This was really Dave's race. (Dave being the gentleman running beside me in the photo above) We've been running partners for a couple of years, our boys are close friends but really, what he did on Saturday went above and beyond his duties as my friend and running partner. Fresh off Boston and still lugging around my oh-so-sore quads, I thought I was big shit and decided to go ahead and run Greer. As I said, this was really meant to be his race as I had Boston the week before and he'd been training for Greer. We hadn't run a long distance race together so when we signed up (AGES ago), we thought it would be FUN!! I'll leave back to back runs to the great LifesABeach and MarathonJunkie. I tanked around mile 8 and Dave stuck it out with me. He could have gone on and PR'd, he had it in him. But nooooo, he was the best running partner a girl could ask for a stuck it out with me. He walked when I walked, listened to me complain about the pain in my legs, offered me extra Gu/water and basically, 'carried' me to the finish. It was a miserable 5.1 miles so I was rather shocked when my good friend (and Greer Earth Day Race Director!!!) Flemming sent me the above photo and I noticed a rather strange expression on my face. I don't recall smiling at all during that run. The heat, the pain, the thought of having to actually finish..ugh! Then I realized..I looked deep into the photo and recognized the church behind me. I was mere feet from the finish!!! THAT'S where that smile came from!!!
So, thanks to Mr. Dave for tolerating me through that run. I hate that I ruined his chances for a PR but I'm thankful he didn't leave me out on the course alone. And I learned a very good lesson, when Dave says I shouldn't run a race, I'll listen next time!
3 comments:
Well done Dave and Mar, a great team and that's a valuable lesson in itself. Loving the Madonna sports bra too Mar, might as well give Dave an extra bonus to smile about huh? ;-)
D.
well there IS photographic evidence to support the claim that you might have been miserable .. but why go there.
as for "having run Boston ...." I can show you lots of pictures from the earth day run of people that also ran Boston that I'm beggining to think we should advertise it as the ultimate recovery race boston runners.
D-
Yeah, I didn't realize my nips were quite so 'alive' with that top. Not exactly the best running top. I learned my lesson!
Flemming-
Let's not talk about THOSE photos!! I need to call you-
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