The Finish - DigiDare Challenge #289

The DigiDare Challenge for this week was about sports - hating them, loving them. I thought about this challenge for a few days, trying to decide what point in my life to tackle. Considering I'm not an athlete, I don't have a lot of sports photos. But then I decided to go ahead and try the dare anyway, focusing more on capturing feelings. I'll admit most of my effort went into the journaling for this particular layout.

The journaling reads:

"I've always disliked running. Yet, at 30-something, I suddenly decided to train for a marathon. I have no idea what I was thinking. All I knew was that I wanted to get in shape, and the only way I would ever run a marathon was if I trained with a team. So, in April 2008, I took my friend Elaina to a Team In Training meeting held on the Nike campus, and we ended up signing ourselves up for our first marathon in San Francisco in Oct. 2008. 5 months to train to run 26.2 miles (gulp!). That was one of the craziest moments of my life.

On the first day of training in May, I almost quit because I couldn’t run half a block. I was in tears by the end of the first block. I felt like a failure. But Elaina kept me from quitting. We trained for the next 5 months, in rain and unbelievable heat, up and down hilly streets in Portland and Vancouver, across flat stretches that went on for miles and miles. About 2 months into training, when we were starting to run half marathons (anything over 13.1 miles), I developed pain in my left foot. I went to a chiropractor, used inserts in my shoes, did special exercises, and iced, but the pain kicked in every time I ran over 13 miles. Yet, with the encouragement of my teammates and my own determination, I kept at it. The longest training run we had was 21 miles, and I didn’t even complete it since my foot was hurting so bad, the coach pulled me off our training course. 

When it came to race day., I was so scared I wouldn’t make it to the end. But somehow, even with the pain that was unbearable around mile 21 and had me in tears, I couldn’t give up. I had come so far to do this, trained for so many months, and I was going to finish, even if I had to crawl across the finish line.

And I did finish. I even ran across the finish line."

CREDITS

Template: Flight Plan 5 (One Little Bird)

Papers: Scenes from Real Life (One Little Bird); Here There (Studio 68)

Embellishments: That Unforgettable Moment (2am Designs); Here There and Today (Studio 68); Scenes from Real Life (One Little Bird)

Fonts: KG Seven Sixteen (journaling); Capture It 2 (title)