Running Lines Come out and herd cattle

This is the week. The training has (hopefully) paid off and the anticipation is building for the morning when we (all the crazy people who love to run in the area) squeeze in corrals and wait for a gun, almost like we’re cattle.

The last mile of the 13.1 mile course is a brutal hill. Brutal.

First, as if we all won’t be worn out from the previous 12 miles, the race director put the most grueling part of the race at the very end.

Talk about testing your stamina.

Secondly, it’s not just a hill. It is the unforgiving concrete bike path winding, full of switch-backs, up a very steep incline by the site of Crystal Bridges. When I attempted the hill the other day to get a feel for it, it started as a challenge, like it would be a piece of cake for any real runner. A little ways up I was tired. A little further I was hardly what you could call running, more like tip-toeing at a slightly sped-up pace.

And at the top, my calves were yelling at me. Theywere so mad, in fact, they gave me shin splints to think about what I had put them through.

But at the top was the end of that hill and I had done it. And, call me crazy, I’m a little excited to do it again. Just a little.

On that same run that day, nearing the 10-mile marker I was really wishing someone would pop out of a local business with some sort of instrument, maybe a sign, maybe some kids jumping up and down.

It sure would have made that last mile a little easier with some up-beat encouragement.

On race day, hopefully the course will be linedwith people cheering the runners on. Running itself is enjoyable to those who participate, but it is so much more fun to have someone ringing a cow bell, or holding a giant sign, or just yelling a way-to-go when each stride is getting harder than the last.

Plus, I’m going to need witnesses that I raced up that hill.

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Cassi Lapp is the news clerk/staff writer of The Times of Northeast Benton County. A Colorado native, Lapp graduated from the University of Arkansas. She can be reached at prtnews@ nwanews.com.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 03/10/2010