In April of 2011, Russell was beginning to decline. Coincidentally, at my school auction there was an entry for a 2 months of a personal 5K training coach in a group setting. So, I put in a bid. I thought if it was meant to be- I would win it. It was a blind auction where you just put in what you were willing to pay for it. I was the winner for a mere $35. I considered it a sign. I texted Russell as what I hoped was some inspiration to recover.
The 5K coach didn't start until either the summer or the fall training sessions. I knew I would not do the summer session because after all I live in the south and it is a million degrees in the summer. I made plans for the fall. In the meantime I ordered some New Balance Running shoes online and texted pics of them to Russell. I am sure he could have already have guessed that they would be pink.
As I started to make plans for the fall I got on the trainers website to see what the deal was. And it didn't take long to realize I was not going this route. The training sessions were 1 hours 4 days a week, at 5:30am on the other side of town. Well, when you have to be at work at 7am on a different side of town, that wasn't going to work. So In August I started my own training by downloading a 5K podcast. Now, as you know I have a toddler. I do not have a situation where I can leave my child with someone where I can train for an hour nor am I even coordinated enough to push a stroller and run. Who would want to do that? So necessity being the mother of invention... I started training in the gym at school a few days a week while my kids were in PE. Some of the kids even trained with me. I began to notice that some of them would come straight in to the classroom in the mornings and go to the "teacher area" to see if it was a training day, which meant they could see I had brought my shoes. If I walked, they walked. If I ran, they ran. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. It was just something I was doing. It was becoming more and more obvious that I would be running alone as Russell's health continued to decline.
Now, I didn't do the 5k podcast as it is meant to be done. I did week one for a few weeks. I wasn't on an 8 week training, I was doing what felt right to me, and being mindful that I didn't endanger the kids in the process. Russell passed away in September and I stopped training for a few weeks. Then, just I started back up again. The kids loved it. In December I had been looking at signing up for my first 5k, even though I was informally already doing 5k's in my training. I had been very hesitant to do this because first I had to admit the reality that I would be doing it ALONE. Alone is a very scary thing for me. I am a people person. I like to be with people. I am comfortable with people. People are my thing, but alone was something new, and alone without Russell was something I was dealing with. I was expressing this to my coteachers at lunch one day and Kate said she was in. She would train and we would run a 5K together in the Spring.
Now here we were, two girl who knew not one thing about a 5K choosing a 5K to run. We picked one that was close to the house, because after all they all seemed to be early and we could sleep in a little if they were close to the house. There you go-- the logic of Sandy and Kate-- 5k runners. So, one year after I had made my promise to Russell, I signed up for my first 5K. In hindsight, Kate and I probably should have spent more time reading the course description than worrying about sleeping in.
Training continued after Christmas break and were even more fabulous with the help of my new IPod Nano ...aka...my favorite Christmas present ever. I told very few people, as in practically none. I am not sure why. After I was well into my training, my sister-in-law started training for a 5K and actually ran her first 5K- she was certainly someone I could have chatted about it with. I didn't. This is a very internal thing for me. Obviously my class knew, and some of my coworkers and close friends. My own Mother didn't even know until a week out. She watched Shelby while we went to the race.
At the end of March, Mr. D. decided he would join us, and Kate's boyfriend signed up as well. I spend an entire weekend working on my 5K play list which started out of course with the University of South Carolina Fight Song. It ended with Rufus Wainwright's Hallalujah. It also included U2's With or Without You.
On the Tuesday before the race, I told Steven who it Russell's brother. He was proud and thrilled and it meant a lot. He got me when Russell died, or I got him, or we kind of got each other. Either way, we are great friends now. He make me laugh on a daily basis and I am so thankful for his friendship. He provided me with lots of first 5k tips and encouragement...and hilarity! He is getting married soon and he and Rachel are literally the world's cutest couple. See....
Two weeks before the race, Kate and I were getting so pumped that we decided to read up on our race, and that is when we first read the course description. "Mostly flat stretches with a few rolling hills". Since our training consisted of mostly flat stretches and no rolling hills, we decided that in two weeks we need to run a hill or two a week and we would be fine. It wasn't until race day that we realized the term "rolling hills" could also be defined as "steep mountains". And that the term "flat stretches" was a huge "stretch" of the truth. Ironically, the course was exactly where Shelby's first birthday party was, so anyone who attended and traveled on these roads know how rolling these hills were. The hills were killer. They definitely slowed us down. Every time during the race that I positively hated it (because of the mountains) I would think about how much I know Russell positively hated being sick. In the end I did it. Here is a picture of me with Kate post 5K. (No, we aren't throwing gang signs)
Of course after the race I got many well wishes. (and maybe a few shocked people?). Here is my most special well wish that I received on my Facebook from Russell and Steven's (and Kim the super awesome fabulous cake making sister's) Mother.
Oh, Sandy I am so proud of you. I know R would have been so excited about you running and you wearing that Gamecock shirt would have added to his joy. I can just see that little smirky smile of his and hear him saying SWEET.... xoxo
I couldn't help but to chuckle at the irony that after I trained and ran my first 5K, Russell was indeed in paradise for it. Cleaver play on words there Russell!
I miss him so much.
