This past weekend was incredibly special for the Indianapolis Back on My Feet teams. We have been training for a half marathon for the past three months and the day finally arrived! There were a total of eight resident members who ran the Carmel Half Marathon and two who ran the 8K.
I had the privilege of running with Eric Arnold, who is a member of team Progress House. During the training process I have had the opportunity to run with a good handful of the guys on the team- each one of them special to me. On race morning I had pretty much decided that I would be running with Eric for the race.
I honestly had the most fun in a race that I have ever had…. and I have ran a lot of races. For the first five miles, I was running back and forth between different team members while taking pictures and videos. After those first five- I decided to stop being the crazy girl with loud footsteps, a backpack and a camera sprinting back and forth between runners and stuck to running right with Eric the rest of the way.
We worked hard, we laughed, we met new friends and learned a little bit about what it means to be a real runner. You have to OWN the hills! (Right Eric?!) Other than the tiny incline the team used to think of as a mountain, we hadn’t been training on hills. If you are familiar with Indianapolis at all, you know that there are no hills downtown! Well, there were quite a few long, gradual hills waiting for us up in Carmel. We all marched right up those hills like we were born to do it.
A couple of highlights from my race with Eric-
1. The sarcasm & humor through the whole race- even when it was painful
2. Running with Brian Donnelly for the first 7 miles
3. Seeing all of the BoMF supporters along the course working water stops and cheering us on
4. When I told him we were doing great and nobody was passing us- and as soon as I said that it seemed as though herds of runners came stomping past
5. The friend we met at mile 10
6. Finally catching up to John & Guy – and working together to finish a strong race
7. Sprinting it in on the last straight away
8. The hugs & tears at the finish line
9. Eric donating his hard earned medal to Medals for Mettles without thinking twice about it
10. Cheering on our teammates once we were done
