someday

I made a new play list for my shuffle the night before the race: Dr. Dog, Mumford & Sons, Bon Iver and the Dixie Chics.  Obviously, Dixie Chics sticks out like a sore thumb, but even if I embarrassed to admit it, sometimes they are exactly what I need.

I shoved my ear buds into my ears and covered them back up with my stocking cap.  It was cold.  I don't like to run in the cold, or the dark, or the rain... but I don't think I was thinking about what the weather would be like when I signed up for this half-marathon in August.  I just knew then that I wanted to race again, and I knew that I wanted to run it in under 2 hours.

I stopped complaining to myself after about a mile in, it was after all, a pretty day; it wasn't raining, it was sunny, it was just too damn cold, but after a mile, I started to warm up and I started to think more about things other than if my toes were going to fall off.

That's when the Dixie Chics' song Godspeed started playing through my head.  My heart squeezed a little tighter, as I moved one foot in front of the other, remembering how I use to sing that song in my car.  I sang it to Henry, still in my belly, as I drove home from work, all the time.

I thought about how much love was in that song, from a mom to her son.

I thought about how much I say 'running is for me', and it is, but there is this little part of me that does it for my kids too.  To set an example; to be brave and strong, and to be fast and self assured.

And I thought about what my husband said to me the night before the race as we talked in bed.  I told him that 'the kids didn't need to be at the race... that they don't care, that they don't know the difference.'  And he looked at me and said that 'someday it will matter to them, and I want them to see what you are doing.  I especially want Edy to see what a woman can do.'

That's what I was thinking about at mile 11, with just a little over 2 miles left and 20 minutes left in making it under 2 hours.  I knew I had it if it continued to go as is; my thought was 'I got this'. 

I thought about Edy being proud of me... someday.  Maybe not today, maybe not even in the near future, but just that 'someday' had me moving forward.

I crossed the line at 1:57:33

I'm not the faster person out there, I'm not the fastest woman out there; but I did exactly what I had set out to do. 

Someday, that's exactly what I'll tell Edy:

'Set out to do something and do your hardest to do it... that you are lucky to be a woman... to make your someday, one day.'

And to quit complaining about it being too damn cold, we live in Minnesota, it's a given.