I always think to myself after a run or a race, “what’s next?” I will finish a race and think, “I can’t believe I did that!” Well, this run was the top of all “Oh my Gods!” Let me start with the beginning. Last year I can remember Joe Benny talking about running Prospect Mountain. I can remember thinking he was nuts and that only really good runners could possibly do something like that - not people like me.
Now back to this year. I am training for the Green Mountain Relay on June 20th and my dear sweet boyfriend, who I think wants to kill me, suggested that Prospect Mountain would be a good training run. So, I call my friend Melanie and she is as crazy as myself and says, “Let’s do it!” So we all sign up without putting a lot of thought into it. Before the race, Melanie suggested that we do hill work at the Pinebush. The hills in the Pinebush were amazing. We ran them three weeks in a row and I thought, “Awesome, this is really going to help with Prospect Mountain.”
Okay, are you still following me? While I’m telling you about Prospect Mountain keep the word mountain in mind. On Saturday May 9th, a large contingent of ARE members met up at our apartment and we followed each other up to Lake George. We were all excited about running this race. We went to packet pickup where we received beautiful technical tee shirts. We then left to join all the other runners at the start. While standing at the base of the mountain, Ed, the boyfriend who I think is out to kill me, brings to my attention the beautiful scenery in the distance. He then tells me that is the top of the mountain. At that point I come to realize that I am not running some little hill in the Pinebush. I was running an incredibly huge mountain. That is when I started to think to myself, “Am I nuts?” “How am I going to do that?”
Still somewhat excited, we wandered over to the start line. Everybody around us was talking about their strategy on how they will make it to the top. The gun went off and off we went. The beginning is a slow incline with a little bit of flatness. I’m okay with that so far thinking, “okay I can do this.” Then the climb begins and continues and continues and continues and never stops. At one point I put my hand on my chest and felt my heart pounding so hard that I really do believe that if you were looking straight at me you would be able to see my heart coming out of my chest with every heart beat. I do believe that if my heart was to ever give out, this race would have caused it. I continued to run and the incline still goes on and on. When I typically run I think of so many things like work, my kids, bills, things I want to do, the beauty of the run, Ed and so many more things. This race I thought about the finish. I kept asking myself, “When? When will this be done? When will this Mountain stop? WHEN?” Then it happened, the finish line, the beautiful finish line, and people rooting me on at the end. I was done! I was so thankful to be at the top of this mountain. I was so amazed I accomplished such a thing as climbing a mountain, shucks, running a mountain. I ran up an elevation of 1,601 feet.
After everybody I came with finished the race, I took in the beauty of this mountain. You could look down over Lake George. It was very foggy but still beautiful. What a fantastic sight. Okay, here’s a question for you. What do you do when you climb 5.68 miles up a mountain? The answer ...you turn around and run back down and that’s just what we did!
Now back to this year. I am training for the Green Mountain Relay on June 20th and my dear sweet boyfriend, who I think wants to kill me, suggested that Prospect Mountain would be a good training run. So, I call my friend Melanie and she is as crazy as myself and says, “Let’s do it!” So we all sign up without putting a lot of thought into it. Before the race, Melanie suggested that we do hill work at the Pinebush. The hills in the Pinebush were amazing. We ran them three weeks in a row and I thought, “Awesome, this is really going to help with Prospect Mountain.”
Okay, are you still following me? While I’m telling you about Prospect Mountain keep the word mountain in mind. On Saturday May 9th, a large contingent of ARE members met up at our apartment and we followed each other up to Lake George. We were all excited about running this race. We went to packet pickup where we received beautiful technical tee shirts. We then left to join all the other runners at the start. While standing at the base of the mountain, Ed, the boyfriend who I think is out to kill me, brings to my attention the beautiful scenery in the distance. He then tells me that is the top of the mountain. At that point I come to realize that I am not running some little hill in the Pinebush. I was running an incredibly huge mountain. That is when I started to think to myself, “Am I nuts?” “How am I going to do that?”
Still somewhat excited, we wandered over to the start line. Everybody around us was talking about their strategy on how they will make it to the top. The gun went off and off we went. The beginning is a slow incline with a little bit of flatness. I’m okay with that so far thinking, “okay I can do this.” Then the climb begins and continues and continues and continues and never stops. At one point I put my hand on my chest and felt my heart pounding so hard that I really do believe that if you were looking straight at me you would be able to see my heart coming out of my chest with every heart beat. I do believe that if my heart was to ever give out, this race would have caused it. I continued to run and the incline still goes on and on. When I typically run I think of so many things like work, my kids, bills, things I want to do, the beauty of the run, Ed and so many more things. This race I thought about the finish. I kept asking myself, “When? When will this be done? When will this Mountain stop? WHEN?” Then it happened, the finish line, the beautiful finish line, and people rooting me on at the end. I was done! I was so thankful to be at the top of this mountain. I was so amazed I accomplished such a thing as climbing a mountain, shucks, running a mountain. I ran up an elevation of 1,601 feet.
After everybody I came with finished the race, I took in the beauty of this mountain. You could look down over Lake George. It was very foggy but still beautiful. What a fantastic sight. Okay, here’s a question for you. What do you do when you climb 5.68 miles up a mountain? The answer ...you turn around and run back down and that’s just what we did!
1 comment:
Congrats. That sounds incredibly challenging both mentally and physically.
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