Rebekah Speaks

I went to bed in a funk. I woke up in a funk. Not because I was upset being at the precipice of another birthday, but because my brain cells were stuck thinking about a disconcerting situation. Yea, yea. I know. "Why worry when you can pray?" Guess I'm still working on that one. With a 100K approaching two weeks hither, it was important to get in a long run despite the "funk." With snow and ice piled up in the mountains, the thought of a slogfest was not that appealing. And a solo road run? Less than appealing. So I did what any reasonable TrailMama would do. Last evening I sent out a Facebook message to my band of loyal Shindigglers and asked if they would join me. "Yes!" came the answer. There. It was settled. Now I HAD to get my posterior end out the door and down the road. But not before the door flung open this morning to the sound of music (at least I think that's what that sound is called). In they came singing "Happy birthday to y...

The training was in the bag. Test time was moments away. But in the darkness of the frigid morn, I couldn't find The Shindigglers. Where were they? How hard could it be to find my five favorite girls? Still, among the nearly 250 runners plus volunteers and onlookers, they remained illusive until the waning moments before take-off time. There was no time for even the briefest version of my pre-planned, pre-race advise and encouragement. No pre-race pictures to compare to post-race later on. Brief hugs had to do. And at the last minute, a note was slipped into my hand. "Coach T. Read this when the going gets tough." I didn't have the heart to tell them I didn't put my contacts in. Still, I slipped it in my pocket and purposed to read it in the aftermath. This was my tenth running of the race, the last version in 2008. For four of the five girls, this was their first long race. The fifth was more experienced with about 5 ultras under her belt. When I began coach...