Tuesdays on the Run: Second chances

The prompt for this week’s Tuesdays on the Run link-up hosted by runner bloggers MCM Mama Runs,My No Guilt Life and Marcia’s Healthy Slice has me thinking about, well, the way runners think: If you could go back and run/train for a race differently … what would you redo?

I’m not one to obsess over mistakes I’ve made during a run or race, so I’m not sure that I’m the right person to answer that question. Take the Run Woodstock 50K.

I could dwell on the buckets of rain that kept my four friends and I up the night before, leaving us with just a few minutes at a time of actual sleep. Instead, I choose to focus on the giggling we all did as we kept whispering “are you asleep?” to each other over and over as the wind and rain pelted my RV, ensuring no one could get any sleep.

I could blame my 10-and-a-half-hour finish time on the ridiculous amounts of mud on the trails, which made us slip and slide, and even sucked up one of my friends’ shoes. Instead, I get to remember one of my most-memorable running-related stories: the race volunteer who gave the socks off her own feet to a runner who was getting blisters.

I could complain about a number of minor irritations, including the stinky vault toilets, wet socks and swollen fingers. Instead, I choose to remember the kind and encouraging words from fellow runners, race volunteers and my friends who traveled to the race just to cheer us on.

This may mean that I’m going through life with rose-colored glasses. But it’s a quality I’ve admired in my friends who run. We may be facing health crises, family drama or job-related insanity and still get up at 4:30 on a Tuesday morning to meet up with each other to start our day with four miles.

Several of the always-optimistic runners who let me join them week after week.

Do the running-induced endorphins make us ridiculously positive or are already-positive (or furiously happy) people drawn to running?

Like the week’s prompt, it’s not a question I can easily answer. But I’ll just leave it here for y’all to answer because I have to go get my running gear together for our morning run.