"Hey, I know, let's get up early on a Saturday morning, get together with thousands of strangers, go out in the pouring rain, and run the length of a major motion picture!" - Sarah, in response.
"Work it out, ma'am" - a marine passing out water at an aid station, to me in response to my thanks.
"These hills are f$^&#ing ridiculous!" - pretty much every single runner on the course who had the strength to speak.
"Sure is hard to take a nap when you have to get out of bed to spend time in the bathroom every fifteen minutes all afternoon" - me on the phone late today, when asked how I was doing post-race.
Two hours, twenty-two minutes of pure running bliss, people. Runners are crazy. We have our reasons, though. My last quote (one I found today in The Complete Book of Running for Women - while looking up "diarrhea," "hypothermia," and "post-race nausea") sums up one of mine:
"Though the social climate has changed since the 1970s and girls are encouraged and invited to play sports of all kinds, attitudes linger. It seems we expect boy to play sports, whereas we accept that girls play. As mothers, we can have the greatest effect in changing those attitudes. One of the gifts we give to our daughters through our running is to show them that an active lifestyle is just as natural and essential to women as it is to men; that women not only are the caretakers of others but that we place a high priority on our own well-being, too; that we do what we need to for our own good health and happiness."
Maybe it's fitting that this race always falls the day before Mother's Day. I hope I am passing this on to my daughters, craziness and all.
Congrats on the run!
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