July - Chicago Rock N Roll Half

This past weekend was the July Chicago Half Marathon, #7 of 12in12in2012!! I was so excited to see my cousin Anne, who is my ‘LLS Hero’ Uncle Pat’s daughter.  We have always been close and grew up right down the street from each other.  So, it was really special that she was able to take part in this. 

I have to be honest in that I was not trained well for this race.  My long runs had fallen off and I just have felt lousy the past month in regards to running.  The heat really sucks it out of me and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t tired of doing a half marathon every month!  Therefore, I was a little scared about this run.  This is classic ‘Megan Natter’ racing, where I don’t train well but still do the race.  And this was what I have been trying to avoid this year by doing a race each month.   But I decided to go into this race with the simple goal of seeing 13.1 miles of Chicago, a city that I’ve never seen!  During a race, we so often forget to just look around.  We are so hunched over concentrating on the race that you rarely look up.  Chicago has a fantastic skyline, so while I ran the race I just made sure to look up, to look around and to enjoy the run. 

The race started and a few miles in, I literally remember thinking ‘Hello old friend’ and smiling.  There is something so familiar and comforting in a long distance run.  And I realized that I had truly missed it.  Why had I been dreading this so much recently? The first 8 miles went by in a breeze and I thought to myself…’Maybe the running gods are smiling upon me today’.  Ahhhh…sweet hope.

The last 5 miles went downhill pretty fast.  But I’m proud of myself for not getting angry with myself.  I laughed it off and thought, ‘Did you really expect to have an awesome race when you didn’t really train? Silly Megan!’.  You truly run the race you train for and I had trained for an 8 mile race, not a 13 mile one!  But for once, it was ok.  I picked my head up and looked around, I smiled and just kept moving, albeit a little slower!

My Uncle Jim and his wife Linda, along with my cousin Anne, were there cheering me on and I was able to see them 3 times during the race!  What a huge pick me up!  I’m always so thankful for spectator supporters.  It is hard to describe how amazing it is that someone comes out to watch you run.  Linda had even made me a sign, which as many of you know, I love my signs.  I’m amazed that I’m special enough for someone to make me a sign!

This year is a learning experience.  Some lessons you can see coming and others are just complete surprises.  I didn’t expect to enjoy this race as much as I did.  I fully expected to be miserable.  Honestly, I had a blast even amidst doing only an ‘ok’ race.  But the biggest lesson I learned during the Chicago half was that I do truly like to run!!  After 10 years of telling everyone that I hate running but do it to stay in shape, I realize now that I was lying to myself.  It has taken 7 half marathons in 7 months to step back and see that running is a part of me.  It is actually something that I love.  What verified this realization was seeing the pictures my Uncle Jim took of me on the course.  In every single picture, there is really only one emotion that describes my face and that emotion is Joy.  What a surprise!