A Run to Remember

Last Sunday, I ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. It was an experience that I will never forget. It changed me. When I began training for the half marathon this last January, the goal was simple: complete it on April 29th, 4 days after my 40th birthday. At first, it was a mission to defy that landmark birthday. As my training took me on longer runs, my knees and legs began to ache unlike anything before. But I pushed through, and the struggle became less and less. As the distance extended beyond 8 miles, I began to see similarities between this training and life in general. You have a lot of time to reflect during these long runs. Growing up, most of us acquire many life lessons from whatever sport or hobby consumes us. This half marathon training was no different. I’ve always been one to charge full throttle into a project or task. Running 13.2 miles does not work. After a month or two of training, I began to realize that the key to this challenge was simple. Pace yourself. This was hard to do at first. Once I learned to pace myself at six miles per hour, things fell into place. Eventually, I could run at 6.5 miles per hour, and I felt like I could run forever at that pace without ever getting out of breath. But the muscle pain was always there on those longer-distance running days. My goal when I made this commitment was to simply finish the half marathon. Eight years ago, during a Thanksgiving visit with my uncle Wayne, I told him I would run a marathon one day. I could tell by his expression that he thought I was pulling his leg. I would like to dedicate my run in his name, Wayne Roney, who was a great man whom cancer had taken from us too early.

Sunday, April 29th, I made it downtown to the OKC Bombing Memorial an hour early at 5:30 am. It was still pitch dark. There were droves of runners—24,000 all amped up just like me, ready to go. The scene was something I will never forget, with the 168 lit-up chairs symbolizing those who tragically died. There was a great deal of energy in the air. Fifteen minutes before the race, there was 168 seconds of silence that brought the huge crowd to a hush, except for the helicopters flying overhead. There was also an additional 3 seconds of silence in memory of those taken earlier this month at the Boston Marathon. Minutes before the race, the morning light began to shine, and the crowds and thousands of participants became very real. The electricity in the air was unexplainable. 6:30 came quickly, and the race was off! The herd of runners slowly began to move ahead. It took much longer than I expected to even reach the starting line. Everyone was moving at a steady pace, and all went smoother than I had imagined. All anxiety fell to the cement as I began to run. Running through downtown OKC with so many others was something I could not have imagined. As we wound out of the downtown area and made the long stretch towards the great dome of the state capitol, the scene was simply awesome. So many strangers along the way were cheering the runners on. Some were in gorilla costumes. Some wore nothing but underwear and wigs, with words of encouragement painted on their bellies. Odd, but impossible not to make you laugh. As I settled into the race, I knew I would at least come close to my goal. That goal was to complete the race within 2 hours!