Boston or Bust

This past month has been one of the strangest of my entire life. As the month began it looked pretty straight forward. Work, train, repeat and at the end of the month, race. What I did not factor in was my birthday. I mean I knew I had a birthday and when it was. I didn't know though, that I would be so affected by this birthday. This was number 49 for me. At this particular intersection of life the view is weird at best. Trying to hang on to youth but feeling the constant pull of time. It has provoked emotions and feelings I thought long since dead. Made me dust off old dreams to see if there is still any shine on them. Replay memories of the good, bad and ugly of a life lived mainly on my terms. It's made me look in my heart to see what I truly feel. It's pissed me off to no end and frustrated me to the point that like a deer in headlights I have no idea which way to turn. But through all of this turmoil I've learned a few things about myself. Most I won't dare share here. But some I will. I have great friends!! I have people that truly care about me!! Not all of my choices thus far in life have been bad. And you should NEVER ever give up on a dream. This past weekend I ran my 7th marathon. The Tri-Cities marathon is a fairly low key event. No big pre-race trade show. No pacers to help you reach your goal. There weren't bands playing along the route. As a matter of fact there weren't very many people along the route. But for me, this was the best marathon. Not just because I ran my best race ever. Not even because I qualified for the Boston marathon, ok maybe a little for that. I got to run this race with 2 very important people in my life, Tony "The Hobbit" Dibartolo and Meghan "The Little Faulker" Faulkenberry. Tony and I have been in several marathons running at the same time, but never running together. Great guy I love him like a brother, but he will not shut the fuck up. I told him prior to the race " if you run with us you keep your mouth shut or I'll punch you". He did! Meghan and I first ran together one day after swim practice last winter. Something wonderful happened for me that day. I found the perfect running partner!! At the time I didn't realize just how perfectly matched we were. Over the summer as we spent more and more time together training in all 3 disciplines it became evident that our training styles were very compatible. As we put in the time prepping for this race we pushed and pulled each other to reach a little deeper. We had expectations of ourselves and each other as all good training partners do. If you read my last post" Shut up and run", you know we don't talk much while training. But through our commiserating we also became great friends! Her and I ran most of this race side by side, step for step. Our cadence perfectly in sync. It's like there is a shared strength, 2 runners but it sounds like 1. Like both of us are contributing to make this 1 set of footfalls, so it takes 1/2 the work. Now if only we could figure out how to go twice as fast, maybe next year. I know that I worked hard all year and I earned that Boston spot. I also know that I would not have done it without Meghan, nor would I want to. We're going to BOSTON!