This post has been in the works since sophomore year of high
school; it has taken me a year and a half to gain base fitness, 11 months to
plan, and 14 weeks to train. All this amounted to one very nervous me standing
on a start line at 6 AM yesterday morning. This was the Mountains 2 Beach
Marathon, but the battle had been fought on the long runs and sore muscles and
trial-and-errors and self-doubt and self-reliance of the past 3+ months. The
only thing left to do yesterday, I tried to convince myself, was hold on for the ride.
My spectacular family had driven all the way down to Ventura
(an hour south of Santa Barbara) with me for this race. My sneaky sister had
previously told me she couldn’t make it to this mini-milestone, but, of course,
was waiting for me when I walked out of my apartment on Saturday morning to
begin our adventure. What a lovely, unexpected surprise! With my parents, my
best friend, and my sister all in toe, we made our way down the coast. All the
while their high spirits were both hugely comforting and mildly stressful, as I
knew I’d share either a great triumph or a relatively crushing disappointment
with them in the next 36 hours.
After a six-hour car ride, 2 huge meals, and a whole lot of
‘together’ time, I was at last crawling into a lumpy hotel bed hoping for some
restful z’s before my 4 AM wake up. And, naturally, none were to be had. So after maybe 3 hours of sleep, my gracious
mom and I were climbing into the car and heading to the start line. This
wonderful lady drove me 35 minutes into the mountains on windy backroads so I
could avoid the 3 AM wake up required to catch my allotted shuttle time. How
great is my mom? Really though, that’s love.
