Last Place Runner

Well! So much has happened since I last had a spare minute to write. Keeping up with my training here was my priority, but one that kept being shuffled to the bottom of the deck.

I just checked the date of my previous entry: March 5. My longtime friend’s husband died suddenly that day. I was offered a job — the one with the second interview I wrote about — on March 11. I had to pass a pre-employment drug screen, which I did first thing the next day. That weekend, March 13, I had to go out of town for my friend’s husband’s funeral. I couldn’t start my job until the drug-test results were back, so I got back from Little Rock on Sunday evening.

That Monday morning, I was in the middle of what I hoped would be a 5.5-mile run when I got a call from the office to say, of course, my drug test was good and I could start work the following morning. HOWEVER. They would need me to go to the Little Rock office for training Wednesday morning. So I worked all day March 17 and drove back to Little Rock that night. I was there Wednesday and Thursday. And I had to be back in our local office Friday morning. It was a whirlwind to say the least.

During all of that, my running suffered. I didn’t want to get too far off track, so I joined a gym close to the office. I ran every day during lunch last week, only taking Friday off.

Friday was packet pickup for the half marathon. Because I was doing the relay, I really only had about 6.5 miles to do. But I was doing the first leg and I didn’t want to be so slow that my teammate didn’t have time to finish. But you can only worry about it so much.

I had to be in the corral by 6:45, so Justin dropped me off around 6:20 yesterday morning, about two blocks away from the start line. I was worried about being there early and needing to pee a thousand times, so I didn’t drink more than a swallow before we left the house. Don’t be like me, friends. Justin had packed some drinks for me (what a guy!), so I was able to get a swig of Powerade before he dropped me off. I ended up in line at the porta potty anyway.

Then it was time to line up — I went as far to the back as I could. The sun wasn’t really up yet and it was drizzling. The gun went off at exactly 7 a.m. and we took off. The route went down a hill and up a hill before turning right, and when I was going downhill and saw the other runners — an absolute sea of them — I started crying.

Not even six months ago, I showed up for my first training run for the 5k. We ran two minutes that night. Two minutes, that’s all. My heart rate shot up to 210, I got a side stitch, and it still ranks as #1 on my list of Worst Runs Ever. Six months ago, running two minutes was a long time and it was difficult. And yet there I was yesterday, right in the middle of a half marathon.

Before the race started, I posted a picture of the start line on Facebook. “It’s kind of amazing I made it this far.”

I made it to the start line of a half marathon. The rest would be a piece of cake.

I’d told Lauren I was shooting for 6.5 miles in 95 minutes. I could see Lauren and Justin waiting for me at the relay exchange when I was still about a quarter-mile away. We all started cheering. Lauren came out to cross my finish line with me, which was her starting line, and she was off. I finished in 99 minutes. Slow, maybe. But definitely happy.

I knew I would need to do a little bit of a recovery run today, but I was so sore I couldn’t even imagine it. I finally just made myself go outside and run a little. And no wonder a recovery run is a thing! I walked mostly, but it really helped ease some of that stiffness, especially in my glutes.

So the next race is a 5k and the one after that is a 2-mile run. It’s funny how doable and EASY that seems now.