Brian and Libby's Blog

I did it!

It's true, I did! And I didn't even come in last place, I came in 832nd out of 1394 women who ran. So it was just as I'd expected...slightly below average :) I couldn't be more pleased! In fact, I beat my time by almost a minute. And coming in within a few seconds of me were the two lovely ladies pictured above. Although they are both much faster than me and have been running much longer, they stayed with me the whole way, encouraging me as I went.

I kept telling them to run ahead, and they just said "we started together, we'll finish together!" Actually, I was out of breath and unable to speak, so I would just kind of gesture to them to go ahead, and they would momentarily stop the conversation they had been in for the last mile to give me big smiles and tell me how well I was doing. How do you talk and run at the same time? This is beyond me. Regardless of that, I am extremely appreciative that they stayed with me and cheered me on to accomplish my goal. I am also appreciative that they ate egg sandwiches and drank coffee with me after I accomplished my goal.

They weren't the only encouragers I encountered though. There were people along the way yelling to us as we went by "come on, the hill is almost over, one more mile, you're almost done, you're doing great." It was pretty cool, and it made me feel like a real runner. Since we were running through Washington Park, there were people looking down from their second floor apartments clapping and cheering. I keep telling myself this was a nice gesture even though in the back of my head I was thinking "easy for you to cheer, you're still in your pajamas drinking a cup of coffee and watching That's So Raven."

So anyways, I think I have caught some sort of runner's bug because I have had to force myself to stop and think about the fact that I accomplished this personal goal I made (which was really a stretch for me), but have found myself continuously thinking about keeping up with the training and beating my time when I run in my next race in less than 2 weeks. I must beat my time! I must keep running! Yup, I have the bug.

posted by Libby @ 12:01 PM