October 8, 2012-My First Quarter Marathon…

     When I was in high school, I ran Cross Country and a little track, mostly hurdles.  Our Cross Country meets mainly consisted of 2 miles runs every weekend through a wooded area around my hometown in Alabama during the season.  Two to three miles is good by me.  I can do that, even now, but more than that, I’m not usually that interested in.  I know people on the island who run marathons and talk about regularly running 20 miles around our 3 mile long, ½ mile wide piece of coral, and I cannot imagine that, and I will probably never achieve such a distance in my own running experiences. I admire those who do, and I have always enjoying running to a certain extent, just not that extent. J  At any rate, until today, I have never run farther than a 5 K, which is 3.1miles, and that was when I was in high school, and my running buddies and I entered the Monte Sano Mountain 5 K run up one of our local “hills,” as nothing in the valley where I grew up is tall enough to be considered an actual mountain. Today, I ran (and I use the term ran very, very loosely-it’s more like using the running motion, but only going the pace of a brisk walker) 6.52 miles in the Columbus Day Runabout ¼ Marathon. You could also choose a length of a ½ marathon (13.2 miles), but I thought for me, that might be a bit much (ha, like I could even survive that at this point in my life).  Anyway, I decided to start out in a jog and figured when I got tired, I would stop running and walk until I felt like running again. I knew I could easily jog ½ the distance, but never thought I would job the entire 6+ miles.  My oldest son helped out with the water stations as part of his Boy Scout troop, and at some point, I decided that I’ve run this far, I might as well at least run until I reach the 2^nd and last water station where my son was waiting with a cold cup of water for me…then maybe I’d walk the rest of the way. Well, the second water station was right about the 5-mile mark, so why stop at all now!  I basically finished last behind the 2 men who were walking/jogging the entire race in front of me, and beating the times only of the other ladies in our age category who walked the entire race, but that’s okay. I am proud to have finished it, and to even be able to do it at all cold turkey like that. I didn’t train for it, and really haven’t even been able to make time to go out an run regularly lately, so it was an accomplishment for me, and maybe it will even motivate me to get out there more often and do so physical training, so I can improve upon my time next year, that is if my first ¼ marathon doesn’t also end up being my last. J