I ran the Three Eagle 5K this past weekend. I say this in context because it has been a long journey. Sometimes you are sitting at the bottom and you don’t even want to try getting up again. But slowly, and surely, something still stirred within me. The desire to push my limits to see what I am capable of – never died when I was sitting at the bottom. It makes every climb back up all the more victorious though.
We started off too fast of course, and I told our young starling of a runner so. At that point, our male state athlete was long gone ahead of us, and there was only one gentleman still ahead of us. A lady then pulled up beside us and I realized that at that point we had (naturally) fallen off our pace to being too slow. I picked it up and left everyone with me behind. I was racing the clock at that point anyway. Glancing up, the trail was the most beautiful tunnel of fall colors. I watched my pace and tried to push. After the final turn, I knew I would not break 20 minutes on that day, but I was very close to my PR time. With a final push, I came in with a 1 second PR of 20:13, and ended up being the 1st female overall, and 2nd overall finisher. It was worth the risk. And somehow, 5.5 years and 2 more kids later, I am just as fast as I once was. I didn’t break 20 minutes, but I gained a lot – a renewed belief in myself, and hunger to see what else I’ve got in me.
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