One Year Ago Today...

One year ago today, on Mother's Day of my 40th year, I ran my first marathon. I went for my run today and couldn't help but reflect on that day. I am still amazed that I did it (and then did it again). It was a beautiful day in Prague, CZ. I have said many times that I think that is the most beautiful European city and the people are so American friendly. Bobbi and I got up at 5AM to find food, hydrate and allow my body to digest. Cathy, a tip for you. I found a restaurant close to the start that I could eat and linger so that I could use their bathroom instead of the porta potties. Anonymous is right, in Europe, porta potties are only used for one thing. If you just have to pee, find a bush or tree regardless of whether you are male or female.

I was so nervous standing in the corral for the start. Once the gun went off, I was so relieved. The next time I would see Bobbi was at mile 15. She was on a bridge waiting for me. I should note that there were 2500 people in this race. When I got to mile 15, I still felt great and I was making conservative but good time. The important thing was that I was still feeling good. Bobbi yells, "where have you been?" Can you believe it?! Where have I been? I'm sorry, do you have some place to be? Am I holding you up? Where have I been? Gee, I don't know... touring Praque on foot! We laugh about this today. It is my favorite story of the whole experience. Bobbi is so used to seeing me leading a race that she was stunned to see how far back I was. Remember, that Bobbi had never had experience with any distance races. This is when she had her epiphany and decided to run a marathon herself. After I passed her, she hung around to see the back of the pack and saw lots of runners who don't look anything like runners. She saw lots of women who looked like her. E, I think Bobbi would argue with your friend about loosing so much weight in order to run the distance. I would say that there are more people that look like regular people than runners in marathons. Some new research shows that overall marathon times are slowing (even though the winning times are faster than ever before) because there are more average people running and run/walking so that now the average finish time is between 5 and 6 hours.

Anyway, at mile 19 I did my last goo and thought I was in pretty good shape. My feet hurt, but that is expected. All day I had run with this one girl. I didn't figure there would be many Americans in Prague. It is a fairly small marathon, afterall. But, this girl looked like me. She had on similar shorts, ponytail through a ball cap and the same GPS on her arm. After 19 miles, I was ready for some company, so I took a chance and spoke to her. Well, not only was she American, but I managed to find the only other 40 year old American mom! She was running her 7th marathon and had flown from California to do it. She was a blessing. We got past the introductions fairly quickly and I told her this was my first marathon. She was very interested in my life as a military wife/mom overseas and the war. Conversation carried us through several miles. At each mile (and eventually every 1/2 mile), she asked me to name a soldier that had given his life and tell his story to her as we ran for him and his family. It was very powerful and quite cathartic for me. At mile 24, I was having trouble talking, so she would give me a signal and I would say a name and we would just run in silence. She ran just in front of me so I could draft and not even think, just one foot in front of the other and be thankful that I have two legs and the life to be able to run. We finished together in 3 hours and 52 minutes. I threw my arms around her and got so choked up. The finish shoot is a bit chaotic and we were both meeting friends. Eventually, we got separated. What an intense encounter with someone I only knew for less than an hour. She was truly a blessing and I don't think I could ever forget her.

Today is a beautiful day after a week of rain and wind. I had a great run. Ian has started running with me on Sundays. He does 5 miles of my 10. It breaks things up for me and we get some great quality time to catch up on the past week. Tonight my boys are taking me out to dinner. Happy Mother's Day.