I’ve been “running” (and I put running in quotes for a good reason) the Crim 10 mile race in Flint for about 20 years. Each August, the last Saturday before the Labor Day weekend I and 10,000 of my closest friends crowd into Flint Michigan to enjoy their festival of races. Besides the 10 miler there is an 8K (about 5 miles) and a 5K (about 3.1 miles), a fun 1 miler for the kids and a family 5K walk. Mostly I’ve done the 10 miles, though I think once I did the 8K. There isn’t as much satisfaction in completing 5 miles, but that’s what I should have done this morning instead of struggle through 10 hot humid hilly miles.

I have been training with a group of people for an October 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) and the Crim was just another training run. Right. The group has been running for 2 minutes and walking a minute, but that seemed too slow for the race, so I ran the way I used to run, to the mile marker, walk through the water table area, and run to the next mile marker. I did that for a whopping 2 miles, not much, but still more than I’ve run in a really long time. Did I mention it was HOT? During miles 3-5 I ran 3 minutes and walked a minute…sort of. You see in mile 5 are the BRADLEY HILLS! The dreaded Bradley Hills are a series of 3 hills, one after the other. And when you get done with them there are more rolling hills (though not as steep) the rest of the course. By mile 5 I had a new strategy. Run the downhills. Crawl up the uphills. By mile 7 the strategy became; run the downhills if there is shade, and by mile 8 it was pretty much just walk and hope I survive to the finish.

I’m not even sure what my time was, it doesn’t matter. As we turned onto the final road and could see the finish line 4 blocks (downhill) I began to run again. But two blocks into that final push I wanted to stop. What the heck. Just walk. It doesn’t matter. A young lady running next to me said “Don’t stop now, you’re almost there!” and I smiled at her as I was slowing to a stop. She said “NO REALLY! DON’T STOP!” and I kept on running, ran with her the rest of the way in. She said “Congratulations!” and I said “THANK YOU!” and that was the end of my race. I ended it with a run because a complete stranger didn’t give up on me and wouldn’t let me give up on me either. That’s the way it is on the Crim course. It’s a great race, even if it is always hot and humid!

The thing I learned from this is that I am going to have to get more serious about these final training weeks before the half marathon in October. Because if I had had to run 3.1 more miles today I don’t think I would have finished. But today I got my finisher’s medal!