This weekend marks my two year run-racing anniversary. Two years ago, I took a last minute plunge - after only two months of running - in buying a 30k race bib from an injured runner. Toeing the line at Around the Bay 30K in Hamilton, ON, I was uncertain whether I'd be able to finish because the longest I had ever ran was 18k. My memory of the actual race is a blur. I remember running with my friend, Christine the whole way and somehow after 3+ hours I finished. I remember crossing the finish line in Copps Coliseum, a volunteer putting a medal on me, and sitting on the floor never felt so good. We sat there for a long, long time. Since then I've done marathons and 50ks but I'll never forget how I felt finishing my first 30k. It's only truly exhilarating when you finish something without knowing that you can. I miss that. DNF are three daunting letters that impede me from even trying sometimes. This weekend, I am flying home to run the ATB again. Words cannot explain how stoked I am to run the race and to run it with my friends who got me hooked in the first place.
I probably wouldn't admit how stressed I was the whole week leading up to Highlands Sky 40. Now that it's over, I realized I was partly in denial and partly rationalizing it as healthy nervousness. A 40-mile race is long for me. It's technical. And I pulled my lat muscle carrying a handheld bottle a week before the race. I am out of my comfort zone. At the start As everything in this world that is governed by time, the race is bound to happen like an unstoppable incoming train. A line from Bridges of Spies came to mind the evening before the race. When his lawyer James Donovan observes the alleged Russian Spy Rudolf Abel doesn't seem a bit nervous about his pending trial, he asks him about it and to which Abel responds: "Is it going to help?" Of the many things that I am concerned about the race, weather isn't one of them. We start the race in cool mountain temperature and I find myself nestle in the crowd, just going with the flow. There are dist...
Comments
Post a Comment