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August 12, 2004

In the Beginning ...

I wasn’t much of a runner before meeting Andy in the summer of ’96. In May of ’95 I ran Bay to Breakers with a friend and her husband. What a trip that was. I’m probably fortunate that that was my first road race; I don’t think I’d find the soggy tortilla shower so funny if I were actually trying to run a race now. I remember my one and only 5-mile training run before that day: I’d run out to Lake Yosemite from my parents’ house in Merced, and when I got home I spent probably 20 minutes at their kitchen table just staring out into space. I know now that my runner’s high usually follows the run rather than helping me get through one. But that first one was unbelievable. I was so impressed with myself.

When Andy and I started dating in the fall of ’96, he was training for the Houston marathon in January ’97 – his first. His dad and sister and brother-in-law were all serious runners and he’d finally been sucked in. I decided to bandit and see how far I could go – I made it 13 miles. Looking back, I’m impressed I made it that far. I had on cotton everything – shorts, socks, bra, shirt and sweatshirt. Problems with the wardrobe were compounded by the fact that the temperatures were below freezing and we were running in a rain/sleet combo. I was soaked to the bone and freezing. Andy’s dad was so miserable he pretty much quit running after that day, after an adult lifetime at it. Andy ran about 4:30, stopping once in a gas station to buy two snickers and share a basin of hot water with another freezing runner. (Poor dude. His last marathon was Boston, where he suffered from acid reflux from all the Gatorade he was drinking to beat the heat and thought it was a heart attack. He walked the last 4-5 miles.)

So Memorial Day weekend after the Houston fiasco we’re sitting around in my (future) sister- and brother- in law’s place, drinking beer, and the brother-in-law says to a group of us “Wouldn’t it be fun for us all to run the New York Marathon?” I didn’t say a word. Andy and I had been dating less than a year at that point, and I was still in the “man I don’t want him to think a weenie” phase. Of the 8 or so of us there at the time only 2 of us hadn’t run a marathon before. I had recently witnessed, and experienced to some extent, some of the worst marathon conditions ever. I was hoping someone would talk him out of it, but no one did. When someone pointed out how difficult it would be for us all to get in, I thought to myself that if even one of us didn’t get in the plan might all fall apart anyway. If we were all “lucky” enough to get in I would take it as a sign that it was meant to be.

I guess I’m a lucky girl.

Posted by jenandmats at August 12, 2004 9:01 AM