This weekend I ran my first race since Jr. High.
I'd done some haphazard training on my own for the past few months, running around my neighborhood and trying to work my way up to the 3 miles I would need to finish. And as of last Monday I still hadn't made it. Between the various health issues, bad weather, knee pains, bad attitudes and every other excuse I could come up with I just couldn't seem to get past 2 miles. And that came with heavy legs, knee and hip pain, exercise induced asthma type breathing, headaches and overall discouragement. I was pretty sure I was going to come in last and have to walk at least part of it (particularly the hills, my neighborhood is relatively flat and I hadn't trained for hills.)
But I learned something important as I took off running bright and early Saturday morning in beautiful Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with 1500 of my closest friends; I'm very competitive!
As the people streamed past me I found a few to keep pace with and when I started to fall behind (or others started to pass) I would talk myself in to going just a bit faster or to keep pushing forward (usually along the lines of 'you can't let that little old lady pass you...keep going!') It's amazing what a pushy inner dialogue can accomplish that weeks and weeks of trudging along solo couldn't begin to touch.
As I kicked it into overdrive to sprint the last couple of hundred yards to the finish line I felt better than I have in months. I came in at 32:24, much quicker than I had anticipated and I didn't have to walk at all! Yep, I'm pretty proud of myself. I don't know that I'll keep it up (my knees honestly can't take much more, the doctors warned me off of running way back in Jr High) but it's nice to know I can accomplish something if I put my mind to it...and have 1500 people pushing me along!
