A few months ago, my sister, Rachel told me that she and our baby sister, Lani, were training for a half marathon and some strange, sadistic part of me felt sad and left out -- unincluded and unloved. All the cool people were training for a half marathon, I wanted to be a part of the half marathon. I can do this too. Hey, what about me? Can't I play too? So I offered to train here in Illinois and then come out and run with them. I have run a half marathon before, but was compelled to becuase of a lost bet and and a husband who was convinced I would magically be converted to the wonder of running and develop a burning desire to run a full marathon. That half-marathon, run 2 years ago, was not a magical experience, to say the least.
So the big day came. We flew the whole family out for a visit with Grandma and Grandpa Rush and to go for a little run with Aunt Rach and Aunt Lani -- Uncle David and Jason decided, what the heck, we'll run it too, even though Jason has an injured knee and David had run all of 2 miles in training for the race. We survived it. This is how we looked at the end.
This is how we felt.
The race that we chose to run started up in the moutains... the first 4 miles was almost straight uphill. We knew this beforehand and decided to stay together no matter what for those first 4 miles. For moral support, you know. We lost Lani before the end of the first mile, she started walking and I wasn't willing to start walking THAT early in the race. The goal was the finish those 4 miles in an hour, we knew that the remaining 9 miles would be downhill and hoped we could make up time there. I wanted to finish in 2 1/2 hours. Rach wanted to finish under 2:45 and Lani wanted to be under 3 hours and not last. We hit mile FIVE at almost exactly 60 min. We were quite pleased. Somewhere around mile 6 I got a little ahead of Rach and David. I could hear them behind me, so I didn't think much of it. After a while, I realized I couldn't hear them anymore, so I peeked behind me. They were a ways back, but I could still see them, it looked like they were catching up and I was running such a good and comfortable pace, I didn't want to stop. By mile 8, I was all by myself. I was a little lonely, but the thought of being done with the race and of finishing in less than my goal made me plug on. I passed many people... even men that were thinner and stronger than me. That felt good. Everytime I passed a mile marker, I recalulated what I thought my finishing time would be, and how much time I had left to go. At mile 12, Jason appeared -- he had finished already (in 1:49:02; under his 1:50 goal) and come back to see me through to the end. And thank goodness he did, because that last mile was at a slight incline and I felt like that 1 1/2% incline was going to KILL me. It was at this point that the one and only person who passed me on the downhill portion of the race managed to sneak by. I made it though. I finished. In 2:14:36!! That is a good 25 minutes faster than the half marathon I ran in 2004. Rachel and David finished right behind me in 2:26:21. Lani came in at 2:54:40. Everyone of us beat our goals. How gloat-worthy is that??
I am not magically converted to running long distances, but my attitude towards it has definitely changed. I had a clear moment of realization that something was different one day when I set out for a normal, everyday run that was to be an hour long. I kissed my husband goodbye, stepped out the door and started on my way. After about 10 minutes, like a thunderbolt exploding in my brain and ripping apart everything I thought to be true about myself, I thought "WHO AM I?????? Kim doesn't do this kind of stuff! I just tripped out the door like an hour run is NOTHING!!!" In the past, Jason has set out for 2+ hour runs and I thought he was insane. The boredom alone would kill me, not to mention the actual physical exertion. WHY would anyone do that? After doing a couple of longer training runs like that myself I realize its not so bad -- the heat and humidity will kill you long before the boredom and physical exertion and running when is cooler easily fixes those problems! I'm still not a "runner" I find no thrill in pushing myself to the brink, in seeing how much faster and faster and faster I can get. But I definitely take some pride in my personal improvement in speed and endurance. And I don't mind the 30 lbs I've lost in the pursuit of those gains, either! I think there might be another 1/2 marathon or two in my future, though I still have no desire to run a full marathon. Perhaps Jason's dreams of seeing me torture myself in such a way will come true someday, but I find it HIGHLY unlikely. He might have a running partner for a 2 hour run every once in a while though.
