That's a Lot of Cowbell

This time of year Sacramento always has a happy buzz of runners high. The California International Marathon brings thousands of runners to town while the Western States 100 lottery brings an early Christmas gift to a select few with their shot at the THE ultra of all ultras. This year, I was hoping to be one of the runners towing the line. I was hoping to run my ass off to an OTQ and join a badass group of woman in February down in LA.  Seven years ago today was my first marathon; here in Sacramento, at the CIM. However this year, my rolewas to cheer. With my injury still lingering, I decided it was my job to help those who were healthy make their goal of hitting the infamous standard.

With some of the Oiselle royalty!

Saturday morning I met up with some Oiselle teammates who were in town for a pre-race shake-out run. I hadn't met any of them before so it was awesome to meet some new people and hear their stories. There were six girls who were going to be chasing the standard and even more running down a PR. Meeting them in person made me more excited to go out and cheer them to the finish line. I was struggling with trying to be excited for them while internally fighting my own feelings of anger and sadness. I was truly excited to see them go for it but, at the same time so incredibly envious that I could not be out there to run with them.

Even though I knew months ago that I would not be running, reality did not actually hit me until I saw the elites run by me at mile two. It made not qualifying feel so final; it was really the end to the last four years of chasing. I felt like I was watching them running away with MY dream. MY goal. I fought back tears and the lump in my throat as I tried to keep cheering.  I have always been one to believe that you should encourage those who can do, what you can not. So I let my emotions go and said "If I can not run, I am going to shake the hell out of this cowbell!" I was also standing with Oiselle HQ stud Sarah Lesko and I definitely couldn't let her see me crying! With a cowbell in each hand, I tried to find those I knew and give them an extra ring of encouragement.

Extreme Cowbell-ing!

After making sure everyone runner got a ring of my cowbell, I walked back home to change into some dry clothes and head to the next spot. I met up with Coach Dad and some other runner friends at mile 22, handed out cowbells and we got to work. I was so wrapped up in cheering and dancing along to the high school band, I completely forgot about my sadness and felt good about being there for the runners. I stood there watching runner after runner go by wearing their pain and their determination on their faces. They were four miles from the finish, and you could see in their eyes all they were thinking about was the finish line and they were not stopping until they got there. I think it is physically impossible to watch a marathon and not feel inspired by human resilience. I stayed at the same spot for three hours! I will admit my fingers are a little raw and my throat a little sore but it was all worth it if we were able to give the runners a slight energy boost at a tough spot in the race.

Fueled By Frosting living up to her name!

More COWBELL! 

With a weekend so revolved around the sport I love, it feels almost impossible not to have gotten a little emotional. Running has been a part of my life since I was nine or 10 years old. It's who I am, it's what I do. It has been a bitter sweet weekend that I am glad I can put behind me.  I feel good about my role for the marathon this year and I can say I am walking away with a white hot fire lit under my ass to get back out there and compete.