Winning the Mini

During my training for our city's half-marathon I was planning to run, the kids cheered me on. "I want you to win, Mama!" they would say when I came back in sweaty and tired.

"Thank you for your vote of confidence!" I'd say, "but I won't win. It's impossible."

"No it's not, not if you run fast."

"No, it's impossible. My age, my training, nothing will allow me to win it. My only goal is to finish it."

"Well, I want you to win," the youngest would say.

This went on for months, with my ongoing explanations that there was no way on earth I would win the Mini, and their ongoing insistance that I should and would.

About a week ago I stopped by the running store to discuss my shoes with a salesman. My youngest was with me, running around the track set up in the store for runners to try out shoes. As we were leaving, he looked up at a scrim-like photo image cut to fit a window up high.

"What's that?" my son asked.

I squinted up at it. It appeared to be a still photo capturing the start of the race: thousands of visors and baseball caps, sunglasses and bib numbers packed together in a mass of humanity. "It looks like a photo of the Mini."

"The Mini? The race you're running?"

"Yes, that race."

He stared up at it in awe, then turned to me with eyes bugged out, horrified. "Oh, Mama! I don't want you to run it! You can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because there's too many people. There's too many people, and I want you to win!" He was very concerned.

"I keep telling you I can't possibly win."

"But I want you to, so you can't run." For the first time, he could see why it was not possible for his mother to win.

He was greatly relieved, then, when I announced this week that I was not going to run. I was supposed to. I trained for it. I followed Hal Higdon's running schedule throughout winter and spring, and it went well: My mind could handle the distance, my heart was ready, my muscles, my shoes--only my knee was complaining.

Toward the end of the training, my knee began to bug me just a little on the long runs. A few weeks later it started hurting after about the fourth mile. When I would go out for a short run and the knee started hurting on the second mile, I knew my chances of jogging 13.1 miles on race day were diminishing rapidly.

It only hurt when I ran. I could bike, walk, or do an elliptical machine pain free, but when I ran, it hurt. I kept waiting to make a decision. I'd rest it for several days, then take a short experimental jog, but it would start hurting again.

I waited until the very last minute to decide, and finally my ride called to confirm details. I told her about the knee. She commiserated. She asked if I was planning to pop some anti-inflammatory pills and run it anyway, and I told her no.

My ultimate goal is to be a runner. I want to be able to run for health, fitness and fun for many years, if possible, and while running the Mini was a goal, it isn't the end-goal. I was disappointed, especially after all that hard work and training, but I took a pass. I didn't run. I didn't even walk it. I just slept in and went to two soccer games.

I just read that a local woman was the top female finisher.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060506/NEWS01/60506001

She's a 35-year-old mother living nearby. Congratulations, Lucie.

You have my son's deepest respect.