I have always loved to sprint.  I’m designed to run short distances, very very short distances.  We started with a mile warm up run in track practice and I thought after that we should call it a day after that.  I dropped out.  I started running again in my late 20’s.  My office had an indoor large running track.  Our CEO was big into running and would pay our entrance to one 10K every year.  I slowly built up my stamina.  One day I walked into work wondering why I felt so good.  The only thing I changed was I was running about 10 miles a week.  I started a running club at my next job.  I was only running mid distance inaugural races the first year I did the 10 Mile.  We had to laugh as they moved the Mile 1 marker several times as we ran by it that first year.  I loved the TC 10 from the start and think it is the only inaugural race I did that year that is still going on.   

I’ve done my training in Egypt and Peru.  One year I was in Guatemala at Lake Atitlan for two weeks right before the race.  The isolated hotel for our group on the side of a mountain was only accessible by boat and then a boatload of stairs.  The jungle paths were not runnable. The hotel owners still ask my friend who still runs trips there about the crazy lady who often ran the very uneven steps for an hour.  I have run the race single, engaged, married and divorced, as an IT Project Manager, Software Consultant, Wellness Coach and now I work in a major healthcare company as a Yoga Instructor and Fitness Specialist.  The year my toe was broken, runner friends told me that was nothing as they listed the 8 broken things they had raced with.  My yoga community told me I was insane to even think of doing the race.  I got my doctor’s OK and my knee hurt more than my toe.  Our running is always a balance between taking care of ourselves and finishing the race.  

I can still get a little freaked out at the distance after all these years.  I think OK, I’m just running a 5 mile, then a 3 then a 2 but all at once.  Just like any daunting task, I break it up.  There is such wonderful support from the spectators and other runners.  I’ve had metatarsalgia for the last few years.  Still OK to run from my doc.  I feel fine running on trails but on pavement it can hurt.  One year it felt like I had a nail in my foot.  As I stopped to walk a runner I did not know inspired me with three little words as he ran by.  “You got this”.  How nice would it be if we could hear that more often.  My favorite 10 Mile memory is from right before the race.  One year at the start, instead of focusing on my own nervousness about whether my foot would hurt or my finish time, I stood still and tuned into the runners surrounding me.  What I felt was their nervous energy and excitement.  I also felt something I had only felt once or twice before.  It was more than joy as a few tears came to my eyes, I felt the amazing joy of being alive.