My First Half

My sister in law Kathy has a plate in her home above her computer which simply says, "I can do hard things." Today I did something hard. I ran a half marathon- something I swore I would never be able to do.

The idea of running a half marathon was first introduced to me by a group of my friends (Stacie, Jen, Natalie, Rachel) who had signed up for the half marathon in Moab. They invited me to come along, but I told them that there was no way I would be able to run 13.1 miles, but thank you for thinking of me. Luckily for me, there happened to be a 5 mile run there in Moab, so I signed up for the shorter run and accompanied them on the trip. I felt like a baby (a.k.a. wimp) as the other girls stepped on one bus, and I stepped on another ( "The Short Bus") which took us to our starting locations.

It was on the way home from Moab that these girls talked me into running The Top of Utah half marathon with them this August, much to my insistence that I could not. I finally gave in, but only if one of them was the one to actually sign me up. There was no way I was going to go online, fill out the information, and pay $30 to kill myself coming down some canyon. If someone else did it, then I could at least blame someone else if I failed or couldn't finish. Rachel signed me up that night.

And so the training began. I found a schedule that worked for me and I taped it to my fridge. It is a 16 week training program which began May 11 and ends August 29, the day of the run.

As Memorial Day approached, a bunch of us had decided to run the 5K here in our home town. Mike and I were both ready to run the 3.2 miles with everyone else, but it was after my 7 mile training run on Saturday that I started to have these crazy and slightly insane thoughts of actually signing up for the half marathon on Memorial Day, instead of the 5K. I couldn't get it out of my head. I mentioned it to Mike and he was instantly my #1 cheerleader (sans the outfit), urging me to do it, even though it was only two days away, and even though I was only two weeks into my "real" half marathon training set for August. I thought of Kathy's plate. "I can do hard things." I thought of my friends who ran in Moab. And I decided right then that I would do it. That I could do it. It was my turn. (cue the "Chariots of Fire" music) (Can you find me in the crowd? I'm #328)

I will be honest and say that it was hard. There were times I felt like quitting or even just walking, but I somehow managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. There were times when my legs ached terribly, times when my own sweat burned my eyes, and times when the pain in my side was so severe that I wondered how I could possibly run any farther. There were times that I prayed and pleaded for help to get through just one more mile, and then another, and then another.

It was when I had only a half mile left that I spotted Mike and my children waiting for me at the finish line. I picked up my pace so that I could run through with my head held high, even though my muscles screamed out in protest, and I felt like dying. It was then that 3 of my 5 children suddenly ran out to meet me for the last 20 feet of the course. I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. I completely lost all of my composure as the sobs swelled up inside of my chest; and my lungs, which had sustained me for nearly two and a half hours, suddenly gave way and succumbed to the waves of emotion raging through my exhausted body. I had done it. I gathered their hands up in mine, and we all ran--hand in hand in hand in hand--through the finish line.

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."
-John Bingham, running speaker and writer