Where is THAT Girl!! Mayor's Marathon Part 6

I did not see the girl in blue for a long time! I thought I had lost her. I figured to catch her, she would have to take a long break at one of the rest stops or I'd have to hope she went out too fast in the beginning and would gradually run out of steam at the end. As it turned out, she did the latter.

We were at about mile eight and a half when I finally spotted her! She was way ahead of me still. We were on a bike path along the ocean side and going through a beautiful park land. I realized rather quickly, she was slowing down! Woo hoo! Here was my chance!!


I still had to be careful. We were still five miles out. That would be plenty of time for to catch me again if I sped up at this point to pass her and then ran out of steam myself at mile 11. She could totally rally and pass me on the finishing stretch if that happened. 


So instead of passing her now. I vowed to keep her in sight and follow behind. Then I would over take her in the last half mile and come in ahead of her. 


That was the plan. 


But as I followed behind, she kept slowing. I realized I was going to have to pass her. Which is ok as long as she doesn't rally. So the pressure was back on to stay in front of her. 


As I passed, I gave a little greeting about how nice the weather was. She turned to look at me and I was stunned!! This was the first time I really saw her face and she was just so pretty!!! Her eyes were so big and blue and her perky ponytail was just bouncing behind her. She smiled back at me and I melted at the sweetness like sugar in the rain! Such a totally barbie cutie! 


I must come in before now! My ego demanded it! (Ego is such a b/tch!)


So I pumped my arms and kept pressing forward hoping my steam would hold out!  

On the Trail - Mayor's Marathon Part 5

I love running on trail. I also love racing because in the back of the pack you meet so many nice people. The ones in the back of the pack are slow. We are not in any hurry! And so it is common for people to talk to you as you go by. Some of them go further than the quick greeting like "beautiful day eh?" or "Keep it up!"

I was running at a good clip and did not want to stop to chat. As I passed a man he saw my team singlet and asked, "Where are you from?" I, as chipperly as I could, replied "Santa Maria. In California."

He kept talking. I didn't want to seem rude and not reply. But I did not want to stop to chat. The girl in blue was God-knows how far ahead. I already had to knock down to the half course from the full; I did not want to suffer another disappointment in not coming in before the girl in blue. So I saw only one option.

I ran backwards.   

This way, I could keep running in the right direction and chat a little with the guy thus preserving the camaraderie and friendliness known to us "back of the pack-ers".

It's really stupid to run backwards. Especially on a trail with uneven surface as well as rocks and such. But I was also hoping that my running backwards would also cue the guy into the fact I wanted to keep moving. It helped. He asked a couple more questions which I answered cheerfully. Then I was able to gracefully turn around and kept moving forward. 

Something scared me though. I still hadn't caught sight of the girl in blue. "Damn!" I thought, "She's probably a 'dirty girl'". (A dirty girl (or boy) is someone who likes to run on dirt.) This was bad news for me. Some runners don't like trails and actually slow down on dirt. The fact that I love trail running was a small advantage I had in this race. But if the girl in blue is also a trail runner, it didn't matter. Crap!

It was afraid to push my pace because I knew the critical factor would come down to who had enough juice in their tank at the end. Especially because I knew the toughest hill on the courses was in the last mile. I needed to be sure to get to the top of that hill first if I was going to have a chance at beating her. And I would need juice to tackle that hill. Ugh! I wasn't sure what I should do. 

So I just made sure I pumped my arms and checked my form to try to be as efficient as I could. Then I made sure my pace stayed just where I could keep it up without running out of breath. The only other thing left to do was to keep scanning ahead praying I'd see a flash of blue!

Here's the video of my 2011 marathon finish. I'm including it here not just to prove I finished though many of you have probably wondered about it. But because the finish line announcer gave commentary on my marathon outfit. I though it'd be a good follow up to my previous posts about my favorite running outfits. :) 


Another funny thing about the video is that right behind me is a group of about six women. I think it looks like they were chasing me! LOL! Hey what ever it takes to get over that finish line! 

Hi. My Name is Jill and I’m a Big Girl Athlete

I’ve posted before that I haven’t considered myself an athlete for most of my life. Mostly, because of my body size. I don’t look like an athlete. But there’s no denying that I am. 

My trainer mentioned the other day that a friend of hers (who happens to be a big girl) gets frustrated when people act surprised that she’s an athlete. I see where she’s coming from. I mean, you don’t have to be tall and skinny to be an athlete. I can totally understand someone getting frustrated that someone assumes they’re not an athlete because of their size. Don’t judge a book by its cover. (You should read me first. I have a great plot line; and a surprise ending!) 

But I happen to enjoy watching the surprise on peoples’ faces when they find out I run marathons. It kind of fun to watch the expressions pass over their face as they: size me up, try to decide if I’m joking. Then the eye brow raise when they realize I’m not, followed by the smile of awe that a big girl can run marathons. 

I like breaking people’s stereotypes. But even more, I like being an example of what people can do. After they say, “Wow.” I say, “Yeah, I love it. So what do you like to do?”

Rarely, do I get the answer of, “I run too.” Or any activity for that matter. I do sometimes get, “Well, I wanted to start running  but....” But I find it odd that I don’t know a lot of people who have a passion for an activity. 

Why do I care? I don’t care so much what people do with their time. But when you have a passion for something, you don’t want others to miss out on the joy you experience. You know what I mean? Like, if you are really into stamp collecting, then you want others to know how fun it is because you are sure they’ll enjoy it as much as you do. 

Of course, not everyone will enjoy stamp collecting. But it’s hard to understand that when you are a hard-core philatelist. 

So it’s hard for me to understand why other people aren’t into regular activities either. People will tell me they don’t have time, they are too old, too fat, they have kids, etc etc. But I keep thinking if they knew how good it makes you feel and how fun it is, they will make time for it, not worry about their age or weight and they would take their kids with them to enjoy the activity too. 

I know it’s hard to move from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one. But for me, it was just about finding the activity that made me feel good. The trick however, is to give activity a fair chance to hook us. After listening to me expound about the joys of endorphins for about the millionth time, a friend of mine went to a cardio class. He came back and told me, “I don’t know what you are talking about! I sweated for an hour in that damn class and the endorphins never showed up!” 

My husband and I chuckled. Endorphins usually don’t show up the first day. The first day your body is just trying to survive this new assault on its status quo. It doesn’t know what is happening or what to do about it. It’s not until you repeat this process several times that the body realizes you are going to keep doing this crazy thing. So it better do something about it. That’s when it starts pumping out the endorphins. That’s when you get hooked. 

It’s like budging a boulder downhill. It takes a lot of effort at first. But once you get it rolling, there’s no stopping it! 

So go out, try something. Give it a good push!