By Matthew Malburg
This past Saturday, I ran in my first competitive race. The 5K (3.1 mile) run around South Park Lake started at 10 a.m., and the day quickly became the most grueling, awful and yet exhilarating day in years. Just completing the race was an accomplishment for myself.
This all started one year earlier as I sat on the sidelines watching my sister and niece run this same race. I witnessed their accomplishment and decided that I wanted to be more like my sister. I told her that I would lose some weight and get myself in enough shape to run the race with her in 2009.
For those who have never run in a race before, let me tell you briefly what it was like for a first timer. We checked in about an hour before hand, and started the pre-race stuff (getting our runner numbers, stretching, etc). We gathered near the starting line a few minutes before 10. It was cold. We all got bunched up at the starting line for the start, and then we were off. A large patch of ice covering the road from side to side, and about 10 feet long covered the road about 50 yards after we started, so all the runners veered onto the grass almost immediately after we started. I nearly fell, but once we were back on the road, the crowd thinned. I could see the runners breaking away, and the rest of the crowd started setting their own pace.
I held my pace as long as I could, and walked when necessary. In the end, I know that I was running more than half, but not quite three quarters of the time. The last half mile felt like running in water. My legs were tired, my shins hurt, and my brain kept saying things like “Why in the hell am I doing this again?”
I was fortunate to have my sister and niece (pictured to my left) and TMG’s own Jim Lynch (standing on my right) running in the race, and encouraging me throughout the final leg. In fact, the last 100 yards or so had all three of them practically yelling at/for me to cross the finish line as best as I could. And I’m proud to say that somehow I was able to summon some
strength to cross that finish line at a full-out run.
That is when the questions that were running in my head were answered. The feeling inside when I crossed that line are difficult to explain. Exhilaration is about as close as I can come.
The post race party was in the Botanical Gardens, where our photo was taken. There are some photos of us actually running, but I like this one because the others do not have the huge smiles that you see here.
