The Motivator

I awoke at two this morning from a dream that felt it needed subtitles and laid in bed for about the next three hours.  I have never felt so anxious about a race.

Maybe that's because there was literally no time to plan this one.  My friend Julie asked me if I would join her the following morning for her first 5K and stay with her as a 'motivator.'  I don't say 'no' very often, so at 7 a.m. we took off from the starting line.

I had felt some concern about an ankle injury dating to a car accident over six months ago.  But I've been in physical therapy, they've had me jogging on a treadmill for a brief but grateful five minutes the last two sessions, and I'm finished feeling like some kind of victim trapped in my own limitations!

It was my first race in an entire year.  The last one was the Ogden Half Marathon, and now I was doing the Ogden 5K, all part of the same annual race.  I have not run regularly since my accident, and a few months ago I was feeling doubts about whether I would ever be a runner again.

Not so!

There may not have been much running as I stuck by Julie's side today, but the running that did happen was easy and natural, and I could feel from my head to my toes that my body is ready for more.  Julie wanted to do a run/walk plan, and it may have taken her fifty minutes, but she still shaved ten minutes off the time she expected.  She felt so afraid of being dead last, but there were still plenty of people behind her.  An older lady walking next to us told us she did a full marathon which took . . . eleven hours.  I can't imagine doing an eleven-hour marathon, but this year she will earn her hundredth finisher's medal.

By the last few blocks of Julie's race, her perpetually cheerful face became grave as she used the last of her energy to run across the finish line.  I held her hand to push her in that last stretch.  She has wanted to do a 5K for about the last three years, and feared that she would be surrounded by tall, skinny bodies running six-minute-miles as she puttered in dead-last.  By trying today instead of defauting to her fear, she discovered there is no need to hold onto this mental image; she does not need me to run by her side because she has plenty of people who run not to win the race, but to conquer something within themselves.

As for me, I have never seen a race from this perspective.  It makes me realize, without a doubt, I'll be back to half marathons (and one day, even another full).  It doesn't matter if I get slowed down, because this is who I am.  I am a runner.  Even if I had been paralyzed in my car accident, the fighter in me would know it would not be time to stop; it would just be a transition from shoes to wheels.  The fear of reinjuring myself or limping later during the day was my own illusion that no longer has any strength.

A half marathon is definitely in my future.