when a 5K doesn't hurt

Some of you remember my attempts over a year ago to train for a half-marathon. While isolated on the transplant floor in May and June of 2006, I had decided to take up running--and did, in fact, run a (very painful) 3.5-mile race in Boston in June. But the race--and over-training--led to a serious injury that put me in physical therapy all last summer. I was pretty sure I would never run again (the ortho told me never over a mile, at least), and to cement my decision, I went back to swimming.

Well, kids change things. While I was training for that first race last June, Orilus was stuck in bed, or at least in his teeny room, on 6 West. He couldn't go outside. He couldn't run. He wasn't even usually free of a towering IV pole connected almost always to his chest. But watching me lace up my sneakers every day, he decided that he, too, wanted to run.

So what? Most kids want to run, right? But here's the thing: Orilus has never really run before, not in his entire life. Sickle cell disease prevented him from running for more than a couple minutes. Even these minutes left him breathless, his heart pounding uncontrollably, his body starved for oxygen its blood could not deliver. So for Orilus, running wasn't just a cute idea, it was a dream--a dream that his body could do what it had never done before.

I spent a lot of early mornings throughout last school year walking with Orilus, up and down our beach's boardwalk. I couldn't run, and at first, neither could he, so tired he was from chemotherapy still. But this summer, we both started running, just once or twice a week, in between my swim sessions, so as not to overdo it. He told me, and he told his Aunt Debby, that he wanted to run in a "real" race, and Aunt Debby (a much more experienced runner than me) promised to help us find him one.

And then one day in August, we saw an advertisement in our Lynn city paper for our city's "first annual" 5K. We decided to go for it, the three of us--Orilus, Aunt Debby, and me.

On Thursday night, we did just that. Along with my friend, Val, we ran the entire 5K without stopping. And despite recent injuries and sore muscles, the race didn't hurt. It didn't hurt one bit.

And now I know the runner's secret. If you want to feel as if you can run forever, then simply run next to an 11-year-old who believes he really can. Run next to an 11-year-old who went from unable-to-run to running-effortlessly-for-3.1-miles. Run next to an 11-year-old who chatted, and laughed, and practiced his Latin-root vocabulary words, and gave high 5's to onlookers, and waved at cars. Instead of counting the distance, and feeling every step, SEE the finish line, and ENJOY the pace.

What can I say? Both Debby and I decided afterwards that we had never had an experience like that one before. To run and feel so blessed, so full, so happy...to run and to know, really know, how much good health means, and how thankful we are for it.

You can see from the photo that Orilus took 2nd place in the 19-and-under category (he was 1 of only 2 runners under 19 years old, but he doesn't know that). You would have thought he won Olympic gold, he was so proud, holding up his arms in front of the entire crowd. I laughed, but really, I wanted to cry. Victory. He is well. Thanks be to God.

We visited his hematologist at Mass General on Friday, the day after the race (his hematologist, the one who saw him always at his sickest, and only when he was sick, and usually doped-out on morphine and STILL moaning for days in a hospital bed, the one we called frequently panicked at wee hours of the morning when a pain crisis would suddenly erupt). Orilus brought her his race trophy, and wore his race shirt for her to see, and she gaped at me, open-mouthed. "It's a miracle," this woman of science said. "Yes," I told her, "it is."

How not to feel pain while running? Witness a miracle while your legs move, and you won't feel a thing. Except joy, and thankfulness, and a deep humility for being able to keep up with a miracle-child.