Going the Distance 10K—hey if I can’t get a PR, I can at least do good and help someone else finish

This race was a last second decision. Kent's birthday was on Friday and I planned out fun stuff for us to do each day except I didn’t have anything for Monday (today). Then last week, I got an email from a running club I’m in offering a 22% discount for this race. I somehow convinced Kent that it would be a Good Idea to run this race (him running the 5K and me the 10K) even though the temps were forecast to be in the mid 90s F with a heat index well into the low 100s. Fun times, right?


Why this race?
This race is for a cause (brain injury) that’s close to my heart. You see, when my older son was 18 months old, he climbed out a third story window and fell to the sidewalk below and fractured his skull. (Quick disclaimer—we lived in Germany then, none of the windows had screens and all the sills were well above his reach. He was just a resourceful little thing and dragged a box over, climbed up and out he went—super fast and super sneaky. While he was with our babysitter at the time, it could have happened on our watch too.) A few months later, he had a petit mal seizure and we took him to the doctor, who basically said watch him, it may happen again and then again it may not.

Then when he was 12 y/o, he developed Type 1 diabetes (not related to the fall) and then about 8 to 10 years later, he started seizing again. We all thought those seizures were from low blood sugar, and in hindsight some most certainly were but not all. This last year, his now-wife, then fiancée, managed to test his blood sugar level while he was having a grand mal seizure and lo and behold, his blood sugar was normal. He’s since been diagnosed with epilepsy and it’s almost certainly from the brain injury.

So the race was for a cause that means something to me. Anyway on to the race itself.

Pre-race
I’d hoped to set a 10K PR today—second goal was to maintain the same record, and third goal was not die from the heat or reinjure myself. I’ve been struggling with my right abductor but it seemed like it was getting better so that seemed like a reasonable set of goals.

Race
Mile 1 was right on pace (9:00), mile 2 was slightly under pace, but about a half mile later, my leg really started hurting. I briefly walked and realized that starting up again was more painful, but as I kept going, the pain died down to a dull roar. OK, I thought, I can do this—and I did until mile 3. I walked again, and boy once again starting up hurt a lot. Other runners were starting to walk too, and the heat was taking a toll on all of us.

I'm on the left behind the man
without a shirt; the young woman
I mentioned is on the right.

I’d passed one young woman who looked to be in her early 20s and she reminded me so much of a dear friend of mine. Then she passed me, I passed her, one of those race yo-yos you see. Somewhere before mile 4, I seriously started considering not finishing. My leg was not just hurting but felt wrong, like something wasn’t quite connected properly any more. Then the same young woman passed me, then stopped and asked if I were OK. I realized that a PR was out of the question so I started talking with her. Long story not quite so long, she was struggling from the heat and lack of training so I ran with her at her pace, walked when she needed to, and got her over the finish line. I figured if I can’t set a PR, I can at least do some good, right?

Post-race
Well I can’t really walk. I’ll be calling my doctor tomorrow to get the official word on what’s wrong (I'm pretty sure it's a groin strain and probably a pretty bad one). Glad this was the last race for me for the summer because even if it weren’t, it would be. Oh and ironically, I still placed 3rd in my age group. And I finished.