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Marcia, Tara, and Kathy
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On Sunday, October 16th, Marcia, Kathy and myself ran the
Hershey Half Marathon. What an experience! It was a gorgeous fall day, perfect
for running. My high school cross-country coach was working the water stop at
mile 5, and i got to give him a big hug. Jenny Jones, my very oldest and one of
my dearest friends, drove down from Connecticut to watch the race and was out
on her mom's lawn with her girls cheering us on, and my dad was at mile 9,
right in front of the old junior high track that i used to compete on. I had an
awesome race and enjoyed all 12 weeks of my training. At mile 11, i decided to
go for it and at about mile 12.5 my left arch completely freaked out on me, and
i started limping. But, I was determined to finish strong, because i felt
strong. It was crazy awesome, tearing around the corner into the Hershey
stadium, the crowd cheering, people yelling out my name, and the music pumping.
Just for a moment, i was 15 again (cleverly disguised in a 40 year old body)
when I ran like my life depended on it for no other reason than it was in my
blood. I ran the race in 2:03:21 and placed 1588 out of 5000 runners. Not bad
for a first time. i was actually thrilled because my goal was 2:10:00, but if
my arch hadn't lost it, i think i could have come in under 2 hours.
I flew home alone to do this, after deciding that i needed something big to christen my 40th year of life. Originally, i had said no to the
idea, but found inspiration in my daughter, who adores running at the age of 2,
and from a book called Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Both reminded me
why i loved to run, why i ever ran, and why i wanted to do it again; watching
Una running with her hands up in the air and laughing out of pure joy and me
running after her thinking, “That’s how I used to feel.” In the book, it talked
about what makes a good runner a great runner, and one of the reasons is simply
because that person LOVES to run. They don’t do it to win awards or to fit into
size 4 jeans; it’s not a chore or something they have to do. They run because
they actually enjoy it, and because it’s in our genes. “If you don't think you
were born to run you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are.”
However, I think what made the biggest impression on me was
the idea that there is a connection between the capacity to love running and
the capacity to love. “We wouldn't be alive without love, we wouldn't have
survived without running. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better
at one could make you better at the other.” That struck a chord with me because
I know it’s true for myself. I am way more excited about life and my fellow man
when I am running on a regular basis. In addition, some of my strongest
friendships are with people with whom I ran. It seems like the act of running
together somehow forms bonds between people that are unbreakable, no matter what
the distance and time that comes between you. Somehow, you become family in a
really weird and unlikely way, but it’s there nonetheless. “The reason we race
isn't so much to beat each other,... but to be with each other.” And, while I
don’t think that this book is the end all be all, I really gleaned a lot of useful
stuff from it, for myself, and I really appreciate how it put me back in touch
with something so basic and primal, something that makes me feel free and full
and able to love and appreciate the world around me, while at the same time
giving me the capacity to believe in myself, that I am capable…of many, many
things. “We've got a motto here-you're tougher than you think you are, and you
can do more than you think you can.”
Here is a link to photos from the event (the photos are way too expensive to buy). My bib number is 3276.
