That’s a photograph of me after I finished my second half-marathon in Myrtle Beach. If we’re facebook friends then you probably saw the photos John took early Saturday morning as he posted them to the site. John, my tech geek of a husband, got a kick out of doing that, let me tell you. But it was fun, and he was excited for me so it was all done with the best intentions.

I completed the run in 1:49:39, averaging 8:27 minute miles. I’ll tell you that I have all my mile splits written down on a scrap of paper that’s lying on the desk right here in front of me, but please know, too, that I’ll spare you those details. You’re thanking me right now, I know.

The marathon’s web site says that I placed 470th out of 2,829 half-marathon runners, women and men combined, but I don’t know how accurate that number is. What I mean by that is the timing system determined those places based on each runner’s gun time, not his or her chip time, and I know it took me at least a minute to cross the start line after the gun fired.

That’s how it is in popular races, though. And while it can be frustrating to be caught up in the crowd there’s something incredible about it, too, so much so that it gives me goose bumps to think about it. And that’s what I want to write about here today, the way I was overcome by the amazing oneness of the start this past Saturday morning.

If you’ve ever run a race you know how it is. You roll out of bed really early, wash your face and brush your teeth, and then you put on your running clothes, dressing as lightly as you’re able based on the weather forecast. Maybe you eat something before you leave the house, maybe you grab a protein bar to take along with you and eat in the car. No matter where you eat, sometime during your drive to the race venue you chug a bottle of water. Before you know it you’ve parked your car and you’re milling around the starting line, outside in the dark.

There are other people there, too, who can be a lot of fun to watch. You can usually tell who’s a better runner than you are just by looking (although there are always exceptions to the Rule of First Impressions when you’re talking about runners), but you’ll always know based on appearance alone who’s filled with nervous energy and who’s fueled by quiet confidence. I like the confidently quiet people, and always try to position myself beside them for the start.

Time passes and you shed your extra clothing, stuffing it in your race bag or passing it off to the friend or family member who agreed to get you to the starting line that morning. You’ll have to pass your race bag off to a volunteer before it gets much closer to the run’s start time, and if you’re lucky your friend or family member will just know when it’s time for him to quietly fade away into the crowd of spectators.

And then someone will read a long list of announcements over the PA system, and then someone else will sing the National Anthem. There’s a lot of movement then, among the runners. We squeeze together as closely as we can, pushing against the starting line. It’ll get awfully quiet all of sudden, too, after the singing and the enormity of that has this way of hitting you hard especially when you realize that a lot of people packed together without regard for one another’s personal space requirements aren’t making any sound at all except when they breathe, inhaling and exhaling, in and out.

And then someone fires a gun and the pack of runners begins to move. People are walking behind you, trying not to step on your heels, and you’re pushing against the people in front of you, trying yourself not to bump into them. You’re all moving together, walking but moving more quickly than if you were just walking, each of you waiting for that moment you can finally begin to do what you can came here for… run.

Just like that you realize that the silence preceding the starting gun’s shot has dissipated. There are people cheering, spectators are clanging cow bells, and the timing pad covering the starting line beeps every time a runner with a chip fixed to her shoe crosses over it, officially beginning her own race right at that very moment. When you cross the timing pad and your chip beeeeeeps into life you hit the button on your wristwatch starting your own timer, the one you’ll carry with you throughout the race route, and you’re gone, caught up in the crowd of runners surrounding you.

And that’s the part that got me this past Saturday morning. It was quiet, and then it was loud, and then it was quiet again much quicker than I anticipated after I’d passed the start. It was dark and I was running outside like I do nearly every morning only this time I wasn’t alone. Other runners, all of us shoulder to shoulder, surrounded me those first few miles, and we were moving together, stride by stride. Every now and then someone would say something, but mostly it was quiet except for the slapping of our shoes against the pavement. We were a wave of bodies, caught up in motion, moving inland toward the breadth of sand between the water and pavement a few miles down the road. Together we were a breaker, waiting for our instance to crash against the shore, to turn back toward the finish line and pick our way home again. We runners were singular in purpose; determined to finish what we’d started.

It was amazing.