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