Ready for New York City

Starting the run at Ironman Canada 2007. That was hard!

It's been about ten years since I ran my last stand alone marathon. Over the course of five years in the early 90's I ran six marathons, posting a personal best at California International way back in 1992. When I was a young runner, in my teens, I remember thinking that I would run a marathon before I turned 24, so I guess that's why I did my first one in 1992: I was already a year overdue. There's something about having a firm conviction about what you want to do and finding a way to make it a reality.

Since that day in Sacremento, a lot has happened. (For one, when I went back in '94, my boyfriend proposed in the hotel room. That was Lance and that's another story). I turned away from marathons in '96, finding that my body couldn't handle the mileage required of world class marathoners, focusing instead on the wonderful intensity of cross country, the 5 and 10km events, and eventually discovered triathlon as a way to satisfy my desired lifestyle of combining being outdoors, competing at endurance events and cross training. In the last seven years I have raced three Ironmans and have given birth naturally to two children: at each of these events I swore at the time it was the hardest thing I have ever done. (In the moments after each of the first of these events I swore I would never do another--birth or Ironman). Some things just make you tougher.

So, at the beginning of this year, the year I turned 40, I got it in my brain that I was going to do another marathon. I knew it would have to be a fall marathon, after Ironman training was stashed away as foundation. I considered the Royal Victoria in my home town, but then as fate would have it, when I went to race at Freihofers 5k in June, I was invited back to New York for the marathon. Once the seed was planted there was no turning back in my mind. I had to do New York. In my long career, it was imperative to do New York, and to do it this year. I said yes.

I now I find myself staring down the last few days before this famous race. Soon I will be boarding a plane and flying from Victoria to JFK, will be making a room at the Hilton my race headquarters for a few nights, I will be hydrating and stretching and thinking about calories, what to wear and reviewing my pace plan.

Right now I feel excited and yet calm and intensely alive. I'm ready and I'm strongly aware of the poignancy of the occasion--my high performance career is winding down, maybe not with this race, but soon. I feel honoured to be heading out for this famous event that runs through 5 boroughs of the big apple city (I can't wait to hear the Gospel singes in Harlem!). I'm curious to put my endurance to the test--how will I feel now that I have raced those gruelling Ironman events where the discomfort goes on for hours? I have run so many more half marathons, good ones, and my training is light years smarter than it was in '92.

After all those early years of being anxious and nervous, of being worried about being good enough, the gifts that time has given me--the gifts of family and marriage and perspective--are with me now. I am going into this race clear headed and with a strong sense of joy. I can't wait. I've never felt more like a runner than at this moment and I know I'm tough enough!

Lucy