That's me, way over on the right with my foot going out of frame. I sacrificed a fair amount of warmth to sport some Team in Training Gear and have my number out prominently during this race, and this is the treatment I get from Brightroom. Hmph.
So there's no photographic proof, but there is proof in the form of numbers. And those numbers show I kicked some major ass in this race. Five miles in 43:40. What those numbers don't show you, and only my new watch (Timex Ironman, a Christmas present from my wonderful dad) showed me, was that I ran negative splits the whole way - and finished with a 7:46 final mile. Kick. Ass.
Did I mention it was about 20 degrees, less with the windchill, at the start? It was cold. Very, very cold. I had to talk to a friend for a few miles just to keep my face from going numb. However, my best races tend to happen in weather like this - I fade quickly in heat.
I started this blog last year with the goal of becoming a runner, as opposed to someone who signed up to do a half marathon and felt compelled to follow through. In the last year I ran a marathon, two half marathons and qualified for the 2010 New York City Marathon by running nine New York Road Runners qualifying races and volunteering at a 10th - another goal I set out to chronicle here. Running my marathon was really hard. I didn't love all of those qualifying races. But I did become a runner. I go out for runs now and it's no longer a struggle. It's become something I have to do, a part of me. I was away from the city over the holidays for three weeks, and while I was gone I made an effort to run regularly, in places both familiar and un-. I found a playground that time forgot near my grandmother's house and discovered that hill training pays off when running in my parents' neighborhood (at one point I found myself running perpendicular to a hill).
Team in Training reeled me in again this year. I signed up to run the Long Branch Half Marathon in New Jersey on May 2 with them, as a way of beginning my training for NYC. They asked me to serve as a mentor captain, which was an honor, and I'm enjoying the challenge of keeping my fellow mentors plugged in. I'll probably follow this season with the fall one and train with them for NYC. There's not enough space on this blog to talk in detail about how much the TNT family has given me, but suffice it to say I owe them a lot more than my fitness, and a lot more than I would likely fundraise even if I participated in every season for the rest of my running-able life.
2009 was one of the most difficult years of my life, personally. I dealt with a salary cut and layoffs at work, lost my grandmother, miscarried twice, struggled with a lot of Deep Thoughts and overall spent the year wondering what, exactly, I had done to deserve such a karmic blow. It was a year of loss. Running kept me sane (well, that's a questionable word - perhaps "balanced" is better) through it all. Remembering that I set goals to improve my speed, my times, my race performances and to qualify for that marathon kept me going. I owe many people - coaches, running partners, friends and family - lots of thanks for getting me through, and here's to a better 2010.
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