People ask me what I do and I tell them, "I own a little salon spa and I'm a writer." That's all true. But what do I do? Hmmmm... The short answer is...whatever suits me!
What suited me this past weekend was far from what was supposed to be. I am in love with distance. Precisely, the distance of the marathon. About ten years ago I asked my husband, "What would you say if I said I wanted to run a marathon?"
His response was the same as always. "Whatever you want."
And so I did. My first marathon was a mass of blisters and soreness, punctuated by the powerful endorphins that pumped through my body at mile 24. I was hooked and still am. I was due to run a marathon this past weekend and had been training for months when a serious medical issue brought everything to a halt. Ever the optimist, I still registered for the half marathon.
My family made me promise that I would not be stubborn (a tall order for me) and that I would take it easy and not push it too much. I dutifully promised. So what I needed was a new agenda. The plan became to meet as many people as I could and enjoy the run.
What I found was that it was my all time worst finish time (next to last in my age group) but it was so much fun. I found so many interesting people along the way. Oddly enough, some of the folks I met were from the beauty industry and others, well, not. But did I mention how much fun I had?
I'm going to veer a bit from my beauty platform over the next few posts to share some of their stories with you. These are the stories of people like Ralph, a surfer traversing the country and raising funds for injured vets in his newly restored, red Woody. How cool is that? Check his blog out at www.SurferRalph.com and see what he's up to. I met Stacey at the Expo. She is a spa director. Small world, huh?
There was a lesson in the deviation from the original plan. In being driven to constantly improve my finish times, I was missing out on the beauty of the race. I was missing out on the beauty of the people who ran along beside me. I was missing out on the landscape and local flair. Well, I probably won't abandon my urge to improve but I will take time to enjoy the road.
So if the juice still flows to charge my laptop, and work doesn't overwhelm me, I'll be back to share some of the highlights of OBX2008. Until then, one foot in front of the other and enjoy the beauty in everything.
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