Anyone who tells you that running is a solo sport has never
been a mother runner.
Sure you can compete with yourself, trying to best your PR,
push your body to its limits. But when
you start running, 16, 18, 20, 26.2 miles it’s definitely a team effort. I donned our traveling skirt on Sunday with
the intention of seeing how far it could go.
I wanted to test it in a race to make sure it could go the distance,
handle running (and walking), port-a-potties, Spi belts, sweat, sand and maybe
a little Yeungling. But as cliché as it
sounds, just like the pants in the story, the journey became much less about me
and this skirt, and much more about the team effort that it took to get me
through this marathon.
Let’s be honest, my training leading up to this race was
less than ideal. Every long run I did
was in sub 40 degree temps. I had run through
stomach viruses, a touch of the flu, way too early in the morning, missing my
daughter’s cheerleading, and pushing my boys through umpteen miles in too
frigid and too rainy weather. My family
had paid the price. My boys started to
hate the stroller; my poor husband desperately tried to hold it together on
Saturday mornings. My body was starting
to remind me that this whole thing is a little nuts. For Shamrock Sportsfest weekend I was tasked
with working the expo for Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Well, it’s my job. But 2 days of
10+ hours of standing, plus set up and break down? Not an ideal environment to create fresh race
legs. On the plus side I had no time to
stress about race day. In fact I barely
had time to think at all the week leading up to the marathon.
So when race morning dawned (well I think the sun was there
somewhere) I met it with a slight bit of foreboding. What if it rained? What if I ended up by myself? What if my ACLs just said “Nope; we
quit!”? I ate my breakfast dressed,
snapped on my skirt, hopped in the car with my already animated family and rode
the 15 minutes to the Oceanfront. Kristy
and Kathleen were waiting for me, right where we had set, but 15 minutes later
than I said I would be there. They were
shivering, but they were there. I think
that’s when the perma-smile got stuck on my face.
We took a few pictures, agonized over what layers to shed
and which to keep, decided to all stick together in corral three, tried to
figure out where our husbands would be, searched for a flag for the National
Anthem, and then took off down Atlantic.
We trotted along at a sub 10 min pace, a little too fast for Kathleen
and I, but right on Kristy’s target so we stuck with her. We talked about random women/mom stuff, made
people around us laugh out loud and started having “Christian” spottings. Kristy’s husband was on his bike trying to
get his mileage in and cheering her along the way. He cheered us on too and took a few
pictures. My plan was to run 8 and then
walk 1, but at mile 9 we were still going at around 9:45 pace. I had no inkling of fatigue, no stiff limbs,
but my mind told me I was nuts if I thought I could keep this up for 18 more
miles. So I swallowed my pride and told
Kathleen and Kristy I would stop at the next bathroom stop and to have a great
rest of their race. Kathleen said she
would stop too, I sighed with relief. My
biggest fear for this race was having to run most of it by myself. I’m a social runner, no amount of songs on a
playlists or podcast can get me through miles as much as chatting with a
friend. We bid Kristy farewell around
mile 10 (she went on to have an awesome race), walked about ½ a mile, took off
running again and then fell into a rhythm.
We ran into some half-marathon ladies with their fabulous
sign and cheering it was a nice way to keep the tide rolling. My husband bought me sustenance in the form
of a home-made protein bar at around 14 miles.
We stopped for a picture. We
watched the first of the marathoners and the last of the ½ marathoners pass us
by on the other side of Atlantic. We
smiled and waved to the people out partying on that cold and dreary Sunday
morning, passing out green beers to racers.
We turned left in front of Fort Story and then hit No Man’s Land.
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| Kathleen and I on Shore Drive - around mile 16 - still smiling! |
Honestly, Shore Drive/Fort Story in March might be the most
dismal portion of a race course I have ever seen. My voice echoed; people were turning
around. Every other person was stopping
to stretch out something or other. This
was the portion of the race that my husband had told me to not look
around. There’s no one cheering, no one
smiling and you feel slightly lost. We
got on the base and it was more of the same.
Windswept dunes, dreary buildings with no windows. Even some of the Army people we were running
with, who worked on the base, didn’t know where we were. They really should do the race in the other
order, get this boring portion out of the way at the start, not miles 16-22
when people are beginning to struggle. The entire time Kathleen and I kept up a banter
of stories, trying to figure out how we got some of the random songs on our
playlist that we had, signing badly and loudly, and trying not to talk about
our aches and pains. We ran into both of
our husbands on Shore Drive. Mine
snapped some pictures. Somehow Kathleen’s
husband had made a sign with art supplies he found in their car. We kept smiling. I choked down a Gu on the base (I hate that
stuff). But it’s a good thing I did
because I perked up and my vision got clearer; I hadn’t even realized that I
had started to zone out. We had been
trailing a woman pushing a double Bob for a few miles and when she pulled off
to the side and stopped we offered to push for her for a while. She smiled and said she was fine, she was just checking her little girl’s blood sugar. She
only has one child; I met her later at Starbucks. Turns out the extra seat was
for her daughter’s toys, supplies and medical equipment. Now that’s one BAMR!
The soldiers and boys scouts cheered us on the best they
could. They handed out jelly beans and
bananas. They were cold and wet, but
still cheerful. We bid farewell to Fort
Story and took off down Atlantic. One of
the Fleet Feet employees was running along with one of their customers and
video tapping random portions. We
discussed shoes with her. Kathleen
grabbed a green beer. But the miles were
starting to take their toll. Our
conversations were less about funny stories and more about what ached and what
we were going to do when we finished.
Just over a 5K left and we notice this remarkably familiar women running
towards us. Rachel, who for all I knew
was not even in the state that day, was like some ponytailed running angel sent
by God to get us, or at least me, over a bad spot. I’m not even exaggerating. I was just thinking those last 3 miles were
going to be the longest of my life and that I would have to tell Kathleen to go
ahead without me when she showed up – to tell us Kristy had finished strong,
our friends were just around the corner, the end was near…in a good way. And they were there – Patti, Shawna, Maggie, half-marathoners
who had finished HOURS earlier and had stuck around; Amy, who hadn’t even run
because of injury, but came down to cheer us on. “Why are y’all still here?” I wondered.
“To cheer you on,” they replied matter-of-factly. Oh yes, because it is completely normal for
people to wait around 3+ hours in the freezing cold and mist after they have
run 13.1 miles to help their friends who are running 26.2 finish.
Well it is for this group.
Then the boardwalk – one last gust of wind in the face to
wake me up and then a push at the back.
Kathleen and I posed one last time for the camera - hands raised
overhead in triumph before we crossed the finish. We found our families and stumbled off to get
warm. It wasn’t that the end was
anti-climactic. But the journey was so
much more important. At no point during
this race could I have done this by myself.
I needed the encouragement, the extra hands, the new ideas, the pacers,
the people I needed to give a hand to.
I took our Traveling Skirt through its first marathon. I didn’t even notice its presence, but it was
there every step of the way. Just like
my race crew had been through this whole training process and race day.
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| Marathon Momma |
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