The First Half

I saw it out of the corner of my eye and gasped. I tried to show KC, who had other things on her mind, like getting to the finish line sometime today. Cutest little frog, though, hopping around, oblivious to the fact that it was so tiny and there were gigantic (comparatively speaking) people running by. Sort of how I felt as the first place runner lapped us while we were still on our first loop. Small fish in a big pond. Our first half marathon.

All our weeks of training led to this one moment in time. Sunday was the Sloppy Cuckoo half marathon trail run. We arrived, excited and ready for the big adventure. We had been promised a challenging course to begin with, but the latest update included a revised course map which cut out a flat section (THE flat section) of the trail due to recent storm damage. Instead of a figure 8, the course was now two 6.55 mile loops. Yikes, the dreaded pass-the-car-and-keep-running plan. But we felt ready.

I'll describe the trail to you: downhill, rocks, roots, ruts, uphill, dodge branches, over downed trees, under downed trees, downhill, up a big big hill, zigzag through the woods, cross the stream, rinse, and repeat.

So the three of us (KC, Runna, and I) lined up at the start with 200-ish people. The coordinator gave some announcements before the "on your mark, get set, go" - no gunshot, but I'm ok with not hearing that sound in Philly - and we were off.

When we first stepped onto the trail, I knew this race was meant for me. We had to run single file much of the time and took turns being in front to set the pace. Occasionally we would start some of Drill's cadence songs but we never remembered enough of the words to keep it going. I, for one, am no good at ad-lib... or singing, for that matter. I felt like we made a good team. Not only sharing the singing and the pace-setting, but we took turns nearly twisting our ankles on the terrain. This race requires lots of focus!

Eventually I had to come face to face with my fear of horses. Yeah, it was inevitable. As narrow as the trail was, we had to make room for some riders and their beasts to pass. I could tell by the look in its eye that one of those horses really wanted to kick me so I almost knocked KC down trying to get out of the way. She seemed less fearful, knowing a bit more about horses than me. She actually put her arm up for me to get behind her like a mama protecting her frightened child. Believe it or not that was not the moment she said I was like a four-year-old. That came later when we saw the pretty flowers. And before I picked up the shiny rock.

We passed an aid station and walked a bit so we could have a snack to keep our energy up. Some people sitting on a bench started clapping and cheering for us when we approached them and I can only assume it was the numbers on our shirt and not our voracious snacking that told them we were in a race. I turned to Runna and said "we should probably be running when they are doing that" so we jogged and waved like champs.

KC was having a lot of back pain so I took it upon myself to be her protector, since she had my back with those horses. I spotted an almost-perfect stick on the ground and picked it up. It was a little too long and had a branch coming off of it so I looked around, walked over to a big tree, and in an very Tarzan-like manner, smacked it against the tree, breaking it down to the exact right size for a walking stick. I resisted the urge to grunt like a caveman when I handed it to her.

We did not enter the race to win anything, just to prove to ourselves that we could finish, and we did! And best of all, we were not the last to finish. Three people came in after us. We suspect they got lost somewhere on the trail. Hey, we'll take it. Mission accomplished!