Tag Archives: running

miles

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This last weekend I hit a milestone. I have ran more than 3,000 miles in the last (almost) four years. 3,000 miles! I know! That’s like running coast to coast. I blame Kristen, Bill and Kari…especially Kari! Just kidding! Actually I am quite grateful to all of them for the friendship, the inspiration, the support and the whining…them putting up with MY whining. We have logged many miles together and apart but we were always connected and remain so. Running with them virtually and together broadened my circle of friends with Stephanie, Erica, Liz, Beth, Christina, Christine, Kale and so many more awesome people I’m sure I’m forgetting…go ahead and yell at me for forgetting, mmm-kay? But the circle grew even larger as I connected with local folks running like crazy…Linda, Row, Mac, Mike, Erika and Layla. I even reconnected with a high school classmate who I now count as a very, very dear friend thanks to running. Miles and miles of running together and not together connects us all in a way that one can not imagine unless they too are running. Perhaps it’s all those happy, happy endorphins…or maybe we are just a little bit crazy like non-running folk pronounce us to be. Who knows? But we are a close knit community. When one falls or is injured or must stop running we feel their pain and frustration. When one of us PRs we celebrate their amazing feat. We are a close-knit family thanks to all the miles we have all covered.

So when the bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon we were pained. No, we were struck down, maimed even. Many of us knew people running in Boston…and were following their run in a creepy-cool kind of way thanks to social media and electronic timing chips and we immediately checked to see where were they on the course. We then checked on our running friends who live in Boston but were not running. Sure, Boston is big city but Patriots’ Day and the Boston Marathon are a big, fat deal in their hometown. It’s a day to play and to celebrate. A huge sigh of relief was breathed knowing everyone we knew was okay. Still we felt the pain being broadcast for hours on end on Monday. Once again our country was attacked on a beautiful day by clearly someone or someones who truly have nothing but hate, mayhem and destruction on their agenda. The loss of life was nothing like 9-11…THANK GOD! Still, a life is a life and we can’t help but feel pain for the families of those three beautiful souls. As runners, we looked to who ended up being the victims that day…runners thisclose to the finish line, spectators cheering them on and looking for their own people to cross. Many of these innocents were family of runners- parents, husbands, wives, children, grandchildren, some were likely to be runners too, runners who just crossed the finish line and looking back for a friend who was still on the course somewhere or runners who were not running that day but were there to cheer on other runners…because we runners like to do that when we can’t run. And some were just people, random strangers there to cheer on these crazy running people…perhaps at the request of a friend 3,000 miles away from the finish line. They were all joined in the community of running, celebrating, enjoying a beautiful day together. And in an instant it was all blown up…literally. So many were injured, horribly disfigured for god only knows what evil reason. And the running community grieved perhaps as much as Boston has been. Our family was viciously attacked. How could we not grieve?

You see, the thing about us runners is that we are runners. We might not have qualified this year. We may have qualified but did not run. We may have been injured and unable to go. We may have never qualified (and given my granny pace, likely never will). But we are runners and Monday and every day since Monday, our hearts have been in Boston.

And since Monday, this family whom I belong to has united even more tightly. We are determined to reach out and love Boston, to share, to help, to give, to show our solidarity wearing our tech shirts from races past all week long and to run and keep on running…running more and more miles…all for Boston. And as we run, we are healing because those endorphins are epic stuff, yo!

The logistics of races will likely never be the same thanks to the evil that tried to destroy the Boston Marathon, but race we will continue to do. More miles. You just can not stop us from running more miles.

Just as President Obama predicted today I know for sure that “this time next year on the third Monday in April, the world will return to this great American city to run harder than ever and to cheer even louder for the 118th Boston Marathon.

Bet on it.”

that’s what friends are for

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You gotta love social media. Yes, I know some days you can’t help but hate it…the drama, the “vague-booking”, the time suck. But some days you just have to love social media. The last couple of days I have loved it.

My friend, Tracey, was running her very first marathon back home in Pittsburgh. She trained well for it and, thanks to Facebook, I was able to follow her in her training all along the way. I was so excited for her…her very first marathon!!! I was also a little nervous for her too…a worrisome foot injury late in her training schedule and the typical race-eve freak out…I couldn’t help but be worried a little…it’s what I do. More than anything, I wanted to be there…to cheer for her at the start, along the route and at the finish…because I know how much fun it can be…but more importantly, because Tracey is my friend and I wanted to be there just as I have felt like I have been throughout her training that she has shared. I set my alarm to remind me while at work early, early Sunday morning, west coast time, to send out a shout out wishing her luck and I began to follow her posted split times as well as #PittsburghMarathon live tweet updates.

Okay, fine. It wasn’t like I was there but then again it was…kind of sort of.

It was then on my Instagram feed I saw my friend Kim had posted an amazing shot of one of the elite runners running past her. It was a great capture indeed…air under the guy’s feet as if he was running through the air rather than on the pavement…you know, like us mere mortals who try to run. I KNOW that it had to be exciting as I once got to see running greatness run past me…in the opposite direction…while running in the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon. Excited I messaged Kim and told her how Tracey was running in the same event and just might be running by her soon…okay, later…still Tracey was headed her way! Kim messaged me back asking, “How can I spot her? I’m at mile 16. Would love to cheer her on.” Kim and I send back and forth messages with me trying to describe Tracey and then I send her a screen shot of Tracey with her running bib. An hour later I receive another message, “We just saw Tracey! I think we gave her a nice boost at mile 16!“, followed by, “Wish I could have lined up a few more folks to cheer for her.“

Oh yeah, Kim is good people. She even came to my aid during BlogHer 11 with a dose of Tylenol…yes, it was part of her calling card but it helped me out and how can one ever forget that…oh, and I enjoyed sitting with her and sharing during a session or two. Even better, thanks to social media, I get to enjoy Kim’s company a lot and get to remind myself of the wonderful things that I miss about back home in Pittsburgh and that which makes Pittsburgh Someplace Special. Some pretty good people live there…like Tracey…like Kim.

It was after the race that I saw a posting on her Facebook wall from Tracey:

I’m home, icing every part of my body, reflecting on the day. A marathon isn’t fun or easy but parts of it did rock…My teammates, friends, fellow athletes! Laura Scarborough Setting up a surprise cheering section from 3000 miles away! The band at mile 9.29 playing Take the Skin Heads Bowling! Getting hosed down by a hot fireman in E Liberty! Knowing my Dad was with me every step of the way! My coaches Phil Thompson & Drew McCabe crossing the finish line with me! Best running partner Kathie O’Donnell finishing the last mile together!

Reading that made me cry…cry happy tears because although we can’t be face to face every day and we can’t just hop in a car and drive on over to be there for one another, I have some pretty amazing friends out there and thanks to the interwebs and a whole lot of social media I know that we can and are there for each other to support and encourage each other…to cry together…to pray together…to laugh together…tell me how and where to bury a body, you know, if I had to…to just be there for each other. It’s a small circle still it is a circle that has expanded my world in a way that I could never imagine…even when I am feeling alone here in Manteca. I have some pretty awesome friends…friends like Tracey, like Ann, like Kim, like Kari, like Kale, like Jenn, like Bill…I am so lucky…even if you all aren’t physically just around the corner.

Love you Tracey! Love you Kim! I hope that someday I can hook you two up…perhaps while taking in a game at PNC Park.

And one more time, congratulations Tracey!!! I am thrilled and honored to have cheered you on this weekend. You. Are. Awesome.

community of mud

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If you aren’t a friend of mine on Facebook, you might be wondering “how did the mud run go for Laura?…did she survive?”

Well…

I was ready and especially inspired when I received my race packet.

Beer! There would be beer at the finish line. Knowing that I was even able to forgive the fact that they got my age wrong. Oh well, I will be 51 soon enough…next year.

Come Sunday I was properly hydrated and ready, really ready for this event. It had been an especially stressful week juggling life here and this run was going to be a much needed outlet of a lot of that stress and frustrations…plus there would be beer. My planned strategy was to not die of course and to blind everyone with my camouflage RunTeamSparkle running skirt (what else would a lady wear to a mud run?) and my blinding white legs. Some friends wondered if I was wearing shorts under the skirt and even dared to ask. Um, yes! My husband is the Scotsman, not I. Blinding white legs was more than enough to share.

Coated and layered up in waterproof sunscreen from head to toe, I was hoping to at least not burn out there at Dell Osso Farms. I might die from heat exhaustion but I would not burn…hopefully.

With just a little bit more stretching, warming up, hydrating and applying of sunscreen and eye black my team (Ben, his lovely mother and his sweet and super-athletic sister) was ready for our 12:30 PM start time. According to the weather app on my smart phone, it was 93° when we lined up at the start line. Ready or not for the race, we were definitely ready for the first muddy obstacle. By the time we reached the third obstacle, it was clear that this was going to be a pretty tough muddy hot run. All of us found the heat and some of the obstacles challenging but we stayed together, helped each other out, cheered each other on and promised that what happens on the mud run stays on the mud run. We were determined to finish together the four of us…even if we had to drag the body of one or two of us across the finish line. Yeah, we joked about that making comparisons to Harry Potter bringing a dead Cedric back from the maze…you know, so that he could become a sparkly vampire named Edward.

Yeah, the heat was getting to us.

Onward through the mud and obstacles we pushed through. I was really impressed with the community of people running around us. There was a lot of helping hands if you couldn’t get out of the thick mud or struggled scaling the rope ladder and there was a lot of slipping, sliding and tangling of limbs in the mud. Thank goodness we all got along and laughed…laughed a lot. It was definitely good, muddy fun.

Crossing the finish line we were covered, caked, coated with mud…everywhere…yes, everywhere…but we all were very much alive. Yes, we were survivors of the Survivor Mud Run.

Surprisingly, no one wanted to hug any of us. We were offered a banana and a bottle of near-boiling hot water along with a pretty cool medal. All of it soon became covered in mud because we all were covered in mud. It was definitely time for a shower which consisted of lots and lots of muddy people lined up on a platform standing under pipes of water flowing freely and water trucks driving by and hosing us all down. Yes, there were more helping hands and community. We are bonded…all of us…for life…I think…we were all that close!

Thank goodness my medal and racing bib washed clean. More for my collection. I really need something to hang all my race medals on…ahem…Mother’s Day is coming!!!

Nevertheless, it was a great day spent with family…covered in mud.