"Boogie the Bridge"

This past Sunday morning, the training and anticipation were finally over. "Boogie The Bridge" day had arrived. I made sure to be filled up on carbs the night before, got a good night's sleep, and was raring to go in the morning.  Unfortunately, the initial plans for Kate to run with me could not be carried out. She had had an encounter with some looped carpet and a steep flight of stairs, resulting in a purple and blue left foot, ballooned to twice its natural size.


Once parked in Kamloops, we made the trek to the pandemonium on Kamloops' main downtown street ... AKA 2500 people attempting to get organized to race. After locating the "Coach Trill" tent and my fellow RUNClubbers, my focus was 100% on running. As with any event involving a large number of people, it seemed to take an eternity to actually get going. First were the half-marathoners (I might be one of these someday!); next was "Mini Boogie", a 1 km race for the kids. Eventually, the 10 km racers were asked to line up. Unfortunately, I had somehow lost most of my teammates and there was only myself and one other woman from our team anywhere in sight. Because of the huge mob of people behind me, there was no way I could backtrack to find my team.


Torn because of this predicament, Nicole and I set out from the start line together. However, she is considerably faster than me, and I encouraged her to just go run her race. At about the one km mark, I was already questioning WHY did I want to do this to myself?? My only choice was to focus, shut out the discouraging voices in my head that wanted me to give up, and put one plodding foot in front of the other. I found great inspiration in the sidewalk chalk messages that adorned every metre of the 10 km (and probably 21 km) route.


I decided not to stick to our usual strict cycles of running and walking. Rather, I ran and ran and ran as far as I possibly could, and then would walk for a short time of a minute or less.  Just when I would be thinking I couldn't go on any further, there would be another band playing uplifting music, or a random family sitting in lawn chairs cheering as we went by. Seeing and hearing Esther and Kate screaming, "Go Mom!" at the 7 km mark definitely got a few more kilometres out of me -- well, that, in addition to the energy gel pack Kate had advised I tuck in my waistband and down at the 5-6 km mark :)


I knew I was nearing the finish line when I saw David videoing me from the sidelines. He ran a few hundred metres with me, encouraging me that I was just about there, and then let me cross the finish line alone. A huge hug from Jo, our RUNClub coach, greeted me as I crossed the finish line.

I DID IT!!!

I didn't "win" anything ...

     I wasn't the fastest ...



          I wasn't the slowest ...
               But I did beat my previous personal best time for 10 km by a considerable margin, completing the 10 km in 1 hour, 11 minutes. Extremely slow by some standards, but a HUGE accomplishment to me!


If you're curious to watch the TV coverage of Boogie, here's a link "Boogie the Bridge"