Because #cancersux
by Lisa Leonard
The day before the Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon in Savannah, I wrote the following in my running journal:
Tomorrow, I run in your honour. I’ve trained for a year. You’ve fought your own fight nearly five. You’ve come close to giving up, I know. So have I. But you didn’t. And I won’t.
Last week you faced your fear and had surgery. Today, nerves are threatening to consume me. But I look at the orange band on my thumb that reminds me, and I know those 13.1 miles tomorrow are nothing compared to what you’ve done, battling doubts and fears and pain and exhaustion.
I love you, Mom.
#cancersux
You see, my mother has cancer. Leukemia. Lymphoma. Complications. I made the decision late last year to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll in her honour. For eleven months, I’d trained, using the Couch-to-5K and then the Runkeeper app plan for beginners. The last month or so of training brought far fewer miles than I had planned…Too many distractions beyond my control – jury duty, mom’s splenectomy, fears of a stress fracture in my left foot with its week of no running, Hubs’s stomach virus. Excuses.
Two days before my race, Hubs and I had arrived in Savannah. A day to loosen my legs after the six-plus hour drive from Tennessee. A day to rest. An evening to carb load with a home-cooked meal. (Did I mention Hubs is an excellent cook?!?)
Sleep eluded me…Hubs snored…I tossed and turned…The couch became my bed…Every noise outside startled me – traffic, fencing set-up, laughter from the Treylor Park (the quirky restaurant next door)…
I’d set my alarm for 5:00, but I was up by 4:45. Coffee and a half bagel with a couple tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter were choked down, threatening to return as my jitters multiplied. I double-checked my running duds. I watched part of an infomercial. I showered. I pinned my bib to my shirt. Hubs attached my timing tag to my shoe. I finished dressing. I found my gum, Honey Stingers, and Chapstick, securing them in the left pocket of my running skirt. I untangled my headphones, debated whether or not to take them, and then attached them to my iPhone.
My nerves were overwhelming me.
Breathe…
Forty-five minutes until start time. Another teacher from back home who was also running (we’d happily discovered we were both doing this a few weeks earlier) texted me that she and her hubs were on their way down Bay Street to find our corral. Time to get real.
Music blared in the distance, both behind and ahead of us. Last minute announcements were made, and then the count-down was delayed due to a medical emergency at the start line. Lovely… More nerves.
The starting horn finally sounded, and wave by wave, the corrals were released. Nearly thirty minutes after the initial horn, our wave reached the starting line, and we were off…
The first seven or so miles, Colleen and I hung together. Sometime after that, I’d fallen behind. My sporadic training the last month had caught up with me. But every step beyond seven and a half miles was a step further than I’ve ever run. Thinking of Mom kept me going. She was back home, still recovering from her splenectomy – and in pain – so that hot-spot developing on my left big toe, the nagging pain seeping into my hips, the heaviness in my legs? I ignored them and gutted on, walking a bit longer than I’d planned, but running on. The Avett Brothers’ “Ain’t No Man” played on iTunes. Perfect song at the perfect time.
The thought of finishing in three hours toyed with me. But by then, I’d also lost sight of the three-hour pacer, but according to my Garmin, I was still close. Unimaginable, given I’ve done almost all my training on a treadmill…a lying treadmill that had teased me into thinking I was running faster than reality, AKA on pavement. A woman escorted by two bicyclists passed me with less than half a mile to go…the female marathon leader! An inward smile bloomed when I realized she’d finish double the distance I was covering in less time than me. But finish I would!
Emotion overwhelmed me. After I found him in the crowd, I sobbed into Hubs’s shoulder across the spectator barrier fence. I’d finished. A half marathon. Thirteen point one miles.
For Mom.
Because CANCER SUCKS.
may be over so I now return to hiking. I did a lot of that in Holland, England and Spain prior to learning to run at the age of 72 when my daughter , Sheila was my coach.
I start the app and immediately become immersed in the story. Bone-conduction headphones allow me to hear every noise around me, even though I can’t see past the beam of my headlamp. I push harder and harder as the mission proceeds from clip to clip, the hardcore playlist driving me to run faster, stronger, pump those arms, watch the trail, listen for danger and zombies in the darkness. Every inch of my body feels the strain and my lungs burn as I struggle to take in enough air to keep from passing out.
In a few days, I’ll go to a meetup with other Runner 5’s in the area and we’ll run the mission at the same time if not together, then meet afterwards for beers and food. We all have our own “Runner 5” names – mine is Valkyrie5. We don’t compete. We love Zombies, Run! and we love the community we’ve built around it, and that’s what brings us together and motivates us to get out there and run or walk on days we’d rather not. All our times will be automatically posted by the app on a “leaderboard” along with thousands of other Runner 5’s across the globe who over the course of a few weeks will save the world over and over again. My screen name will be Duckstomper. After Nov. 1 passes, we’ll all have to content ourselves with going back to the “regular” storyline and trying to guess what Runner 5 is going to get into next, without spoiling it for people who are just getting started.
I am Runner 5. Raise the gates…covering fire…and…GO!
When we start out walking our feet take us around our parents’ home. As we grow, the places our feet take us changes. From the house where we grew up, to school, college, the service, or a career, around the block, and around the world.
Presently I spend more time cruising around Anchorage, Alaska, but in September I finished my last leg on the Klondike Road Relay. Ten legs beginning in Skagway, Alaska, running through British Columbia, Canada, and finishing in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, for a total of 110 miles. I’ve walked, and run everything from a mile, to Anchorage’s own 49k in the 49th state. I have sworn off winter marathons years ago; and then did Rock – n – Roll NOLA this past February. My fifth distance event in the winter, and I’m signed up for Dopey, at Disney World, in Orlando, FL, this coming January. Did I mention training for these distance events in warm climates, while it is cold in the North, is a challenge? I train on snow, and ice, so I can go run in a skirt, light weight t-shirt and regular running shoes after wearing studded shoes for training. I can hear you laughing! As well you should. I break every rule of running, and then sign up for another race, but like everyone reading this. I’m in very good company.
My life changed four years ago……my oldest son was getting ready to leave to the Air Force and I went for a run with him and sadly I could not even make it half way around a city block. I was embarrassed, I always tried to lead by example, I watch my weight, I do not smoke, do not drink, eat healthy and am very active, just was not able to run around a block and he did not let me live it down….lol. So that was the start of my running journey, I signed up for my first 5k and was instantly hooked. I have never looked back and only wish that I would have stumbled upon my love for running long ago. In the past 3 ½ years I have 2 full marathons, almost a dozen ½ marathons, with countless 10 miler, 10ks and 5ks on the books. I am in the middle of training for my 3rd full marathon and this one I am doing in honor of my son, I will be running the Air Force Marathon on September 17th and my son will be running the ½ marathon. I love the long runs, I can run for hours and never get tired of the beauty of running. I love the stress release, the bonding with friends, and the me time, it’s my clarity in life.
If I was writing this prior to May 13th, 2013 I would have described how my feet have carried me on multiple journeys to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, treks up the rivers and on the mountains in Denali National Park, and hikes on the Appalachian Trail, in Glacier National Park, and elsewhere during my Boy Scout years. Before that life-altering day in May these words would have focused on the memories of early walking dates with my wife-to-be when we waded through rivers, plodded in snowfields, and crawled into caves. During our nearly 45 years together we have travelled by foot in forest, tundra, desert, mountains, country roads and cities. My feet have carried me to many wonderful and beautiful places with friends and family. But as I aged and as my teaching career and growing family needed more and more of my time and energies my feet carried me less and less and my health and weight suffered.
In the last three years my feet have carried me over 10,000 miles. They have carried me on the course of 5ks, 10ks and half marathons. I have been in 70 races and earned several age group and walking division medals. I have far too many T-shirts. My feet have carried me through sore muscles, sweaty clothes and the loss of 80 pounds. My blood pressure is normal. My blood sugar is normal. I no longer need a C-Pap machine to sleep. It has been a long time since I have felt as well and as good as I now do. I feel as if I experienced old age in my 40’s and 50’s and finally, in my 60’s, I am enjoying my new found middle age. But I no longer run or jog. I have become a walker.
This morning my daughter drove me to a spot on a rural road eight miles from home. “See you in a couple hours,” she said and drove away. The temperature was 86º, dark clouds were rolling in from the west, and a slight breeze enveloped me as I headed home. For the next 115 minutes my feet carried me past farmhouses and fields, underneath tall oaks, and alongside the Rock River. I picked up some trash and had to dodge a car and a truck. I arrived home thirsty, sore and drenched in sweat, but I felt wonderful and blessed that my feet have brought me to this point in my life. My feet have carried me many places. I am grateful to all, from family and friends to the Moon Joggers community, who have encouraged and motivated these feet. May we all continue to celebrate movement and motion and appreciate the wonder of each step. Be you runner, jogger, or walker may your feet carry you well.
“Shoe’d feet, bare feet, walking feet, running feet, neutral feet, pronated feet, hairy feet, pedicured feet, small feet, big feet…how many, many feet you meet.” My feet will continue to carry me to places unknown to meet up with different feet much like your own.
