the race

I'm scared to publish this because then you people will know about it and when/if I fail miserably at this completely out of nowhere overly ambitious goal all of you will know. But for that very reason, I feel I should share it. So here I go.

My dad was a runner for as long as he was able to be a runner. He didn't always run, but in the last few years before his health started to fail, I remember that he would get home from work, relax a bit, put on his jogging gear and then he'd be off. He had small spray painted markers on our country roads so he knew how far he had run at certain points. He trained enough to run in the Capital 10,000 run in Austin. I think he ran it three times, but I only have found evidence of twice.

He ran it when he was 49 and 50. His times for this 10k (6.2miles) were 58:13 and 56:50. I know this because this weekend when I was at home I leafed through his running journal and inside that running journal were his numbers that he wore in the race. On them were his final times. On the back, he also wrote each mile's time. He ran several miles in under 8 minutes.

Inside his journal were his daily records of his runs - where he ran, how far, how fast, how he felt, what the weather was like. This journal is one of the few written things I have from my dad. When I go home I often flip through it hoping I will find some new writing, some piece of him that I missed the other hundred times I flipped through the pages. I never do, of course. It's the same every time, "72 and overcast, hard run, still sore from yesterday...had a good run today, good time for mile 2...bad day at work, felt good to run..." In those little snippets of writing, I see my dad a little differently. He died at a time in my life when I was still very self-involved, as most teenagers are. I didn't ever think about dad having bad days or dad having a goal of running a 10k in less than an hour or maybe someday a marathon. I mean, I knew he liked to run, but thought it was just a hobby. Now I realize that maybe it was his escape, him achieving something. My dad's dream. I wish I had taken more time to care about it then...

The New Year's after he died, my sister was video taping everyone, asking what they wanted their resolutions to be. I, with big curly jenny hair and a cheesy, yet sincere, grin, said, "I'd like to run the capital 10K for dad." I never did. I didn't say it then, on camera, because I would have cried and there had been enough crying that holiday season, but I wanted to say that I had wanted to do it with him someday. But that opportunity was gone. And still is.

But, I can run it now. I can run the very race he ran. Because I said I was going to do it. And because I think in some small tiny way, I'll understand a little bit more the man I only knew as a daughter. The man I never knew as someone who had felt the sting of failure, the annoyance of a bad day, or the disappointment of crushed dreams. Or the man who, at long last, felt the sweet personal victory of crossing the finish line.

On the way out of town, I stopped at his grave. I never do that. Dad isn't there. He's never been there. From the moment he was laid to rest there, I have never felt the need to go and visit that site because he's in heaven. His grave is just a place. But I stopped because...I don't know why. I just did. And I read his epitaph - "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 2 timothy 4:7. There isn't a better verse for him. Or a better thing to hope one day can be said about you.

So there you have it. The Capital 10K is in austin on March 29, 2009. That's nine months from Sunday. I want to run it. I am going to run it. And I want to beat his time. Because he would have wanted me to beat his time.

So, now I just have to figure out how. I think I might add a little training side bar thing to keep a record of best times or distances or something. Who knows. But I'm going to do this. for me. for dad. and because I said I would.