Earlier this year, daughter number 2 (Andrea) was bitten by th running bug. She ran the gate with me. Number three (Joanna) went to boot camp and was forced to take up running. Number four (Krista) increased her running to improve her tennis game. We (all five girls) were going to be together in Lynchburg, home of the dreaded deep hollow. Andrea wanted to run the half, so we thought it would be an adventure to run together. The little girls and Andrea's roommate signed up for the 5K. Andrea, Christie and I took the HM challenge.
The weather was perfect. At the beginning of the race, Andrea introduced me as her mom. The young girl beside me said "you are beast". I guess if I had looked around I would have realized then, I was the oldest female. There weren't even many males older than me. I might have realized that this was a race for the young not the young at heart. But I have always been the stubborn type.
The beginning of the race was straight up, single file, I was about five up from the back. The trail (term used very loosely) was marked by orange ribbons and arrows. There were two small stretches of open gravel road where I ran and passed several people, but that was the only running I did. When you could actually see the path, it was about wide enough for a bike. It was mostly covered by leaves. Some of these narrow paths were ledges. Small narrow bridges were crudely built over the smaller streams. Smaller trees were cut from the path leaving stumps about 1.5 inches tall. They were the same color as the trail so not easily seen. Roots and rocks also littered the trail. 80% (maybe an exaggeration, maybe reality, not sure) was straight up. It got to a point when I would look up at the next incline and just say "really". It was like childbirth when the contractions are really difficult and the rest between them isn't nearly enough. The big green monster is nothing compared to the Mountain. Running up this mountain was not like the bridges because you couldn't count on down hill. Down hill wasn't very long and it was just as difficult navigating. You couldn't run for fear of tripping or sliding down.
I lost the crowd I was running with at about mile 7, so this part of the race I ran alone. It was disorienting to be deep in the woods all alone. It was very quiet. The canopy prevented sight of the sun. This was strange, as I always battle the sun running in Florida. About mile 10 I caught up with the girl I had been running with earlier. We ran without event until the final aid station, just past mile 12. That was about 11:20, 3 hours 15 minutes after the start. Not bad for an old lady. She ran these trails often, so I was following her in. We were moving right along, following the arrows, when she turned around and said I think we went the wrong way. We back tracked to where the last ribbons were, still confused, and decided to go the other path. We ran for a little while, commenting that this was a long mile, when we ran into two girls who had just passed the last aid station. We had just run our first circle. We ran around again, still not sure where we were, when we saw some big green arrows that we had passed two times before. There was a huge incline that I didn't want to climb again. One girl went that way. The rest of us got on our cell phones and called friends and family at the finish line. We found benches (which meant we were close to camp) and sat and waited for rescue. He showed us a short cut and we saw the lake and the finish line. I had decided that this would be the first finish line I would walk across. As I neared the finish line, Baby Krista came running to meet me. She said "Mom, you can't walk across the finish line". So I ran and I wasn't the last one in. My friends and family were there cheering me. I was reminded of how blessed I am. I thought of Jason Crabb's song, "Life is Tough, but Love is Stronger". Not just the love of friends and family, but the Love of our Lord and Savior. His love was stronger than the sin he bore on the cross. He paid the debt of salvation that changed our lives, changed our families and changed our friendships.
