Last Place Runner

 And just like that, running — although running longer and longer — was easy. No ragged breathing, no wimping out with burning, tight calves.

A fluke, surely. But no. Run after run. Doable. Enjoyable.

I’ve decided to honor my sleep cycles. So when I woke up Monday morning long before my alarm, I decided to do my run first thing. Nothing to it.

Monday afternoon my husband decided to spend the week with his family at his childhood home about three hours away. Normally I cook Thanksgiving dinner for my side of the family, but this year my brother’s wife’s parents want to host. So I was going to be on my own with no cooking to do.

Last Wednesday at the group run, Coach said there were a few options for Thanksgiving 5Ks. The program I doing doesn’t sponsor a “turkey trot,” but there were others. Coach said we were ready for it, and if we felt ambitious, we could do a race on Thanksgiving. And I remember thinking, “You are insane.”

I still have to run, and without the feeling that I needed to spend quality holiday time with my husband, I started really thinking about doing my first 5K more than a week ahead of schedule.

I even went so far as to go to the race registration page about 10 times Monday afternoon.

I kept thinking I could talk myself out of it. But then, there I was, on my couch at home with the registration page open on my iPad. I filled in my name. And then I got a message from my friend Amber. She said she wanted to try to run with me sometime this week and she asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving.

I entered my address into the race registration page.

I told her about my husband being gone and my family merging with my sister-in-law’s family for Thanksgiving. I told her I was thinking about doing a 5K on Thursday morning.

Then I got up, grabbed my debit card from my wallet, and registered for the 2014 NWA Turkey Trot 5K.

Amber asked me where the race was and what time. I sent her a screen shot of my completed registration. I sent my husband a text about it.

A few minutes later Amber sent a message saying she’d do it with me.

And a few minutes after that, she sent me a screen shot of her registration.

I was prepared to do it on my own. Running with a group or a friend is great fun and it makes a big difference in my attitude. But I didn’t expect anyone to rearrange their holiday morning, their day off from work, their time with family to come out and run. But Amber wanted to and that just tickled me to death.

After about 22 hours with his family, my husband called last night and said he was on his way home. I told him I decided to do the race because he wouldn’t be home and that he was still off the hook for coming out to watch. But he said he wanted to. And that he would be at my next race, my “real” race on Dec. 6.

So, by this time tomorrow, I’ll have a 5K under my belt. Right now I don’t feel nervous. I know I’m not going to be the fastest runner. But I still feel like I can do it because I’m in great shape and I’ve been trained well enough to run smart. A small voice in the back of my mind keeps wanting to tell me that I could get hurt tomorrow and not make my “real” race. But of course I could. I could also slip on a banana peel next Saturday morning.

Whatever your plans for tomorrow and the rest of the week, I hope it’ll be filled with joy instead of stress. There’s nothing you need bad enough to fight in the aisles of discount stores in the middle of the night. Get some sleep, watch the parade, and maybe find out where your local turkey trot is and cheer on some runners. They love that kind of thing.