My poor abandoned blog...I used to be so good about writing and updating, getting things off my chest, etc. But, life is wonderfully busy and I just don't find the time to write like I used to.
On Saturday, I will be running my 3rd marathon. A friend of mine wanted to run her first one this April, and I said I'd run this one with her if she'd run the marathon with me in October. A deal was struck and here I am, only a couple days away from running another marathon. It's been quite the change, having a training partner. I'm not a fan of running in the cold, but she will run in any kind of cold weather, so I got out and ran even when I didn't want to. I think it's going to make a big difference. We've trained well, I felt great on our 20 mile run. We aren't fast...her goal is just to finish and I'm going to run her pace. In October, we hope to increase our speed and run the marathon at an average 10 min mile pace. Right now we run about an 11+ minute mile. I'm perfectly fine with that though! We are planning on doing something to commemorate the bombing victims in Boston. The marathon will have black ribbons we can buy to wear on our bib number or clothes, and I plan on decorating a shirt somehow, in the Boston marathon colors blue and yellow. Its such a small gesture, considering all that was lost that day, but I want to do something. It seems silly to say, but it hit close to home...Martin Richard was 8 years old, there with his family to cheer his dad on in the race. My daughter is 8, my oldest is 9. This is the first marathon they will get to see because it's much smaller than the one in October. They will all be there, to cheer me on at the finish line. Before they caught the second suspect, I was gearing up for a short run, and my oldest came in to talk to me. We talked a little about what happened. I was curious to hear what he knew, what they had talked about in school...and I wondered if he was scared. I asked him if he was excited like he was about seeing me run the marathon. He said "Yes and no. I'm afraid something bad is going to happen to you". That broke my heart. We had a little talk about how I wasn't scared, how they would catch the people who did it, and how I will be safe thanks to the security at the marathon. I told him he would be safe, too, and that if he was scared, he didn't have to go. He said he wanted to still go. So I think Husband is going to try to catch me at a spot before the finish so my oldest can see that I'm OK. And if they are scared to be at the finish line, Husband will stand back at like mile 25, or the kids can just hang out at my parents house. Whatever the kids want to do. I'm excited, nervous, and ready.
We run. Not out of fear, but out of freedom. We run.
