04.03.2008
Who knew grandma could run?
If ever you have a day in which you’re feeling overly confident and need a smack back into reality, here’s what you do:
Train really hard and then run a road race.
It could be a 5K, 10K, half marathon, whatever.
You’re probably thinking, “Well if I train for and run a road race, won’t I feel good about myself?”
No, you won’t.
Well, maybe you will a little bit, if you’re not an egotistical person like myself. I happen to be too full of myself to feel good when I struggle to finish miles behind 70-year-olds.
True story.
Back in high school, when Justin Timberlake was still in ’N SYNC and Old Navy Performance Fleeces were the cool thing to wear, I ran track. However, the legs of a person who is 5-foot-4 aren’t really running legs, so I quit after my sophomore year.
Fast forward to my senior year of college, when JT had kicked the Jheri curl and Britney to the side, and I started training for a half marathon.
Three years later — this past December — I ran 13.1 miles in Charlotte and couldn’t walk for days. (Really, my thighs hurt so bad it made the process of sitting down difficult. Unfortunately, my colleagues at work who didn’t know about my endeavor only saw a girl clenching her teeth, squatting over a chair and screaming. People didn’t talk to me for weeks.)
So heading into the Knoxville half-marathon this past weekend, I knew I needed to ramp up my training.
Part One involved running more hills more often.
Part Two involved drinking at least 100 ounces of water a day. (If the people at work thought I had “problems” before, they really thought something was wrong when I started going to the bathroom every hour.)
Part Three involved taking my 50-pound German shepherd on runs with me, and I’ll tell you right now, had she run the race with me, she would have beaten me. Should have been the first sign that Knoxville would be a challenge.
Part Four was learning to pace myself. In the Charlotte race, I ran the first five miles at about an 8:30 minute/mile pace, which is ridiculous for the legs of a person who is 5-foot-4 and can’t out-run her puppy.
I woke up at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning ready to run. I was well-hydrated, my legs were ready for the ups and downs and I had made up my mind to take my time.
If you’ve never been to a race that has drawn thousands of people, here’s what you’ll see: the skinniest people in the world and the oldest people in the world.
It’s like going to an amusement park, really. There’s mullets and models, characters and crass.
My dad — who was running the adjoining 5K with the boyfriend and my aunt and uncle — said to me, “Boy, Kate, there sure are a lot of ‘real’ runners here.”
He was referring to the stick-thin folks who consist of bones and teeny, tiny muscles.
And I said, “Yeah, and Dad, there sure are a lot of ‘really-not’ runners here.”
I said that because here’s the thing: Those “really-not” runners — the elderly and the overweight — are the ones who blow by you on the course.
There was a woman half my height and three times my age, and I’m pretty sure she was wearing an oxygen tank, and she breezed by me like there was a free early bird dinner at the finish line.
I ended up running Knoxville faster than I did Charlotte, and the course in Knoxville was considerably harder.
But honestly, I’m just too shallow to swallow the fact that I couldn’t drag my 130-pound ass across the 50-yard line at Neyland Stadium before Grandma Moses could.
Driving home, I had a thought: Instead of focusing on myself and my shortcomings, I should celebrate the fact that people old enough to be my grandparents are so active. Instead of judging people by the way they look, I should be happy that thousands of people were exercising.
Then I remembered my family laughing about the number of people crossing the finish line before me.
Screw it, I thought.
Old people: You’re on my list.