By Amy
On May 8th, my town had it’s first ever full marathon, and also hosted half-marathon, 5K, and Pump & Run events. I can’t express how proud I am to be part of this community. Everyone went all out with cheering, excitement, music, food, and general awesomeness. It was really something to behold. I am so glad I stayed for awhile to enjoy the sights at the finish line, because…oh, the humanity, you guys. I saw people fighting for every step with tears running down their faces, people smiling and high-fiving, people finishing with perfect form at top speed, and lots and lots of kids meeting their moms and dads to run the last bit together. Seriously, I’m pretty sure my heart grew three sizes that day. The man who won the full marathon got a sweet police escort, and it turns out, it was his first marathon ever! How cool is that? And in his own hometown.
The half-marathon portion of the day (sidebar: whenever I type “marathon,” I always accidentally type “marathong” instead. Heh.) is what I’ve been training for since February. My goal was to finish in under 2 hours. A few weeks ago, I decided that this simply wasn’t realistic for me, and maybe 2:06 was more my style. I’d had some really gnarly training runs, and was just overwhelmed and not feeling it. I also noted that the last week of training was uber-aggressive. To wit: Mon 5 miles, Tues 2, Weds 4, Thurs 4, Fri Rest, Sat 3. That’s 18 miles the week of the race. I chose instead to do 2 CrossFit WODs and two 4-mile runs, and then only ended up running one of those. But one of the WODs was 100 burpees, so I figured I was all set. Anyway, this is getting long, so I’ll just cut to the chase: my time was 1:58:34, and I could not be happier with that. I know I’m not placing in my age group or winning prize money, but I feel great about my time. It’s a full 14 minutes faster than last year! I’ve never really had that “I set a PR” feeling before, and I highly recommend it. One of my coaches remarked that “all those burpees must’ve paid off,” and I can’t even argue with that.
Next up: conquering my crippling water anxiety and enjoying a nice swim like the rest of the world. I hope all of you are crushing hills and crossing finish lines like you own them.
