Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Never Say Never


When Romney got wind of my 07 birthday challenge she had absolutely no desire to participate. A year later, as my wife, she felt an obligation to support what I called an off year challenge. During the latter stretch of my 17 hour affair she said, “I wasn’t sure about these. I kind of thought I might want to do one. But I’m exhausted and all I’ve done is belay. Now I know, for sure, that I’m never doing a birthday challenge.”

Last Saturday she proved herself a liar. Not only had she done a birthday challenge but she’d done an absurd one; an “ultra” marathon. Until a few months ago, not only had she no interest in punishing herself on her birthday, she “didn’t run.” So I was probably as surprised as anyone when out of the blue she targeted the Red Hot Ultra as her objective.

In the five weeks she trained for the event I kept hearing complaints. I tried to tell her she didn’t have to do it (I think challenges are/should be fun) but she wouldn’t hear of it.

"... they don’t call it “The Birthday Pretty-Hard," she’d mutter each time.

Her blog examined her trepidation:

There are days when I’m sitting around and think I’ll just get in the zone and run for however long it takes. Then there are days when I’m running and I think, “this is going to be impossible.”

This lasted up until the morning of the race. At check-in she said, “what am I doing here with these people?” But not only did she finish an hour and a half under her expected time, she finished with a smile. And even when she was suffering she copped to having a good time. This certainly must have been the case. As the weekend progressed her enthusiasm increased until she started saying things like, “I wonder what a hundred would be like?”

As usual, my talented wife explains things better than I do. Congrats, baby!

Birthday Challenged



pics: bounding through the snow during the race; under castleton tower thinking about what's next

8 comments:

marc said...

congratulations romney!!!!

Unknown said...

No doubt about it - I saw her at 23 k and she had a big smile on her face. But there was her honey too so it is hard to tell :) 5 weeks for an ultra?!

TheThinker said...

Great Job Lisa, an ultra is amazing. I just hope I can get 7.5 miles in the expected time for my challenge. nowhere near what you did.

Lisa Romney said...

humble thanks. :)

Anonymous said...

I am reading this article second time today, you have to be more careful with content leakers. If I will fount it again I will send you a link

Steve Edwards said...

Anybody know what that last post is about. Spam, sure, but what's the angle?

bob banks said...

Obviously you should send him your bank account information

Steve Edwards said...

I would but I sent my money to the prince of Niger who is going to give me most of his fortune for helping him out.