Bogatitan

Not only did everyone smile at me this afternoon as I left downtown, but I got pats on the back too. A girl from across the street yelled out: "GREAT JOB!" A nearby hotel bellhop nodded at me in admiration. Cars honked at me excitedly.

When I got into my bus, a middle-aged lady volunteered her seat to me. She, like everyone else, also smiled at me.

"What was your time?" she asked me.

"Excuse me?"

"For the marathon today. How much time did it take for you to finish it?"

She was looking at what I was holding in my hands: one of those shiny foil blankets that, along with a medal, are given to the marathon runners after crossing the finish line. What she didn't know is that I snatched it as a souvenir out of a trash can while walking on my way up north on Michigan Avenue.

"Oh, I'm sorry, this isn't mine," I told her, crumpling up the foil in shame. "I didn't run the marathon, but I just got back from watching a friend of mine who did. He's the real hero."

The real hero -- the one I wish I could be today -- is my friend Kevin. His last name is Bogatitus but today I'm calling him a Bogatitan, for the kind of heart that he put on display today at the 2006 Chicago Marathon.

All of this wasn't supposed to happen. I've been friends with Kevin ever since my sophomore year of college, back when he was a Stay-Puft marshmallow of a man who bore a striking resemblance to Drew Carey, sans black-rimmed glasses. That was the year that Dave and I basked as self-annointed kings of our dorm floor -- NIU's Zack Morris and A.C. Slater -- where if there were any suitable candidates to do something as bad-ass as run a marathon, it would have been either me or Dave. If you knew Kevin back then, you'd have emphatically pegged him as our floor's most unlikely marathon runner. As Tina noted to me while we waited for him to run past us at the two-mile checkpoint, "Five years ago if you told me Kevin would be working on his third marathon today, I would have laughed my ass off."

Tina is Kevin's girlfriend, his college sweetheart who also lived on our sophomore year floor. If Dave and I were Zack and Slater, Tina was Kelly Capowski. Her rack was the envy of every girl living at Stevenson Towers, as well as the brumski fantasy of every boy -- including and especially Kevin. It took Kevin four brutal years of courting for Tina to finally fall for him, and a part of me believes that a great deal of Kevin's motivation to get into shape had to do with her.

If there was anything more unlikely than Kevin becoming a marathon runner, it was Kevin and Tina ever becoming an item. I never thought it would happen. Tina was (and is) one of those loud Italian, Marisa Tomei firecracker types, opinionated in a Brooklyn sort of way. Kevin on the other hand was (and is) a laid back country boy with a partiality for flannel.

As we stood outside in the cold, waiting for Kevin to come by, I looked closely at Kevin's family, all huddled together. None of them looked athletic at all. They all -- his mom, dad, brother, and sister -- had the same basic body shape: round.

Genetically, Kevin wasn't supposed to become a marathon runner. He wasn't even supposed to end up dating Kelly Kapowski. But when I noticed a woman determinedly running the race with a prosthetic leg, I thought to myself, She isn't supposed to run this race either. BUT SHE DAMN WELL IS.

And try telling the wheelchair participants of the race what they aren't destined to do. Try telling that to the midget I saw. Or the other slew of characters running in the race, such as the barefoot woman. The juggler. The 70-year-old man. The man with a cardboard crown on his head with glittery writing on it that read: "I'M RUNNING THIS RACE FOR MY WIFE." The guy who sprained his ankle on the 21st mile, rolled around in pain for a minute, then got up and finished the race. And, Spider-man. And Superman. And Elvis.

And Kevin.

The beauty of the marathon -- and of America -- is that anyone can participate, and succeed. If you're willing to push your body to the limit, if you're willing to feel pain, if you're willing to make sacrifices, if you're willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want, then you can be Kevin Bogatitus.

The Bogatitan.

After the race, we all waited at the family reunion center for about a half hour until Kevin finally showed up dragging his feet on the ground, his face visibly drained. He shook his head, saying that somewhere during the race he weakened up, which explained why he didn't beat his time last year of 3:40 by that much. In his words, he said that he "fucked it up", as if he had let his family and himself down. But in the midst of all of us ringing our cowbells and blaring our airhorns and whooping and hollering, I don't think anyone really heard him. We all proudly slapped our hero's back.

Smiling weakly, Kevin hugged his family members, and when he eventually approached me, we banged fists together. I made sure to tell him that he was one tough motherfucker.

And as he saved the best for last by walking up to Tina to smooch her on the lips, I was thinking about how happy I was for him and how he needed to reward himself later tonight with a scotch and a cigar, and a rub-down from Tina.

Somewhere during the walk back home towards our cabs and buses and trains, Kevin's sister mentioned to me how cool she thought it was that I came to support him. I didn't say anything, but I thought to myself: Why wouldn't I come to support him? I admire the guy. He's a self-made man. He's got the goatee, the three medals, the girl. He's got everything.