My run last weekend took me back to where it all began 10 years ago this month. 10 years?!?! Has it really been 10 years since that first race? It seems like just yesterday. Yet, I can’t even imagine my life, the lessons I’ve learned, the people I’ve met, and the journey I’ve made before running.
Runners are some of the most courageous, determined (okay, maybe stubborn is a better word), caring, and selfless people in the world. And 10 years ago this month, at this very course, a very special runner did an incredibly selfless thing to help me get to the finish line of my very first race.
Some of the sights along the way…
It was a cold morning at Chickamauga Battlefield in Ft Oglethorpe, TN. I’d only begun my running journey a couple of months before, and I was very nervous about finishing my first race. My husband and I were planning to run the Battlefield 10 miler that day, but the childcare we’d arranged for our kids had fallen through at the last minute. I told him to go ahead and run since he’d been training for a long time and was running with some buddies from work. We talked to the race organizers who said it was fine for me to start late since there would be a marathon on the same course that day. So he would run his 10 miler first, and then I would start so one of us could stay with the kids the whole time.
I kissed him goodbye at the start all the while longing to be starting with him. The kids and I made our way to the post race building where we could stay warm while we waited for him. As I tried to figure out ways to entertain the kids, my nerves continued to dismantle my self confidence. The thought of all those people out there already ticking off the miles and knowing I still had yet to start nearly got the best of me. I waited about as patiently as a thoroughbred at the start line of the Kentucky Derby. Then the door to the building suddenly burst open bringing with it a gust of cold air and…..my husband?!? What was he doing back so soon? Had he gotten hurt? Was he okay? Had he just set some sort of world record for the 10 mile distance?
He walked over like a knight in shining armor, looked me in the eye, and said, “Go run.” I asked him what had happened, and he calmly explained to me that he’d quit. He’d gotten a couple of miles into the race and just decided to turn around and come back. He said, “You’ve worked so much harder for this than I have. You deserve to be out there running more than I do.” To say I was speechless would be an understatement. I knew instantly the sacrifice he’d just made for me. He had worked hard for this race too. Early mornings. Saturday afternoons. Evenings after work. On top of that I knew his buddies from work would give him a hard time for not finishing.
As I tried to process what he’d just done for me in stunned silence, he prodded me along to the start line like a child being scooted off to bed, and before long I was running that race…every single step of those 10 miles! It was by far the longest I’d ever run. Honestly, it was longer than I had ever even imagined I could run, and it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. My muscles cramped, my feet ached, and I wanted to quit. But he’d given up too much for me that morning. There was no way I was going to quit. I don’t remember how long it took me to run that race. But I will never forget what it felt like to cross that finish line, to catch his eye as I nearly collapsed at the end, to see the pride all over his face. He’d given up something he’d worked so hard for so I could have that moment.
Because who doesn’t love a few good race signs.
Something happened to me that day. I got bit by the running bug. From that moment on I was addicted. I didn’t think I could ever run more than 10 miles, but as I watched the marathoners cross the finish line a faint flicker of an idea blinked in my head. A marathon? If crossing the finish line of a 10 miler felt that good, what would it feel like to cross the finish line of a marathon? I stuffed that thought back in it’s place as I hobbled around with sore, aching muscles for the next several days.
It was in those days that followed that I knew I needed to get my husband back to this race so he could finish what he started. And I knew I needed to get back so I could prove to myself that I could do what all those marathoners were doing.
See that crazy kid in the front? He was five years old when this all started ten years ago…
That was 10 years ago this month. In those 10 years we have run many races: 10 milers, half marathons, and even some full marathons. David has sacrificed for me more times than I can count: giving up PRs so we could run together, letting me run when we didn’t have childcare, running in ice and cold when he didn’t want to, running at sloth speed through four pregnancies…
But in the back of his mind, in the back of my mind, we both knew we had a score to settle with one particular race. We both knew we needed to go back to where it all began to settle that score.
So last weekend we found ourselves at the same start line that was our very first start line 10 years ago. We walked up to that start line with far more experience under our belts than we had the first time we approached it, but the butterflies and nerves brought back memories from that first morning. This time we were thrilled to have one of our boys with us to run his third full marathon. He was just five years old the last time we were here.
….this time he ran the race with us.
As the cannon blast signaled the start I looked around at the familiar historic landmarks, breathed in the frigid morning air, looked next to me at my husband running alongside, and settled into a comfortable pace. It was one of the most relaxed races we’ve ever run. The serenity of the battlefield was breathtaking. David stopped to read nearly every historic marker. I chatted with some of the other runners. We laughed. We chatted. We cheered others on. At times I wondered to myself if this was really happening. Were we really…finally…after 10 years running this race? We’d grown so much in 10 years. We’d changed so much in 10 years. Yet, there we were back where it all began. I usually decide I want to quit around mile 15-19. This time we were having so much fun, that it wasn’t until mile 21 that I decided I was done. As always, when I hit that point of quitting, David pushed me on and told me to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. That finish line was one of the most beautiful things either of us had ever seen. It wasn’t because that race was particularly hard. The beauty was what that finish represented. For 10 years since that first race, we’d encouraged each other to keep running even when we didn’t want to. We’d stuck by each other through countless races, countless life challenges….. and we’d never let each other give up on settling a score at Chickamauga!
Ten years later…mission accomplished.