The morning air is a lie.

I’m climbing out of the Lexus, the cool morning air hits me, mixing with the butterflies in my stomach. Nervous jitters before each race. I know it’s a lie. Many of the other runners familiar with Missouri weather know it too. But I’m ready. Ready to take on another City of Roses half marathon.

As much as I try not to, I start believing the lie anyway. It’s hinting that autumn is a few weeks away, like a blockbuster movie trailer. COMING SOON TO SOUTHEAST MISSOURI. FALL! I do my best to shake out the jitters, finding other running friends of mine. We do our best to take our minds off the heat the humidity we know will hit us.

7:00 sharp, the race begins, all of us moving like water, slowly creeping across the timer, edging out onto the Cape La Croix trail, heading up to Walden Park. We’re all buying the lie. It won’t be that hot, right?

The trail spills out onto Walden Boulevard. My legs feel good, so far. The pace is comfortable and easy. The cool air wraps around me like a cotton sheet, soft, comfy, and cozy. Then the road tilts up, bending to the right, up Pine Hill Spur, a small, steep rise that ends the warmup, dropping me back onto Walden again. One hill down. Several more to go.

I make the turn onto Cape La Croix Road. These streets are familiar, both driving and running on them. The runners around me have settled into their own pace, some faster, others getting passed by me.

Then, somewhere around mile three, the sun is shining, bright and blazing overhead with zero shade on the blacktop.

It’s the quick shift of temperature, happening in the blink of an eye. One second? It’s cool. The next? I’m sweating, dripping salt from my forehead, stinging my eyes. The air itself is heavy now, like someone tossed a ten-pound heated, weighted blanket over my shoulders.

The course turns onto Boutin Drive, aka Route W, and now the city of Cape Girardeau is letting go of me, turning into rural country. The road opens into a long, wide curve. Another slow incline pulls at my legs. By the time I reach Perryville Road and turn onto County Road 621, the country has taken over, passing the Cape Jaycee’s Golf Course and a few horse farms. More tree-filled woods. This is where the homes thin out, suburbs gone in a blink.

Almost five miles in. The race is serious now. The training takes over. My heart pumps blood where it needs to go.

How I manage what comes next will determine the outcome of my race.

Rounding the corner, I cross the bridge. There it is. A steep incline straight up County Road 618. Runners in front of me, runners behind, all of us pushing through heat stealing our souls. The ones in front of me are walking up the hill. Can I do this? Why did I sign up to punish myself like this? I keep moving. I brush the sweat from my forehead.

It’s right there, looming in front of me. I can see the steepness of it. Runners ahead of me are struggling to stay upright and walk. They push themselves, some stopping to catch their breath. They fight the will to quit.

I remember training for this. I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the slow climb.

One foot in front of the other. Push, push, push. My run moves into a power walk. But I’m still moving, not walking.

I see one mailbox off to my left. It’s my marker. Make that point? Then I can walk the downhill side. Just keep pushing.

Before I know it, I make it.

The downhill is way easier. Walking gives me a short break, prepping both my legs and mind for the next hill, the second monster of the City of Roses. This is right before 618 crosses Route W. I take this one the same way I did the last one. Slow up. Walk down. Save what energy I have for what’s coming.

A few more rolling hills. Now my legs are paying in cash for the first two climbs. My training gave me credit. But the road keeps telling me the check is due. So I keep paying the price. One step at a time.

Then 618 empties out onto Veterans Memorial Drive, and I see it. My monster. My Goliath.

Tough. Steep. Either you make it up this hill, or it breaks you, pushing you past your limit. If the heat and humidity haven’t gotten you at this point, this hill might. I’ve trained for this, running up it in other races, other training runs. And it wasn’t easy then. It won’t be easy now.

I know faster, stronger runners cruise up this hill like it’s nothing. The truth is they are lying. Like it or not, this hill hurts like no other. And after nine miles? It’s brutal!

My determination won’t let me walk, not even slightly. I push myself, slowing to the slowest run I can. I keep pushing, looking up to the top, glancing down at my feet occasionally, reminding myself they are still attached to my legs. More than ten runners are creeping up the hill, walking in absolute agony.

But after Veterans Memorial Parkway, the course gives me back what it took. The legs surviving the parkway are the same legs that finish the race. After mile nine, it’s all downhill or at least steadily flat to the line. The country roads hand me back to the city, running underneath Kingshighway, following the trail back to the Osage Center just up ahead. I can hear the cheering before I see the finish line.

I cross the line.

I’m catching my breath, hands on my knees, when I see him. He’s half my age, red super curly hair. Strong. Built for running this race. He’s walking up to me, a water cup in his hand, shaking his head, smiling.

“Congratulations. Dude. I thought I had you on those hills. But every time you ran by me, uphill! And then? After that last hill? That’s when I lost you.” He laughed. “I just couldn’t keep up. You just kept going.”

I nod, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I don’t have enough breath to say very much.

But I’m thinking it.

The road I ran today was mine. Alone. Every one of those miles? Mine. The hills were mine. That lone mailbox? It was mine. Nobody else could run those for me. No one else did.

But I keep thinking about what he said. You just kept going.

I’ve been running another race for a long time now. Eight years of ultras. Ten years of writing. More than five hundred blog posts. A memoir on its tenth draft. Nine queries out to literary agents. And silence, zero feedback. Short stories sent off to contests I’ll never hear from again. On Tuesday morning, drafting my next chapter with a blank page from yesterday, I keep running. I keep moving.

It’s a race that has its own hills, too. Some are the long grind of a manuscript. Some are short, brutal climbs of one rejection after another, landing in my inbox. Some come early. Those are the days full of vision and insight, thousands of words written. Often they come late in the evening, when it’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other.

I’m really running a race to tell one more story for one more person. It’s where I sit with a research participant in the car on the way to an appointment, listening to whatever they want to say. Where I write the next blog post and trust it will find the right reader, the person who needed to read it. This race is where I keep showing up at the keyboard, whether agents say yes or no.

That race is mine. Nobody else can run it for me.

But I’m not running it alone.

Jesus walked seven miles to Emmaus with two disciples who didn’t recognize him. They were grieving. Defeated. They thought their race was over. He fell in beside them, and the three of them walked. Somewhere on the road, their hearts started burning. It wasn’t until he broke bread. Then, they knew.

He’s been on every road I’ve run. Every hill. Every mailbox. Every blank page. Every silent inbox. I didn’t always know it. Sometimes I still don’t. But he’s there.

The road I run is mine alone.

Jesus makes my footsteps lighter.

God gives me victory.

And no matter the odds, God’s love will never leave me.

I just keep going.