The Race: Bare Bones

“Let’s do it. You can do it! It will be fun.” These words uttered by my 20-something colleagues are how I found myself running across the Cooper River Bridge to celebrate my 35th birthday. This was incidentally the first race that I have ever run in. Running 6 miles to celebrate my birthday with friends sounded like a great idea at the time, an easily maintainable goal, months away. I didn’t take into consideration a traveling husband, busy toddler, tumultuous school year and bronchitis.

“The first step is to set up a committed training schedule”, my running buddy said. This voice rang in my head while I was packing to go to Charleston for the big race. I hadn’t trained as much as I would have liked/should have and was really worried about making a fool of myself.

My alarm went off at 4:15 am. to catch the shuttle to the race. As we wound through the dark, other runners were chatting, some were singing. My friends and I sat in a stupor. It was cold! As the bus crossed the city of Charleston and wound it’s way through neighborhoods, I started to panic. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. What if I couldn’t finish? What I was last? What if I had to go to the bathroom on the bridge?What were the chances of the bus driver letting me ride back to the parking deck with him. Surely I could stand at the finish line and cheer on my friends. 10k? That was 6 miles right? If some of these people could do it, then couldn’t I? What if I come in LAST?

As the bus finally pulled up to the drop off I point, I thought I was going to throw-up. We got off the bus silently in the dark and proceeded to walk to our starting point. One of my friend’ s broke the ice and said, “ We drove the round about way to get here, right? That’s not the actual route, right?. I felt a little better. Apparently we were on the same page. We pushed our way through the crowd to get our place in line.

The race started in waves. We were in the second to last corral. We could hear the cheers get louder and louder as each wave of runners took off and we got closer to the start line. Bands were playing and announcements were being made. The crowd was pressing ahead. I could feel the panic rising again as the people started to rush ahead. I didn’t want to get separated from my friends. I grabbed onto the arm of my husband. “Breathe”, my friend said. “You can do it.” As we got up to the starting line, I could feel my pulse getting faster. And we were off. I had no choice but to run. I told my husband that I could not come in last! The voice inside my head said “ Come on, you can do it.”

The first mile felt okay. We dodged and weaved in between strollers and walkers. The second mile came and went. The cheers of the crowed energized me. “Okay, I thought, this is getting harder.What if I have to go to the bathroom”. My husband informed me that the beginning of the bridge was coming up.







My foot started to go numb as we got to the top of the bridge. This had been consistently happening to me between mile 3 and 4. 3different pairs of running shoes had not fixed this problem. I informed my husband that I needed to walk for awhile. The walking made it worse. Forget it. I need to run and get this race over with. We ran across the top of the Cooper River Bridge and made our way down the incline. A local band greeted us at the exit ramp as we ran down.


“Let’s sprint the last part. There is only one mile left.” I blindly agreed to this plan, running to the brink of nausea. As we passed mile marker number 5, I came to a halt. “You lied!”, I cried.