Books are powerful. To think that reading a book had given me so much confidence that I could accomplish something that was so monumental for me is insane. It was race day, I woke early, drove my 45 plus minutes, got out of the car, looked around and wondered "What in the world was I doing here and had I lost the little bit of mind that I had left?" I hoped that nobody saw me, I could jump back in the car, go back home and nobody would be the wiser.
Apparently the look of shock and panic was pretty much written all over my stone white face. My husband quickly came up behind me and asked me what was wrong. I told him that I wasn't quite feeling so confident or ready. He assured me that I had trained and would do just fine. With a not so gentle push we were stepping closer and closer to the sign in table. I found myself looking around and comparing my body shape with every other person in the parking lot. I felt so out of my league. It was all I could do just to make my feet WALK to the table, how was I going to jog?
By the time that I got to the registration/sign in table, I was very thankful for the sunglasses that I had on. Tears were starting to form and there was nothing that I could do to stop them. I was embarrassed, had no confidence and just wanted to hide. There was a friendly older lady who must have been in her 70's working the table who asked me for my information. I could not get words from my mouth, only scared little squeaks followed by gushing tears that no sunglasses could have hidden. My darling and supportive husband quickly jumped in and explained that I had never done anything like this before, had been training, was ready but scared. She quickly jumped up and hugged me and told me how sad she was that she didn't bring HER running shoes that day! She explained that normally she runs the 5K every time but they were short with help today so she had agreed to help them. In all honesty, all I could think is "Oh great, I am even going to get beat by a 70 something year old woman". I could have just crawled under that table and died.
After much reassurance that I could do it and being told over and over that this was a natural fear I was having, I gripped my inhaler tight and headed for that starting line. My feelings of fear spread through the crowd like wild fire. Soon people were coming up and patting me on my back and telling me not to worry, that I was only competing with myself and that this was a great race to start with. I know that they were trying to help but I just wanted to be invisible. I put on my not-so-convincing fake smile and shook my head in agreement. I silently prayed that my Father in Heaven would help me to accomplish this mighty task that I had been preparing for.
I made the decision to start in the back of line so that I would not have to mentally go through that process of "Oh no, everyone is passing me". I remembered some things that I read about only concentrating on yourself and completing the race, not worrying about the time, only the finish line. All to soon that gun shot went off and everyone was on their way. I remember hearing my husband yell his support and waving to me. I have to admit that I do not think that I would have gone through with it if he had not been there. It would of been so easy to jump in the car and go comfort myself with a warm, fat McDonald's breakfast. Anything would have felt better than this!
It took several minutes before I could start to get a grip on my emotions and start concentrating on my breathing pattern. With each step I could feel my confidence starting to return and would pull mental excerpts from the books that I read. I kept telling myself that "Time does not matter. This is something between Me and Me. I can do this." Pretty soon (well, not really soon) I found myself at the first water station and hearing a word of encouragement. The man was kind enough to wait for me to go past him at least before he started folding it up and loading things in his car. I couldn't help but notice that I was not only the last one to go by, but I was also the only one left on that block with no other runners in sight. "It was okay, it didn't matter... this was between Me and Me", I kept telling myself over and over until I believed it again.
It seemed like eternity before I saw the last sign pointing the way. My husband even called me on my cell phone to make sure that I was doing okay. Yes, I carried it with me just in case I needed an ambulance. =) I assured him that I was on the last part before the turn. My legs were burning, my breath was short, I wasn't sure if I had missed a turn (I was losing my confidence that I was still on the path) but I was not going to stop at this point.
Finally, the last corner came up and I could see the end in sight. There were crowds gathered around the school parking lot looking for me. They were lined up and soon heading my way. A large crowd of runners were coming for me to help me cross that finish line. There were shouts of joy, part of me wondered if it was just so they could finally go home after waiting for me to finish, but the other part of me was overwhelmed with joy that I had done it and grateful for their kindness. There was nothing that I could do to control my emotion. I knew what a difficult road this had been for me to get here. I was slow but I was here. Not only were tears streaking down my face but sobs were escaping as well. This was huge and I was empowered.
Note: this is not a pic of my finish line, I did not get any pics as entertaining as it might have been!
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