Dreamy Carlsbad, CA or as my
friend Molly used to call it, “Carlsgood”, either way it is a wonderful place
to be, let alone run around for most of your morning, but that is exactly what I
did on January 25th, 2009. I arrived in Carlsbad the night before the
race and stayed with my sister Mary, her wonderful husband, Jim, and their
adorable dogs Sawyer and Tyler. I am
always a sucker for quality time with large four-legged doggies, and these two
are hilarious.
Mary is two years older
than me, and a remarkable human being, but we could not possibly be more
different. For example, she is a
beautiful 5’6 brunette with olive skin, and a fashion sense rivaled only by
Anna Wintour, while I am a freckly red head just shy of 5’11 who applies make
up and dresses maybe five times a year.
Maybe. We had some serious
battles growing up, one of which resulted in me laying a strip of masking tape
down the center of our bedroom, my mom really loved that, another involved a
bruised cheek, and there have been way too many bruised feelings to count. However, we always set aside our differences for
sixty minutes every Thursday night at 8PM to watch Beverly Hills, 90210. My
brothers thought that show was miraculous to bring peace between us, and it was. Nothing beats quality togetherness like some
quality time with the Walshes.
Nevertheless, after twenty or so years of not
liking each other very much, I can easily say that Mary is one of my best
friends, and the person on the other end of my crisis hotline. All that said, Mary is not a runner, which
may not come as a shock, but she is literally
my greatest cheerleader, and understands my goals, so it meant a lot to have
her play a vital role in my fourteenth marathon
Race morning was cold, dark, and
early. For some reason this race felt special, I was not as excited for it
during the weeks of training leading up to it, but standing below the starting
line in the pitch darkness of a way-too-early start time, with thousands of
fellow marathoners, I was brimming with adrenaline, and thrilled to start
running, “Bang!”
The first ten miles or so of the
course travel along the ocean, and since the race started early, we were witness
to a beautiful sunrise that gave me both a jolt of energy, and clarity; I was
simply happy to just have the ability to run a marathon, and felt blessed and
thankful to be in my shoes at that beautiful moment.
I saw Mary and Jim around mile
eleven, a great place to watch for you future spectators because it is far
enough into the race to give the runners the pep we need to feel good about how
far we have come, and enough zing to keep us trudging through the tough mid-race
miles in our near future. Mary was
wearing a big sweatshirt, clanging a bell, and screaming her head off, it was
awesome. I was both laughing and crying because it was amazing to hear her
scream my name in such a positive tone. She
did look a little tired, but it was about 8:00AM, so I appreciated her efforts
to rise, shine and run with me. Yes,
Mary Kelly Heim was actually running next to me for a good minute or so, it was
epic! I have always wanted to make her
proud of me, even when she thought I was a disgusting troll of a little sister
always getting in her way throughout our formative years, and literally making
her sick to her stomach because I smelled like baby oil and coconut, apparently,
her sudden desperate display of running to keep up with me that morning granted
my wish of over thirty years, my big sister was proud of me.
The next few miles were warm as the
sun was truly making an entrance to the day, but I felt good up until mile
nineteen. There is a turn-a-round point
right at the crest of a short, but seemingly steep hill, and it was rough. Luckily, there is a solid crowd at this
difficult spot on the course, so I heard many chants of my name as I rounded
the top, and thundered on down to run the final seven miles into the finish. My pace had a slowed a bit, which is natural
so deep into a marathon, but I was still cranking out some quick miles, so I held
on as long as I could, and cruised into the finish shoot stunned that I had
once again qualified for Boston in 3:38… NiceJ
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