I have always liked having a challenge! One of the things I wanted to do after turning 45 and starting jogging was to run a marathon.

Chasing the Dream
In my mind, I had always wanted to run a marathon. There was something about that 26.2 mile challenge. And I wanted to run it in Hawaii.  Imagine my disbelief, when I found this group that could make my marathon dream come true and raise money for a charity! I called them 3 months before they even announced the marathon site. I told them I was interested in running a marathon for them and they told me there was an interest meeting coming up soon.

Signing Up
Well, wouldn’t you know it, I had a scheduling conflict the evening of the interest meeting. So I volunteered Edward to go and take copious notes. He went and came back thrilled and almost as excited as I was with copious notes!

Edward said the main speaker (Charlene) was a lady who had completed several marathons. She drank and smoked, so he knew I could do it. What????? His point was if she could do it with all that going on, it should be a breeze for an out-of-shape person like me.

Life Begins to Change
Now, I was not that out of shape (see picture above), but compared to Edward who still weighed what he did in high school – I was. I might have been 10-15 pounds heavier than he was at that time. (Oh, for those days.) Edward and I weighed exactly the same weight when we got married and a number of years later. Not so much now.

My Training Friend
Anyway, I met my training group at the leader’s house (you guessed it – Charlene) and we began training on Saturdays. We followed a training schedule each day. You could run by yourself or with friends during the week and on Saturdays you ran with the group.

Charlene lead the runs and we ran and talked and talked and ran and we all became fast friends. People ran their own pace, but no on ran alone. If you had to slow down to run with a slower runner you did that. At least that was the way it was in Charlene’s group.

Running Buddies
Training like that means you spend a lot of time with others on training runs. What you do as a profession fades into the background. You are trying to stretch yourself physically, to do what it takes to get the miles in to improve your strength and endurance.

You get close to people in ways that you wouldn’t at work, at church or anywhere else. I guess, for me this is as close as I will come to understanding how folks feel about friendships in team sports. After all, in this training you can be out there running together for hours at a time.

Best Training Run Ever!
In Cincinnati, one of my best training runs was in the snow. Edward suggested dropping me off and waiting to pick me up. I said no, “I would just drive to the area, run my 13 miles, get back in the car and go home. When the snow flakes were fluffy, early on (mile 0-8), it was great! But as I got colder and it grew darker, I began thinking maybe I should have let him drop me off. 

By the time I got to mile 10, I was getting angry about why had he not insisted on bringing me. And as I neared my car, I was sure I was going to let him know how stranded I felt running out there, in the cold, in the snow, by myself, in the dark. When I got home, Edward told me he and Salsa (our dog) had just gotten back from looking for me, covering what he thought was my route.  I had no words, except, “Awwwww, thank you, but I was all right.” (I later told him how I really felt.)

Raising Money for a Cause
While I was training for the marathon, we moved my mother up to Cincinnati from Little Rock. She was in the hospital for about 2 weeks and I would stay with her often in the hospital and go train with the group on Saturdays.

She never understood why I wanted to run that far, but she clearly was in support of my running for charity. The minimum amount to raise for TNT that year was $3200.00. I wanted Edward to go and at that time you could bring someone with you, if they too raised the same amount. We ended up raising over $7200.00 for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

How did it end?
Yep, that was the beginning. The 1st of 3 marathons I ran for Team in Training.  I was able to run all but the last one injury free. (Plantar fasciitis developed a month before the Chicago Marathon). TNT took me from a person who could barely run a mile to completing a marathon.

Not only that, I gained life-long friends, like Charlene. Who I probably would not have met had it not been for those marathons. I also kept in touch with many friends around the country during that time, whose encouragement and support meant so much to me then and through later challenges in my life.

For a long time after my marathons, waking up and not being out at 6 am on a Saturday training run seemed abnormal. I really had gotten used to getting up early and looked forward to that 3, 5, 7, 10 ,12 or 15 mile run! I even promised myself that I would continue to run at least 5 miles every other day on my own. The sad thing is after a marathon i didn’t feel like continuing to run in the same way I did during training. Life gets in the way. Alas, but I still have some great memories!

What Counts?
Trying something new.
Learning as much as you can about that new thing.
Meeting new people.
Keeping active.
Setting a goal (physical and monetary, in this case) and reaching it.

One of our friends, the late Leroy Breedlove said to me, when I told him I was training for a marathon, “You’re not trying to win, are you?” My answer then was,  “No.” (Now, to get a sense of where I was in the Honolulu race – On the out and back loop – The Kenyan runner, who won that year, was coming down Diamond Head (his mile 21) as I was just starting out.)

But as in all 3 marathons, I finished the 26.2 mile course, therefore, “Yes, Mr. Breedlove, I did win”.

Dr. Harriette

P.S. My daughter, Renette, thought this piece did not express enough of my feelings about training & running the marathon. Next week’s blog answered all of her questions. Let me know which one you like best.