No Turning Back

Week 6 of my 16-week training program ended today with a well-attended group run on this Labor Day weekend, perhaps as many as 25 runners in all.  I find myself more and more completing training runs by myself, so what a joy it was to run with others today.  I met a really nice runner, Marcus, from Saint Petersburg who had contacted me through our website and met with me to run 19 miles in his training for the New York City Marathon.  (I went a little over 13 miles myself.)  And there were several local runners I had not seen in some time.  At one point the group left me behind as I plodded along in my stubborn 11-minute-mile pace; they went down Harris Drive and I took a shortcut down Smallwood Avenue, and I could hear them laughing and chattering loudly one block south of me through the trees - the joyous sound of camaraderie on a cool Saturday morning.

One of the runners I had not seen in awhile was Martha, who completed a strong 3-mile run, her first in some time.  She had announced this week that she wanted to run the OBX Half Marathon in November, and so her training begins, too, as we slowly approach Veterans Day weekend, side by side, striving for another noteworthy finish line.  I can't think of another runner I would rather have go the journey with me, in so many ways!

So today I pulled up the OBX website and signed up.  "This confirms your transaction completed successfully," the registration page said.  Now that I have spend $194.60 in registration fees - non-refundable registration fees - it is too late to hedge or waver or put it off for another year.  Soon we will pin that number on the front of our shirts that Dr. George Sheehan famously identified as that very moment when we become runners.  And as we run up Chestnut Street and Big Bearpen in the coming weeks, we will look forward with anticipation (and some trepidation) to that long high windy hill that awaits us at Mile 23 (Mile 10 of the Half Marathon), the Washington-Baum Bridge across the Roanoke Sound.