Monday, November 18, 2013

Snapshot

I'll give you the race day play by play soon. For now, this is all you really need to know.

 This is my team. Minus the coaches, minus one very spirited Lulu luminary. This picture captures it so well- the color, the smiles, the warmth. Calm and quiet (Justin), happy to be standing because he knows he couldn't stand back up (Richard). Genuinely interested and engaged in conversation (Sheri), politely smiling while privately thinking yogis are much more sane than runners (Nat), attempting to get us all to do the same thing at the same time and insisting on the importance of pictures (Theresa), (I think Molly is raising the roof?), Sanely choosing to not over-complicate things and just smile (Emma), openly expressing distaste for photo ops (me).

What you don't see is the prom-style line of coaches/significant others with camera phones, all instructing us to smile at the same time. What you might see is a level of comfort that comes from all feeling the same discomforts together. You can't see the tight hamstrings, the achy feet, or the missing skin (because it's missing! It's gone! Not there! Ahhh!!) What I see is a group that I'm seriously thankful to have spent 15ish weeks training with. We all did it. We ran the race, we pushed our comfort zones, we PR'd.

I can't remember what movie it's from, but I've always liked this one:
Beginning are usually scary, endings are sad, but it's what in the middle that really matters.


We met in August, not sure what to expect, not sure who our teammates were, if we were going to get along, what it was going to be like to be coached by Bob and Ruthie. Now, staring down the barrel of Thanksgiving, (I think) we're all feeling twinges of withdrawal, marveling that we actually aren't going to see each other at the track tomorrow night.

But it's everything in the middle- Theresa rallying us for pictures after every group run, Ruthie standing in the middle of a hill making traffic go around us, Richard making peace with yoga... that matters. The PRs and the victories from Saturday are pretty sweet too.

And if we get to feeling a little blue that it's "over", we can take comfort in the fact that what happens on Facebook, follows you around forever. ;)

#lemondragonsforlife

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