This blog was supposed to be about my very first trail marathon.\u00a0 I was supposed to be writing it this morning in the back of Dan\u2019s jeep on our way home from Indiana.\u00a0 But sometimes, what is \u201csupposed\u201d to happen, doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
On Friday morning, I was all packed up when I left home to head to work.\u00a0 I was working a short shift then I was going to meet Shane and Dan so we could drive over to Bloomington, IN where Wes, Shalini and her husband Brad would be waiting for us.\u00a0 We had been looking forward to this for weeks.\u00a0Shane and I had signed waivers for Shalini and Wes to get out packets since we would get in later.\u00a0Friday morning we had a group text going about foam rollers and Garmins and mostly how excited we were.\u00a0 The last two texts on that thread were:<\/p>\n
RRG:\u00a0 I\u2019m so excited to spend the weekend with you geeks!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Vega: What she said!\u00a0 This is going to be EPIC!!!<\/p>\n
It was supposed to be epic.\u00a0 And the weekend was still epic.\u00a0 Just not the way it was supposed to be.<\/p>\n
Shortly before I left work, I noticed that I had missed calls from both Shane and Wes.\u00a0 I thought, \u201cHmm, That\u2019s weird\u201d.\u00a0 I also had texts from both of them.\u00a0 Shane\u2019s simply said \u201cCall me\u201d.\u00a0 Wes\u2019s was more explanatory.\u00a0 It said, \u201cTrail Marathon was cancelled cause of inclement weather! \ud83d\ude41 \u201d<\/p>\n
No, no, no, no, no\u2026they\u2019re kidding.\u00a0 They\u2019re just messing with me.\u00a0 Shane pulls this kind of stuff on me all the time and I always fall for it.\u00a0 Not this time.\u00a0 So, I checked my email and sure enough, there was a message from the director of the Tecumseh marathon declaring that the race was, in fact, cancelled.\u00a0 My heart dropped.\u00a0 I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.<\/p>\n
As soon as I left work, I called Vega.\u00a0 He answered the phone and I said, \u201cThat is the most subdued I have ever heard you answer the phone.\u201d\u00a0 We talked about what we were going to do now that we were all packed and had cleared our schedules for the weekend.\u00a0 Wes was actually on his way to Shalini\u2019s house to carpool when he got the call from her to say the race was off.\u00a0 All 4 of us, plus Dan who was going along as our chauffeur\/videographer\/Sherpa, reacted somewhat differently.\u00a0 Shalini was pissed and verbalized it!\u00a0 Shane was pissed too, but needed to not talk about it for a while, resorting to humor.\u00a0 Vega said he was sad, but in true Vega style he managed to stay pretty even keel.\u00a0 It will not surprise anyone to know that after my initial denial, I cried.\u00a0 As I announced to Will and Rosie that my race was not going to happen, I\u2019m sure they could see the tears filling my eyes.\u00a0 The tears stayed put until later when I was alone in my car, but they came.\u00a0 With a vengeance.<\/p>\n
We briefly considered jumping in cars and doing a road trip somewhere and finding our own trail to run.\u00a0 I proposed the idea and Vega was the first to respond \u201cIN\u201d.\u00a0 However, that plan quickly unraveled.\u00a0 Shane decided to stay and work on Saturday so as not to use up his last vacation day for the year.\u00a0 The rest of us decided to have a pity party.<\/p>\n
Shalini, Wes and I met at Castlewood for a consolation run.\u00a0 We met in the usual spot and did a similar route to our run last weekend.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t wear a Garmin so I don\u2019t even know exactly how far we went, somewhere in the 7-8 range.\u00a0 It was beautiful and snowy and the company was top notch.\u00a0 However, we all commented that it wasn\u2019t the same without Shane there.\u00a0 After our run, we split to go clean up, with a plan to reconvene at Brick House for drinks and dinner.\u00a0 Once we gathered we changed our mind on dinner and headed to Fin for sushi.\u00a0 The group grew when Nick, Kristen, Katrina and Kayla joined us.\u00a0 From there we headed to Circle 7 Ranch and the group grew again.\u00a0 Our \u201cPity Party\u201d turned out to be a pretty good time.\u00a0 And that\u2019s really all I can say about that.\u00a0 What happens at the pity party, stays at the pity party.\u00a0 Although, I will say there are lots of pouting pictures of us with the race elevation map.<\/p>\n
Saturday I was somewhat useless. I stayed in my pj\u2019s all day and I didn\u2019t get much accomplished.\u00a0 This morning, Shalini arranged a group run at Castlewood to get in the miles she needs to prepare for her first Ultra in January.\u00a0 (For the non-runners, Ultra = anything greater than a marathon, usually 50k, 50 miles or 100 mile) She and Shane are running the Frozen Gnome in Wisconsin.\u00a0 I wish I could join them, but it\u2019s just not in the cards.<\/p>\n
While my friends are off running through the frozen woods, I am sitting in the warmth of my kitchen with my coffee watching the snow softly fall on my back deck.\u00a0 I had planned to run with them this morning, I even put on my running clothes, ate breakfast and drove to meet Shane at the location where we were leaving his car at the end of the trail with refueling supplies.\u00a0 He hopped in the car with me and I said, \u201cI\u2019m not feeling it today.\u00a0 I\u2019m not staying to run\u201d.\u00a0 He gave me a little grief at first, but in the end everyone let me do what I needed to.<\/p>\n
I have to be at work shortly and I wasn\u2019t up to feeling rushed. \u00a0I want a good long run when I\u2019m feeling up to it.\u00a0 Today was not the day.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping tomorrow will bring some good miles.\u00a0 But today, I\u2019m still processing the events of the weekend.<\/p>\n
Life is going to hand us disappointments.\u00a0 Some big, some small, some that initially seem bigger than they really are.\u00a0 In the grand scheme of life a cancelled race weekend with my friends isn\u2019t as catastrophic as a variety of other things that could happen.<\/p>\n
There will be other races and other road trips.\u00a0 But it feels good to know that my friends will be there when I need them.\u00a0 And they\u2019ll let me do my thing when it\u2019s what is best for me.<\/p>\n
Old Lindsey would have gone out running today even if she wasn\u2019t feeling it.\u00a0 I used to do what I thought everyone else needed me to do.\u00a0 I used to kill myself to make everyone happy.\u00a0 But I finally realized that was literally killing me.\u00a0 Parts of me were no longer functioning because I was so worried about everyone else.\u00a0 But this morning, I knew what I needed.\u00a0 And this is what it looks like when I take care of Rambling Runner Girl.<\/p>\n
Next weekend, the 4 of us who were supposed to run a marathon on Saturday, are all registered for the Pere Marquette Endurance Trail Race.\u00a0 It\u2019s only 7.5 miles, but it\u2019s an intense course.\u00a0 I ran it last year and I\u2019m hoping for improvement this year.\u00a0 Although, it\u2019s tough to compare from year to year because the weather can be so different.\u00a0 Which just reminds me that it\u2019s not really about beating anyone, including myself.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to take my next race and do the best I can with it.\u00a0 And I hope that I can approach every day of life the exact same way.\u00a0 That\u2019s going to look a little different each day.\u00a0 Today it\u2019s about finding my peace.\u00a0 Usually running helps me do that, and tomorrow I will run.\u00a0 But today finding my peace is about processing the grief that comes with having something taken away.\u00a0 It\u2019s not as devastating as what it could be.\u00a0 But the fact is my expectations were smashed.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to get through it and I\u2019ll be fine.\u00a0 Mostly because I know that tomorrow is another day, next week is another race, and my friends will be there when I call.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think I can say it any better than my friend Derrick did on Friday.\u00a0 I posted a status on Facebook\u00a0that simply said, \u201cSulking\u2026\u201d with Wes, Shalini, Shane, Dan and Brad.\u00a0 Derrick commented, \u201cYou don\u2019t need a medal to say you ran 26.2 miles on a trail, go do it anyway\u2026and if you do need that medal-make your own metal up. Find a rock, put a ribbon around it and say this is my marathon rock- NOW GO DO IT!\u201d<\/p>\n
Words to live by.\u00a0 I\u2019m done sulking.\u00a0 Pity party over.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s time to get on with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This blog was supposed to be about my very first trail marathon.\u00a0 I was supposed to be writing it this morning in the back of Dan\u2019s jeep on our way home from Indiana.\u00a0 But sometimes, what is \u201csupposed\u201d to happen, doesn\u2019t. On Friday morning, I was all packed up when I left home to head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-randomthoughts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-95","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":565,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}