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
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8 comments:
congratulations romney!!!!
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?!
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.
humble thanks. :)
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
Anybody know what that last post is about. Spam, sure, but what's the angle?
Obviously you should send him your bank account information
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.
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