OK so I didn't know I could..but after Friday night when I plowed thru 4.5 miles and felt like I could run another 1/2 a mile with no worries- I felt a little more at ease.
Saturday night I was good and opted for Crab Cakes instead of a steak, only ate one of the cakes, two martini's (liquid courage is awesome) and I was out of the restaurant by 10pm and in bed by 11pm resting up for the race Sunday morning. Race day child care was a little stressful.. Cole's Dad was going to take him for the entire day, but wanted me to drive 1/2 an hour north before the race (which was downtown) on Sunday and bad communication put me in a pickle. So once again, my amazing friend helped me out and opened her door at 6:30am for me to drop off a very confused toddler. "Mommy -No! I sleep" he protested as I jostled him out of bed. There was no Good Morning sunshine to be found. When he saw Ms Rhonda in her PJs I think he knew he had it made.
So off we went to the race. I have to give kudos to the folks who organize the White Rock Marathon. With over 30,000 participants it was extremely well done. Lots of bands playing along the way. The residents of the Lakewood Community and around White Rock stood out in their yards handing out orange slices, holding banners and cheering runners on. I had five people to share 26 miles with. What amazed me on my run were the runners doing the full 26miles on their own. It wasn't glamorous. It was, instead, a mental and physical battle for them. Along the route you could see people yakking, stopping to relieve themselves in the bushes, stretching out muscle cramps, stopping to walk, and tend to injuries and sadly some of the runners were just passed out.
It was nothing like what I pictured in my mind of all of these extremely fit people sprinting through 26miles. It was brutal. A very real battle of the body and mind. One of my teammates summed it up best when he said " Running isn't a glamorous sport.. today we're all just humans..." It was very human. Nothing extremely vain about sweat, stank, and bodily functions. But what amazed me as a battled through my own five miles running into the 35mph winds.. when you're out there it's all about finishing what you started. Setting an objective for yourself and committing to finish. The rest of it being aches and pains, the elements, the course and the other runners, well it just becomes road kill as you plow on through. I never looked back as I ran and didn't notice any of my fellow runners looking back either. How awesome would our life journey be if we could all just keep looking forward in our run and not look back at the carnage & mistakes behind us. I thought about this a lot during my five miles. I spend way too much time in life looking back and wondering if I could have done something differently rather than focusing on the next mile marker.
As I rounded a corner and saw the mile 13 marker, I must confess that somewhere in my mind I thought I should be coming up on mile 14, and just when I started to feel a little defeated there was a lady holding up a sign.. Yes, it might have been a little cheesy, but as I read it...it did give me a little warm fuzzy. It said " Tough times never last- but tough people do.." Chew on that for a while.. I'm chewing on whether or not I should train for a 1/2 marathon or hang up the running shoes for anything more than a leisurely run and fitness for the time being. Here are my team's race results:
overall place : 380 of 757 teams
Pace: 10:14 mile
time: 4:27:58
*please note that this results are a little off..we lost about 5minutes of run time in the hand off between runners at the 2nd exchange point & it was 4:44 before our first runner got to cross the start line* I'd say we did a little better than a 10:00 mile. I'll take it. Holla!
