198-224.2. Across the Finish Line

April 2026:

Several years ago, my buddy Nathan started getting serious about his health. He’d throw on a weighted backpack and walk around his neighborhood before dawn. He’d lift weights at the gym before the rest of the world woke up. He’d spend his lunch break not on TikTok or Instagram, but by walking a few miles around his office. Often, he’d tell me about it while I chased pizza and breadsticks with cold IPAs at East Glisan Pizza Lounge.

Eventually, Nathan said he wanted to run a marathon. When that happened, I told him, I’d be there to cheer him on at the finish line.

Sure enough: He realized that dream last month when he ran the Eugene Marathon in a hair under four hours. As promised, I was there to cheer him on at the finish line.

I knew I’d be moved by Nathan’s triumph that had been years in the making. What I didn’t know was how moved I’d be by the triumphs of thousands of strangers along the way.

That’s because there are no guardrails at a marathon. I mean, there are the literal guardrails protecting runners from traffic and keeping fans out of the way—but in the metaphorical sense? There’s nothing to stop anyone from being the most enthusiastic, unapologetic, capital-H Human they can be.

On one side of the guardrail, you have the fans—passionate, excited, and outspoken friends, family members, locals, and total strangers. They wake up early to cheer on their runners, give out high fives, and extol everyone on the course for doing their best. That outpouring of unchecked enthusiasm, delivered without reservation or qualification, doesn’t happen anywhere else on Earth. Even at a football game, the fans don’t cheer when the home team isn’t doing well.

All morning long, I counted myself among those fans.

While waiting for Nathan on a leafy boulevard in southern Eugene, hundreds of us cheered on wave after wave of runners; as the groups thinned and their pace slowed, we only got louder. Across the street, one man held a sign that read, “You run better than the government!”

Elsewhere on the course, a man in a red, white, and green hat yelled “Let’s go, Mexico!” when a woman ran past with a Mexican flag draped across her back—and then cheered almost as loudly for the strangers in her wake. Another person waited patiently for their friend from inside an inflatable Tyrannosaurus rex costume.

After seeing Nathan a few times on the course, I made my way to Hayward Field, a track-and-field venue on the University of Oregon campus. Everyone who ran the half- and full marathon would cross the finish line inside the century-old stadium with thousands of fans cheering them on from the stands, and I had to be there for Nathan’s eventual triumph.

I arrived at the stadium about an hour before Nathan was due to finish, so I grabbed a front-row seat—facing the final turn—alongside his wife and daughter.

That’s where we saw what life was like on the other side of that guardrail: the unbridled humanity, not of the fans, but of everyone who dared to don a bib.

If you’ve run 13.1 or 26.2 miles, you’re too tired to peacock at the finish line. You poured everything into this day, and you used every last ounce of energy getting this far—so you’re concerned less with appearances than with not tripping this close to the end. Even with only that final straightaway to go, you’re too tired to care about anything other than, well, that final straightaway.

That means that everyone who passed us, did so at their most unabashedly human.

With the gravity of the moment setting in, kings, queens, and in-betweens visibly picked up their pace with the finish line in sight. Runners taller and fatter than me glided by. One woman rolled her wheelchair across the finish line. Another passed us with a baby in her arms—which prompted the question: How long had she been running with a baby in her arms?

Some tried shaking off hamstring cramps and limped through knee injuries. One stopped immediately in front of us, hands on her wobbly knees, while we reminded her of how close she was. A few fought back tears as the roar of the crowd filled the stadium. One woman carried a Puerto Rican flag across the finish line. A shirtless man who’d written “MATT” across his chest garnered some of the loudest ovations, if only because we at least knew who to root for. When one man collapsed an arm’s length from the finish line, two others stopped to help him up—and across.

For some, this was another day at the office. For many more, Nathan included, this was the culmination of months or years of hard work: early mornings, long runs, nagging injuries, and lonely workouts—occasionally in relentless rain or scorching heat. Some dreamed of this their entire lives. Many faced moments of doubt, be it from themselves or those around them. And yet.

Even when Nathan sauntered by, I dared not take any photos of what I saw. It felt too raw and too intimate—like I’d been afforded a momentary glimpse into the most human, most unguarded, and most accomplished moments in all these lives. They were pushing themselves further than they ever thought possible for themselves—not for me or anyone else. Taking a photo would have been like wedging myself between the bride and groom during their first dance to ask how they’re feeling. That’s not my moment to be part of, you know? The memories would be enough.

A few seconds after he passed, we gathered our things, returned to the concourse, and left the stadium to search for Nathan amidst a sea of medal-clad runners and walkers. Behind us, the roar of the crowd awaited the next wave.

There were still thousands of dreams yet to be realized.

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