Fastest Gams in the West

This may seem impossible to believe, but I won a running race last week! It has never happened before, nor will it ever happen again, but the fact it could even happen ONCE is amazing and exciting!

While I have been running since 2003, I am not what you could ever qualify as fast. I'm not that into distance running like my friends Linden and Jake, or distance walking like my friend Kim, but I do enjoy a good run for the physical and mental benefits of vigorous exercise. Since the Chicago Marathon over 5 years ago, I haven't really gone back to long distance running, never really running more than 3-5 miles at a time.

Recently I started training for a half-marathon (13.1 miles) in Coban, Guatemala, that would have been May 17. Unbelieveably, the half-marathon was CANCELLED due to SWINE FLU. It is still totally beyond my how a runner with the illness would show up to run 13.1 miles with serious influenza. Not only that, but it's an OPEN AIR race! Where are people in close quarters?! They would be running! Furthermore, there's only been like 1 documented case in the whole country, a little Mexican girl. I still cannot believe it. Oh well, the point is, I have been training for long distance runs lately, which apparently helped me.

So I was at the gym on a Friday afternoon, and a female personal trainer at the gym approached me to ask if I would be interested in running in a race for mujeres fuertes (strong women) in honor of Mother's Day, but on Saturday. It is important to note that this entire conversation occurred in Spanish, not English, so I thought I was getting myself into a little race for ladies, so of course, I said yes, and signed up.

Later, I talked to a girlfriend who was told about the race -- in English. It turns out the race was a "Last Woman Running" kind of competition, in which women would run until they couldn't any more, and the last woman still running would be the winner. A bit different from the friendly, small competition I had understood this to be!

Remember, we're in Guatemala, and women running outside in a small race is not recommended for safety reasons. So, the race was on treadmills at the gym, which was good news to me, because I frankly find outdoors long-distance running to be hard on my knees (hills, concrete), and a little boring, too. So, I was still excited to do the race because I wasn't going to get to compete in the long-distance race I was planning on in Coban, and this seemed like a great substitute to put that training to use! Plus, it didn't involve traveling 4 hours away, just for a race...

"Animo, Beth!"
("Go Beth!")

Rules: You couldn't drop your speed below 5.0 mph (7.0 kph on Guate treadmills b/c they're on the metric system here :), and there was a judge watching you to make sure you were running. You could take one 1-minute stretch break in the two hours. The race would be stopped at 2 hours if there was more than one woman still running (still not sure why they stopped it at 2 hours). At the end of 2 hours, if there was more than one woman running, the race would be judged by each woman's total distance.

James made me a cute little sign that said "I'm running for my mom, Jackie" in Spanish, to put on the treadmill, since the race was in honor of Mothers' Day.

So, Saturday morning, I ran against 7 other women for the title. I brought James' little video player and watched episodes of a guilty pleasure HBO series of mine, Big Love. I got lost in the shows, and time went by really fast! There were still 4 of us running at the end of the 2 hours, and I had run the farthest, 20 km! I started a little early, and did a 1.5 mile warm-up before the race, bringing my grand total to 13.4 miles, a half-marathon! So there was a little ceremony and I got a certificate and a free month's membership for June.

Since I will never be in a race with only 7 participants who all have shorter legs than me ever again, I will go ahead and count this as a stroke of good luck, and I am nonetheless proud of winning. But we all know what they say about being in the land of blind men... ;)

The Gatorade sponsor guy, and those of us who ran the full 2 hours
I got Primer Lugar! (first place) and defended my Mom's honor