Constantly Learning

Saturday, October 25 was my third half marathon. The first, at Tybee Island, GA last year, was fraught with physical limitations due to severe shin splints. The second was a wretched in a nearby town that went along the interstate and I could not wait until it ended. Going into the Spinx RunFest, I felt stronger than ever thanks to my fabulous Team Tiara training group. We met up at the County offices near the baseball stadium, where the race would start, at 7am. It was dark, cool and wet. The forecast anticipated that the rain would move off before the start, but it was not meant to be. The 12 of us who had trained were excited, many of whom were experiencing their first half or full marathons. We would all run in our pimped out tiaras, begging for attention and hoping through that to spread the word about Girls on the Run. We moved our way to the Start Line and I already began to have self doubt. You see, the night before the race, I had made a fatal mistake...

I checked my email right before I went to bed and lo and behold, my LSAT score came in at 9:35 pm. I almost decided to wait and open it after the race on Saturday, but knew that I would not be able to stand it. So, I called Jeff over to the couch and we opened it. I could not believe my eyes and thought that my LASIK had suddenly worn off because I could not be reading it correctly. I actually dropped 4 points. WHAT??! I had studied and done many exercises and felt that I had it under control. I was absolutely devastated and did what any self-respecting girl would do - retreated to the bathtub where I could cry in private. I beat myself up for most of the night and sleep was not easy to come by. While I didn't cry myself to sleep, I certainly hurt as if I did.

As I lined up at the Start, the score resounded in my mind. I pushed it hard and tried to put all my focus on the task at hand - running 13.1 miles. Thankfully, I had Christina to run with for awhile. As each mile ticked off, I peeked at my Garmin - another thing that I promised myself I would not do. I knew early on that I was going out too fast. At mile 5, I started to feel it. I had problems earlier in the week with my abdomen and what potentially could be another hernia and the pain was coming back. I slowed down and told Christina to go ahead. I was able to catch up with her after a brief walk and we ran together for a bit more. Then, it felt as if my whole midsection seized up. It was cramps, it was a burning, searing pain into my ribcage. Every breath I took hurt more. So, I walked for awhile. I could see Jeff up ahead and see that he was walking too. The more I walked, the more frustrated I got. I was frustrated with myself for scoring lower on my test; frustrated that I could not push past the pain; and frustrated that I couldn't get it together mentally. I would promise myself at the next corner, I would run again and no more walking. But, then I would just stop running. Saturday just wasn't my day mentally. I know that running is 25% physical and 75% mental and everyone has bad runs. I just hate that my bad run came on race day when I was so prepared. At Mile 11, I caught up with Jeff and we slogged through the remainder of the race together. We are both disappointed with our times and the race results, but we got to run into Fluor Field together, go around the warning track, and cross the finish line together.

I have learned so much from my Team Tiara group. I made friends that I will cherish forever. And I know that my next half at Kiawah in December I will still be well trained and I'm certainly not opening any emails the day before!