I crossed the Rubicon six months ago. It seemed like a normal evening, but it would turn out very different. A friend spoke a simple challenge, “Anyone want to run the Army Ten-Miler with me?””Sure, with 6 months to train, it will be a snap,” I said with little thought to the 20 years that have passed since my last physical training test. And with that I heard the waters of the Rubicon splashing behind me.Fast forward… with a couple hundred training miles logged… I was on the starting line on a glorious fall day at the Pentagon with 35,000 other friends.
The gun sounded and I was off!
I was running pretty well… until mile 9. Then, my legs hit the wall… “Legs don’t fail me now!” My calves were screaming and felt like lead.
“Should I walk?” It would be so easy. There would be no shame. I had these beautiful daydreams of walking for a while. And there were many well respected people already walking at this point.
Of course there were a lot of people running too, but they were surely the scoundrels. The battle was on… “walk”… no… “run”, I persevered and kept running. I saw a soldier with prosthetics being half carried by two friends. He did not quit either.
I finished in 1:36. That is not so fast as my kids were careful to point out; their teacher ran it in 1:12.
