By Wendy

Tomorrow I am doing the most ambitious (stupid? Hard to tell. Those two things often look awfully similar when I’m involved) race I’ve ever done: a six hour run. The event that I’m doing actually offers a 6, 12 or 24 hour option with all of them having the same goal, to see how many miles you can cover during the time you’ve signed up for. Who ever covers the most ground wins. My goal is do get in at least 17 miles.

There are about 30 people signed up for the race but less than 10 are signed up for the six hour race. Most are doing 24 hours, which is something I just can’t even fathom at this point in my life. Of the handful of us signed up for the “short” race I am already convinced I’ll be coming in last. I know for sure that I will be walking more than I run (I’m planning on a 2:1 walk/run ratio), I know for sure that I’m the only one who requested an XXL t-shirt (the t-shirt size list is, weirdly, on the race website so I know the only other 32 year old in the race is a “S” and I’m an “XXL” and thus I am convinced she’ll beat me), and I know for sure that I’m okay with coming in last.

It kind of feels weird to say that since I usually describe myself as being highly competitive but the truth is I feel like I am still so just at the beginning of learning how to be an athlete again that the real competition for me at this point is the competition between my easily discouraged “I’ll be fat forever” side and the valiant, optimistic side of me that thinks I have any business at all trying to race. By showing up at the start line of whatever race I’m bringing up the rear in this month I’ve already won in some small way.

I’m already looking forward to writing the race report…mostly because that will mean I’m done. Wish me luck!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Blogs, Go Go Slow Racer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.