So race week rolled around and as mentioned earlier, I was on pins and needles... I have a really bad habit of obsessing about races to the point where I'm "just ready to get the damn thing done", so I can move on and quit letting it preoccupy my thoughts...
Taper week (#2) was actually pretty nice... I felt pretty rested and was excited for the big day on Sunday... A kind of freak snow "storm" hit Tuscaloosa/Birmingham on the Friday before the race, which had me all sorts of nervous... Yeah, I had run in the bone chilling cold before, but I wasn't at all thrilled at the weather just 2 days before my first Half Marathon... I had told myself that no matter what, I was effing running this race... I had come way too far to let the weather cut me outta this race now...
I headed up to Birmingham on Friday for the expo...
I met up with my buddy and fellow Alabama Triathlon teammate J Bruhn and we cruised the expo, trying to fill out bags with any free shit that we could... As it was my first major running event, I bought an overpriced t shirt and a commemorative print (also overpriced)... Call me a tourist, I'm ok with that...After I picked up my race packet and bummed around the expo, I headed back to Tuscaloosa, with butterflies in my stomach... It was sort of surreal, being at the expo, knowing that in 48 hours, I'd be running a Half Marathon-a feat that 14 weeks earlier had been on the "I'll never do list" for me...
I tried to do what I could to keep my heart rate down as I made it back to Ttown...
That night, as I consumed stupid amounts of carbs, I had some down time with the Lord... I reflected on how 14 weeks earlier, at well after midnight (on a school night nonetheless), the Lord and I wrestled in my living room about running this race... It's hard to explain what happened that night to those who don't have a personal relationship with Christ, but I'll try to do the best I can here...
A few weeks after that 10k, I had "struck a deal" with myself, saying, "ok, you got the triathlon out of the way, and now you did a 10k... just stick to school for the rest of the semester and we'll set a new goal for 2010 after the semester is over."... Well, the Lord had other plans for me I guess... I was tossing and turning one night, with this uneasy feeling about my health and training-like I was supposed to keep going and not let school be an excuse to not continuing my journey towards self improvement...
I ended up getting out of bed and started pacing around my apartment in the pitch black, talking out loud to the Lord...
(ok, this is where for all non believers, it may get a little hard to believe, but for those of us who have a relationship with the Lord, it all makese sense)...
So as I was pacing around, I blurted out "Ok Lord, WHAT?! What is going on here?"... And with a "sweep" (as I call it), I thought about David and Jennifer Jones, and seeing them at the 10k and both of them telling me I should run the Mercedes Half Marathon in February... now at this point, I had to check myself to make sure I was REALLY hearing from the Lord... a Half WHAT? run a WHO? no, Lord, you must be mistaken, I'm not a runner... You must be thinking about my sister, who is the runner in the family....
Then with another "sweep", it became more and more clear to me... I was supposed to run Mercedes, and that if I did my part, the Lord would do His... If I stuck to my training and was dilligent, He'd be there too, making sure that I remained injury free and motivated to run this race...
In my best words, I "gave up and gave in", and said, "Ok FINE, I'll run this race... but PLEASE let me go to sleep!"
And with that, my head hit the pillow and I was off to dreamland...
So back to two nights before the race... I had some down time with the Lord and thought a lot about that night, 14 weeks earlier, and retraced my pace line around my living room where I had "submitted" to the Lord's will... And with a "sweep", I had this overwhelming sense of peace, comfort, and accomplishment come over me... again, I know this may sound spooky to some, but to me, it's normal...
So Saturday, I attended an on campus memorial for a faculty member who passed away, Dr. Robert Young.... my connection to him was through his wife, Nirmala Erevelles, who was one of my professors during my first semester... during the first three weeks of the spring semester, I had "babysat" Dr. Bob while Dr. Nirm was on campus teaching... Dr. Bob had passed away from a brain tumor about a week earlier...
I headed up to B'ham to meet up with my coach Kendrick, his girlfriend Sarah, and a few other people for dinner at California Pizza Kitchen... Long story short, it was the Saturday night before Valentine's Day and B'ham was a total traffic nightmare... compound that with the fact that I took a wrong turn and was stuck in traffic for nearly an hour, and I barely made it to dinner... After dinner, and a quick stop at Yogurt Mountain, it was off to my buddy Chad's couch to get some rest...
But rest didn't come easy... I was nervous about the race, and typically don't sleep well the night before hand anyway.... Plus, I was on a stranger's couch, whom I had just met that night (but who now seems like an old friend), so I was all out of sorts... Chad and Kendrick were both running this race to RUN it... like, trying to break sick times like an hour and a half or some shit like that...
Little did I know that 12 hours later, I'd be crossing that finish line...
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