Six years ago tonight, I sat in this same hotel, in a bed just like this one. I ordered spaghetti with grilled chicken, red pepper flakes and olive oil from room service, seeking to recreate the pre-run meal I’d grown accustomed to at home. It wasn’t on the menu, but the kitchen obliged. When it arrived, however, something in the chicken smelled like bleach. I ate cautiously, only until I felt like I had enough calories in me, and tossed the rest in the garbage. And, before bed, I successfully convinced the gentleman that delivered my room service to steal real half and half from the staff break room for me, lest I have to drink my coffee with the powdered cream offered in the room on race morning. I would not let anything, real or perceived, come between me and the personal record I’d spent 12 weeks training for.
I crossed the finish line of the 2012 Runner’s World with a five-minute PR, and the 2013 Hat Trick — a 5k, 10k and Half Marathon over two days — in my sites. I would complete that too, along with the Half Marathon in 2014 (another PR), and the 10k and Half Marathon in 2015 and 2016.
Tonight, I sit in front of the television watching a movie. I went out earlier for a proper dinner. Tomorrow will be race #40 on the year. I am not the same person that I was in 2012, when a half marathon was a daunting endeavor. In the last six years, I’ve run days through the Rocky Mountains; I’ve run marathons on three continents; I’ve run 100 miles without sleep. But I’ve always come back to where I feel like it all began. I’ve always come back to Bethlehem.