By Christine
Running is for crazy people with a death wish. That’s what I told my friends who urged me to come along to the Munich City Run at the end of June. They wanted to try for the half-marathon. I’m lucky if my car is running, much less if I am.
"No thanks," I replied, grinning complacently at them.
"There’s a 5K race, too," said my girlfriend.
"You can walk it," her husband added.
Now walking is something I find great pleasure in doing, and I could sense the challenge they lobbed at me. I stab at the ground with my Nordic walking sticks at least once a week, and they knew it. The neat thing about the sport is it is great exercise and virtually pain-free. Settling my gaze on their eager faces, I pumped up my chest and inhaled.
"Alright. I’ll do it." I signed up for the 5K leg of the race then and there.
The day was overcast and cool. Clutching my sticks, I fought an overwhelming sense of nervousness. Why was I concerned? I walk 5K over hill and dale every week. This should be no different, except for the five hundred other people who were wearing the same orange shirt and tennis shoes. The course was flat, taking us through the English Garden and back. So I’d pass culturally significant monuments and thousands of onlookers, too. What was the big deal?
The 10K runners had taken off long ago and the thousands of half-marathon runners jogged steadily in their places before the starting gun fired. Watching the throngs of anxious contestants, I wondered why we do this to ourselves. Why do we challenge ourselves to physical exhaustion?
My reason was clear. I wanted to impress the heck out of my kids. I wanted them to root for me as I stumbled to the finish line, beaming more proudly than a light in a laser show. I wanted them to see me as an athletic goddess to whose prowess they would at once aspire.
I’ve never walked so fast in all my life. Maybe it was because I was at the end of the line, or because I really had to use the restroom that I woefully couldn’t find before the start of the race. For whatever reason, I boogied up and down the course in 40 minutes flat.
As I reached the finish line, I saw my kids looking bored. They had chocolate smudges on their faces, and my husband missed taking a snapshot because I surprised him with my speed. Undeterred, I pressed my grin against the equally cheerful faces on either side of the barricade.
When we got home, my husband and I napped for two hours. All this business of competition and impressing the kids can make a mama dead tired, indeed. There will be time for the children to understand the meaning of their mother’s aspirations. In fact, they have seven whole days to ingest the significance. I’m doing another race next week.
Christine is an American author and freelance writer living near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children (Jackson, 4 and Sophia, 6).
Congrats! Yes, you've got plenty of time to impress your kids. And I'm sure they're impressed already -- even if they don't know it yet!
Posted by: Kris | July 14, 2006 at 08:13 AM