Dear Readers,
Sorry to leave you hangin’ for so long, I have been away at a wedding in Pittsburgh and all this week my family and I have been sick. But, this is my recollection of my first meet at IUP.
Well, for spectators, cross country isn’t for the impatient, since it takes about 25 minutes (or longer if it’s a long course) to run 3 miles. On a good day, it would take me 20 minutes. Well, that is why I was very surprised that my family and to my complete surprise that my old principal, Mr. Horner from South Park showed up for the alumni and varsity IUP meet on campus in August of 1996. I have to tell you, I actually get pretty flustered when there are people I know in the crowd for some reason, and that is when I do my very worst. I started off a little shaky, but I at least finished ahead of a couple girls. I would have done better if I had paced myself. The course that we ran was in the field in the park near campus and goes past the graveyard and ends on the horse track where they have the Indiana County Fair. It’s actually not too hilly so it is to the runners’ advantage, but when it’s hot out, it’s hard since only the graveyard is shaded.
I recently ran a 5K in April of 2007 for Autism and all my in-laws, my husband and baby came to see me run and I actually threw up after the race because I was so nervous that they came to see me run. Plus, they snuck an incredibly steep hill in the course (which even the volunteers working the start and end point didn’t know about). I remember Kevin from my high school team used to puke almost after each practice. I don’t know if I would keep running if I would do it after every run. Luckily, my father-in-law had a bag and it was just water. Icky. Did that ever happen to anyone else? I also would get horrible charlie horses, or wouldn’t watch my footing and get kicked by other spike wearers (my WPIAL track meet, which was pretty important) because my dad came to see me run. I guess I was too worried about where he was and if I would run fast enough for his approval… Silly to think about, since that stuff shouldn’t matter when your racing though.
-Liz
