Going the distance (Week 10)

It's been three days since I ran in (and finished!) the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon, and it still hasn't completely sank in yet.
The training took so long, but the race itself was over in a couple of hours. Actually, for me, it was over in two hours, 12 minutes and 49 seconds.
Not too bad for a guy with toes, ankles and knees ravaged by chemotherapy treatments and a doctor who told him he'd probably never be able to run to the mailbox, let alone a 13.1 mile trip through Detroit.
So finishing this race was a big deal for me. As of right now, it's probably the biggest personal triumph I've ever had. Graduating college, meeting my fiancee and the birth of our son were all amazing moments in my life, but this was different. This was one of the first times I put my mind to doing something so challenging, something that took so much preparation, and actually went through with it, actually came out on the other side a better and stronger person.
And it wasn't easy.
In fact, the race itself was much harder than I ever imagined. I've never felt so alone as I did around the sixth mile of that race. At that point, I was running through Windsor, Ont., watching as faster runners blew by me on both sides. But I kept going. I kept pushing along.
It was weird, because all through my training there was a voice in my head that always seemed to be trying to bring me down.
He would always be saying, "Let's just slow down for a minute," or "Let's just walk until the end of this block, nobody is looking," or the very worst one, "We've been so busy, let's just skip the run today." It was like the voice of a whiny kid or a lazy freeloader. Around that sixth mile, I heard the voice again. But at this point, even he knew how important this was, how absolutely necessary that it was for me to finish this race.
"Look, I know we've had our differences," he said. "But today, today I'm on your side."
And I believed him.
"Keep going, you're doing awesome," he said. "Look over there, across that river. Your family is over there waiting for you. Your son is over there. You've got to keep going."
So I did. And that voice is the one thing that kept me going until I got back into Detroit.
At that point, another voice took over.
My best friend Paul, who is a former cross country runner, decided to jump in and run the last five miles or so with me. He kept me going, told me everything was going to be OK. He encouraged me when my legs felt like they were going to snap off at the hips, like one of those old G.I Joe action figures when you break the little rubber band inside their lower torsos.
Paul ran alongside me right up until the last mile, when he took off down a side street so he could be at the finish line to meet me.
The last mile was a blur. I couldn't wait to finish.
As I closed in on that "Mile 13" sign, I saw another familiar face. My friend Kim, also a former cross country runner, was jogging down the sidewalk alongside me screaming my name and shouting encouragement.
Then I took off. Dead sprint. I needed to finish.
And I did. But that wasn't the best part.
I had literally run away from all that loneliness. And into the arms of my friends and family.
My mom and dad were there. Amanda and her dad, Gary were there. Later on, I found out that Amanda's mom, Debbie, who was in Florida to tend to her ailing parents, watched me cross the finish line by way of the live internet feed.
And, maybe most importantly, our son Teigan was there. He was tired, kind of cranky, more than likely cold, but he was there.
He was one of my biggest inspirations when I took on this challenge. He was a baby who was never supposed to have been conceived. Buy he made it. He defied the odds. And as I stood there, feeling like a baked potato because I was wrapped in one of those foil blankets they give runners at the end of races, I realized that I had defied the odds too. I beat cancer and I beat this race.
So I savored my moment, and I took my son in my arms.
He looked at me blankly for a second, his face absolutely emotionless. Then he opened his mouth and...yawned.
He didn't care about the race. He didn't care about the odds. He just wanted me to hold him.
We should all be so lucky to live our lives like that.
This challenge was much harder than I ever expected it to be, but it was also much more satisfying than I ever imagined it could be.
And I can't wait to do it again.