My Name is Rachel and I Love Racing

Tomorrow I am running the Brooklyn Half Marathon. From my vantage point, it seems the entire borough is abuzz with anticipation. 30,000 runners will assemble a half mile from my house and will stream through Prospect Park with a fabulous finish on the Coney Island Boardwalk. 

Deep in my heart I am a runner, and over the past four years I have successfully and successively convinced myself that I love:  1) running, after hating it for 25 years; 2) running on hills; 3) running in the rain, possibly my favorite weather condition; 4) running in the cold; and even 5) running on treadmills on occasion.  

But until today I have been unable to talk myself into a deep love of racing.  I enjoy the excitement at the starting line. I love the feeling of finishing, and knowing I have done well. I am pretty darn competitive and want to run faster both than past race times and the times of others around me that day. But I just haven't liked the experience of being out there on the course. I am easily derailed by faster runners, am discouraged when discomfort or fatigue hits, and find myself, too often, wrestling my reluctant mind into submission. And while I have never quit mid-run, the lure to do so has been strong in more than a few races.

Tomorrow is the day that all of that changes. As of this moment, I love racing. What's different? I have a plan. I have a goal time and tonight will carefully calculate my splits and will write them on my arm in sharpie if required. I know in my heart that there is no pain that my body can dish out tomorrow that it can't handle. I am certain that I am very strong and have much more in me than the world has yet witnessed. And I understand that—like hills and rain, and cold, and running—the only way I will love racing is to tell myself I do, put a big smile on my face, and leap into the thick of it.

So bring it, Brooklyn. Let's fall in love.