i couldn't wait to come home and write this blog!
I DID IT!!!!!! Let me tell you first of all, I was totally tricked! haha well maybe not tricked but uninformed that when the coaches said " this week we'll be running the Marine Corps Marathon Hill" what they forgot to mention is that we would be running the Marine Corps Marathon Hill.. and then turning around and running it again... and then turning around and running it again. No I didn't stutter! Before we hit the trail we were left with this little gem to ponder. After coach said we'd be running the hill 3 times he said "The good news is that on race day you'll think hey, this is easy, we only have to do it once!" and like so many other times throughout the season, my inexperienced brain doubted the masters and thought YEAH RIGHT! Well we started the trail that was riddled with steep hills to start with thinking each time, is this the hill? nope what about this one? nope. Time was flying by and I was feeling so good. We were making really great time and chatting it up about some pretty deep stuff - life, love and nexflix.
We crossed the street and my running buddy/ friend/ mentor/ all around goddess turns and says this is it. I looked and it didn't seem too bad, a little steep. So we started running up the hill and when I thought we were at the top, we turned the corner only to find and even steeper and twice as long part of the hill. I was praying to make it up the once... three times?! I was convinced that the coaches had misspoke and meant that doing the hill once would FEEL like we had ran it three times... but unfortunately I had heard them right! Up the hill, down the hill up another "smaller" hill down that hill and we're back at the water stop... really? Wow that wasn't so bad but now I had to do it two more times.
I refilled my belt, ate some gels and back on the trail we went for round two. This time the 1.5 miles to the start of the hill seemed a bit easier - maybe because I had just ran up Mt Olympus and now these other hills seemed insignificant. We attacked the hill at the start but quickly found ourselves walking up the hill but we were in good company because even the fastest runners were walking on round two. Then as if the hill got magically shorter, we were back at the water stop and I was feeling FANTASTIC.
We set off for the last and final trip and everything was great until i found myself at the bottom of that damn hill again and I thought to myself " God I can't wait till race day when I only have to do this once!" hmm... funny because unless exhaustion is setting in, I was pretty sure that 2 hours ago I had thought to myself that I'd never be saying something like that and yet here I was, saying it. ( Side note, pretty much this whole season i hear what the coaches say, think " no way!" and then quickly am shown that they've never been wrong! I'm not just saying that to flatter them although I think they all rock, but its so true. They anticipate things that I can't even fathom and prepare me for things that I would never have thought would occur physically and mentally and its pretty amazing to have a team who's sole purpose is to make sure I'm prepared and today I was reminded of that as I said " God I can't wait till race day when I only have to do this once!")
Our last round up the hill was a little rough and I was feeling tired, we had been running for 2 and a half hours and had about another half hour to finish. Standing at the bottom was like having a bad nightmare over and over again. There was a sense of bitterness that this was the 3rd time I'd have to revisit the worst part of the run but we rounded the top, came down to the water stop and thanked god for not having to run that hill one more time. The last quarter mile was rough for me, my hip was starting to hurt, I was tired and hungry and ready to be finished and even though I walked it, I never gave up or let the trail of tears make me a victim and I finished with my head held so high. I did it, I completed one of the hardest trails we'll run on. I came home sore and tired but with the biggest sense of accomplishment I've felt in a long time. I fought the trail of tears and today, I won! If your reading this and thinking you'd really like to feel that same sense of accomplishment, you can start today by donating to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and be a part of the solution for millions battling blood cancers! http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/corps10/amundis
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