Sunday, February 28, 2010

Giving Back

This week didn't start out very good. At work, 8 people in my department were laid off, part of a company-wide layoff. I had survivor's guilt and felt overwelmed with the burden of missing them and more work than I could even comprehend.


Tuesday morning my neighbor didn't get up to run and the other guy we run with had just had a funeral for the unexpected death of his father and he was headed out to California. Since I fell a couple of weeks ago, I don't feel safe running by myself. I finally got to run on Thursday and had a good run although my neighbor frets everytime she hears my feet shuffle because she is worried I am going to fall.


Yesterday, I did not do a long Saturday run, actually, I didn't run at all. I volunteered at the Post Oak Trail Marathon by working the aid station at the Pole Barn, directing weary runners to the aid station and then directing them back out to the trail, cheering them on. This was a whole lot of fun, observing the different running attire, looking at the various running bodies, young & forever young, some lean, some mean and meeting other people in the running community. This is an inagural event and Tulsa Running Club went overboard to get this event off the ground. The weather was perfect, almost 50, clear skies, light wind. About 200 people signed up for the trail marathon and there were 300 signed for the 10, 25 and 50K on Sunday. These trails are new, they had to be marked, and then there's the aid stations to be set up and manned. Then they have to do it all again on Sunday for the 10, 25 and 50K races.




Trail running is a different running event, very slow. They didn't even take off fast from the starting line, one of my friends, just stood there fiddling with his Garmin, since the satelite hadn't kicked in, he didn't seem one bit concerned that he was the last person to start. As many of the runners came out of the trail to go to the aid station, they took their time. This was not a race, it was an event to finish, without regard for time. The trails are rigorous and to complete these events, without injury, takes focus and endurance. The main reason I volunteered was to support some friends of mine and I was totally impressed as I saw them come out of the trails, looking like they were having a very good time, at least at that point in the event which was 12.5 miles. Look at them, don't you agree? By the time I needed to leave (12:20), I had seen almost everyone-Jason, Lisa, Carmie, Chris, Donna, Mary, Teresa, Carolyn, Ken and Charlie. The only one I missed was Greg, the Garmin guy.


I was a little torn with not running, but this was not the weekend for me to tackle this. I needed to be available for phone calls on a database conversion at work and I think I would have ended up getting injured but I was a little envious as I watched my friends making their way on the trail. Well, missing this one and next week's Little Rock will make the next marathon, Oklahoma City, all the sweeter. There will be many more marathons for me, for now, I will pray for my friends as they recover from this race of endurance, actually, 2 races, they were daring enough to do the 10K on Sunday too.

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