What was I thinking? I'll tell ya!

Just a day past completing my first ever 1/2 marathon, not to mention my first ever ANYTHING remotely considered a "competition", it still seems sort of surreal.

But just to make sure, I checked the results page...yep, there I am. Hah...and not even in last place...what a trip.

Lisa Walters

Bib # 4162

AGE 45

Sex F

Age Group 45-49

Time: 3:11:31.2

Average: 14:37/M


Gotta tell you, I'm pretty damn proud of myself. For multiple reasons;

#1 At the outset I was excited about doing this run, however between coordinating my employer's 4mile fun-run fundraiser, starting school, and being sick, my lack of training was SIGNIFCANT.

#2 The weather was not horrible, but not exactly ideal either. I was so ready to just stay in bed and listen to the rain, rather than go out in it...let alone go out in it to do something as crazy as walk 13.1 miles..to nowhere, for no reason - C'MON! Not even if my car were up on jacks, and Nordstrom were having an "85% Off Sale" would I venture to WALK 13 miles. (But that was before...now I could not only walk there - I'd get there in just a little over 3 hours, which means I'd have to leave my house about 6am to arrive in time for the doors to open - TOTALLY DOABLE!)

And the #3 reason I am still a bit surprised/stunned/pleased is that: I am not usually a person who holds myself to my word, and anybody else that I might have told about this could go screw themselves if they gave me shit about NOT doing it...I really don't care and I really do think that "Hey. I'm a big girl, if I decide NOT to do something that's my business not theirs." That said, my attitude has changed quite a bit since Sunday.

The Shamrockn' half marathon is actually quite a fun event. It starts at Raley Field in West Sacramento, traverses the Tower Bridge and winds around downtown Sacramento, historic Old Sacramento, and the River Park neighborhood of West Sacramento, which is quite lovely - if you happen to be driving by on a sunny day with the convertible top down and Jackson Browne on the radio. The only thing I could hear were rain drops landing directly on my ear drum as they were blown sideways through the air. As I passed by these pretty homes, with their manicured lawns, and most certainly cozy, warm rooms (probably with fireplaces) all I could think was "What was I thinking?!"

I asked myself this question many times over the course of the day...mile 4, mile 8, mile 9, mile 10...and at various other times in between; when I'd get passed by grey haired ladies or 12 year old kids, when I was sweating from my hair follicles, when my hip bone started to grind against my god-knows-what-bone, when I was fumbling with my water bottle/hammer gels/clif shots/bib number/timing tag, etcetera - all accoutrements that go along with an event of this sort and which I had no idea even existed, until my mentor informed me that I would need all this crap! So, on the Friday before the event, she and I spent a couple of hours at Fleet Feet, picking up our bibs, t-shirts, safety pins, amphipod (that's the water bottle holder thingy ma-jiggy), body glide (another NECESSARY item), and mostly asking a LOT of questions such as "What do I need THAT for?" At which point Mary was probably thinking, 'What WAS she thinking!?'

Sunday morning as I was using reason #3 above, to try to get out of this predicament, Mary was doing her best and working her magic trying to talk me BACK into it. Which she did. And I thank her. And I curse her.

But, back to the race; Fortunately the rain didn't last too long. However, the wind never ceased. By the time I reached the 11 mile mark, a nice man standing on the side of the road, asked "How you doin, son?" as I passed by...yes, I looked just that pretty! My hair was sticking out sideways from my black baseball cap, my face was a lovely shade of wind-chapped crimson, and my sports bra effectively turned my normal B-cups into barely A's - no wonder he was confused.

However I looked, by this time I was feeling pretty damn good - spirtually anyway - I KNEW I was going to make it! While physically the lower half of my body was wracked with pain, the upper half felt fine...too bad I couldn't have walked on my hands for the last 2 miles. Seriously though, I don't know how anybody actually RUNS this distance. It just hurts. I tried to run a short distance for each mile, but it just never felt right. Other people would jog past me, seemingly gliding by, quietly and effortlessly. Me? I'd pick up the pace to a jog and think, "Can't anybody else hear every bone from my femurs on down cracking as my feet slap, slap along like duck flippers on pavement?".

Being used to walking on dirt trails, or crushed aggregate like the American River trail, the concrete and asphalt route of this run was hard on my feet...I think they went numb some time shortly after mile 8 - which can be dangerous when you're trying to avoid a pothole, or, just remain upright.

Other adversities were minor but abundant; it seemed that no matter which direction we were going (we being me, and the other 300 or so SANE people taking our time at the back of the pack) there was a constant head-wind. Seriously we'd be headed one way, do a u-turn and head back the other way and STILL have the wind blowing directly at us...this was especially true between miles 9 and 10, where I also started to sprout a large blister on my big toe. However, at this point, there is no stopping - if I stop now, even to ask for a band-aid from these very nice ladies who are bandaging their own wounds, I will NEVER EVER start again...And although I warmed up from the inside out, the temperature of the day never rose above 55 degrees, and since I'm almost always cold anyway, my perspiration just rose to the surface and well, I'd say "froze" cuz that would be funny, but more accurately I'd have to say "chilled". I think I finally got warm around 9pm when I slipped into a very hot bubble bath, accompanied by a nice glass of wine.

Overall the experience was, simply, gratifying. I have to say that hearing "Lisa Walters' crosses the finish line, Welcome Back Lisa", as I came into Raley Field really made me forget all the excuses, all the discomfort (for a few moments anyway), and gave me a sense of pride of accomplishment I haven't felt in a VERY long time...probably not since childbirth...mutually unbelievable feats of physical endurance that I, the least athletic/graceful/coordinated person on the planet was able to achieve. I am not a competitive person and not generally one to "push through" the negative self-talk or less-than-perfect conditions. I can talk myself OUT of just about anything. Funny; yesterday, I learned how to talk myself IN to something! It won't ever be as easy to use lame excuses or bold defenses to justify my lack of follow-through again...What WAS I thinking?

A Fractured Fairy-Tale

*I promise it won't always be this serious....but if you don't know where I'm coming from you might not understand where I am now!"

So, believe it or not, life does just happen even if you're not looking. For most of my adult life, I wasn't looking. It's like I woke up one day and heard that Kinks song over and over again in my head..."And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful Wife, And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here? ...yeah! How DID I get here?

Well it goes a little something like this...

As a young woman, Little Girl (LG) is torn between playing it safe and being independent...at about the age of 22, suddenly doing the independent thing becomes a not-so-pretty-OR-financially-stable lifestyle.. SO luckily SAFE GUY (SG) is still available..."Order pink napkins" Little Girl tells Mom! HURRAY! They all shout; She's come to her senses! LG senses, I dunno - doom, and throws up in the gutter immediately after trying on wedding gowns; attributes it to bad tuna...Moves South, weds SG, and lo and behold, unweds SG shortly therafter. BOOOOO! They all shout. Now LG is really ALONE in a foreign country called California and back to the not-so-pretty-OR-stable-but-helluvalotofun-single-girl-in-a-rock-and-roll-world situation. Okay - we all know how long THAT remains interesting. LG already has backup plan...the Cute Guy (CG) on the ladder. Lunch? Sure..Drinks? Sure...Move in? Great! Now what? 3 years pass, CG is "confirmed" bachelor UNTIL his best friend gets married AND he finds out his mom is terminally ill...at which point he pops the question and Little Girl, (who has been waiting for exactly this) says, "Of course, Yes!". LG and CG wed. YAY! They shout (not quite as loudly as the first time.) And as agreed, Right Away, so that dying mother can be "Grandmother", CG & LG start trying to have babies...this goes on for years..yes, years. There's a lot of tears, and peeing in cups, and getting nun urine shot into LG's fanny. Sadly, before the nuns are successful, CG's mom; LG's mom-in-law/friend, passes away. CG & LG of course, keep trying to have babies because that's pretty much all they have in common now and LG is convinced a baby will make everything o.k. Lo and behold, a baby is born! Then another! CONGRATULATIONS!! They all shout. One boy, one girl, a house in the suburbs...all is right with the world. Babies puke, pee, and poo their way to school-age. LG is NOT sad when baby boy's first day of school happens to fall on her birthday...(WHAT is wrong with me, she wonders?! all the other mother's are a wreck today! hmmmm...this can't be right...) Soon enough, baby girl starts pre-school...LG REALLY starts to fidget and finally has time to THINK. CG keeps his regular drinking dates with the buddies and keeps taking his alcohol induced frustration/grief/stress out on LG..."you're never happy, I'm not good enough, you're never satisfied". No, she says, it's fine, it's fine! (God forbid he should leave her now with two young children). But LG KNOWS, it's time to find something to do during the day...Volunteers in classroom (SO virtuous!), Organizes fundraisers (SO generous!), and dreams of owning her own business, "SO unrealistic! CG always tells LG, You'll never be able to pull that off. What are you thinking? You aren't capable." LG presses on, a job here, a job there, a class here or there...years pass by...CG's binge drinking escalates, stuff is hit, stuff is thrown, stuff is said; LG keeps it to herself, keeps forgiving and keeps on pretending that life in suburbia couldn't be more perfect. Then, finally, one day, when all is teetering on the brink of collapse, CG and LG take off for a "restorative" w/e of wine-tasting and (hopefully!)lovemaking ...fast forward past the ugliness and sadness...LG gives up on CG, begins therapy for herself and tries to understand HOW she got here...

...to be continued (or not cuz it's a really crappy and sad story and I really hate those)...yeah...let's wrap this up...

Fast Foward: LG and CG ride the roller-coaster of love for a while longer, coaster crashes, they both survive. THANKFULLY they suffer from "Once in a lifetime/Same As It Ever Was" Amnesia - Can't remember the good times; Choose to forgive the bad times - And, Letting the days go by/water flowing underground/Into the blue again/after the money's gone - FINALLY, have the sense to wake up, stop letting life just happen to them and move on!

So the moral is "When you stop to think, you start to live!"