One Secret to a Working Mom's Success: Keep Standing

Me, standing in Barbados Those of us who live our lives out loud on the internet subject ourselves to scrutiny. Some comment, "Nobody's life is perfect. These posts must be fake," Those making those comments might even be close to us because they "know our business" and they whisper and gossip and say, "she's so fake".  To those who may read my blog and make such comments, (the trolls) know that I hear you, see you, and completely disagree. 

Lessons Learned From the Pittsburgh Marathon



This morning I woke up with excitement. It was the morning of the Pittsburgh marathon and I was scheduled to run a relay leg. 

As I mentioned yesterday I was scheduled to run as part of a team with a group of guys that I had never met. They had registered as a "Mixed Team" and they needed a girl. I responded to an email sent to my old running group and committed to be that girl.

For the past few months I have thought about the race and worried that I might let my team down because I haven't had time to train like I would have wanted. This morning all of those worries manifested themselves as stomach problems. I now understand why all of those Port-a-Johns are along the race route! Fortunately for me, my relay leg started a couple of blocks from my house so I was not forced to use the Port-a-John. Thank God for that.  Otherwise I may have quit. I think that those things are the nastiest things known to man!

So, I went out to join the other relay team members waiting for their teammates. After a bit of confusion about where to pin my number I was ready to go. I even made friends with a girl who believed that her friend was going to get engaged at a relay exchange point.  I was really excited for that girl. Running + Romance + a Diamond. Does it get any better than that?! (I guess if he proposed I'll read about it in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette or see it on the WPXI news!)

After chatting a bit I started looking for my team member. I had witnessed some unfortunate exchanges where there was great confusion. I know that I needed to ensure that didn't happen on my exchange.  After all, I had only met my teammates via email and I was worried about running fast enough. At least I could make sure that we had a smooth exchange.

Eventually I saw my teammate running towards me. He was dressed as he described. He wore dark shorts, a red sweat band on his wrist and no shirt.  The first thing I thought was "Wow! He's hot!" Then he ran up to me, we did the exchange and he yelled, "Go girl! Go!" There's nothing like an instruction from a handsome man to get me motivated. Indeed, running with Andre makes me go faster every time!

So, I took off running super fast. About 200 yards into it I remembered that my leg was 3.5 miles and I needed to last the entire time. So I slowed down. Then I started thinking about my morning, my stomach troubles, breast pumping beforehand, pinning my number to my shirt, everything. I got anxious again that I might let my team down. 

Then something came over me. I realized that it was a sunny day in Pittsburgh and that there were people all around cheering for me. I realized that I hadn't been in a relay since I was in high school at Gates Chili.  How cool that I was doing it again, as a mom?! At that moment, I relaxed and decided to have fun. I yelled at the cheerleaders I passed. I slapped hands with a few soldier. And I swear I started to feel easier and I went faster. It was like the wind was at my back.

Even though I relaxed, I still ran as hard as I could and I came into my relay exchange area strong.   

I was proud of my performance and I earned my medal. And I think that my teammates were too. Our official time was 3:18 and we placed 53rd out of 894 relay teams.  I still don't know how fast I ran individually, but I do know that our team made a respectable showing.  For today, that was enough for me.

(Congrats to all of the other runners! I'd like to give a special shout out to Jennifer Wasco who crossed the half marathon off of her bucket list today. She's been doing some amazing things and she inspires me!)

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