Seattle ½ Marathon 2006 Race Report – Angela Meeks

Raise the Bar loves to publish the race reports of our athletes. This latest installment from one of our newest members: Angela Meeks. Angela recently wrote a report from the Danskin that you can read here: http://www.weraisethebar.com/meeksdanskin.html

Her story is inspiring and incredible and continues....read on.

Well Yesterday marks another first for me. I ran the Seattle ½ Marathon. Yes, in the snow and rain and man it was cold. This was not in my plans for 2006 but after finishing the Danskin this last year I knew I needed another event before the next season of Tri’s to keep me moving and motivated and someone (thanks a lot Jodi) asked me to do this. I decided to do it. Up to that point I had only ran two 5K (3.1 miles) without having to walk (in my entire life). Shaun I found a web site with Hal Higdon's running plans for ½ marathons. I printed it off and decided to take it one week at a time. Every time I looked farther than that I would panic. Week by week I continued to increase mileage and completely followed his twelve week plan. Every week I was amazed that I could run that far and thought how will I ever do farther than that. My goal was to be able to do the 13.1 miles without walking. So during the last 12 weeks I ran 252.5 miles. The Wednesday before at the Raise the Bar running class with Mary Hanna she asked for out goal times, I said my fasted training time for that distance was 3 hours and 26min – she said lets say 3 hr 15min. I said okay, wondering if that was possible.

Back to the race: We got there around 6:00am – it snowed all the way there and then stared turning to rain and snow. We checked in our change of clothes and our coats in the stadium for after the race. To try to stay dry we put on garbage bags. We did a warm up and stretched and headed to the start line.

A few minutes before the start, I ripped of the garbage bags and an extra sweat shirt and disposed of them. I waited for the count down and at 7:30 we were off. It took about 4 minutes just to get to the start line. By mile one my body felt warm (finally), at mile two I disposed of my gloves, mile 3 and mile 4 were good as well. I meet up with someone I knew at mile 4 and we ran together for about ½ a mile – that was fun. I would pick something different to think about every mile and someone to do it for – I would dedicate each mile to someone and what I wanted in their life and that would be my motivation to not quit. Mile 5, I felt good and strong and knew and was surprised I was right on with my goal and a little a head, but 13.1 miles is a long way – could I continue the pace with all these hills and this weather.
Mile 6, Mile 6.6 (1/2 way) – still felt good and was so happy to be half way done. Mile 7 – tried to eat part of an energy bar. And then the hill – I knew it was short so I just looked in front of me and kept going – reached the top and turned the corner and more upgrade of a hill – Made it to the top and tried to recover on the down hill. At mile 10 - I was starting to struggle, my legs were so cold and feeling numb in the quads. I tried to rub them to warm them up, my hips were hurting and so I tried to concentrating on being loose and relaxed. This mile marked the race changed in my head and now it was time to use mental strength as well as physical strength. I concentrated on my goal of not walking and. I repeated things over and over. I have trained, My body is strong, I can do this, I have done this distance before I know that I can do it(once), My big heart tells my little brain what it can do, and my favorite Lance Armstrong Quote, Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever." And my favorite Jodi quote – if it was easy everyone would do it.
About this time I round the corner and they have chariots of fire theme song playing and I started crying –Don’t Laugh the lady next to me did too. I realized I am doing this and two years ago walking up a flight of steps was a lot of effort. The next few miles they had lots of people encouraging us and lots of people with music playing and that was very helpful.
At Mile 11 you can see the space needle, I was so tired but just kept thinking keep going don’t quit, and tried to remind myself how short two miles is and how I wanted to be a good example to my family and other people – when things get tough you win if you just don’t quit.

Mile 12 finally came – one short little hill left. Then finally the sight of the stadium – I knew I had less than .25 mile, I was so tired then I saw, Mary and she was cheering me on and that helped me, I round the corner, then I saw two other friends Foster and Liz, then the most wonderful moment – I saw the finish line and knew I had done it. I ran the last 100 yards and wow what a wonderful moment to cross that line. It was an emotional moment, I had done it, something I thought I could never do, I did not quit, I was so happy. I had done it without walking, I beat my goal by 1 min and 5 sec – so it was my fasted 13.1 miles and it had more hills and was more miserable weather than ever.

I learned something through this. The power of your mind is just as important as the power of your body; it has to be trained too. It was amazing to me that when I was doing a 5 mile run that my body was tired at 4.5, if I knew I was doing a 8 mile run it was tired at 7. I realized that a part of what I can do is based on what I think I can do, and thinking positive. And that sometimes you just have to tell your head to shut up.

Thanks a lot to Shaun, for running all the training runs, Jodi (for begging me to do it), Mary, for all the great Wednesday training runs, and encouragement, and for making me set my goal for faster than I thought I could do, and to Patti for all the great opportunities and great people I have met through We raise the Bar. And of course to my biggest fan club, my husband, son and daughter – who were wonderful in encouraging and supporting me and I love them so much.