See Sarah Run

This is the word I can’t get out of my head. The Microsoft Word thesaurus says it means transformation. Synonyms listed are conversion, alteration, mutation, transmutation, change, transfiguration. I think most of us think of butterflies, parents think of the Hungry Caterpillar, around here we are big fans of Velma Gratch and she calls it metal-more-for-this. Whatever it is, I think it’s happening to me.

You’d think I would be grown up and all done with metamorphosis by now. I’m 48. I have a husband, two kids, a nice house, a good job. What’s left to change and why would I want to change anything anyway?

A few years ago, I became a runner and that turned out to be a huge transformation. The insecure yet determined nerd-girl bookworm feminist professor mom suddenly wanted to run. So I did and it turned out to be good. I made friends, had fun, sweat a lot, ran many races, got a whole lot less insecure and a whole lot more obsessed. I found joy. I got faster, though not fast enough.

Last summer and into the fall, things started to shift. I want to be a different kind of runner and that may make me into a different kind of person. I’m fairly sure of it. But now, this injury. Sigh. This injury has slowed the entire process. I am like a butterfly halfway out of the chrysalis. Sort of. I suspect the butterfly is less emotional about the whole process. Once the butterfly is finally out, it sits on the branch and waits for its wings to dry. It turns out a substance called meconium is pumped into the wings of the butterfly and as the wings dry, the meconium is pumped back into the butterfly. (Yes, that meconium, mothers of infants everywhere…You can guess where it goes next). Small amounts remain in the wings and harden and that is what allows the wings to become stiff enough for the butterfly to fly. So yes, trace amounts of shit remain on the wings and permit flight. Something to think about.

I wonder what the butterfly thinks of all this, though I am pretty sure it doesn’t think at all. It simply waits and I guess it knows the right moment because I haven’t heard much about the tragedy of all the dumb butterflies trying to take flight before their wings are dry. Lucky, lucky butterflies. They are not like me. I sit on the branch and my brain goes a million miles an hour wondering when these wings will be strong enough to fly. Indeed, I batter my wings against the edge of the chrysalis, risking damage as I try to pull myself out faster than I was meant to go. I look at all the other butterflies and wonder why they are airborne and I am not. I know this is a mistake, but I do it anyway. I study the most recently launched butterflies intently. How did they know their wing shit was dry enough to launch? When will mine be dry enough? What will that flight feel like? Then I think maybe we humans have something in common with the butterflies after all. Do they not also wonder just exactly what it will be like to fly?

The last few weeks have not been a lot of fun from a running perspective. The foot situation hasn’t been terrible, but it hasn’t been great either. It hasn’t really hurt much while running, but I can’t claim it’s been symptom free either. A lot of days it’s hurt the afternoon after a morning run. I’ve had too many runs on the treadmill and one very weird one on Wesleyan’s indoor track with Rashi. It’s that time of year though, so treadmill runs are to be expected. The bigger problem has been mental. The plantar fasciitis cropped up originally in July and I’ve been dealing with it more seriously since October. I’m tired of this bullshit.

Last week, I just started to feel stuck. Having started running a few times and then had setbacks, I found that I couldn’t imagine recovery anymore. I considered just running on it and dealing with the pain, but I knew that was stupid. I tried to imagine focusing my athletic drive on swimming or rowing or cycling, but my heart died a little when I thought seriously of giving up running. I went back to the idea of just keeping on with what I’ve been doing, but it has felt like limping through recovery somehow. Something isn’t right, though I’m not sure what. I’d go back to my idea of saying, I gave healing a good shot and it didn’t work so fuck it, let’s just run. But I know that’s stupid and also painful so then I’d just say fuck it, let’s give up running. I know that would break my heart, so I’d go back to let’s just limp along. Round and round and round. I was making myself bat-shit crazy and I was taking my inner support circle along for the ride.

Finally I set up a phone conversation with the Celt for last Monday. We mostly text, but this wasn’t texting material. I told him how I’d been feeling and he had a range of ideas. They all sounded about equally good and equally bad and I couldn’t decide about any of that either. This is not normal for me as I generally have opinions on stuff, really, on most stuff, most of the time. But I felt pretty lost and I was honest about that.

The Celt eventually said, ok, this is why you have a coach. Two weeks off of running and then we re-assess. In the meantime, “balls to the wall” with the cross-training. That decision finally turned my brain off and I felt immediate relief. I really needed someone else to make this call and I’m super grateful that he was willing to do it.

I’ve had a good week since then. I’m mentally at peace with taking the time off, though a little nervous about how long it might last. I’ve had more mental bandwidth for the rest of life, though I’m sure my family still finds me to be pretty running obsessed. I’ve got some leads on how to address the foot issue more fundamentally and I feel good about that. And I’m enjoying some good old-fashioned “balls to the wall” cross-training including this crazy bike ride! This isn’t where I want to be yet, but it’s much better than where I was and that counts for a lot.Happy on the bike this morning, at least for now

Snowy and gross out in Michigan anyway

A few weeks ago, I took my grouchy non-running self on the road to the Colchester Half Marathon. As a volunteer. This is one of my favorite races and I hated not being able to run it, but I thought volunteering would be better than not being there at all. The race director, Rick Konon, is quite a character. I’m not even sure he needs volunteers, given his apparent ability to be everywhere on the course all the time. This is a low overhead race – Rick promises no t-shirts and no medals, but plenty of hills, cows, great food, professional level timing, more hills, and a big feast at the end. The race costs $14 and he’ll let you run it for free if that seems like too much money!

With Teacher Runner while she gets ready to race

I wasn’t sure if it would be too heartbreaking to be at this race and not running it, but race day excitement is pretty irresistible. I was assigned to a crew that was to cover two spots on the course. We started with directing traffic at a turn just before the 1 mile mark. Our gang consisted of me, another woman about my age who has run a lot of Ragnars, teenage siblings whose mom was running, plus one of their friends. Pretty sure we didn’t let anyone go off course at assignment #1! I remember this turn so well – last year, this is where I decided to let Teacher Runner go and not try to chase her down. This year, I got to cheer her on! I also got to cheer for Kitty, a local sub30 friend.

Our volunteer crew!

Our second assignment was a water stop around mile 8. This stop was run by an experienced volunteer who had a system all laid out and the tables set up when we got there. The kids practiced filling cups and fooling around while we waited for runners to show up.

You could tell our team leader was a little nervous about what the teenagers would manage once runners started arriving and the kids were a little nervous too, I suspect. Race day energy affects everyone! But luckily the initial runners showed up as a slow trickle and by the time they became more of an onslaught, we were all practiced with handing out drinks and yelling Gatorade first! Water second!

It was about 50 degrees and overcast. Completely perfect weather for volunteering, but the runners were a little warm. We haven’t had much of that kind of weather here yet. Our aid station was at the top of one of Colchester’s famous hills and you could tell the runners had suffered on the way up. Those that weren’t making jokes about whether they couldn’t make the hill a little tiny bit higher were gasping for water. Teacher Runner came through complaining about the heat and I yelled at her to “Move Your Ass” one of Coach Cowboy’s famous encouraging phrases. I was also on the lookout for Kitty and soon enough she came along as well.

I was sad not to be running, but I love cheering. I’ve done enough Ragnars with Tiny Dynamo to be perfectly comfortable yelling my head off at whoever is going by and that’s exactly what I did. Even the taciturn teenagers got in on the act. I don’t care who you are – races are just exciting and fun to watch! Volunteering also lets you watch the race in a different way. The earliest arrivals at Colchester were slower runners who are allowed to start 30 minutes before everyone else. Then lots of speedy men and soon some fast women as well. At the top of the hill, runners were so glad for the water and it felt good to take a turn passing it out for a change.

Once all the runners had passed we did a quick clean-up and got our official discharge notice. I gathered the crew into the van and hightailed it back to the start, hoping to watch Teacher Runner cross the finish line. We got lost and didn’t make it on time, though I had a lot of fun screaming at runners and ringing my cowbell out the window while driving. Definitely getting me in the mood for Ragnar!

Teacher Runner ran really well especially considering the weather. She had to go right after the race, but I hung around waiting for Kitty to finish. No Subber left behind! She did a great job and we got to know each other better while enjoying the promised feast.

I made volunteering for at least two races this year one of my goals, so one down. It’s crazy hard to be off running for this long. Not to be able to bang out a half marathon whenever I want to is pretty heart breaking. I’m just trying to have patience and keep the faith and remember that I’ll be back and at some point this will all be a blurry memory. In the meantime, volunteering is was a great way to spend a sunny winter’s morning.

Sometimes one run contains a lot of drama.

Last Monday I finally ran with Rashi for the first time. Rashi is a new friend from work. I think we found each other through the university’s Title IX committee so at least one good thing has come out of that bit of craziness. Last fall we had lunch, we had coffee, we emailed, we talked running and writing and politics. It was clear we had really hit it off but we couldn’t get our running schedules to line up and then, boo hoo, no more running for me for awhile. Now, though, I am finally back at it and our schedules matched up on Presidents’ Day so off we went.

She even brought me some quinoa salad! Can’t wait to run with her again!

Running with Rashi turned out to be even more delightful than expected. We seem to have a never-ending supply of conversation topics. We are aiming for the same pace, with her keeping me in check a bit. She seems happy with the 30-40 minute outings I am doing right now. I think I could happily run a whole lot of miles with this woman and I hope the next few months bring exactly that.

At the end of this run, I was supposed to do 5 strides of 15 seconds each. At last a little tiny bit of speedier running. Yeah! Running from the university’s athletic center means the last bit of the run is on a straight flat path, great for this sort of thing, so I figured I’d do the strides there. If the discovery of a new and awesome running partner is the high part of this run, this is the low part. The strides themselves were completely fine. Immediately upon slowing after the very first one, my foot was Pissed Off. A lot Pissed Off. Shit. I tried a few more in case it loosened up, but no go. Jogged a bit and finally walked back to the car. Ugh. I literally ran faster for a grand total of one minute. Sixty seconds I am still paying for.

My foot hurt the rest of the day. I dragged my set of cups to work to see if I could fix it up, but it didn’t really help. I iced in between meetings, but it still hurt. By the end of the day I didn’t even feel like walking across campus and just drove myself over to the work dinner I had to attend. I ran a little bit Tuesday on the treadmill and it still hurt, though it got better rather than worse, over the duration of the run. Same story on Wednesday so Wednesday evening I asked the Maestro to take a crack at fixing it with his magic needles.

Normally this is kind of like magic. Or maybe voodoo.

Rose had to come along to this appointment, but she waited patiently. At least after the Maestro lent her his laptop, she waited patiently.

Thursday the foot really hurt a lot so instead of a beautiful post-work run with Rashi, I went for an angry swim with no swim-peace to be found. Friday morning it felt a little better so I tried another run, but it started hurting again later in the day. Back to the podiatrist and back to regular physical therapy. Running on hold, again. Sigh.

What am I learning from all this? I actually think those strides were a good idea. It’s about the minimum I could have imagined doing and it turned out to be too soon so kudos to the Celt for just a little itty bit of speed before trying something more serious. I feel like we are playing with the edge of what’s possible here in terms of recovery and I am ok with that approach.

On the other hand, mentally and emotionally, this is pretty brutal. Two weekends ago, I ran with my friends for the first part of their long run. Last weekend, I had a gorgeous run on a favorite route. This weekend, I am grounded again. I’m trying to maintain a Zen-mindset, but finding that pretty challenging to do. It’s especially hard later in the day when I’m tired or when my foot hurts. I’m trying not to bitch, but I’m not always managing that either. I am leaning very hard on my support crew these days, so thank you. You know who you are. I seem to be the kind of person who would rather fight for every millimeter of recovery I can get, when I can get it, even though my mood sometimes takes a nosedive when I push it a bit too much.

Running is starting to be a regular part of my schedule again and I am super overjoyed about that. I took about two months off, almost entirely. My last “real” run was 10/21 – nine miles that I almost certainly should not have run at all. The stupid plantar fasciitis hurt every step and instead of, say, not running, I told myself, enjoy every step of this, because you are going to have to shut this down now. Urg. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I did enjoy that run, but I also kind of wish I hadn’t gone. Anyway, done is done.

Sad Garmin Connect data from November and December

After that, we tried a few little tiny attempts at sprinkling running into my workouts, but it always hurt. I ran the Manchester Road Race on 11/24 and the Ugly Sweater run on 12/3 because the Celt and the Maestro didn’t think they would cause a lot more damage than was already done and because I really wanted to do those races.

I got creative about cross training. But not that creative.

No roller blading, but lots of swimming and biking and rowing and my usual strength training. Elliptical seemed to bother my foot and I hate that damn machine so only a little bit of that. One good thing about December was that the Celt was able to give me a workout schedule that mimicked what I would have done running. I had a couple of more difficult workouts a week to try to do non-running speed work and a big variety of other stuff. Having a regular schedule was very helpful in maintaining sanity. Then I got a cortisone shot on 12/8 and shut running off completely.

Despite the wine and chocolate, there was some serious heartbreak in there, not just about missing Philadelphia, but also doubting the whole running project, a lot of doubting my body, doubting my coach, doubting that this injury would ever end. One absolutely soul-crushing moment when the Maestro pushed back the return-to-running date yet again and I could hardly look at him. One thing I was all done doubting was my desire to run and to run faster. That was back in full force, but I am not sure if it made December harder or easier.

Then finally I did little test run on 12/28 at the Maestro’s clinic. I did a few more little tiny test runs. In early January, finally, a return to running, all intervals on the treadmill at first, but without pain. We gradually built to more continuous running and also running outside, only in good weather conditions, per Maestro’s instructions. I probably over-did it a bit and I had to abort one run in late January and then get a little dry needling re-set. Then another round of intervals, more exercises, some experiments with cupping (more on that later). Finally in the last week or so, I’ve had a few genuinely pain-free runs and one glorious Sunday morning outing with my running girlfriends.

January and February calendars on Garmin Connect already look a lot different!

Teacher Runner, Rooster, Early Bird and (finally!) me

The Sunday run with these ladies was best of all. “Only” 45 minutes and only 22.5 of them with my gang, but I am so incredibly grateful to be back out there again at last. Knock wood that things continue to go well!

Winter decided to arrive all at once here in Connecticut and it got here just as I was getting serious about some nutrition changes I am trying out. I don’t bake all that much unless the weather turns bad, but when it snows, I break out the cookie sheets.

I’m really not going to turn this into a cooking blog, but I have been diving pretty head-first into the nutrition stuff, which is a story for another post. But that meant I didn’t want to go for homemade bread or Aidan’s and my favorite molasses cookies or, wait, those things sound pretty good actually…. Nonetheless, sticking to possibly healthy treats, since the snow started, I’ve made the Sweet Potato Breakfast Cookies from the Run Fast. Eat Slow cookbook by Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky and something called Honey Almond Breakfast Cakes from a recipe I had kicking around from Innovative Fitness and Wellness. My actual breakfast is almost always oatmeal and a protein shake, not cookies or cake of any kind, but these seemed like fun recipes to try.

So, first the Sweet Potato Breakfast Cookies. I bought Run Fast. Eat Slow last summer when it came out, but I wasn’t initially impressed. I made a black bean recipe that was a bit blah, nothing special, and I was turned off that the recipes don’t include nutrition information. I understand the philosophy behind that choice, but I also want to know what I’m eating and how many calories I am putting in my mouth. But, I’ve been reading a blog called Salty Running and one of their writers did a great series where she made a bunch of recipes from the cookbook and then also graded them. The Sweet Potato Breakfast Cookies got As on everything from taste to easiness and only scored poorly on cost, but I decided to give them a try. I already had baked sweet potato in the fridge so these were really easy to put together.

I also know that you are not allowed to copyright recipes (!!), so here it is, with my modifications:

Sweet Potato Breakfast Cookies

• 3 cups oatmeal
• 1 cup almond flour (This is one of the expensive ingredients. With the amount of this stuff I’ve gone through in the past month, I am should buy stock in almond farms or something. But, I just found some for much less on amazon.)
• 1 T grated fresh ginger or 1 tsp ground ginger (I used ground.)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp fine sea salt (I used regular salt. I mean, c’mon.)
• 1 cup sweet potato puree (I had a baked sweet potato in the fridge so I just put it in the food processor. I think you can buy this in the can, but I always have sweet potatoes hanging around my fridge.)
• ½ cup maple syrup (Another expensive ingredient, but we were out of this because of my children’s addiction to the stuff. I substituted brown sugar and water. For 1 cup maple syrup, you’re supposed to substitute about 1 1/3 cup brown sugar plus 3 T water so I cut that in half, more or less.)
• ½ cup coconut oil, melted (I substituted butter because I hate the flavor of coconut.)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ cup raisins (I left these out because I don’t care for raisins in baked goods.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Blend oats in blender or food processor and combine in large bowl with almond flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together sweet potato puree, maple syrup, coconut oil (Gross! Use butter!), vanilla, and shudder raisins (if you like them. If I were going to throw dried fruit in here, which I am not likely to do, I would put in dried cranberries).
4. Use ¼ cup measuring cup to drop batter onto baking sheet. Press cookies down a bit to flatten them out. For me, this made 14 cookies.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until bottoms are deep golden brown.

Rose is my baking helper

The batter is really thick

Ready to bake!

I have to say, these were amazing. They were not too sweet and just the right amount of oat-y without tasting anything like granola. They hardly seemed like “cookies,” more like some kind of not terribly unhealthy snack. Everyone in my family loved them except Aidan, who is anti-sweet potato, and even he thought they were pretty good. I gave one to Snarky Girl and she wants the recipe (here it is, Snarky Girl). These are good enough that I am hoping to make more to take as a present to some folks. I’ll probably double the recipe because my family ate the whole thing in less than 24 hours.

Sweet Potato Breakfast Cookies with Fairy Garden

I know Shalane and Elyse want you not to worry about calories and just eat “real food” but screw that. Here’s the nutrition break down for stuff I care about with my substitutes, calculated courtesy of myfitnesspal.com (a.k.a., MFFP – you can guess what the extra F is for). Also, it turns out one cookie apparently gives you 57% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. Who knew and sweet potatoes for the win!

Calories: 209
Fat: 12g
Carbohydrates: 24g
Sugar: 9g
Protein: 4g

So, are these low carb? Not really. Not exactly low in fat or sugar either, if anyone is watching those. They do turn out to be gluten free, though, if that’s what you’re looking for. If you can stand the taste of coconut, they could be vegan. Which makes me wonder what would happen if I subbed in applesauce for the butter/coconut oil, but that’s an experiment for another day.

Next up was Honey Almond Breakfast Cakes. I know chocolate is supposed to be the way to a woman’s heart, but actually almond-based sweets are the way into mine and these sounded delicious. In fact, this recipe is the reason I originally bought almond flour, but then I used it all up making the Superhero Muffins, also from Run Fast. Eat Slow. In fact, I am revising my view of that cookbook because except for the blah black beans, everything else has been good. I think it was probably a mistake to buy the Kindle version because I am missing out on the gorgeous pictures and it’s a little awkward to keep flipping the pages on the Kindle. Anyhow, back to the Honey Almond Breakfast Cakes. Innovative Fitness and Wellness (my beloved gym, for anyone who hasn’t figured that out yet) has a new recipe every week and I can generally count on these to be tasty and healthy so I’ve made quite a few of them. I needed to keep Rose (and myself….) occupied on day three of wow-that-is-a-lot-of-snow-out-there so we tried these.

Rose requested this for Christmas last year and her grandparents got it for her. It’s an R2D2 measuring cup set.

Honey Almond Breakfast Cakes

• 5 cups almond flour (Basically, you are already broke after reading that. I cut this recipe in half the first time I made it just to keep almond flour consumption somewhat under control.)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp sea salt (or, you know, regular salt.)
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 5 T coconut oil (By now my view on this is clear – I substituted butter, melted.)
• 2 T honey
• 4-5 T almond or coconut milk (guess which I used, ha ha!)
• 4 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a medium bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
3. In another bowl, whisk butter and honey together. (I am not even going to pretend about the coconut oil.)
4. Add almond milk and eggs to butter/honey mixture and whisk.
5. Stir wet ingredients into dry and mix completely.
6. Either roll into balls or scoop with spoon onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
7. Bake 15-18 minutes until firm to touch on top.
8. Garnish with sliced almonds, honey, maple syrup, fruit or just eat, as is.

I didn’t think to take any pictures until these were already out of the oven.

This recipe didn’t have serving sizes so I wasn’t sure what to aim for. I decided I’d rather make little balls than larger more pancake-sized servings so that’s what we went with. With our half recipe, we made 10 little cakes, just about the size of walnuts. These turned out to not be very sweet at all and Aidan and I both topped ours with a little bit of honey, though Rose and Mervus ate theirs plain. We easily ate all 10 little cakes in one sitting and that included the family negotiation whereby 10/4 doesn’t come out evenly so the kids score extra. Aidan declared that the only thing wrong with this recipe was that it didn’t make more little cakes. I am not sure if these are intended as a substitute for pancakes and if they are, they seemed like too much work and too expensive, especially given how many pancakes my kids can eat. But, having made them once, it would go quicker next time and with my new-and-much-cheaper source of almond flour, I would absolutely make them again. They were a lovely afternoon snack. Nutrition information, again courtesy of the recipe calculator on myfitnesspal.com:

Calories: 206
Fat: 18g
Carbohydrates: 8g
Sugar: 3g
Protein: 7g

These have more fat than the Sweet Potato Breakfast Cookies, but they do turn out to be pretty low carb and quite high in protein for a very small “cake”. They also turn out to be gluten free and they didn’t taste at all like some kind of intentionally-good-for-you dessert. These actually tasted a bit elegant and fancy and I would be tempted to serve them with sliced almonds on top of clotted cream and drizzled with honey as part of a truly stellar afternoon tea. I wouldn’t limit them to breakfast. In fact, I wouldn’t serve them for breakfast at all because I like something heartier in the morning. My kids would clearly be happy eating them any time at all!

Have you tried any of the recipes from Run Fast, Eat Slow? Which ones did you like?

Cheering at the Race for the Refugees to benefit IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services) last Sunday was about 95% amazing and about 5% bittersweet. I heard about this race a few weeks ago from Dolverine, a friend who I am helping get to her first half marathon later this spring. She’s become very active politically and her organization, Action Together CT, was a sponsor of the race. Then Snarky Girl and Coach DSS also decided to run it, so we had a little crew heading down.

I thought about running it myself, but I couldn’t stand the thought of pinning a bib on and not racing. Racing wasn’t in the cards for me for sure and anyway I hate 5Ks. I thought about volunteering, but that ended up too complicated in terms of timing, so cheering it was. I actually love cheering. Really love it. I got to cheer at the Houston marathon and the Boston marathon last year and I could have stayed all day. I figured I would make a donation to IRIS, cheer my friends, dodge the pain of a 5K and still have time for an early morning swim and an early afternoon Brownie meeting with Rose.

Snarky Girl and I drove down and got parked. We found Coach DSS and packet pick-up and they picked up their bibs.

They also got their shirts. Gulp. Nice shirts. Grey with purple writing and of course it says “Run for the Refugees” – a shirt I would love to have. No shirt for you, injured one. Ok. We also found Dolverine and her wife, the Transylvanian. Dolverine’s organization, Action Together CT was having a great day, signing up members, getting lots of recognition as a big race sponsor, and selling yard signs. Dolverine has been ON FIRE since the election and she is not stopping any time soon. It’s incredible and inspiring to watch her dive into politics with her usual ferocious attitude.

Go Dolverine!

Snarky Girl and Coach DSS and I headed out to the starting line and chatted a bit and suddenly I realized – I need to get off the course. I am not running. Gulp again. I was glad I had on my long coat even though it wasn’t that cold. I didn’t look like a runner and I was trying not to feel like one.

Ran into a student at the starting line!

This race was open to walkers also so almost everyone there was getting ready to start. But I joined the tiny band of spectators and cheered as they counted down the start.

Racing is exciting. Sure, I love watching big famous marathons, but I found Aidan’s one season on the middle school cross country team pretty damn epic as well. This 5K was no different. The volunteers were scurrying to get their act together. I heard someone say “Where’s the announcer? Has he does this before? Who is checking timing? Do they know what they are doing?” The starting mat was rolled up and the finishing mat rolled out and the photographers got in position. They barely got ready before the winner came running toward the finish line. It is SO thrilling to watch! But it’s not at all just the winners. There were lots of people working hard to break 20 minutes who came barreling down the road with their eyes fixed on the clock. There were pairs of people who for whatever reason ended up racing each other at the end, blind to everyone else. A couple of surprisingly older and surprisingly young folks crossing the line in less than 22 minutes. I love to cheer so I screamed my head off for all these people and had a total blast. This race also had some great costumes and signs to support refugees and IRIS.

Top place men’s and women’s finishers

Lots of signs on the course

Finally around 38 minutes Dolverine and the Transylvanian came in and finished strong. They circled back after they crossed for sweaty hugs and high fives.

No sign of Snarky Girl and Coach DSS. By 40 minutes, I figured something had happened either to one of them or they were helping someone. It turns out they had seen a runner fall on the course. She had MS but was running anyway and they stayed with her to be sure she finished safely. Runners are really lovely.

This race had one of the best post-finish spreads I’ve ever seen. Baguettes and ice cream and fruit and hot soup and granola bars and these fresh pineapple pop things and on and on. As a non-runner, I only took a couple baguettes that the bread people were clearly trying to get rid of. Back inside, I bought a yard sign from Dolverine and we all talked a bit of politics and enjoyed the band. Back home, I had another little pang. I didn’t run today. My foot is still bugging me. Gulp. But this won’t last forever and next year, I really want to do this race. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they will add a half marathon.