Lara Zielin

So this one time? There was this half marathon. It was in Wisconsin. And it had LEINENKUGEL’S in the name! And I thought to myself, “There is no better half marathon in the whole world.”

And I signed up for it.

Except, I’d never done a half marathon before. And I didn’t read the fine print. Which said, and I quote:

Half Marathon course: (Challenging) Nice mix of hills and flats. One major climb at about the 4.5 mile mark. Finish with a taxing 1,000 meter gradual climb.

Before I knew it, I was running by myself and bawling my eyes out because I wasn’t just tired and overwhelmed. I was also last. Dead last by about a half mile. I mean, the water stations were closed down by the time I got there. I was humiliated beyond belief. And so I stopped. At about mile seven I threw in the towel. I said screw this race, and I gave up.

Until now.

I might be slow, but I think I can do this race now. In fact, if I have to crawl over the goddang finish line, I’m going to do it and I’m going to beat this stupid course. I didn’t have many New Years resolutions, but this was one: I am going to finish the Leinenkugel’s half marathon.

And, here’s the other thing. When I did this race before, I was in a pretty unhappy place. I was in a struggling relationship, I felt hopeless about my career prospects, I believed I was fat, and I thought, “If I could just finish this race, I’ll be worth something.”

And when I didn’t finish, I just felt six thousand times more hopeless about myself.

Now, though, I know the truth. It doesn’t matter what I weigh, where I work, how fast I run — nothing. I matter anyway. I wish that, before, even if I had been dead last, I would have felt proud for even being out there. But I just wasn’t in that kind of a head space. Things are different now, though, which means this course and I are going to meet again. And even if I’m dead last, I’m going to finish. And then I’m going to celebrate among people I love, and who love me back.

And that is going to be a major, major victory.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 1:25 pm and is filed under inspiration, looks like life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.