Just Another Morning Run

Last week, I emailed Dad to see if he was interested in running a half marathon with me. His response? "Well, I just ran 21 miles today, and I'm supposed to run 14 on Saturday, but I suppose I could be talked into a half marathon."

Saturday morning dawned beautiful and hot (but it's a dry heat?) as Pops and I gathered our things together and headed south on I-15 toward Alpine. At 5:30 a.m. It was my big debut - Holly's First Half Marathon Since the Baby - a chance to check off with satisfaction that sign on my bathroom mirror that says "Target Fitness Level: Half Marathoner". I was nervous, to be sure. My longest run in almost two years was 8 miles, and I only did that last Saturday. I thought for sure it would be an ugly couple of hours.

We arrived at a middle school in lovely Alpine, gathered our race packets, and checked out the course map. Uh-oh. Looks like it's mostly going to be uphill, we realized. Too late - we'd already paid and roused ourselves and an unearthly hour, so there was no going back. At 7:00 a.m. sharp, the national anthem sung, we took off into the bright sun. Around the local neighborhood, and then up the hillside. So how was the race? Was the course pretty? Sure. Were the mountains beautiful? Of course. Did they have hydration stations with Gatorade, water, and Gu just about every mile? Yes. But the Word of the Day was definitely BRUTAL. I think with an exclamation point or two. BRUTAL! For about the first mile, Dad and I ran together while he told me the story of Katherine Schweitzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon when it was widely believed that women were physically incapable of running 26 miles. Then he sauntered ahead of me a bit. For another couple of miles, I was still eating his dust, watching his white cap bob up and down as he ran a few minutes ahead of me. After about mile three, I lost sight of him completely. Oh, until about mile seven, when the race course turned back around, and we passed each other. When the course made a loop again between mile 8 and 9, we again passed each other, and he yelled out as he ran confidently on, "Brutal course, yes?" Yes, I huffed back. At mile 10, still without any shade as the temperature rose and rose (one of the race organizers told me it was the hottest day of the year so far and would certainly hit 100 degrees before the day was done - perfect) we crested what definitely counted as this race's Heartbreak Hill and started the last (mostly) downhill stretch back (still without shade).

It was a small race, without crowds of people crossing the finish line at once. So as I ran across the line, the announcer proclaimed, "Holly Lesan from Loveland, Ohio, just finishing! Welcome back, Holly!" And the crowded cheered. I looked around for Dad and found him casually eating a banana, looking quite rested. He'd beat me by a full 14 minutes. We stretched. We talked about the tough points, about Heartbreak Hill. I walked it, I told him. Yes, I wanted to, he responded, but I was determined to not walk a step of the way. Oh, I huffed and puffed. Then he says, "Yes, it was a pretty brutal course. But I needed to run 14 miles today to keep on my marathon training schedule, so I ran another mile after I crossed the finish line." Oh, really. Then we got our time cards. "Oh, look!" Dad smiled, "I won third place in my age group!" So we stayed for the medal ceremony and I cheered as Dad took his place and had his picture taken. Then we took shelter in the shade of the Jeep Cherokee and drove ourselves home.

The final results? Dad came in at 2:13 and I came in at 2:28. And here's the part where we can wax philosophical about the mental state of a run, and how your mind keeps your body going, and how your body keeps your mind going, and all the reflections and decisions you make along the way. For myself, I composed the bulk of this blog between miles 8.5 and 11, and that kept me pretty well occupied. All in all, it was quite a triumphant morning.