Milestones

One of the unsought benefits of running in races (if I don't do it too often) is that they provide milestones - events that are easy to remember, and that give a measure of change. So our run on Mother's Day, my fifth, was such a marker. This year the weather was not so kind - weak sunshine at the start, giving way to intermittent rain and later (when we were safely driving home) to downpours. Secundus struggled with a stitch, and a nagging back problem, so the second 4km lap alternated running and walking (as it has in other years), but with a final burst of 1km in 5 minutes, we still finished in 57:19 - a minute and a half slower than last year, but not our slowest time. I say we, but Primus became separated from us in the crowd after one lap, and finished well ahead of us in 50:00 (which was fine).

The day did provide some focus on Jen, but as I anticipated, one major benefit was that it gave us something to do on Mother's Day - a part of the new tradition that we are evolving as a family. Thanks to the generosity of so many, our current fundraising is $2240 (including cash donations), with a bit more promised  but not yet given. The online donations alone ($1885) put us 27th in the list of fundraisers from the Melbourne event. So that's a great contribution to breast cancer research, and another milestone for us as a family.

Curiously, running events also provide a key for memory. What was I doing the day before Jen was diagnosed, September 14th 2008, when we were still imagining years together? My running records say I was in a 10km race near Studley Park, and I remember that Sunday morning quite clearly - a fast time (42:07) but just outside my best, and maybe as fast as I'll ever run now. Not long before Jen died, June 28th 2009, when medical signs were increasingly grim, I ran a half marathon in the Run Melbourne event -- a crash and burn race when I went out too fast, reached the halfway mark in 45:00, but developed a bad stitch and faded in the last 5km to finish in 1:35:10.

This past Sunday I also ran a half marathon around Westerfolds Park -- an undulating course, with 1.5km of the last 2km being uphill (I can still feel that in the legs today). Given the terrain, it was a decent time, 1:36:10. It was the first long race I'd done with a GPS watch, and that helped me maintain my pace in the middle sections. If you're not a runner, you might seriously wonder why I bother with the running. As you might know from this blog, running contributes much to my health and sanity, but at the most basic level I enjoy running -- the sheer physicality, the simplicity of the achievement, the welcome step away from the life of the mind.

Each race is also a comparison to the matching ones before, in both time and circumstances. My first half marathon was in 2005, around Princes Park, on a cold August morning. The time was faster (1:33:01), and I was seven years younger. More importantly, Jen and the boys were there to see me on each lap and watch me cross the finish line. Jen saw some of my big races (most memorably the Oxfam Trailwalker 100km event in 2008, when she was on the support crew), but not others. It's special in those moments of achievement to have someone you love there to see you cross the line and celebrate for you and with you, someone who knows what you've been through to get there. Now I'll never have that from Jen. Running races are ultimately unimportant. It is in the less visible endurance events of life, such as parenting or work or faith, that I miss Jen's gift of passionate encouragement.