After a late night with the family, I woke up this morning to the sun trying to creep through my incredibly thick window shades. I think it was God's way of saying, you aren't going to give up this easily. So I trudged out of bed, through on my running gear, and headed down the stairs and out the door.
My mom was supposed to walk the race too, but because of some bothersome knees, she wasn't able to join. But lucky me, I have a mom who gets up at the crack of dawn just to go cheer anyway!
Thank goodness no one in their right mind gets up before 9am on a Saturday in Frederick! I was flying a good 60 mph down back roads and around bridges just to make registration!
So I get there, hurrying to the top table: three minutes left to register. Whew! Made it.
Half hour later, after warm up runs and stretching, we are lead to the starting line. Now this was called the Wild Women run, so other than 3 men in the competition, it was all females. And let me tell you, a good many women showed up! I got to see some good friends I used to run with back in High School, along with my track coach and her friends accompanying her in the race. No time to catch up, the race was off at 8am SHARP.
The course was winding but relatively flat. I passed an old friend's house and I thought of the nights we'd spent out in his back yard playing frisbee.
We took a small cement path through a park, seeing the softball fields in the distance where I spent many years before high school hitting and catching those pop flies.
Then up the road past the old torn down ice cream parlor where my dad would take us on hot summer afternoons before we got too old and busy to brush him off for a short drive behind the wheel.
The memories flooding back, I barely noticed the finish line coming up in front of me. So I brushed off the sweat, picked up my knees, and drove hard into the finish. I was proud when I saw the sign say: 38 Minutes
I went into the race hoping for top 10. Although I came very close, I could say I was top 20. Top 5 in my age group!
4.97 miles later, I had finished my first 8k race. I was tired, but not too tired to congratulate fellow runners and friends. I offered a special thanks to my awesome Mom for her cheering, and my wonderful photographer, Amanda Caudle. I looked around as I walked back to my car and saw friends walking friends to the finish line. I saw sweat dripping off of foreheads, and smiles spreading across the racers' faces. I couldn't help but smile myself.
A lot of people ask me why I run. I say "Why Not? God gave me these legs, I'm going to prove to him I know how to use em'!"
"Some people create with words, or with music, or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, "I've never seen anyone run like that before." It's more then just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better then anyone else. It's being creative."- Prefontaine
No comments:
Post a Comment