December 2020: A makeshift marathon

There were no large crowds of supporters packed along the Ben Franklin Parkway.  Instead, a few good friends were spread out along the Radnor Trail. 

There were no live bands, corporate sponsors, hospitality tents, or clusters of runners.  It was just a relatively quiet Sunday with the occasional jogger or dog walker passing by every hundred yards or so. 

There was no public website, official chip times, or elaborate course routes.  There was only a group text, an Apple Watch, and an old trail map.  

The 26.2 miles that Pete and Jessi Ayoub ran on December 6^th was not the marathon they had initially signed up for.  The race they had registered for, trained for, and raised money for was unfortunately cancelled because of the pandemic. But that didn’t stop them from running their first marathon anyway.  They made up their own event instead. 

A few weeks ago, on a cold and sunny December morning at the Radnor Trail, I attended “BouyaThon,” a makeshift private marathon orchestrated by my sister and her husband. Jessi and Pete (aka “The Bouyas”—a fun nickname created from spelling Ayoub backwards) ran back and forth on the trail in their matching blue limited edition Bouyathon shirts as the lone participants of the event. I was fortunate to get VIP access from mile markers 16 through 24, so I jogged alongside Jessi and Pete as their personal photographer and morale booster for an 8 mile stretch. Along the way, I saw several bundled up friends holding signs and wearing masks to support the two runners as they made their way through the course map. With my exclusive access to the final third of the marathon, I got to witness arguably the most challenging portion of the race. I was there for the foot cramps, the knee pain, the looming exhaustion, and the overall monotony of the trek. But for every daunting step, I witnessed the Bouyas’ undeniably positive spirit and determined commitment putting their minds over matter.

When my segment was complete, I joined the rest of the Bouya fan club at the finish line to see Pete and Jess conquer their mission.

About 20 minutes later, the crowd went wild as the makeshift marathoners came into sight with triumphant smiles on their faces. As Jess and Pete discovered one last boost of energy from the adrenaline of the moment and the “final mile playlist” that they simultaneously streamed through their AirPods, they sprinted through the Dollar Store’s finish line ribbon. Friends and family hooted and hollered from a social distance. The two little Ayoub girls, Leila (2) and Drea (8 months), stormed the trail to give their Mommy and Daddy a congratulatory hug and subsequently burst into a meltdown of tears due to the cold weather and the chaotic scene. Jordan quickly wrapped the runners in Reynolds kitchen tinfoil in lieu of those cool space blankets that they distribute to participants after the big marathons. Pedestrians and cyclists had no clue what to make of the scene. Pete concluded the marathon by “Ending the workout” on his Apple Watch and logged their official time somewhere in the iCloud. The recorded time didn’t set any records and wouldn’t qualify them for prestigious marathons like New York or Boston, but it didn’t matter. They slayed a 26.2 mile dragon and they deservingly felt on top of the world. The rest of the day included pictures, glasses of champagne, wintery beers, slices of pizza, Dairy Queen Blizzards, and a long awaited chicken parm sandwich. As Jess and Pete worked to replace the calories they had just burned on the run, I kept thinking about the lessons that I learned from the pandemonium I experienced at that jerry rigged finish line.

2020 has been a marathon for all of us.  While some have had an easier road than others, it’s been an overall long and grueling challenge for everybody in different ways.  We’ve been largely stripped of the crowds of people that we usually rely on to keep us going, and we’ve been deprived of many support systems and resources that we’ve come to count on when times get tough.  The roads that we planned to run on have been shut down, and we’ve been forced to draw new maps and take new paths.  And like a brutal challenge of running 26.2 miles, life can be difficult enough on its own before you factor in all of the extenuating circumstances that we’re currently facing.  So as we become more exhausted and the cramps begin to worsen and every mile seems longer than the one before it, it’s tempting to stop pushing ourselves and postpone our goals until conditions improve. 

But Jessi and Pete showed me that we can keep running. We can continue to challenge ourselves. We can remain committed to the goals that we initially set for ourselves before the road got rough. We can stay consistent in our approach. We can learn new things. And we can cross that makeshift finish line with pride. We just have to get creative, be flexible, adjust our course, build our support system, find courage, and make our own fun along the way.

I’m sure Jessi and Pete would’ve loved large crowds, live music, official course routes, a sea of runners, commemorative shirts and medals, foil space blankets, and all of the pomp and circumstance that comes with a major marathon event. But when that wasn’t available, they decided they could make their own shirts, bring their own finish line, record their own time, find their own foil, create their own event, establish their own fundraiser, and run their own race. Circumstances outside of their control might have canceled the event that they signed up for, but it could never stop them from crossing th finish line that they committed to. The goal was to run a marathon, to take on a new challenge together, to push themselves farther and further than they’ve ever gone before. And they did just that.

Right now, as we all find ourselves limping towards 2020’s final mile, we have plenty of excuses to defer our goals, ease up on our growth, and quit trying to create joyful moments. Jessi and Pete proved that you don’t have to abide by those convenient excuses. We can makeshift our own marathon. We can grow, persist, and smile through every daunting mile. And we should definitely certainly celebrate like never before when we cross that jerry rigged finish line together.

Happy Holidays to you and your family. Thank you for reading, reflecting, and running this makeshift marathon by my side all year. Good luck with the rest of your race and I hope this helps you finish strong.