Soon after I ran my first half marathon back in August, I convinced my mom, brother, and sister to run another one with me in November. At the last minute my sister couldn't get work off, but my mom, my brother and I met in Mesquite to run in the Mesquite Half Marathon. As we stood at the starting line, I was feeling good. It was a beautiful morning, and I had even gotten a full night's sleep the night before. My brother was pretty excited, it being his first half-marathon. My mom, however, was not so great. She was fighting off a sinus infection and had not been able to get much sleep. But trouper that she is, she lined up with us on the starting race, determined to go the full 13 miles.
Don't you love my awesome tape? It's called KT Tape and is fabulous for sports injuries. My uncle is the president of the company, so of course I'm biased, but it has done wonders for my runners knees. End of shameless plug.
Within minutes of the start my brother left us in his dust. My mom and I took a more conservative pace. We were chugging along for the first few miles and I was thinking that we were making pretty good progress. I was chatting away, trying to get my mom to get her mind off the physical strain her body was in, when I noticed her breathing sounded funny. She was getting really wheezy and almost sounded like she had asthma. We started walking periodically, but she wasn't sounding any better. I kept talking to her, still trying to be distracting, but her responses were getting shorter and less coherent. She was running and walking really strangely and she was swerving all over the road. When we came to the aid station around mile 8 I made her stop and drink some energy gel.
The people at the aid station were really concerned about her, and when she nearly collapsed on one of them, we helped her lay down in the back of an SUV parked there. Her face was bright red and she was definitely not "all there." I tried to call my dad to have him come pick her up, but I kept getting his voicemail (10 times in a row!). (I should cut him some slack. He was watching ALL of my kids while we ran. Thanks, Dad.) Well, long story short, after about 20 minutes of hydrating, resting, and sugarizing my mom, she was looking and feeling much better. She said she couldn't remember any of last 10 minutes or so before we stopped. We still hadn't gotten a hold of my dad, so we started back on the road, walking/jogging at a slow pace.
The rest of the race was slow going, but we were bound and determined to finish. I kept a close eye on my mom from there on out to make sure she didn't slip into crazy runner mode again, but she did much better. I can't even remember what time we crossed the finish line. At that point, time was irrelevant. The important part was we finished! I was so proud of my mom for pushing through such a tough ordeal. We are already planning for the next race, for which she promises she (a) will be healthy, (b) will be rested, and (c) will have carb-loaded the day before. :)
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