Today was the 2025 Berkeley Half Marathon, the same race last year that kicked off my foray into running a year ago. At the time, I'd registered for the 2024 5k thinking it'd be a forcing function to lock myself out of any more IVF cycles despite the bad news from the 4th one, which we'd hoped would be our last. It didn't hold me back, and thank goodness for that, as the final three IVF cycles proved way more fruitful than the first four. I'd paid the race fee, so I showed up just a few days after my sixth of seven egg retrievals and did my best little jog, trying all I could to hold my pelvis steady as I most definitely wasn't medically cleared to be running. I finished respectably, 10th in my age range with an 8:40 mile pace. It was enough to light a fire in me.
January of this year came around and I was clear to use my body however I wished after a whole year of holding back. Despite being an avowed non-runner (track and field having left me heartbroken), I decided 2025 was the year to give it a shot. I locked myself in to a handful of 5k's scattered across the year, this being the last of them.
In the interim, I think we figured out if running might be for me. To the extent that I was still holding onto any 5k-related goals, I thought it'd be pretty fabulous to be able to run a sub-8-minute-mile pace without hating myself, that last part being the critical piece. Running can't be for me if it isn't a happy space. I don't need another round of chronic injuries and heartbreak. And today I reached that goal. I love the finish time, but I love my expression as I crossed the finish line even more.
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| Berkeley Half Marathon 5k! |
It doesn't feel like I should be allowed to say the year I lost my grandpa and my beloved cat was a good one. But I'm not going to lie, I shed a couple happy tears on the bike ride home from today's race. This year has been a long time coming.
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