Monday, August 11, 2014

I got a new T-shirt today. Oh, and I ran a marathon relay.

Few things will get me up early on a Saturday. OK, pretty much only running will get me up early on a Saturday.

Gotta say, yesterday's wake up call was beyond worth it.

Met up with the Black Girls Run-Lansing ladies for the Lake Lansing Marathon Relay. What can I say? We had two teams plus a third team joined us from Grand Rapids. That's 15 women who all dropped everything just to spend our day together. Running.

And we're apparently not the only people crazy enough to do it. There were more than 90 teams altogether. Why do we do this?

Well, there's the fellowship. We all brought snacks. There were plates of food. Our team even had black and pink balloons. 

There's the exercise. Each of us ran 5.25 miles, including one through trails.

And there's the fun. We got to spend about five hours together, talking. Laughing. Telling stories and sharing tips.

No. The real reason we do this is so we can recruit more people into the tribe. At least three of the women I ran with are new runners. They'd all done 5Ks, but this was their longest distance by far. 

All morning, they were nervous. Lots of "oh, my, what have I done?" And "I don't know about this."

We listened. We encouraged. We talked abut the time when...

Most importantly, we cheered them and ran the last few yards with them. Their smiles told the story better than I ever could. They'll be back.

4 comments:

  1. Yes. I highly recommend doing a relay where everyone starts and ends at the same spot so you can spend time with your team mates doing important things like eating.

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  2. Hey! That's our team under the green tent behind you! :-) This was our second year for the LL Relay and it's a blast! Glad you could participate!

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    Replies
    1. It was so much fun! I am definitely planning on participating again. Plus, there's food.

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