I won!

I did it!  Start to finish!  I trained to run a 5K and I did it!  I was so nervous all week long.  I had thought about not going, even going so far as to secretely hope I would catch my children's fever, but I remained healthy, and I told myself I couldn't let my friend I was running with down.  The reality was that I couldn't let myself down.  I woke up on Race Day and I was all in!  No doubts, no nervousness, just excited and ready to go!  My running friend noticed and commented on how she couldn't believe how calm I was.

"Whether you think you can, or you think you cannot, you are right!"  I think that is an old Henry Ford quote.  I try to give credit where credit is due, but there are so many versions.  This was the quote running through my mind on Race Day.  I hate to admit it, but about 1/10 of a mile into the race, I thought, "I can't do this!  Am I crazy?  I should just turn around and walk back now.  There is no way I can make it 3.1 miles."  But then I looked up, and I saw all these people, different shapes, sizes, ages, and I felt the energy and the excitement around me and thought, "Wow! I am a part of this!"  It was then that I knew I could do this, that I would do this, and I did.

When I turned the corner towards this finish line, with the song "I made it" playing in my ears, I saw my boys holding their "GO MOM!" signs, my boyfriend waving behind them, and my heard my sister cheering for me, I wanted to stop and hug them all, but instead my face broke out into a smile that remained there for the rest of the day.  It wasn't until I was ten steps from the finish line that I remembered my friend saying, "When you turn that corner at the end, you have nothing to lose, give it all you have to the finish line."  I gave about five fast strides and it was all over.  I finished in 34:09.  Averaging 11 minutes a mile, 1-minute faster per mile than normal.  The farthest I have ever ran in my life.  I was finisher number 3,000 and something, but I WON!  I won.  I did what I set out to do.  I ran that race.  I accomplished what I thought was nearly impossible for me to accomplish.

I made it to my pre-teens Facebook status; He wished me luck and said he was proud of me.  If you have a pre-teen, you know that is huge.  My middle son told me over and over again how proud he was of me, that he loved me, that I did great.  My boyfriend told me many times that I did good and "looked good doing it."  I got a hug from my sister at the finish line.  High fives and hugs from my running friend who proudly beat her last year's time by 4 seconds.  My dad bragged about me at work.  My best friend and brother texted me to wish me luck.  Even though I really hadn't let on or let anyone know how important this was to me, everyone seemed to grasp what it meant to me.

I couldn't sleep all night.  I finally had that runner's high.  At the end of the day, the only thing that hurt was my face from smiling so much.  Four days later, whenever I think about it, I still break out in an ear-to-ear grin. 

"The miracle is not that I finished.  The miracle is that I had the courage to start."  John Bingham