Sunday, September 26, 2010

A weekend of running and blisters

The week got off to a rough start with more pain and more blood tests, blah, blah, blah. I mentally told myself that there was no I was not running the Run to Break the Silence for ovarian cancer. I had to walk my 3 miles on Tuesday but worked up to a wog on Thursday and made up for it this weekend.

Saturday was the Run to Break the Silence for ovarian cancer. I promised my girlfriend a year ago that I would do this with her as her Grandmother passed away from Ovarian Cancer and her Mother is a survivor. Also during this time I found out that a friend was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer and is currently undergoing chemo and showing cancer who wears the pants in the family! So yesterday I ran for two people who mean a great deal to me.

We arrived in Sacramento and the car said it was 98. We all know how I melt in the heat and run in the morning to avoid any sort of temperature over 75, so I knew it would be interesting.


We had about an hour until the start of the race so we sat on the grass int he shade and conserved energy. But I did brave the heat to go check out the start/finish line.


There were over 1000 registered runners/walkers and probably more that weren't registered. So the two of us that were running made our way to the front so we wouldn't have to try and squirm through walkers and strollers. I must say all of the walkers were really courteous about staying back to let the runners line up. And before I knew it we were off.  I knew it was hot as hot hair burned my throat and lungs, it was a very strange sensation but the bonus to the heat was my muscles needed no warming up everything felt great. As I approached the 1 mile marker frantically searching for the age station that was further down they were calling out times which was way cool! I don't typically check the time on my watch this earlier in but I was 10:49 so I was pleased to be in under 11 minutes. It was after this that it got hard. The water at the aid station was like drinking bath water, I decided the best bet was to just poor it down my shirt. The course was all flat and winded through the tree lined neighborhoods, thankfully providing spots of shade. It was the parts in the sun that were brutal. It seemed like it took forever to hit the 2 mile marker point and the next aid station with more bath water. Probably around the last 1/2 mile there were some sprinklers on watering the grass on the side of the road. This young boy decided to run through it, I thought it was brilliant and ran through it as well! I told him what a smart idea it was and that I had followed him because he seemed kind of embarrassed about it. Kid, it's 98 degrees there is no shame in running through a sprinkler! The best part was the approach to the finish line, I had pretty much nothing left but managed to pass 2 women, that's when I heard them calling names of the runners. Sure enough "Meredith Fox is crossing the finish line!" Oh well, at least they got my first name right. Cheering me on was Eric who had finished about 9 minutes ahead of me, it's always awesome to have someone cheer you in at the end.

And then I had time to go get my camera and get pics of Team Grammie crossing the finish line!


While my run time was slower than I had hoped for, I'd like to add that I did run with beads!!


I can't wait to do it again next year! NOCC is a fantastic organization, every woman should be aware of the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer, they can mimic so many things, but it is so important to campaign for own health and be aware of the symptoms! 

And because I had a long run scheduled today I HTFU and ran back to back to get my 4 miles in today. Thank you for Monday being a rest day of stretching!@

I almost forgot! I have a lovely blister on the inside of my right heel, I just got new shoes and I'm pissed! I've been wearing this brand and model of shoe for years and now I get a blister! 

Week end totals:

Run: 10.10 miles
Walk: 3 miles

2 comments:

  1. Killer job Meredith!! Thank you for "running for me." Running in nasty heat makes it that much more special.

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  2. Nice job on the race. I'm totally in awe of you racing in that kind of heat.

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