In the Long Run, You Can Find a Way to Make It to the Finish Line

Starting this week, we are publishing columns by four writers who would like to become Vicky Hallett's MisFits partner. We'll identify the winner when he or she is chosen; the others will stay anonymous.

There are few things as soul-crushing as a late-stage collapse in a marathon. Shank a few golf balls into the rough, and chances are you'll be out there next Sunday, hitting them straighter. Miss the game-winning layup in your pickup basketball game, and within 15 minutes you're back on the court with a shot at redemption.

But for most of us, a marathon comes around only once or twice a year, if that. It is usually preceded by a minimum of 18 weeks of high-mileage training and hours of endless obsessing and preparation: what to eat, what to drink, when to drink, what to wear, what will the weather be, and on and on and on.

For me, it usually ends the same way, with a visit to "the wall": that near-mythic point around Mile 20 when the body has depleted its reserves and won't be pushed any farther.

Maybe you've been there. Your blistered feet have slowed to a shuffle. Your legs, neck and back are screaming. You curse the decision to run this stupid race when you could be home in bed. You curse the whole sport of running. You curse your ill-fitting shoes, the sweat in your eyes, the six Double Stuf Oreos you gave in to last week.

And that's not the worst part. As you break down, you notice that the race volunteers have started to sweep up the used cups along the course. Then one of those lumbering giants you cruised past at Mile 3 edges into view from behind you and slowly pulls away.

Then come the old people. The fat people. The old, fat people. The walkers.

"Never again," you swear.

I've had the rare privilege of hitting the wall in marathons from Burlington, Vt., to New Orleans, including, most recently, last month's National Marathon here in Washington, where I ran a 5:06 (not a personal worst, but damn close).

That one included an interlude at Mile 13, on the grounds of RFK Stadium, when a geyser of drinking water decided to make its way back out the way it came in. (If you've seen Monty Python's "Mr. Creosote" sketch, the one where the glutton literally explodes after one morsel too many, you get the idea.)

On occasion, this happens to the best. "Why couldn't Pheidippides have died here?" U.S. marathon great Frank Shorter asked fellow runner Kenny Moore at Mile 20 of a 1971 race, according to Moore's book "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon." Legend has it that the marathon's 26.2-mile distance was inspired by the Greek messenger's run in 490 B.C. from Marathon to Athens, where he announced a great military victory and then dropped dead.

Fortunately for anyone who is considering taking up distance running or stepping up to a marathon, none of this has to happen. In fact, for many people in better shape than myself -- and many others in worse condition -- it never does.