Sean's Schedule

SeanKeener.org

Pain as Beauty

I was lucky enough to goto the Portland Marathon to support a friend that was running in it the other day. It had been 9 years since I last ran a marathon or been to one. It was an excellent experience this time around even though I was not a runner.

My role this time was of support. Jessica, asked me to meet her at miles 6, 12, 16, and 20 to deliver energy goo and water as well and run a bit with her. While I was waiting for her each time, I got to see many runners. Here is what I interpreted as the theire faces.

Mile 6: Great stuff, I feel great, it’s nice and cool
Mile 12: Hmmm, It’s getting warm and I am not even 1/2 way yet?
Mile 16: This is hard and that hill is looking way too big
Mile 20: Pain, Pain, Pain, Pain, Pain

Pain all over their faces. I ran with Jessica for about 2 miles and she could barely talk. I think I heard her mutter, “stabbing pain in legs the past 5 miles” at some point but I can’t be sure. It reminded me of that last 6 miles of the 3 marathons that I had run years ago. The mental part of dealing with this pain is perhaps the most difficult part of running long distances like this.

Unfortunately, if your legs ain’t pumping while running, you ain’t moving. That is what I always like about cycling….I can glide for a bit.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and watching all these people go through a lot of pain to reach a goal was inspiring. It fact, it was beautiful to watch and I felt honored to be around such folks. Maybe I will run in next year.

Tags:
Like this post? Subscribe to the CEO Blog RSS feed, or get email updates by entering your address below and let me tell you when there's something new on Sean.Keener.org.

       Print this article

2 Responses to “Pain as Beauty”


Mary | October 7th, 2004 at 6:39 am |

sean.keener.org

Support is soooooo important, and I’m sure

you helped Jessica keep going, keep moving

to that finish line.

And if you run next year, I’ll support you.

Posted from United States United States

Freesia | October 8th, 2004 at 6:41 am |

sean.keener.org

“And if you run next year, I’ll support you.”

So will I!

Plus, it’ll be a great excuse to make it back out to Portland ;-)

Posted from United States United States

Leave a Reply

This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots. (see: www.captcha.net)
To prevent automated spam appearing on this blog, we ask you to demonstrate your human-ness by entering the 5 character code in the space provided. If you cannot decipher the characters, click "Generate a new image" for a new set.

 
 

  

Sean Keener

 

 


follow SEKeener at http://twitter.com

 

Search Sean's Blog

 

 

Recent comments

 

Categories

 

Archives