I’m calling the Darfur run “most ridiculous” for several reason. Where do I begin? First no sleep the night before. Tossed and turned in an unfamiliar bed, listened to drunks outside the window at 2am, worried about cracking my head on the nightstand, missed kisa…
The next morning checking in was odd. Confused by the box of cookies for sure….
But, here’s where it gets really ridiculous. Initially I was scared to run. I won’t lie. I wasn’t feeling up to it. A friend hadn’t shown, I kept thinking about the last time I tried to run anywhere (and failed), and I was dead tired. Suddenly, everything didn’t seem important enough. I didn’t feel important at all.
Then, the race began. Uphill. Within a few minutes I lost focus on the race and lost myself in a cemetery of souls. I will say this a million times to anyone who will listen. This was the most beautiful race of my life. From just a few minutes into it, I forgot I was running. The course was beyond spiritual. Beyond gorgeous. Beyond meaning. If I wasn’t staring at graves or flowers or water I was gazing up at some of the oldest trees I have ever seen. We went up crazy, slippery, gravel hills but I didn’t see them. We went down crazy pounding hills but I didn’t feel them. Instead, I craned my neck to read tombstones, did the math on who died when. How old? At times I would turn around and run sideways, even backwards to look one last time at someones angel in stone. From Amalia on I was lost in names. My husband’s secret track was all drums and I started to cry. Darfur’s genocide, the friend that didn’t show, these graves, and the trees that seem to live forever. The impact of everything finally overtook me.
Towards the end of the race a man yelled to me, “sprint it, baby!” and suddenly I was brought back to the race. Back to reality. Sprint it? What do you mean, ‘sprint it’? Where am I? How much more of the course is there? I honestly had no idea how far I had come or what was left. Suddenly I recognized the pavilion where we checked in, the gazebo right before the finish line, the flags for the end. I remembered I was in a race and the urge to really run kicked it (it meaning me…in the azz 🙂 ). I sprinted the last 30 seconds.
27:49. I’m irritated with myself. This is my best time ever, but I didn’t even try. I can tell. No red face. No coughing uncontrollably. No cramps. As far as running goes I didn’t give anything. I was too busy gawking at people’s final resting places. I was too busy communicating with trees. I was too busy remembering the dead. Darfur’s dead.
To Darfur, I gave everything.
~*LunaSea*~ 
you don’t have to be aware of what you’re doing to give everything. you lost yourself to this race and i don’t mean just to the scenery. you let the run consume you. that means more than a red face or wheezing at the end. i’m so incredibly proud of you. what an amazing time and an amazing personal accomplishment. xoxo
Thank you. I’m still thinking I didn’t really run it!
I agree with becelisa, you did an amazing time. You had a huge personal accomplishment and you connected with all that was around you! You were “in the moment” and far too many people out there miss that kind of opportunity!
Your Angels took flight on this one! Be very proud of yourself! I see this as a huge personal/spiritual step and moment. Not a moment to look down upon yourself.
Congratulations for a run well run, for things you saw and felt while doing it.
Kind of a Zen moment really…
xoxoxo
Congrats! 🙂
timeforme~ thank you for your very sweet comment. I know in my heart of hearts you are right!
NM~ thank you, too!
congratulations. really very good time.
“At times I would turn around and run sideways, even backwards” — 🙂
the run took you there. i sometimes have these moments, my “zanuci” moments.
hydrate!
jun29 ~ I thought of you while I was running! I remembered to breathe, too!
What the — is zanuci??
Hydrate. Yes, sir!!
so glad to hear about the run. it sounds like it was good for you in many different ways.
major kudos for running in the first place…i would have used the obstacles as an excuse to skip the run altogether.
me and no sleep is not anything pleasant. i don’t think me, no sleep and exercise would mix at all.
you forgot the drunks…or did you? 😉 jk.
u ask about “zanuci” (zah-noo-chii). my buddy in the service when he was still alive came up with this word from nowhere. when u r in a world only you know, that’s zanuci. when there are 100 things happening at the same time and u need to do same 100 things at the same time and somehow managed to do them all, zanuci. when u dig deeper and find things u never thought u’d find, you zanuci’d, when it’s bad, and u make it good somehow, zanuci. when u r alone, and u don’t want to be, zanuci. when u r somewhere other than here, zanuci. your blog, zanuci.
i love it! really. really. i don’t know if you were reading me at the time, but a long time ago I wrote a blog about how i believe we are all particles in this universe. I believe that when we come in contact with other people, we take something from them and that something becomes a part of us (just as something from us becomes a part of them). i love a ridiculously bad 70’s song because of someone I knew for 6 weeks in 1992…stuff like that. Your friend is a part of you because you carry on zanuci (and much more, i’m sure). It’s a beautiful thing. Thank you for sharing.
Sounds like you had such a beautiful run …
It was so amazing! You would like this cemetery. I just know it.