A Proud Moment...

In my class we have to respond to daily prompts and write about them, I thought I'd share a couple with all of you. Today's prompt asked us to tell about a time when we felt especially proud of ourselves...

Saturday afternoon I entered the exchange zone with my brother by my side. Tears streamed down my face, the instep on my foot hurt as did my knee but I’d done it – I’d run 18 miles. I was so relieved and thankful that it was done and so incredibly proud of my brother and myself – we’d done it.

Earlier this summer I’d gotten an email from Outdoor Activities reminding me about the Temple-to-Temple relay in the Fall. I’d done it last Fall with a group of six girls and had had a lot of fun with it. I wanted to do it again but this time I wanted to run half of it. I asked my brother if he’d do it with me and he agreed. We would each run 18 miles.

I wasn’t worried about my brother – I knew he could do it, he is an amazing endurance runner but me – I didn’t know if I could. I run cross-country and track but I had never done anything of this magnitude before; I was scared but I was going to try.

The day before the relay arrived. I was not ready for it. I hadn’t properly trained. The frantic thought, “What the crap was I thinking?” kept replaying itself in my head. As my dad would say, I wasn’t thinking. But I was going to do it anyway.

I had four goals: don’t die, don’t injury myself, don’t walk and finish the race. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.

The first 12 miles were fine but half way through my last leg I started cramping up bad – my breathing was off, as was my running form and I felt like I was going to throw up.

My brother had previously passed me in the car. He knew I’d be trouble, so he came back. He walked back to where I was and ran the last two miles with me and then finished the last seven miles effortlessly. With how slow I was running he could’ve walked faster but that would’ve defeated the purpose.

Four hours after I had started I was done – I was wind blown, tired, my muscles were fatigued and I was very dirty but I done it. I had achieved what I previously thought was unattainable and lived to tell about it.