My friend April runs for Ainsley Angels sometimes and has become close friends with Sean, one of the wheelchair racers. I met Sean at a race and we really hit it off. I saw on Facebook he was looking for more runners to help him complete a 100 mile race. The race is 4 loops, 25 miles each. They were looking for teams of 3 to take turns pushing during a 12.5 mile leg of the race. I told him I would be happy to help and ended up getting paired with April and her friend Johnny (who I've run with a few times) for the first leg. That was pretty awesome because it meant running at 7am when it was still pretty cool. I got up and ate a banana and drank some coffee before the run. I wasn't quite sure what it would be like pushing an adult. I spent years pushing Carter and Elise in a double stroller and that was the extent of my experience. I figured it would be hard and I'd be sore afterward, but it would be so much fun.
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| My attempt at a picture while running. |
It was nice having 3 of us because we traded off every mile so I ended up running while pushing for 4ish of the 12.5 miles. Our section of the course was decently hilly so the 2 extras would hold the side bars to help push up the hill as the main pushers was holding onto the middle. This race was a little bit tricky because it was all within the heart of town, but no roads were closed. There were sections with bike lanes and we were able to run in the bike lane which was nice. In some sections we had to run on the sidewalk and it was a tight fit. I would get nervous maneuvering between obstacles on the sidewalk but we had no issues. Sean was so encouraging and thankful the whole way and each time I was pushing uphill he'd say, "You get this uphill and I'll take care of the downhill." That was accurate because you could really get rolling on the downhills.
We finished our section of the course about an hour under the projected time. They were planning on each leg taking about 3 hours, but we finished in 2:01:42 with an average pace of 9:42. We started out with 8:51 and 8:52 as our first 2 miles when the course was flat and then ran from 9:20-11:00 miles the rest of the way. There were a couple hills we had to walk up, but for the most part ran the whole way. I wasn't sore at all that day and was feeling really great. The next day my back was pretty sore from pushing and I thought it might be a few days before I was feeling back to normal, but I was totally fine by Tuesday and went ahead with my strength training.
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| Trading off to the runners in the next leg of the loop. |
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| We went back to cheer for him when he hit halfway and they had found flowers on the course and gave them to him. |
It was such a blast and I told Sean I'd be happy to help in any future races where he was looking for some runners to help. Johnny goes to a lot of races with Sean and mentioned they had Pumpkin Holler coming up which is a 10 mile race on gravel. I ran it a couple years ago and there are some monster hills which will be tough to make it up with the chair! I told them I was in and immediately looked forward to it! Now I have stitches in my knee and the race is one week away. I'm a little nervous about being back and ready in time, so hopefully it will still be a go! I'm a little late getting this post finished, the race was on September 28th. Sean's goal was to finish in under 24 hours and he was able to do it!
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| Sean's mom made these for every single runner who helped push him during the race. |
