The Battle Within

As far as battlefields go, I think I'd take this view over most in a heartbeat.

This was the race starting line.  Tough view, eh?  The website boasted that the Sedona Marathon was voted in the Top 10 Marathons in the U.S. because of its incredible views, hills and weather.  Having now spent a weekend there and been a part of the race grandeur (although I ran the half marathon),  I think the accolades are much deserved. And this picture hardly does the course justice. The entire race was along hilly, winding roads carved between magestic red rock mountains on all sides.  Truly, it was just amazing.  I wish I could have mustered the strength to pull out my iphone video camera for longer stretches on the course.  I only took about 20 seconds of video at mile 7.5, and I must admit it's pretty funny to watch.  I'm huffing and puffing like no other.

We drove the course on Friday afternoon after we got into town, and I am so glad we did.  It's always great having a good mental picture of the fight before you go into battle :)  We stopped alongside the road right at the turnaround point and took this pic.

Here we are Saturday morning a few minutes before race time.  As always, I had a few pre-race jitters - the good kind of jitters - the ones that pump you up and get you excited to do something hard even though your mind is telling you that you just might be a little nuts.  It was super chilly out (in high 30's) when we left our hotel and started walking the short half mile to the race start. Ryan was trying to decide if he was going to take a run while I was out, run as a bandit in the course, or just sign up for the 5k.  I'm glad he opted for the latter and came home with his own hardware and cool shirt.

Quick shot of the corral pre-race.  I'm the small head dab smack in the middle of this photo, although I'm sure no one else can see me. 

Put your hands in the air!  The countdown is on! My friend, Robyn, is the one in blue next to me, although she got some kind of crazy back pains and bad nausea at mile 1.5 and dropped out.  Too bad!  She had really trained hard for this and even came up for a 10-mile practice run on the course two weeks earlier.  But she has another half marathon in two weeks and then another 2 weeks later, so she decided to listen to her body and take it easy.

This picture makes me happy.  That's just how I felt, too.  Really, really happy.  Happy to be in the gorgeous country, happy to be with my husband, happy to be chalking up another cool life experience, happy to be alive.  And then we started to run...

Like I said, I wish I had pics from the race itself.  But at least I have my mental pics.  I spent a lot of time with my nose to the ground, bearing down on the hills.  I laughed as I uploaded my race stats from my Garmin watch to my computer and looked at the elevation change.  1,344 feet.  It only confirmed what my quads and my lungs already knew to be true:  this race had crazy long hills.  They sort of made my training runs on Old Lehi Road going down to the Orange Patch look like speed bumps.  But when you live and train in flat 1200 feet-above-sea-level Mesa, the Lehi Road hills and canal hills and McDowell road hills really are hills.  I guess it's all relative. Perhaps if I lived and trained in Colorado or Utah or some other mountainous region, I might have been more prepared. Or maybe I should have gone out further east and run around by Las Sendas.

But that's OK.  We always have room to improve and new things to try.  I was so happy when I finished.  Happy, again, after 1:58:29 of a lot of unhappy.  Sure, there were stretches along the course with beautiful downhills where I thought I was on top of the world. Stretches where my legs were in full flight and were carrying me down the hills like the wind.  I felt amazing then, as I soaked in the views and cold air and felt like a gazelle.  But mostly, honestly, I was just fighting the battle within.

I have often said, very often in fact, that it's good to do hard things.  I believe that with all my heart.  It's good to push ourselves beyond our comfort zones, good to set new goals and work a little harder to be a little better.  Good to do things that make us sweat and nearly hurl and almost cry, and then let us smile and laugh about it hours later and get excited to do it all over again.  Funny how that works.  On my 20-second video clip at mile 7.5 of 13.1, this is what I said (through much shortness of breath: "So here I am...running...dying...so beautiful out here though. I'm gonna make it I think. I'm at 7 1/2 miles.  It's the hardest thing I've ever done.  No doubt about it.  But I gotta keep running.  Bye."

The night before, while we were sitting at dinner with our friends talking about running and the upcoming Rim to Rim and everything else, I said, "You know, I've been thinking about something for a while now.  Up to this point in my life, the Rim 2 Rim has been the hardest physical thing I've ever done.  I wonder if, after the race tomorrow, I'll still think that's true."  We all chuckled a little, but I thought about that on the course.  When I finally crossed the finish line and realized that I had finished the insanity in under two hours, I was so happy.  Ryan met me at the cool down area and asked how it was.  My reply:  "It was harder than the Rim to Rim for sure.  Not even close."  Now, I don't know if that was the immediate gut reaction of a tired 40-year old girl who had only been in recovery for 2 minutes, but now, two days later, I can still firmly say that it's my new hardest thing.  I've said a gazillion times that running is so mental, but never before have I felt that to be more true.  When our minds tell us to stop, that we can't do this, that this hill is too big, that we can't run any more, our bodies know better and tell us to keep fighting.  Keep pushing.  And then there's always my best imaginary blue fish friend, Dory, singing her favortie song to me when I need it most..."Just keep running, just keep running, just keep running, running, running..."  What would I do without Dory?

Crossing the half marthon finish line (with the lovely ladies finishing their 5k walk next to me)



Even though it was my slowest half marathon ever, I was just so happy to be done and happy to finish under two hours.  Can't you just tell from that look on my face?

See, smiling again.  Just a couple minutes later.  We rebound so quickly :)

Man, I love this guy!  I love that he's there to support me always and that he makes me feel beautiful and amazing all the time.

Here we are, sporting our hardware.  The medals are pie-shaped pieces, designed to be 1/4 of a full pie.  The idea being that if you run four years in a row, you'll complete your pie.  I think I might just do that!

And alas, the fudge shop pic.  We found this place on Friday when we were cruising through Old Town Sedona.  It smelled like a little bit of heaven (and tasted like it too), so we had to frequent the joint once more on our way out of town on Saturday.

We had a great weekend in Red Rock Country.  I'm already looking forward to going back next year, although I think I will train a little differently next time.  More hills.  A lot more hills.

Race Stats:

13.1 miles
Average race elevation: 4442 feet (per Garmin)
1,344 feet of elevation gain
1:58:29 final time
Finished 10/52 in my age group (F40-44)
Finished 63/384 total women
Finished 138/586 total runners