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Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Embracing the Silence

This weekend I ran my fourth half marathon. Life right now feels like a continual state of running a marathon so I thought I might as well get a medal out of it. 


We started the weekend by attending the wedding of one of Nathanial's good friends. It was at a beautiful ranch so we got to spend a few days hanging out with guys from Nathanial's childhood and enjoying the outdoors. There was a lot of laughter and not much sleep. 



Once the bride and groom made their exit, we started our trek to Oklahoma. We drove through the night which involved lots of singing and Diet Coke. 

We got in a few hours of sleep and then headed off to the race. It was a brisk morning for the Oklahomans but I was in heaven with the cooler weather. 

I noticed before the race started that my music didn't seem to be playing correctly. I didn't give it much thought since the event was pumping in loud music at the start line.  But when the gun went off and I could only hear the background track, I knew I was in trouble. I found a position that the headphones seemed to work normally in but that was only if I didn't move which proved problematic while running. At one point I tried to forcefully keep the headphones in position but that resulted in the jack breaking off inside my phone and the rest of the headphones being in separate pieces.

Nathanial offered me a new set of headphones when he found me on the course around mile 2.5. He was even sweet when I said I needed his phone instead. I had just turned on the Pandora Spinning station when his phone jumped from 30 to 1% battery. I gave up and decided to embrace the silence. The route was beautiful and there were enough spectators to keep it interesting. The early miles flew by but around mile 9 it got brutal. That could have something to do with the fact that my legs decided they were done around that point too. I ran through my ever growing to do lists and did lots of praying and soul searching and finally the finish line appeared in view. 

I didn't have any goals for this race outside of finishing. I took some (a lot) of time off of running at the advice of the physical therapist I visited for leg and foot pain. I only started running again after moving back to Texas and most mornings didn't go much further than a mile.  Three weeks of one-milers and three hours of sleep and I still made it to the finish line. That's a big success to me even if it meant my worst time ever. 

The course had quite a few hills but it's absolutely a race I would do again. I had so much fun - silence and all.

Oh and the start line had confetti canons. It was everything I thought it would be. I need more confetti in my everyday life.

 

 




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