Determined to Finish
Growing up, I was always running. I remember the feeling of excitement as my shoes hit the hot Florida pavement while heading to my best friends house, or the odd sensation of only being able to hear the whirl of blood in my ears during a race or a football game. If I needed to clear my head, or organize my thoughts I would plug my earbuds in and head out.
I moved up to Washington when I was eighteen, to live with my mom and stepdad, Lief. Lief took part in marathons and half marathons once or twice a year since I was young, and I was eager to see what it was like to be a part of such an intense race. He invited me to support him, from the sidelines, as he ran the 2007 Portland Marathon. I remember watching him run, thinking, “Wow the atmosphere is amazing!”. The runners and the crowd were being positive, encouraging and supportive towards each other, which is not something I was accustomed to. There were masses of people lined up the entire 26.2 miles to cheer the runners on. As I was watching Lief run by and cheering him on, I was thinking, “Man, I really want to do this next year”.
Before I went to bed that night I told Lief that I wanted to train with him for the Portland Marathon the following year. Lief was stoked to finally have a running partner but what he didn’t know yet was that I had never ran long distance before. The furthest I’d ran was 3 miles and I was really nervous to start training. I kept thinking about that daunting number, 26.2 MILES! How on earth am I going to run that many miles? I remember Lief saying, “ We’ll start with 2 miles and then gradually increase the milage till we reach 23- 24 miles.” I felt pretty good on our first 2 mile run, considering how steep the roads get in Woodland. The next week we would take on 2 more miles and that's what we did every week until we reached 23-24 mile runs.
When we were running 18- 20 miles, I remember thinking “This is crazy! Who runs this long?” As the weeks passed by I was getting into better shape and running 10-15 miles was no big deal. It’s all about making small goals and once you achieve that goal, make another small goal and eventually you will accomplish that big goal you were aiming for.
When it was race day, I was so excited and nervous at the same time. I had a bunch of friends and family come to support me. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to run the full 26.2 miles, what if I failed in front of everyone? As, I was warming up, I blocked out the noise around me and focused on telling myself what pace I would need to keep to make the distance and to make sure I would not get excited and start out too fast. The gun went off. I started running and said to myself, “Trust the process. You trained for this.” The miles were flying by and before I knew it, I was at mile 15. The crowd was amazing! Seeing everyone cheer for the runners and myself definitely helped me get through the race. At mile 22 I started to slow down. My legs were getting heavy and I was starving. Of course, the smell of pizza in the air didn’t help at all. I knew it was a matter of trudging on and placing one weighted foot in front of the other. I turned my music off and was focusing on my breathing and reminded myself that I could do it. Then, I was there. I looked up to a banner in an arch marking the finish line and I sped up, exhausting the rest of my fuel to race toward my goal.
Crossing that finish line was one of the best moments of my life. That feeling of accomplishment was unbelievable. The race really showed me that large goals are all about taking small steps. Don’t let the size of your goals discourage you and just remember that a path to the finish line is taken one step at a time.
