Saturday I walked the Geist Half Marathon with my friend, Amy. If you have known me for very long, you know that I generally try to avoid exercise if at all possible. The last couple years that Evan and I lived in Yorkshire we did a lot of hiking, and I was actually in pretty good shape. But, I didn’t really consider that exericse because we walked at an easy pace, stopped to take lots of pictures, and usually took along a picnic lunch.
When you are participating in a race, there is no such thing as stopping to look at the scenery. However, we did finish the race, much to Amy’s credit, because around mile 9 or 10, I would have just let the bus pick me up. At one point, I was praying that it would start thundering because then the race would be cancelled. But, Amy wouldn’t let me give up, so we kept going.
Around mile 10, we both had to use the bathroom and the combination of stopping to go to the bathroom and the hill from mile 8-9 slowing us down, the bus at the end of the race was catching up to us. We heard the volunteers that were the end of the race, telling people if they got behind them, they would have to drop out of the race and get on the bus. Somehow that was all the nudge that I needed and Amy and I jogged the next few minutes to get well ahead of the bus.
I realised it is one thing to want to give up and quite another to be told you have to quit. There was NO WAY I was going to be forced to quit. At the time I told Amy that I would fight those volunteers before I let them pass me and make me get on the bus. After that point, Amy and I picked up our pace quite a bit and jogged a good portion of the last 2 miles.
Saturday my knee hurt. Sunday my butt and thighs were sore. Today I noticed that my big toe and ankle hurt. Maybe tomorrow I will be back to normal.
