Confession, and Comfort in Slacking Off

I confess that I did not run my 12 miles last weekend while I was in California. We arrived in San Diego late on Friday night for the rehearsal dinner, attended the wedding on Saturday, and got right back on a plane early Sunday morning. There wasn’t much time to map out a 12 mile route – much less run it. Since I have run every one of my Saturday miles this training season, I decided to take the weekend off. We spent our time in California catching up on over 5 years of being apart from my college friends. It was a weekend of hillarious laughter and craziness, as most of you who know the RU crowd could guess. I'll sum it up by saying that we woke up on Sunday morning to find that our hotel room had been toilet-papered while we were sleeping. We laughed the entire way to the airport. As of today, no one has confessed and Steve and I have absolutely no idea how they got into our room.

TNT hosted a training run this past Saturday for the entire Washington Metro Area team. Instead of setting out in our pace groups like we normally do, the entire team -some 250 marathoners-to-be - all ran together. The route started at the Key Bridge Marriott, followed the GW Parkway trail, and looped around back to the Marriott.

I found Megan during the morning announcements and was happy to learn that she was feeling great – no feet or back or muscle/joint issues. I was also secretly relieved when she told me she didn’t run the 12 miles the previous week either. We agreed that one weekend off is appropriate after 6 months of training. She told me that her cousin Al decided to run in Richmond this week and would not be joining us.

I looked around for the rest of our small running group but could not find them in the crowd. I remembered that Carolyn had just returned from Thailand and was probably still adjusting to the time change and jet lag. It was strange that Bob wasn’t anywhere to be found. For the first time since our 16 mile run, our normal running group of 5 was reduced to just Meg and I.

We started out on the trail as a group of 250+ runners. It was slightly difficult to run without ample room in front and in back of us, but it was kind of a nice change from our usual Saturday meeting. A group of about 4 Marines led the pack along the trail, stopping cars and guiding traffic as we crossed the streets. As we crossed over the parkway, I realized we were running on an incline. I looked beyond the runners in front of us and caught sight of the top of the steep hill we had just started to climb. Before I was able to register in my brain what the hill meant to my stamina, I noticed a crowd of people dressed in TNT gear, waving TNT flags. They were lined up on either side of the trail all the way up the hill, cheering us on and chanting “GO TEAM!!!” It felt great, and I remembered the excitement I felt on race day in 2005. I forgot about the hill and high tailed it until we hit the water stop at the top of the hill, then followed the direction of Coach Rich, who asked us to step off the trail and pose for a group photo. Rich thanked us all for coming out for the run, congratulated us on our efforts in training and fundraising and gave us some helpful information about race day. Meg and I jumped in the front row of the group photo and hammed it up for the camera. As we waited for the photographer to get her shot in focus, I turned my head and scanned the crowd for Bob. It was then, when I caught sight of the huge landmark behind us that I realized the significance of this spot and why we had stopped here. We were posing in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial, the exact location where we will cross the finish line on October 28th. I should have remembered that hill!! I was pumped!

The last few miles were painless, very easy, actually and enjoyable. It was such a great experience to visualize myself climbing up that hill at Iwo Jima and crossing the finish line – and it put me on a high for the remainder of my run back to the Marriott. I turned on my Ipod and ran a faster pace than usual -- keeping the momentum from my finish line realization going strong. I listened to Sister Christian as I finished my last mile, and laughed out loud thinking about Cimini playing air guitar in my old apartment singing the lyrics as loud as he could. I thought about Mimi, Carly, Arch and Kathy laughing hysterically as I did at Cim's antics throughout our four years of college. I realized how much I missed that stage of my life, and how happy I was to be with my friends in California last weekend. Suddnely, I had no regrets about skipping my 12 miles. It was worth every last bit of tissue paper the Best Western had to offer.

Last night I got an email from Bob. He suffered renal failure and was hospitalized the night before the run I just described. After discussing health concerns with his doctor and his family, Bob has decided to withdrawal from being a participant in the marathon. I'm heartbroken I won't be able to share the feeling of completing 26.2 miles with Bob by my side. He was, after all, a huge part of my inspiration for this race ever since I met him at mile 7.

Thanks for reading.

Come back again soon.