Y’all...We did it!
Between last Sunday and now, I had loads of thoughts and insights I was excited to share in this reflection entry. But, at the moment, I’m chicken-pecking these words with one hand while the other holds my laptop, slowly making it up the stairs to back Baby in case she loses her footing on the steps.
After hauling this postpartum/Ben & Jerry’s-fueled body 26.2 miles from the YMCA, through Downtown Grand Rapids, to Millennium Park, up and down that godforsaken 4-mile hell portion that is Indian Mounds, and through the back streets leading to finish line salvation, all I want to do is dissolve into my couch and undo the health benefits of this ridiculously long jog with cupcakes and ice cream. But parenthood doesn’t let you rest and, during these last 14 months, it has pushed me to be a person who shows up when I’m certain I have no more energy to do so. That practice really came in handy during the last 3.5 miles of this marathon.
Even as a pacer, as someone who did a dozen marathons before this one, and as that person who had the nerve to be pushing a Summit X3 baby jogger with all-wheel suspension during the last 3 miles, I did NOT think I was going to make it to the end of this one. I was giving all I had just to stumble forward, hoping that I pass out in the Front Street gutter rather than endure another step. However, the sparse pack of strangers I was with during those final miles was more supportive in their contagious perseverance than any of the Rocky motivational quotes I had up my sleeve. Although it was kind of maddening because we knew we were still over a mile away from rest, we knew we were going to make it.
And to the woman who asked, “Are you Bri?” followed by, “I like your blogs!” mere meters from the finish line, you absolutely made my week! Congratulations on your marathon!
These blogs have given me a lot of space to compare the similarities between parenting and marathonhood, and now that I can say I still run marathons rather than I used to makes me feel like I can continue to crush both while having a good relationship with this new version of myself.
Thank you, Don, for making my marathon self possible by baiting me with a free race entry in 2016 in exchange for blog writing. I don’t think I could have had the focus, patience, indifference toward poop messes, and strength to be a parent if I hadn’t been a marathoner first. And thank you, readers, for letting me share this experience with you through my words and letting me know I made a connection. Like that awful out-and-back 4 miles of Indian Mounds on the GRM course, being a new parent gets intensely hard and lonely. Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone. In fact, I get to do this with some really cool people.
I hope to see y’all next year. YOU DID IT!
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