ask him for a bottle of water, and I keep moving, and I'm, like, yelling at him from the way that I'm moving. And I see the police at mile 23 and a half, and I ask them if they can pull him over. And at about mile 24 and a half, we hit seven hours, and a cleaning crew van pulls in front of me, and my heart just sinks. But the guy in the van behind me pulls up next to me, and he says, just keep going as fast as you can. I'll take care of them. And he holds them off behind me for about another 20 or 25 minutes. And I get to mile 26 and I see Rocky with his hands raised in the air. And I realize, like, he didn't have his hands raised in the air because he won. He had his hands raised in the air because he got his ass kicked. But somehow that was still awesome. So I keep moving and I get to mile 26.1. And right there the announcer says, ladies and gentlemen, we checked. This man did not veer off the course at all. Trust us. The last official finisher of the 2015 Philadelphia Marathon is Steve Clark and Mayor Nutter. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Nutter comes out. He used to be mayor, and he greets me and he says, steve, I just wanted to stay here till the bitter end. And he kind of holds my back to make sure that I cross the line. And as I cross, I realize, like, I'm never going to be in a world where I'm a Greek hero. But in Philadelphia today, finishing in last place felt pretty darn heroic. Thank you.
Megan McNally (10:30)
I was 19 when I got pregnant and decided to give my baby up for adoption. And I was certain it was the right thing to do, or at least as certain as you can be. Yet no amount of certainty can really prepare you for the doubt. And I'm not entirely certain how I got through the first few days after leaving my baby daughter behind for some other mother. But one thing that helped was finding a lifeline that I could grab a hold of. And for me, that lifeline was her 18th birthday. Now, it doesn't make any sense because it's not rational, but I believed that if I survived to her 18th birthday and if she survived to her 18th birthday, that that would be the definitive proof that I had made the right decision. So 17 years went by, and some of them were really, really rough. I got through them by thinking about this finish line that I knew I had to reach. And in the year before she turned 18, I decided that I was going to have to do something epic to mark this occasion. I became obsessed With. With that. And I learned that the Paris Marathon is the same week as her birthday. So I registered and I trained for my first marathon. And a month before the race, I got sick. I got really sick. And then I threw my back out and I missed that final month of training, which, if any of you are runners, you know, is pretty important before a big race. And the morning I got on the plane to head to Paris with my partner and some of our closest friends, I had no idea if I was really going to run this thing. And the morning of the race, I had no idea if I was going to run this thing. But I told myself that I had come so far, I deserved to be at the start line. So I went to the start line, and it was the fucking Paris marathon. There are 35,000 runners pass packed along the Champs Elysees. Chariots of Fire is blaring from the loudspeakers. You're standing beneath the Arc de Triomphe. And I thought, of course I'm going to run. I'll just run as far as I can and then I'll stop. And I was so excited that I really had to pee. And there were no porta potties around. So I made the brilliant decision to hold it. And off went the cannon and off went the runners. And off I went, running my marathon ill prepared, having to pee. And I thought, I'll just stop when I see a porta potty. And there were no porta potties. So adrenaline got me through the first five miles. But then when I rounded the bend into the Bois de Vincennes, I knew that I was going to have to do something. I was going to have to solve this. And what I noticed is that runners were darting off into the bushes left and right. So praying that this epic day did not end in the back of a police car, I eyed what looked like a fairly private bush and I hooked a sharp right to head for this bush. And when I did, I stubbed my toe into the curb and I launched myself airborne. And I heard a collective gasp of the runners around me as I headed face first for pavement. I turned my head, literally just in time to avoid breaking all my teeth, and I landed on my temple and knocked myself out cold. Now, if you're wondering, when you knock yourself out cold, you relieve yourself. So that problem was solved. However, I came to, and I had a whole world of new problems, like how I was going to get up and finish this marathon. And I actually went in and out of consciousness several times and ultimately came to A race official who was barking at me in French and barking into a walkie talkie. And we were not communicating well. And it was clear that if I didn't get up and get moving, the day was actually going to end on a stretcher. So I got up and started moving, which is when I noticed how much pain I was in. My head was throbbing, my knees hurt, and there was the matter of my broken finger that was dangling off the back of my hand like a sausage. But when I slowed down, it hurt worse. So I kept going. And about 10 miles later, coming down a stretch where I was the only person in the road because I was clearly the back of the pack and there were just a handful of stragglers left in the crowd to chant allez allay, as the French will do. And I got to respond alive, alive, as an American will do when she is hoping that her friends will have ibuprofen ready. I paused just long enough for them to splint my finger, to try to tell them what happened, for them to pump me full of painkillers and send me on my way. There were a few stretches of the race that I ran alone because everyone else had finished. And the last mile of the race, I literally just lurched forward, forward. I was swollen. I was covered in a smattering of blood and urine. My partner and friends were walking beside me because that's how slow I was going. And I got to the finish line and they graciously, or out of pity, still gave me a medal, even though I had not met the cutoff. And the thing is that this day was not anything like I'd expected. It's not what I'd planned. It's not what I'd envisioned and dreamt of all those years. And yet it had perfectly reflected 18 years of staggering forward, broken, bloody, sometimes alone, but usually with people who loved me, not very far away. And a month later, I was home in Seattle, working late one night when a message came across my desktop that said, do you know who I am? And I did. And that night, I made peace with my younger, heartbroken self. Thank you.
