Well, I did it. It was really, really hard but I swallowed
the whole whopping pill of pain. Mentally,
I needed to complete that and God let it happen. The last lap of six miles my hubby was there
with bike support once again. I kept
telling him he needed to talk to me, needed to tell me some kind of something
to get my mind off of the area below my waist; it was all equally killing me- I
think that’s because the course is paved, and almost three and a half hours of
that pounding adds up on me. He has a
hard time with that as he is not as much of a talker. Now, if the tables were turned and he asked
me to talk… are you kidding me? I would have my mouth flapping (as he says, “ratchet
jawing”) with so much constant (and hugely interesting and provocative) noise-
we would still be out there running!
But I think I sort of annoy him when
I tell him to tell me a story or something.
Lengthy, happy stories, you know- where the princess and prince live
happily ever after, at the point of a gun are not in his repertoire. I did have to muster all my feeble energy and
tell him to quit making me laugh though when, upon glancing over at me on the
hill at about mile eighteen and a half and seeing I was looking like death
said, “Don’t go to the light!”
I had to remember that bit of cheeky
advice, and look away from the “tunnel of light” on the ride back home, when rigor mortis set in to everything. Gridlock.
And it’s only through some hefty exorcism, incantations, and mental holy
water that I claimed my lower extremities back from the dead and stumbled into
the house. Jim had to physically help me
up the stairs to the ice bath Grace had ready for me. And I had to go there right away because the
throbbing in my legs could not be ignored.
(Oh boo woo.)
Stairs are the enemy.
And as I was sort of laughing and
crawling into the bathroom, I was pathetically moaning, “Why? Why am I doing this?”
It certainly is a question to
ponder, and yet I know the answer.
Although I feel like half of my body died today, what really happened is
I lived! I lived and accomplished something really
hard. I conquered fear. I finished every one of those hellacious
miles, stopped at the finish line, bent over to relieve my back and started to
cry. Not from the pain, but from the
overwhelming gratitude that God heard my prayers, and those of all my dear ones
who have been praying for me.
I did it. I did it.
Of course my knee is killing me especially, and I rub it and say to God,
“Please. Just one more time. That’s all that I ask. (Well, we both know that’s not true, but we
will pretend I want nothing else.) One
more time let me run this thing. Let me
live it.”
 |
| The wonderful White Pine signaling a mile and a quarter to go. |
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