The Human Race
Out There
Willow Belden
4.6 • 608 Ratings
🗓️ 20 July 2017
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Bernadette Murphy flew to an island in the South Pacific, her friends thought she was indulging in an extended tropical vacation. But the three months she spent on the Island of Mo'orea were anything but relaxing.
In the past two years, Bernadette had lost her father, left her marriage, and sent her youngest child off to college. Now, she was struggling to reassemble the shattered bits of her existence. As it turns out, fleeing to a tropical Paradise wasn't an instant cure for her problems.
But when she signed up for a half marathon, things started to change.
On this episode, Bernadette shares the story of what happened. It's a story about running a race. But more than that, it's about midlife reinvention -- about learning how to belong, after you've given up life as you knew it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories in the outdoors. |
| 0:14.2 | Support for this episode comes from Kind, makers of healthy and delicious snacks. |
| 0:19.4 | They have a special offer for Out There listeners. |
| 0:21.9 | You can get a sample box with 10 different kind bars for just $10 with free shipping. |
| 0:26.9 | That's a $20 value. |
| 0:29.0 | For details, go to kindn snacks.com slash out. |
| 0:42.3 | On this episode, we have a story by writer Bernadette Murphy. It's a story about a half marathon and about adjusting to life in a place that's totally foreign. |
| 0:49.3 | But at its heart, it's a story about overcoming loneliness, about finding your place in the world after |
| 0:55.6 | your life has been turned upside down, and about figuring out how to belong. |
| 1:01.8 | I'll let Bernadette take it from here. |
| 1:08.6 | I'm crouched at the starting line at 4.30 a.m. stretching tentatively, my palms indented with loose bits of asphalt, feeling twitchy. It's still dark, and the stars are hidden beneath cloud cover. It's already 84 degrees, with 80% humidity, although the sun has not even begun to rise. This is not an ideal day to run the 13.1 |
| 1:32.8 | miles of a semi-marathon, as it's called here in French Polynesia, especially for someone |
| 1:38.0 | used to running in the arid climate of Southern California. But running a marathon seems to be |
| 1:43.9 | what I'm about to do. |
| 1:49.0 | Half an hour ago, I watched as participants in the full marathon took off. |
| 1:55.0 | Many of them looked like runners I'm used to back home in Los Angeles. |
| 1:59.0 | iPods strapped to upper arms, waist garlanded with |
| 2:02.7 | energy packs and electrolyte goo, legs striated with sinewy muscles, singlets sporting competitor numbers, |
| 2:11.2 | hanging slack on slender torsos. Most wore regular-looking running shoes, but more than a few, |
| 2:17.4 | ran barefoot. |
| 2:20.3 | Now, the rest of us are clumped together waiting at our turn, an hour after the full marathon's departure. |
| 2:30.3 | I'm nervous. This will be the first race I've run without my running partner, Emily. |
... |
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