The Worst Day of My Life...

Turned out not to be the worst day of my life. I went into Saturday with this mindset as I had signed up to do a marathon relay with three friends. That meant 6 miles total for me. The most I have ever run is about 3 in one day (and I walked a good chunk of it). As if this weren’t enough I checked the route of the course on Friday and realized that half of it was up one of the biggest hills in Portland. I was not happy.

Saturday came, and I turned off my brain, got dressed and headed down to the race. I was just going to do it and it would be over and I was fully prepared to be miserable all day long.

It came time for my first lap and I was doing pretty well. I started off downhill and was running for a good distance. I stopped and walked for a little but, but started up running again. I was happy with myself so far. Then the course turned off the main street and onto the hill. And what a hill it was! I was hardly walking up the thing. Forget the running before and after the hill, this thing on it’s own would have tired me out just walking. So I walked it. Slowly but steadily and made it to the top where the 1 mile sign was. Ugh…one more mile in the lap. But from that point it was a subtle downhill the rest of the way through the trees and I flew (for me). I only stopped to walk one other time and it wasn’t for very long.

The second lap was even better; I ran more and was more prepared for the hill and distance. I was feeling great after 4 miles and couldn’t believe it. Then my teammate’s wife called and she was having contractions (and she is due this week), so he left. We had the moral dilemma now of whether to just complete our laps, or to take on his last lap and finish the total miles. We decided to suck it up and take on his last lap too. I was all ready to do it and run four miles straight (which judging by the way I feel today, would not have been a good idea). But my awesome teammate, Laura, (who has a marathon under her belt) lost (or won) at Rock Paper Scissors and she took on the extra lap.

We finished in about 4 hours 33 minutes. And I feel pretty good that I collectively ran a marathon. I don’t think I’ll be doing it on my own any time soon. But I might be crazy enough to do another run sometime.