13.1 Memo

There's a memo going around to my friends and family lately.  It's the 13.1 memo.  At first I didn't see the memo, but I could see that others had.  They started signing up for half marathons.  My husband must have gotten his sometime last fall.  He did his first half in February of this year.  In March I watched 16 people I know run the Rock-n-Roll half.  Today...my sister, mother of 3, ran in the OKC Memorial half marathon.  And when I say mother of 3, I really mean the youngest isn't even 1 year old yet.  Wow!

I haven't officially gotten the memo, but I think it's coming.  I want to run a half too!! ::stomps foot::  As most of you know, I'm working on a 10k right now.  My problem is I get so bored running!  Yes, I'm tired and yes my right foot will sometimes hurt.  My left knee with the 2 screws in them doesn't bother me anymore since I had surgery again last January.  So please, don't take my comment of "I'm bored" as I'm just trucking along without a problem.  I'm breathing hard and all that jazz.

It is around mile 4 that the thoughts pop in my head.  It literally goes like this:

"ok...this isn't fun anymore.  What am I doing? I'm not running to get somewhere.  Is this normal? What am I going to make for dinner? I wonder what I look like right now.  Stand up straighter.  Aww, look at that dog!! Ugh...get out of the way walker, no need to take up the whole trail.  I'm bored. If this was the 10k I would have to do this for 2 more miles!! Okay...I'm ready for this to be over."

The only thing that seems to help is if I come up with a new plan/idea that I've never thought of before and play the whole thing out in my head.  Like this past run, I thought about what if I was able to be at the finish line as a surprise to my sister when she finished her half marathon.  I planned out the drive, where I would go, the poster I would make, etc.  I even got teary eyed as I was running thinking of the look on her face when she saw me standing there!  That took at least 10mins of my thoughts away.  Still really wish I could have been able to be there for her, but my idea was too late in the game.  I had no where to stay in OKC and although I can sleep in the back of my Jeep, I didn't think that was a smart idea to do with all the recent events.  Security would be tight and I didn't want to be near the finish line sleeping in my Jeep.  I would get questioned and ask to leave for sure.  Then where would I go?

Anyway....my point of this rambling blog post is that I'm very proud of all my friends and family that have changed their lifestyle this past year and started running long races.  Running was a passion of mine in my early 20's and being surrounded by people that also like to run has started to bring that back to the surface.  So who knows!  Maybe before 2013 is over with I too will have gotten then 13.1 memo and be writing about experience.